The next day, the last day of the season, his father shook Timmy’s shoulder before first light. Timmy yawned as his father’s face came into focus. When Timmy finished rubbing his eyes he turned his back on his father and lifted the flap of the sleeping bag over his head. His father sat up straight on the edge of the sofa, his gloves and hat in his hands.

Timmy heard the pang of the gas heater coming to life. He hid his face in the soft, mildewed cloth of the sleeping bag until the door clicked shut and he felt sure his father had gone. He found the last corner of coffeecake and a cold glass of milk waiting for him on the table along with a note instructing him to stay within sight of the trailer if he decided to go outside. He brought his breakfast into the little den area and turned the dial on the TV. There was only one station that worked. A local news program. No cartoons. Cake crumbs fell from the corners of his mouth and disappeared like fleas into the yellow shag carpet. He looked through an old pile of magazines for something that might catch his eye. Popular Science, National Geographic, Field and Stream. Many of the pages were water damaged and stuck together. He gave up. He put on his winter clothes.

Outside, the weather had changed very little from the day before. If anything it was even colder. He started absentmindedly clearing the snow that had piled along the railings with his mittens, watching it float down into the drifts forming along the edge of the porch. He tore an icicle from the edge of the low roof and snapped off the tip with his teeth. He stood on the tips of his toes and tried to see inside the bird feeder but there was nothing to see. He wandered toward the back of the trailer and saw the doe hanging from the branches of an elm tree.

The rope was bound beneath her forelegs and tied off on the trailer hitch. The meaty crater where her insides used to be was caked with granules of ice. The bottoms of her hooves were just beyond his reach. She listed sideways, turning slightly in the wind. He could no longer picture her alive.

Timmy walked down the path behind her that led to the creek. The cold and the stillness seemed to amplify his senses. The minty scent of pine sap. The hushed sound of the wind through the needles in the branches above his head. He saw boot prints both coming and going along the trail. His own boots were half the size. He had to jump to match his father’s stride. As he rounded a bend in the trail, he veered from his father’s path and headed towards the water. There were fallen trunks to climb and piles of branches near the water’s edge. The banks of the creek were sheathed in snow-covered ice. It was difficult to tell where the bank fell off beneath the snow. Timmy somehow knew that ice above moving water could not be trusted. He decided to use a branch to help divine the boundary.

He found a fallen branch as thick as his thumb and tried to tear it free from the trunk. The wood was too green and not yet brittle enough to break. He remembered his knife. He removed his mittens and held them between his teeth while he sawed at the wood near the joint. It was slow going. The blade was sharp, but without a saw-toothed edge he made little progress. He began to push harder and to saw faster out of frustration and in his haste the knife slipped from the branch and cut a three inch gash through the palm of his left hand.

He dropped the knife. He gripped his wrist as the wound smiled and blood poured over his fingers. The cut didn’t hurt at first, but the sight of the blood made him panic. His father had told him that he would only be allowed to keep the knife if he could prove that he was old enough to be responsible with it. If either his father or uncle were to see what he had just done, they would surely take the knife away.

Timmy sank to his knees and searched for the knife. When he found it he carefully cleaned and dried the blade against his pant leg while his injured hand dripped blood in the snow. Once the knife was safely in his pocket, he picked up a fist full of snow with his injured hand and squeezed. The snow above the wound bloomed red.