The Big One

One morning in 1934, when Nelson Bryant was eleven years old, his father bought him a twenty-gauge shotgun. He took it out to the marsh at the head of a great salt pond near his house to look for birds. The landscape around him had changed little in the past five thousand years. He could turn in every direction and see just one house. Before long, a black duck flew by, and he took aim, pulled the trigger, and watched the bird drop to the ground. It was Christmas Day.