The killing season

It’s May and warm—almost hot, actually—as close to summer as we get here in Southcentral Alaska, and that means it is time to kill animals and eat them, as people have done since time began. I have a problem with that. Not an ethical one, a personal problem. I’m a manly guy. Ask anybody who knows me. Really. I have a big hairy moustache, a filthy mouth, a dented pickup truck, a bad back. All the right stuff. I’m telling you, manly. But—and this is an embarrassing thing for an Alaskan male to admit—I’ve been having trouble killing things lately.