hunting grouse

  This, he thought, is what I have become. A hunter. The need to hurry disappeared, the need to kill was not as important as the need to see all there was to see, and he worked the afternoon away until evening, perhaps two hours before dark. He had seen seven or eight rabbits, any one of which he could have had, and heard several grouse and seen four more deer, two of which he could have hit easily, but he had waited and now, as he turned back, a grouse jumped up in front of him, its wings thundering, and flew to a limb on a birch about twenty-five feet away.
  Now it was time. He raised the bow, drew the arrow back, looked down the wooden shaft and saw, felt, where the arrow would hit, and released, all in one clean, fluid motion.
  The arrow went where he was looking, took the grouse almost in the exact center of the body, drove it back off the limb, and it fell, flopping for a moment, in the grass beneath the tree.
  ‘‘Thank you,’’ Brian whispered as it died. ‘‘For the food, thank you.’’