“You know Dad says we can’t.”

I sigh and throw the cover back over the quad. “Fine,” I grumble, “but you better not bellyache on the way back. I ain’t carrying your big butt all the way home.”

He pokes me in the stomach. “You’re the big, fat bubble butt,” he says, smiling.

I reach for him, ready to make him pay—through ticking mostly, but maybe a few pinches for good measure—but he’s sprinting away. I charge after him, a smile spreading.

We head out past the dead fruit trees that mark where our yard ends and the scrubland begins. We tromp through the dried creek bed, the brown, broken dirt crunching under our boots. Ethan lags to watch a lizard dart under a rock. Flies buzz around my head, attempting to land and bite. With the human population on the decline, the animal population is on the rise. That is good for hunting, but swarms of bugs leave red welts up and down my arms.

Twenty minutes of sweating and tromping brings us to the game trail. I tread beside it, careful not to disturb the dry grass. When we approach my snare, I hear thrashing. Bingo. I run up and draw my knife. When the iguana hears me, the lizard scrambles around in the dirt, wiping his tail and kicking up a cloud of dust. My rope snare tightens around his neck until his eyes bulge. He’s circled around the shrub I’ve used as an anchor, giving him inches to move.

When my shadow crosses him, his legs scour the dirt. He hisses and shows me his big pink tongue. I kneel beside him and grab a hold of his belly with both hands. He bucks and kicks, but my grip is strong. His sharp, spiny scales cut into my palm, but I grit my teeth and pin the iguana to the dirt. When I have him still, I draw my knife from its sheath. Ethan leans over my shoulder and looks down at the bug-eyed lizard.

“You gonna kill it?” His voice is thin. He hates the killing.

“Close your eyes.” I don’t like the killing. I just like it more than starving to death. I lift the knife. Its round dark eyes blink up at me.

“Sorry, guy,” I murmur into the lizard’s rolling eyes. His heart thrums under my palm. “Us or you.”

Once the lizard is dead, I tie the rope snare around his long tail and then sling him over my shoulder. We need to hike it home fast. The smell of blood will get the coyotes on our trail soon enough. We jog back to the house, the blazing sun searing our heads until I swear my hair’s on fire.

Ethan begins to wheeze halfway back. We stop in the shade of an angular cactus so he can catch his breath. In the lean slash of shade, Ethan lifts the rifle from the ground and raises it to his eye.

“Can I shoot the gun?” He looks up at me expectantly.