Dad was now busy smelling the dirt, specifically, a few plops of deer manure. He would smear his finger on the ground, and smell it. I gave him a cruelly misunderstanding look.
"Don't look at me like that!" He noticed, "This isn't weird- you'll understand soon!" Not weird. Okay. I took a deep breath.
"Okay, sorry."
"You should be helping me."
This is when a normal person would say "I'll follow you around, and look at rocks with you- but I am NOT smelling shit!" However, he seemed disappointed, so I couldn't do that to him.
"Okay." I smiled and leaned down. I couldn't stop myself from scrunching my nose as I wiped my finger on it. I wasn't exactly known for my strong stomach.
"Smell it!" He cried, "SMELL IT!"
I felt so pressured and so disgusted by what I was doing and what my life had come to- smelling a piece of deer poop- that I swung my hand to my face; and whaddya' know? I didn't just smell it, no. It hit my nose.
My dad laughed, and I was probably more horrified than I should have been.
I quickly wiped it off with my shirt. "Dad," I asked, "Why are we even doing this?"
"Because we need to track this guy down. But before we can do that, I want to see if it's the right one!"
"I thought we needed more rocks."
"Yes! You do that- I need to smell this!"
Without question, I moved back and looked along the walls of the gorge to find rocks. "So..." I began as I grabbed some very average rocks, "Why are you smelling it, again? Does it smell different from the others?"
"Yeah, it does. It's a white deer-"
"Albino?"
"Al...what?"
I shook my head and sighed. "Nevermind. Continue."
"It's this white deer. She has a different smellin' shit than the others. She seems to lead me to clues."
I didn't take what he was saying too seriously, but I was baffled about there being something as rare as an albino deer living in a gorge- what are the chances? My baffled expression flattered his crazy mind, and he stood up.
"It's not hers. Maybe you'll meet 'er one day." He was staring at the wall for what felt like a few solid seconds, before he turned to me and frowned.
He stomped over and batted the rocks out of my hands. "I feel like ye' aren't takin' me seriously!"
No, I'm not.
"Of course I am, Dad! I'm just not the expert."
His eyes suddenly lit up. "I see! So yer' old man has gotta' teach ya' how it works 'ere! We might be 'ere for a while!"
My bad choices of words would be my downfall throughout this, and at that moment, I realized that exact truth.
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