For the past six years, ever since I’ve been certified to hunt, Tom and I would drive up to the cabin on the day after Thanksgiving and stay on until the following Tuesday. Sometimes we’d get ourselves a deer, sometimes we wouldn’t but that weren’t hardly the point. As much as we both liked hunting, I think it was mostly just time for us to be together as brothers that was important. When Tom told me that his new wife Kate was coming along this year, it set me back a bit. Our cabin ain’t exactly what you’d call spacious or even close to modern. It’s just a ramshackle thing thrown together on a patch of woods. It wasn’t really built with womenfolk in mind. Heck, it didn’t even have indoor plumbing. We had to haul water in and haul ourselves out to the outhouse for relief. I figured a city girl would head back home after the first night, if not before. Looking back, I’m sure glad she didn’t.

We got up to the cabin at about one in the afternoon. I set up my stuff in the small storage room Tom and I built a few years ago. Well, actually we just put up a frame and nailed some mismatched boards on it just so we’d have a place to put our stuff without cluttering up the main room. This trip we’d just have to live with the clutter. It just didn’t feel right to sleep in the same room with Kate. Brought me some extra blankets knowing that I was sacrificing the warmth of the fire. Fortunately you can get some mild stretches of weather in the Carolinas in late November and we were in one but, better safe than sorry.

Kate made us a supper that night that beat anything Tom or I would have whipped up on our own. The good eating took a little edge of my grudge and sitting round the fireplace knocking down a bit of whisky whittled it down a bit more.