Joe is a big guy even by prairie standards. Thick. The kind that infuriates the wind's religious zeal to make everything lean east. Joe, he just leans right back.

So it only makes sense his wife, Elma, is also on the solid side. Not fat. Solid. Like the bison that used to live here.

But even I'm surprised by her condition once we get to the house. She's spilling out from a love seat in the living room. They've become one.

The room smells of warm skin. Salty and fried by wind burn. Like the ocean I'll never see.

Joe folds his hands. Looks me in the eye.

He says, "She's napping. It's all she does any more. Her body can't keep up. We found out about the diabetes last month. Turns out she's had it for a year."

I get where he's going.

A squirt of panic flutters in my chest again. I pinch out an eyelash when Joe's not looking.

I've put down sick livestock before. Simple as a bullet and a tractor ride. Maybe a mercy killing for a person isn't all that different.

But here's the thing. Elma doesn't look that sick. I thought she was near death.

It's one thing if someone needs that extra push to stop the misery. This is a little different. Not what I was expecting.

"You can't be serious," I say. "She's in rough shape, sure. But this isn't a mercy kill. This is just a kill."

Joe nods. He taps a Gideon Bible on the table next to us.

"Compassion for others, that's what the Bible says. She's done living. It's time to bring her home. Seriously," he says.

For a second, I swear Elma slips an open eye to me. Like she was saying, "Seriously? What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Could be it was part of her sleeping. But I've seen that look before. Walking up to a lame cow. That nervous glance as I approached.

I saw it in my father's eyes, too. Or eye, rather. Right as the truck-sized chunk of frozen grain at the top of the bin came down on him. Maybe he saw the same in my eyes as I tried to tug him out.

One thing I know for sure, though. His last expression. It was a mix of shock and something you can't understand unless you actually watch a person die. Up close. Near enough to feel the heat of the body dissipating into the air.

The wind picked up the moment he died. I prayed it would take me with it. Off to join the herd of rushing bison shapes that curl over the tall grass as the wind blows. Shadows of the prairie that used to be.

Yet there I stood. No one disappears on the prairie.

I scrape a fingernail over the bald spot in my eyelashes. Breathe out a shiver of pain.

"Anything in that Bible tell you to get her to a doctor?" I say to Joe. One last attempt at salvaging humanity.

"We'd have to go several times a week. That's a lot of time away from the farm. We'd go broke. Work won't get itself done," Joe says.

"Seriously? This is a financial decision? You can't hire help?" I say. "Take her to the fucking doctor already."

"No. It's time to give her the mercy she deserves," Joe says.

The second he says it, the look on his face takes it back. He gets a little wet in the eyes. Lip starts shaking.

"You're not making any sense," I say.

"I know what this looks like," Joe says. "I don't know how else to say it. She's in so much pain every day. This is the right thing to do. You have to believe me."

Elma lets out a wheeze. Tries to shuffle onto her side. Doesn't work. Her eyes stay shut.

I swear I hear something in that wheeze. Can't make it out.

"Did you ask if that's what she wants?" I say.

"I can tell that's what she wants. I promise," Joe says.

"Doesn't look like Elma does a lot of talking," I say. Back away from Joe. "Are you sure there isn't another option?"

"It only looks like there are options. I've agonized, agonized, over this," Joe says. Takes a step toward me. "If you can't do this, I'll find someone who will."

"And risk me ratting you out? Even you're not that dumb," I say.

"You're the low-life here. You trying to tell me you're above this?" Joe says.

I want to say I am. But I ignore that bit of sense. Maybe in another life I was above it. Not anymore. There's no sense in anything out here. People die for stupid reasons all the time. Crushed under frozen grain. Sucked into an implement. Torn in half by a tractor. The least you can do is make a little scratch along the way.

"Let's talk about the money. I get half of the life insurance payout," I say to Joe. "Deal?"

I'm sure Elma has life insurance. Farmers have insurance for everything.

Joe nods. "Deal. Do it."

"How are you going to deal with the body?" I say.

"Bury her in the backyard. Like pioneer times. No need to get anyone else involved," Joe says.

It's not entirely unheard of these days. Tradition still matters. The nearest funeral parlor is 100 miles away. No one disappears on the prairie, not even in death. They just become it.

We stand there for a few awkward seconds.

"Uh, Joe, how do you intend on me killing her?" I say. "I'm not really about strangulation."

