The Rabbit Hunt



If you
If you're gonna hunt Jack Rabbits, this is a good place to do it.  Did you know Mark Twain called them Jackass Rabbits, because of their big ears.  That was shortened to Jack Rabbits and came into general use.

     If you are a regular reader of mine, you know about Buck Campbell and Charlie Flowers.  They farmed in Muleshoe, and have been friends of mine for over sixty years.   Their sons, Scott Campbell and Eddie Flowers, grew up together.

     One night, during their senior year, Scott and Eddie decided to go rabbit hunting.  If you were a high school boy and lived in Muleshoe, that was a popular pastime, made more so because it provided an opportunity to drink beer with friends in the middle of the night.  The equipment needed was minimal—a pickup truck, a spotlight, a cooler chest, and a 22 rifle.  Some cheaters used shotguns, but right-thinking sportsmen considered shotguns unfair to the rabbits.

     The best time to hunt rabbits is between 1:00 and 3:00 AM, while they’re out feeding.  A foursome of teenage boys pile into a pickup truck and drive across the prairie, scanning the area with a high-powered, Q-Beam spotlight until a rabbit is spotted.  Each boy plays a specific role, one driving, one spotlighting, and two standing in the pickup bed, holding onto the headache rack and shooting over the cab.  Every so often, they rotate, so everyone gets to shoot.

     Muleshoe rabbits do not deliver Easter eggs.  They are not cute little Cottontails.  Muleshoe rabbits are long-legged, big-boned jack rabbits that are incredibly fast and very tasty.  They can be chicken-fried or cooked into a wonderful stew.  Sydna Flowers made a legendary rabbit pot pie.

     A rabbit hunt is pure excitement.  When the rabbit is spotted, all hell breaks loose.  The bright light temporarily blinds and confuses the rabbit, but it recovers and takes off like wild fire.  The shooters fire away with semi-automatic 22 long rifles.  It sounds like a Mexican revolution.   The rabbit pops up and down at top speed across the prairie, while the driver keeps his foot in it and the truck bounces over the pasture.  The spotlighter focuses the light on the critter as best he can. Panic-stricken rabbits do not run like other creatures.  They take long, erratic hops high into the air, incredibly quick and mostly in a zig-zag line.   The best hunters time their shots to catch their quarry in mid-hop, when it can’t change direction and seems to float above the landscape.

     The boys were not allowed to hunt rabbits on school nights, but one of their friends had scored a case of Coors, and all high school kids know that stuff will spoil if it ages too much.  Charles Flowers came in from the cattle auction after eleven that evening.  At 12:30, the boys pushed his pickup out of the driveway and down the street, so Sydna Flowers would not hear it start.  No danger of Charles hearing anything after the cattle auction.

I tried my best to get a picture of a Jack Rabbit in here, but it would not work, so I just put her in.  Ain't she cool?

 

     By 2:30, the boys had a half-dozen rabbits skinned and field dressed on ice in the cooler.  Eddie was driving and all four boys were in the front seat, drinking the last of the beer and singing “There were Ninety-Nine Beer Bottles, a hanging on the Wall.”

     The bar ditch came up suddenly and Eddie tried to turn left and miss it.  Too late.  The pickup slammed into the ditch.   The front passenger side tire smashed into the far wall and the wheel bent under the axle at a weird angle.  The boys managed to push the truck out and get it on solid ground.   It listed a bit toward the right front, but, after they changed the flat tire on the crooked wheel, the vehicle was drivable.  Only problem, it took two guys to hold the steering wheel and keep the truck going straight down the road.

    “My dad’s gonna kill me!"  Eddie groused.  "He’ll be mad as hell when he sees that wheel.  I don’t know what I’m gonna do.” 

     “Don’t panic, Eddie."  Scott had an analytical mind.  Let’s think about this for a minute.   Your dad went to the cattle auction tonight.  You know what he generally does at the cattle auction.  He sips Black Jack with my dad and Charlie Tom Isaacs, and they all get plastered.  Isn’t that right?”  

     “Yeah, but that won’t help.  He’ll have a headache and just get madder.  You know how he gets if someone messes with his truck.”

     “Well, we just might get lucky.  If we can get the truck back in the driveway without waking anybody up, he might come out in the morning and think he bent that wheel himself."  Scott said logically.  "It’s worth a try.  Beats hell out of waking everyone up and telling a made-up story.   We don’t dare resort to the truth, and they ain’t no lie we can tell that they’ll believe.”

     They killed the motor three houses down and the boys managed to push the pickup into the driveway without waking anyone.   All four walked home—it was not far.  After all, this was Muleshoe, not some big town like Lubbock or Odessa.

     Every Friday morning at 5:45, the twelve members of the Muleshoe Politically Correct Conservative Action Committee meet for breakfast at the Dinner Bell Café on Highway 84, just across the road from Leal’s Mexican Food.  They talk about manly things—politics, religion, crops, weather, government subsidies, and big-titted women.  They wonder if it will ever rain again.

     “Man, I’m damn lucky to be here this morning,” Flowers said.  “I mighta had a drink or two last night, but  I don’t rightly remember.  I musta hit a curb or something on the way home.  Bent the front wheel on my pickup over sideways and I can’t hardly herd the damn thing down the road.  Sydna’s gonna be pissed, too.”

     Bobby Dale Johnson grinned.  “As far as I can tell, Sydna has good reason to be P.O.’d at you most of the time.  She got somethin’ extra to be mad about now?” 

     “Well, when I got in the truck this morning, I didn’t feel too good, but I cranked it up anyway, put it in gear and went to back out.  It didn’t want to go, so I goosed it.  The damn thing jumped clean sideways and smashed into Sydna’s car.  Tore hell out of it.  She’ll be madder’n a wet hen.  Tommy Joe, I’ll come down to your office and fill out them claim forms soon as Willie James can get me some estimates.  You reckon they’ll cancel my insurance?”

     “Damn, Flowers, if they was gonna cancel it, they’d a done it last year after you run the cattle trailer over Buck’s yard and took out that motor home.  I’ll write a letter to submit with the claim, kinda explaining things from your point of view.  It’ll be all right.”  Tommy Joe turned toward the waitress.  “Hey, Ruthie!  Is they some law against us getting any more biscuits over here?”

     Almost twenty years later, during happy hour one evening at his Dad’s home, Scott told the true story of the rabbit hunt.   Nobody enjoyed it more or laughed harder than Charlie Flowers.

      Charles Flowers died three years ago with stomach cancer.  His friends and neighbors miss him a lot.  Flowers had his flaws, as we all do, and was little-known outside the high plains.  He lived his entire life in that harsh and beautiful environment, and became a legend.  Stories about his exploits live on and grow more elaborate with each telling.  Charles taught us all how to live.