Free The Killing Tree by Rachel Keener Page A

face, only his face. His prickly stubble that had tickled my ear. Those sunflowered eyes. And then he told me to watch
     him as he fished. To watch his arm. To watch his back. How his body worked together with the line and the rod to create one
     smooth rhythm.
    I obeyed my teacher. With his back turned, my eyes satisfied their curiosity. But it wasn’t just his nakedness that captivated
     me. It was the way he fished. He didn’t hold the rod. He was the rod. It was a part of his arm, curling over the water, grazing
     the surface, snapping back with a slight whistle. Curl, graze, snap. It was as beautiful and strange as any of Mamma Rutha’s
     blessings. And the fish couldn’t help but bite.
    “C’mon, give it a try,” he said, without turning around or ever losing his rhythm.
    As his hands covered mine, placing them where they were supposed to be, I realized that I had never really looked at them.
     I had looked at the stain, but not his hands. They felt rough, callused by the plants. They were hands that didn’t swallow
     mine in largeness, but cradled them gently. Hands with little brown clusters of hair at the knuckles. Smooth lines at the
     joints. Traces of thick veins hidden beneath the skin. They were the hands of a man, a fisher, a mater migrant. And all of
     them were touching me.
    “There you go,” he said as I finally managed to hurl the line over the water after repeatedly getting tangled up in it. “Quit
     thinkin’ about it, let the fish take over. They’ll tell you what to do,” he coached.
    Don’t think, I told myself. But it didn’t work. I was stiff and self-conscious, silently counting
one two three
under my breath. I cast and cast, but the fish weren’t fooled. Finally when my arm burned with fatigue, I let the line fall
     limp and tangled at my feet.
    “I guess I’m not much of a fisher,” I said as I walked over and sat next to him.
    “Nah, you were great,” he said, smiling. “You was lyin’ about not knowin’ how to fly, weren’t you?”
    I laughed and reminded him that I didn’t catch a single fish.
    “All the same, you got flyin’ in you. Must be your fancy fishin’ outfit. I figured the fish would just leap out to you.”
    I blushed, knowing how ridiculous I must have looked, standing on the banks of wilderness in my cream and purple dress and
     bare feet. He looked at me, and his red hand softly touched my red face.
    “Hungry?” he asked.
    I nodded, rendered speechless by the moment that had just passed between us.
    “Sit down and I’ll see about rustlin’ up somethin’.” He pulled out a pocketknife and began filleting the fish he’d caught.
     One hand grasping the slippery skin, while the other skillfully carved its flesh.
    “I’d ask for a light, but I’m afraid it might make you sassy like down at the docks,” he joked as he pulled a lighter from
     his pocket and began building a small fire. He laid the fillets on wide slabs of bark that he had soaked in the stream, and
     placed them just at the edge of the fire where they could slowly roast.
    The air filled with a delicious smell. It was a full salty scent, one of roasted meat mingling with burning wood. By the time
     he slid the pieces of bark away from the edge, my mouth was watering.
    “This ain’t no roasted pig or nothin’, like you’d have if you weren’t with me,” he said shyly as he served me a fillet.
    We ate with our hands. Greedy hands filling hungry mouths. Della would have been shocked and alarmed to see me, filling my
     mouth with that smoked trout, not caring about the pieces of dirt or bark that still clung to the skin.
    “Never, never eat ’til you’re full in front of a man that you’re not related to or don’t despise,” she had instructed me.
     “Sexy women are hungry women, Mercy. It’s hard for a man to see a woman as mysterious and erotic if he just watched her gulp
     down a whole rack of ribs. You gotta save your appetite for when you’re out with other girls, or