Joe shakes out of a deep stare at the floor.

"Oh, yeah, of course. Let me go get the gun," he says.

I watch him walk downstairs to the basement. Take the opportunity to stroll into the kitchen from the living room.

There's a row of coffee mugs hooked to the wall. Each one sports "Seriously!?" printed in big black letters on it. Word is they won them from a TV game show of the same name. Some sort of mail-in sweepstakes.

Joe comes back with a clunky 12-gauge Mossberg 500 pump-action shotgun. Produces a box of 6 shot. I stare at him like he's holding two shrunken skulls.

"Are we hunting pheasants?" I say. Sixes are for birds. Not people. How compassionate.

"I threw away all my bigger loads. I didn't want to let myself do...it...to her," Joe says.

"Way to think this through," I say.

It doesn't matter anyway. At such close range, the blast will be lethal. I'm trying to stall him out. Still having a hard time with this one.

I could take the shotgun and leave right there. But then what? Joe reports me to the sheriff? Says I stole a shotgun? I don't need the sheriff asking me why I was at Joe's place.

Joe shakes his head. "Just do it before I change my mind."

I take the shotgun. Feed the magazine full. Cycle the pump to chamber a shell.

Joe leaves the living room. Walks to the kitchen. Takes the "Seriously!?" mug off the wall. Fills it with coffee from a hot machine. I tell myself Elma didn't brew it before we got here.

I swallow and say, "Aren't you going to stand next to me for the big event?"

"I'll be OK from here," he says.

His back turns to me as he looks out the window. I hear a sniffle. Doesn't make him any more a saint than I am.

Elma stirs on the couch. That one eye rolls over me. Then the shotgun. Slips back under the crinkled blanket of her meaty eyelid. Long lashes on those lids. Not like the short bristles on mine.

I bring the shotgun to my shoulder. Aim for her face. Makes it look like she has a silver bead for a nose. Like a clown. Gives me a little grin.

People make all sorts of funny faces before they die. My father's left eye popped out as the frozen grain chunk hit him. He palmed it back in crooked. Fell right back out.

Dumb bastard. Should've spent that time trying to get free. He didn't know how dead he was until a few seconds later. Then he really started making faces.

I made some weird ones that day, too. Ones I'm glad he couldn't tell people about. Like when I realized I should have said something about the cracking sounds as he entered the bin. How something seemed off.

I lower the shotgun. Dig for an eyelash. Grab a clump of five or six with my nails. Give it a tug. Pop the gooey, hairy cluster into my mouth. Split the hairs with my front teeth. Swallow.

"Can you hurry this up, Wil?" Joe says from the other room.

I think of the moment my father died. When the wind picked up. Prairie wind, make me go away. Take me with you. Away from here.

I raise the shotgun. Pulling the eyelashes didn't work this time. The knotted up panic in my gut comes back again. Overwhelming.

"Please, Wil. Do it. I can't take it anymore," Joe says. Starts toward me.

Neither can I.

Joe is five steps away when I spin on my heel to face him. I line the bead of the shotgun up with his left eye. The same one that popped out of my father's head just before he made that face. Like the one Joe is making now.

There's no more room in my guts for another gallon of guilt. Especially when it's Joe laundering his own through me. Thought the beers would convince me otherwise. Failed. I need justice. An equilibrium. Not guilt.

So I do the only thing I can think of in the moment. I pull the trigger. Send the BBs spiraling down the long tunnel of my vision.

Joe's face sauces the wall behind him. I stay in position until his body stops moving. It grinds against the wall before folding onto the floor.

Elma convulses in the love seat. She's mumbling something with both eyes open. Her legs shuffle in place. I can hear her now.

"Waaaa...aaannnn...want," she says.

No sense in leaving her to wait to die. Now it's a mercy kill.

I pump the shotgun. Plant the bead over her mouth. Squeeze the trigger slow. It's a surprise when the shotgun fires.

The whole thing takes as long as a chunk of frozen grain falling to the ground.

I pocket the spent shotgun shells. Find Joe's keys. Head to the truck.

The setting sun casts shadows over the prairie. They look like people. Stretching their hands toward me. Shadow people. Pushing me away. Or pulling me in.

I fire up Joe's truck. Let the grooves of the scarred prairie point me in a direction. Any direction. Just get me the hell out of here.

I tug out an eyelash and I'm gone.

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