Blindshot

by Denis Coupal

  Catherine spun on her feet in apparent victory. “I got it!” she said. “Let’s call him Browser! It’s trendy!” Her boys were indifferent to that.

  Then Jack lit up. “No, I got it, I think, um, maybe!” said Jack. “Maybe this is the one.”

  “Just say it!” Noah said.

  “Hashtag!” called out Jack, then froze, waiting for a reaction from Noah and Catherine, who said nothing, just trying the name out in their minds a long moment.

  “Hashtag,” said Noah. He tested it again. “Hey, Hashtag! Come here, Hashtag!”

  The brothers exchanged that conspiratorial look that Catherine recognized, and which she would never underestimate again. The boys shouted the new name at the same time. “Hashtag!”

  “Hashtag it is!” said Catherine.

  “Awesome,” said Jack.

  Noah, Jack, Catherine and Hashtag arrived at Paul’s tombstone. The puppy jumped all around and helped the family feel somewhat less sad. They stood silently together, thinking of all that had happened.

  The cemetery basked in the golden light of the setting sun.

  After a busy dinner service, Anne Desaulniers had completed her shift as manager of Auberge du Lièvre, and she was also thinking of all that had happened. She was tired of the Auberge, and selling the business had turned into a long, drawn-out process. Mayor O’Neil and her entourage of wealthy friends had gathered this evening, and there had been much to talk about, by the looks of it.

  Anne had now wrapped herself in a bathrobe and sat at a mirror, brushing her long black hair. She thought of what everyone was talking about. How amazing those boys had been. What courage they’d shown, such defiance. She’d heard they would be returning to Montreal, and that Mayor O’Neil was already talking of buying the property if it went on the market.

  Anne didn’t care about any of that. She had a different take on it all. She was sad for what happened to Paul. She had loved her time with him, and it was easy to imagine that their relationship might have continued, if it hadn’t been for that September evening.

  She remembered how he had kissed her, how he had touched her hand and walked her to her car. How he had been getting worried about his son out in the woods and was in a hurry to go back into the house to phone him. She had repeated what a good father, and good man, he was and kissed him again. One last time.

  She had gotten in her car and driven off along Chemin Van Kleet, seeing him in the rear-view mirror as he walked back to the house.

  She drove on, and was then mesmerized by a group of whitetails in the road. They crossed just ahead of her, majestic and gorgeous. The whitetails, perhaps a family, had scampered off the road when they noticed the oncoming headlights and the sound of her car. She pulled over to watch them go into the woods.

  She then popped her trunk open, climbed out of the car, and took out her rifle—a sleek Winchester, a gift from her father to her, and from her grandfather to him before that. Then she darted into the woods and ran and ran to get on the trail of the finest buck she had ever seen, the big male at the head of these beautiful whitetails.

  And she fired a shot.

  The End