Shoot Her
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

In Swedish (and this is very important to the story), the verb “skjuta” (shoota) means both to “push” and to “shoot”—an unfortunate double meaning to which this story bears witness.

This story will also explain why, as we grew up, my younger sister Lili-Ann did not uniformly look upon me with the kindest of sisterly eyes.

It all started one overcast winter afternoon, with my mom asking me to keep an eye on my darling sister for an hour or two—Mom busy with something or other, most likely cooking or baking, her favorite activities. This request, of course, is the very thing that in a later decade would give rise to the expression “cramping one’s style.” I’m ten or eleven, so she’s five or six, and dragging her around in the snow definitely limits one’s freedom of movement and range of options—drastically.

Shackles, balls and chains, leashes and such unnatural implements come to mind.

But there was little or nothing for it, Mom had asked and Mom had a way of making her wishes bear fruit. So, off I went, the little one (bundled up in god knows how many layers of winter clothing) trudging behind asking me every so often to wait up, would I?

At which I would stage a token wait and then set out again, leaving her farther and farther behind until the next token wait—and so, eventually, in long, slow stages, we made it across the gently up-sloping, snowy (knee-deep) field to our nearest neighbor Karl’s house. I had planned (before being asked to cart little sister along) to go see Karl, the closest I had to a friend at the time, and I figured I might as well stick to that plan, even with Lili-Ann in tow.

Karl, by the way, was what we in Sweden called a “Sladdbarn”—literally a “Skid Child”, though “Skid Kid” has more ring to it, no?

A Skid Kid (we might call him or her a “straggler”) is a child resulting from loss of vehicle control—a very apt way of putting it, methinks—meaning a child who is born way later than any of his or her siblings, say a decade or two, and who was obviously not planned, hence the skid, the loss of vehicle control.

This was the case with Karl. His Mom and Dad were ancient (in my book): mother probably in her mid-fifties (though she looked like seventy), father most likely in his sixties (though he also looked in his seventies). So, not even close to planned then, our Karl, for now at eight his nearest sibling was a sister of nineteen or twenty, and he had two sisters far older than that. Yes, the consummate sladdbarn, Karl. Skid Kid.

I knocked on the front door and Karl, who had seen us coming, opened it right away, dressed and ready to join us.

Now, two days before, Karl and I had put together a sled of sorts from an old, wooden, apple box and some rusty runners from an old dilapidated kick-sled. Not of amazing construction or anything, but—according to our calculations (and hopes)—it should still obey gravity and head downhill if given half a chance.

This theory, however, had still to be put to the test.

And here’s where, as I take a long, speculative look at my little sister, she comes in very handy. Neither Karl nor I would actually fit very well in the apple box that was the housing (so to speak) of this sled. The same could not be said of my sister who was the perfect test-pilot size.

So, we pull the sled across the road and up a nearby hill (called Risberg, by the way, meaning “Mountain of Sticks”), now nicely covered with old and icy snow, perfect sled surface in other words. Lili-Ann is trudging along twenty or so meters behind us but eventually makes it all the way up to where we stand waiting, Karl and I, for our little (still-to-be-informed of the fact) test pilot.

To this day I’m not sure what on earth I would have promised her to make her agree to this daring test run, but agree she eventually did, and so, with a little help from her friends (Karl and I), she climbed in.

Okay? I asked. She looked comfortable enough.

Yes, she said. Maybe even a little bit excited.

All right then, I said, looking at Karl. Her goes.

And so, I pushed the sled over to the steeper part of the hill and then, with another push, down she went, picking up speed, gravity doing its thing, and very well at that.

And picking up more speed.

And more speed.

Until the unforeseen bump which rendered the sled not only airborne but tiltingly so with the obvious outcome that out she flew, landing at speed and rather awkwardly, and smashing her shin against a rock that lurked just below the snow surface, waiting for something or someone to injure.

And injure (as in break) something or someone it did, though we had no idea at the time.

The idea we did have at the time was that Lili-Ann’s wail was an obvious exaggeration, a way-beyond-reason one. And then she wailed again (as if in severe pain—which, of course, come to find out later, was very much the case). And again. And then the tears, and then more tears and more crying and wailing about how much it hurt.

Oh, don’t be ridiculous, you could not have hurt yourself that much. It’s only snow for heaven’s sake. And stand up, will you.

She tried, and this apparently was more painful than ever (yes, her shinbone was in fact cracked, not a pleasant state of affairs). More wailing and now it was for Mommy and she wanted to go home, now.

Karl and I looked at each other. No way she could be hurt as badly as she made out, right? Lili-Ann is still sitting down, cannot get up. Hurst too much, she says, cries, screams.

Karl and I look at each other again. Well, if you can’t get up, you can’t walk home, I inform her. I don’t think she tried again, just claimed (so very unreasonably) that she couldn’t. All right then, Karl and I agreed, we’ll have to put her back in the sled and push her all the way home.

Here’s where the word “skjuta” comes in. We’ll have to “shoot” her home is what we would have said and agreed, but what she heard between sobs and waves of pain was that we were going to have to shoot her.

Now, the reason the unfortunate and now imminent end to her young life actually made some sense to her was that her leg was obviously badly hurt and since she loved and knew a lot about horses for her age, she also knew that when a horse breaks a leg, they often have to shoot the poor creature. Yes, it did add up: she was in effect done for. Broken leg: She would be shot. Glue.

She cried and moaned and wailed all the way home, apparently not looking forward to going the way of disabled horses.

Mom must have heard her wailing as we approached our house for she came running out and wanted to know what on earth. We told her that Lili-Ann (who would not stop crying) had fallen out of the sled going downhill and had apparently (me stressing apparently) hurt her leg.

Well, Mom would deal with me later, she informed me—as I noticed Karl slink away and back to the safety of his own house. Mom then piled Lili-Ann into the car (a blue and white Volvo Duett, by the way) and took off for the hospital just to make sure.

At this point, Lili-Ann is convinced that the upcoming shooting will take place in the hospital (since most shooting of horses is done by veterinarians who work at horse hospitals). I cannot even imagine what the ride into town must have been like for her.

(I have since asked her, but she says she doesn’t remember; feigned or real memory loss, I’m not sure).

Three or four hours later Mom returns with the test pilot, now sporting a big cast from knee to ankle, keeping the shin bone in position to heal. She had sustained two hairline fractures forming an X, and not a small one either by the X-ray (pun not intended) that Mom made a big point of showing us (especially me). Look what I’ve done to my sister.

Well, I didn’t mean to, if that’s what you’re saying.

Well, she knew that. But even so, you shouldn’t have put her in that stupid apple box sled and pushed her down the hill.

Well, I didn’t mean to, if that’s what you’re saying.

For the next six or so weeks, while the shin bone healed, Lili-Ann (the tyrant) more or less ruled the house, waited on hand and foot by Mom and sometimes, very reluctantly, by me.

And this is why it’s not a stretch by any means that Lili-Ann had no serious objections to my parents tossing me off the Sand Island Bridge to my death a year or so later (see: Let Him Live).

Ah, blessed childhood.

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