I had a feeling that something important was about to happen to me, and that this would be a day I would always remember.

My mother did not say anything for a long time, and neither did I. We drove up through Great Falls and out the other side toward Fort Benton, which was on the benchland where wheat was grown.

“Geese mate for life,” my mother said, just out of the blue, as we were driving. “I hope you know that. They’re special birds.”

“I know that,” Glen said in the front seat. “I have every respect for them.”

“So where were you for three months?” she said. “I’m only curious.”

“I was in the Big Hole for a while,” Glen said, “and after that I went over to Douglas, Wyoming.”

“What were you planning to do there?” my mother asked.

“I wanted to find a job, but it didn’t work out.”

“I’m going to college,” she said suddenly, and this was something I had never heard about before. I turned to look at her, but she was staring out her window and wouldn’t see me.

“I knew French once,” Glen said. “Rosé ’s pink. Rouge’s red.” He glanced at me and smiled. “I think that’s a wise idea, Aileen. When are you going to start?”

“I don’t want Les to think he was raised by crazy people all his life,” my mother said.

“Les ought to go himself,” Glen said.

“After I go, he will.”

“What do you say about that, Les?” Glen said, grinning.

“He says it’s just fine,” my mother said.

“It’s just fine,” I said.

Where Glen Baxter took us was out onto the high flat prairie that was disked for wheat and had high, high mountains out to the east, with lower heartbreak hills in between. It was, I remember, a day for blues in the sky, and down in the distance we could see the small town of Floweree, and the state highway running past it toward Fort Benton and the Hi-line. We drove out on top of the prairie on a muddy dirt road fenced on both sides, until we had gone about three miles, which is where Glen stopped.

“All right,” he said, looking up in the rearview mirror at my mother. “You wouldn’t think there was anything here, would you?”

“We’re here,” my mother said. “You brought us here.”

“You’ll be glad though,” Glen said, and seemed confident to me. I had looked around myself but could not see anything. No water or trees, nothing that seemed like a good place to hunt anything. Just wasted land. “There’s a big lake out there, Les,” Glen said. “You can’t see it now from here because it’s low. But the geese are there. You’ll see.”

“It’s like the moon out here, I recognize that,” my mother said, “only it’s worse.” She was staring out at the flat wheatland as if she could actually see something in particular, and wanted to know more about it. “How’d you find this place?”

“I came once on the wheat push,” Glen said.

“And I’m sure the owner told you just to come back and hunt anytime you like and bring anybody you wanted. Come one, come all. Is that it?”

“People shouldn’t own land anyway,” Glen said. “Anybody should be able to use it.”

“Les, Glen’s going to poach here,” my mother said. “I just want you to know that, because that’s a crime and the law will get you for it. If you’re a man now, you’re going to have to face the consequences.”

“That’s not true,” Glen Baxter said, and looked gloomily out over the steering wheel down the muddy road toward the mountains. Though for myself I believed it was true, and didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything at that moment except seeing geese fly over me and shooting them down.

“Well, I’m certainly not going out there,” my mother said.