When Elmer Perch was seven, he and his good ole uncle with a dagger heart forearm tattoo went for a backcountry drive, and then a walk, and his Uncle Lemmie challenged him to a stick throwing contest. Uncle Lemmie was a giant man with a large beer belly, but when he was younger, Lemmie was a high school wrestling champ. Lemmie offered Elmer his single-bladed 3-inch pocket knife if Elmer could best him in a target throw. Elmer wasn’t fast- he wasn’t dumb, but he wasn’t fast- and he took Lemmie up on the contest.
“What are you gonna put up for me to win, Elmen”, Lemmie asked him.
“I can give you my Stretch Armstrong.”
“His arm was chewed off by the dog!”
“He still is stretchy and his legs work good.”
“Well, alright then, Elmen.”
They stood on a dirt road that offered a gradual incline up the side of a lightly wooded hill.
“Go find a throwing stick, little soldier.” Lemmie liked military terms.
Elmen didn’t go too far off the dirt road into the hillside rut, where he found a foot long branch about 1/2 an inch in diameter. He weighed it in his hands and it felt fine too him. He didn’t know much about good throwing sticks, but this one seemed suitable for the job. Lemmie had found a two-and-a-half foot chunk of decayed tree that was 3-inches around and solid as a tire.
“Which way we throwing?”, Lemmie asked.
Elmer saw a big rise of a round rock off the sinking side of the road about 30 feet in front of them.
“What about that rock, Unca?”
Lemmie checked it. “That one there, in front of the big tree trunk behind it?”
“Yeah- that’s it.”
Lemmie spit some tobacco sludge off into the brush to their left.
“Well, alright then, Elmen. That’s a good throw. I hope you got an arm on you like your Uncle.”
“You go first, Unca.”
Lemmie, a thick man with thin legs, stepped forward two steps and stared at the rock like it was his ex, and without braking his gaze, his swished his log up into the air and then hucked it forward- but he let go of it too late, and his legs came out from under him. He fell forward hard, and Elmer saw his uncle’s head bounce on the ground like a dropped coconut.
Lemmie was out cold, and Elmer was at a loss. They were on a private road in the back country, and Lemmie’s truck was 40 yards back down the path, around the curve, parked at the pullout.
Elmer walked close to Lemmie who laid on the ground like a sack of produce and looked close at his face. A little blood was on his cheek from a gash by his right eye. Lemmie had a few pebbles on his dry lips and in his long beard.
“Uncle Lemmie- you hear me?”
“Uncle Lemmie- you still here.”
Elmer sat down next to the big man and petted his prone left shoulder.
“Uncle Lemmie?”
Elmer sat and looked up at a raven crowing as it flew over. It landed near the top of a nearby tree.
“Go tell someone about Lemmie, bird”, Elmer said.
Elmer watched the bird soon fly off, and watched other birds fly over and talk and chat as he sat by Lemmie and unconsciously petted his arm. Lemmie’s gash was not deep, and the blood from it quickly dried up.
Elmer asked Lemmie every once in a while if he was ready to get up, but Lemmie just laid there.

Forty five minutes had passed and Elmer still sat leaning against his uncle, watching the birds in the middle of the little dirt road. He was asking Lemmie if he was still around when Lemmie opened and eye and squinted.
“Unca Lemmie. Uncle Lemmie. You’re back.”
Lemmie choked on some swallowed tobacco and spit it up and out, and then felt his head.
“What happened, Elmen?”
“You threw your stick and fell over and conked out.”
Lemmie felt nauseous and tried to stand, but his head was spinning.
He faltered and laid back down on the road.
“Uncle Lemmie- your throw was okay. Should I throw my stick now?”
Elmer took two steps forward and spit to his left and stared at the rock while Lemmie laid there on the road, eyes closed, hands around his belly.
Lemmie rolled to his left and threw up.
And then Elmer threw the stick and watched it sail right into that far old rock.