Silence after the truck's grunting engine,
the creosote planks of the steel bridge groaned
with weight.  I looked out where sun
flamed the long valley of leaves
and flamed the water puckered over shallow
stones into obsidian fractures.

In the bed of my uncle's pickup were two
dogs too old to point quail.  When he shoved
the fat setter over the railing,
it made no terrified whining, but paddled
its forepaws wildly until it diminished
into a white-sounding splash,
came up choking, and my uncle sprayed
its brains into water with the precise
aim of a hollow point.

Old Sooner struggled, eyes wide
with the height and fell back-first, twisting
two hundred feet down, its spine smashed
on a shallow rock, shots splashing
four times as the creature turned
immobile in the current, log-rolling
over the pebble shoals.  Each time uncle missed,
his laughter echoed, fading
into the river's cool whisper.

My knuckles were gripped
white on the truck's dash as I stared
through the steel
girded river.  I wished
someone would kill that hard bastard.

_{Copyright Scott Ward}