He’d triggered the adjustment. I’d watched him. Supervised. But he knew what he was doing. He’d managed the spring cock just the way grandfather had told him. But upon reassembly, however, the gun looked different. More angled. Less dangerous. I didn’t like the look of the gun. I told him to take him and the gun out into the woods. He did and got a deer. An live one I was glad to see. The deer scampered alongside him, both him and the deer with large smiles on their faces.

The gun had been left the in the woods, he told me as they approached me.