It's been a month, and it's now gettin' to be winter here in South Carolina. I gotta wear my jacket places, and Skipper's gettin' his winter fur. Snow ain't come, as it only rarely does here in Allan, 'specially 'cuz of global warmin', they say on the TV. Shiverin' here, by the creek on a November afternoon, I ain't inclined to believe in such things as the earth warmin' up fast.

What I'm doin' out here is gettin' food fer me and Skip. I ain't much into the fur trade, but work's been scarce this year, and as such money, so I'm out checkin' my trapline fer whatever fuzzy thing I can get, eat and sell the skin of when I see a taxicab goin' down the drive. Skip see's it first and takes off runnin' after it, barkin' like mad, and I put my gun on my back with its strap and I'm off after him, as immature as it is to run like an idiot just 'cuz someone's comin' up yer drive.

Wait, was the rifle currently bouncin' along on my back as I run loaded? It probably is, since I was huntin'. I brush that thought off and keep goin'. I'm almost to the house now. Wait a sec... Is the safety off? Probably, since I was hunt- BAM

"J.G... J.G..."

The woman's voice calls fer me. Sarah? I think, groanin' n' strugglin' to open my eyes against the pain in my head 'n the heaviness in me that makes me wanna sleep ferever...

"Come on, J.G., wake up!"

I don' wan' git up, Sarah... My head hurts too much... tell Mister t' put me on the sick-list. There's somethin' wet on my face now. Wet and cool. I can't feel much else through the pain. The woman's still callin' me, but she don't sound like Sarah did. In fact, she ain't Southern at all, or 'Merican.

"J.G., please, please wake up!"

I manage to drag myself outta the heaviness and I open my eyes to look into the worried blue-green eyes of Natasha Arlovskaya-Braginski. It's the first time I ever saw her so scared. I don't like it, how her nice smooth face wrinkles up when she's got her eyes makin' the scared e'spression. I sorta look at her, then the wetted cloth glove in her hand, then I notice I'm lyin' in the woods just off the drive leadin' to the house with somethin' under my head.

"Nat... What happened? How'd you get here? How'd I get here?" She looks at me, wordlessly, then picks up the rifle from next to her, and with a quick movement of her hands and a click-click from the gun she picks up and shows me the empty cartridge.

"This is what happen. You ran with it on your back, and it went off."

She don't need to tell me the rest. I probably got myself in the back of the head, and then collapsed, as folks generally do when they been shot in the head, and she ran t' help me 'til I woke up, knowin' I can't die with nation blood in me. Probably a whole lot less blood than I started with, but nation blood all the same. I sit up against a tree with her help and look around more.

My jacket is stiff, 'specially in the back. Probably got my blood and brains all on it. Nat's jacket, I can see, was what was under my head, and it's soaked in the reddish-brown of dryin' blood. My hair, too, is caked in the stuff, worst in the back. I ain't never hurt myself that bad before. I should'a died, most would'a. There's a reason you ain't never, ever s'posed to run with a loaded shotgun on yer back. Most, if they make that mistake, it's the last thing they ever do. I'm lucky, 'cuz I'm special, but fer sure I won't be makin' it again. It feels like a million bigrig trucks are stacked on my poor head and with spikes in their tires to boot.

"Ow." I tell Nat.

"'Ow' would be a correct thing to say when you have shot yourself in the head like idiot. You could have died! We nation are hard to kill, but you seem to be intended on tryink every way to do it."

"Nice t' see you too."

After I'm well 'nough to walk back to the house, we do it. Nat's lecturin' me the whole way 'bout how I should be more careful if I gotta have that thing in my house and what if we ever git married 'n have kids, will I know t' keep it away from 'em 'r will they get shot up too?

I ain't that irresponsible. It's a basic rule to keep yer guns up outta reach of lil' kids. I also appre-see-ate the way Nat's talkin', like she wants to get married and have a family with me.

"Look, it may be small, but it's been mine since 1865, and ain't no government men gonna change that." I tell Nat as we go up to the broken-down lil' house. Rememberin' the big planter's mansion that used to be on this land makes me a lil' bit sad, so I don't.

Instead, I take Nat inside. I show her the creaky bed I sleep in and say,

"You sleep here. I'll have the couch out in the livin' room." She starts to object to that, but I keep tellin' her, "It ain't proper fer us to share a bed. Not yet, anyway, and I ain't makin' a lady sleep on the couch as I've got good morals."

To that she says,

"J.G., you took shotgun shell to the head an hour ago. You will have bed, because my morals will not make me make someone like you sleep on that couch."

"See, I'm tryin' to be all proper and good, and you ain't makin' it easy."

"Why can't we share the bed? I share with my big brother all the time!"

"Nat, I told you it ain't proper!"

"I'm tellink you it is fine!"

I go to run my fingers through my hair like I'm thinkin' about it, and as they hit nothin' but a hardened, kinda fuzzy mess, I realize I must look a sight, with my hair still all stuck to my head with dried blood.

"Look, Nat," I say, "I'm gonna drop this fer now, only 'cuz I gotta shower, then git us somethin' to eat."

After scrubbin' at my hair until the lil' mirror in the bathroom tells me it looks normal and gold if not a lil' bit dirty from the less-than-clean water, I come back out to where Nat is watchin' TV.

"You do not have food?" she asks.

"I was tryin' to git some when you come over." I tell her.

"There won't be animal out in the winter." She says, raisin' her eyebrows at me.

"Sure there is! There's a couple'a deers prob'ly, and fer sure I could git a possum or coon, maybe a squirrel'r two... Ya like squirrel-possum stew, Nat?." She's lookin' at me kinda funny, so I just say, "I ain't got no money so we gotta live with what we kin git 'round here."

"I have money. Ivan gave me credit card."

"Why?"

"I looked up address on mapping service and saw how poor it looked, so I ask Ivan for money."

"That's a lil' bit creepy, Nat." I tell her, "But if you got money, we kin go to the store in town and buy our supper!" She smiles in her smirky way as we head out to the red pickup.

"If you cook as good as you shoot yourself, I know I will enjoy it."