I remember the last time we five went hunting together, my four brothers and me. It was the day we blooded our littlest brother, Chuck. I watched with pride as Chuck notched the arrow in his bow. He’d chosen it over the  crossbow we’d tried to foist on him for his first real hunt, but he just shook his head and pointed to the bow.

Chuck slotted his index and middle finger top and bottom of the fletching, took a deep breath, and pulled the string back. You could have heard a pin drop… or rather a pine needle hit the forest floor. I watched him draw a bead on his target. Billy and Brian hunkered down beside him, barely drawing a breath themselves.

Chuck’s quarry flitted between the trees, a blur of beef and hair. A smile played at the corner of his thirteen-year-old mouth, and he released the bow string. The arrow whistled as it flew straight and true, whispering through the foliage and striking the big beast in the neck.

We heard the gurgling from where we crouched and the thump as Buck hit the ground.

Chuck turned to me, unsure of whether to grin or not. I ruffled his sandy-blond hair with my calloused hand and pulled him into a bear hug. Brian and Billy joined in our brotherly huddle. When we parted, I knelt in front of my youngest brother, looked him square in the eyes, and said, “Good job, kid. It was a clean kill. Go get it.”

With that, Chuck bounded over to the kill site, whooping, and hollering as he went. We ambled after him.

Billy shook his head. “I didn’t think he’d do it. I always thought he was kinda soft.”

Brian nodded. “It’s not easy being the youngest of nine.”

I laughed. “Try being the oldest sometime.”

My two brothers looked at me, giggling. “Yeah, for all of three minutes.”

We stopped just short of Buck’s carcass. My older brother didn’t look so big anymore and I wondered if there’d be enough meat to go round.