fierce weasel because anybody had the guts to shoot a bird.
Behind the church lay an immensity of cornfields cut through by a ditch big enough to require a culvert under the C&EI tracks. I let myself down the bank until my Keds touched the moist matting of grass at the bottom. A few hops from rock to rock carried me across the slow-moving water.
I saw no sign of weasels in any direction, so I decided to lie in ambush, cradling my rifle across my lap, safety off for speed, finger on the trigger, waiting for the moment when a weasel was foolish enough to show itself. I sat perfectly still for what felt like hours, then the fidgets got the better of me. I brought my rifle up and fired at a stick twenty or thirty yards away. I thought I saw it jump and counted this as a kill. Then I lay back again and waited.
There were burrows everywhere that must have led to underground quarry. Did weasels live in burrows? I should have asked Grampa, who knew about everything. It had been Grampa who had taught me to recognize the long, curving berm in a lawn that meant a mole. Technically speaking, I guess I had already killed my first mammal when a spring-loaded trap I had set drove a sharp trident into the soil as the mole passed beneath. But this was no more satisfying than catching a mouse. I only knew I had succeeded by the mole guts on the tines.
Out in the sun nothing was moving except the water. There werenât even any fish in the ditch because between rains it often completely dried up. I stood and walked downstream in the direction of the railroad tracks. Maybe on the other side, where the ditch ran through a stand of trees, I could find varmints.
When I got to the tracks, I stopped on the ballast and found a good rock to place on the rail. It balanced neatly on the steel surface thathad been polished by the trains. My mother always warned me not to place even so much as an old penny in the way of the big diesels that roared through Abbeville. âYou donât want to be responsible for a wreck, do you?â she said. But I had done it anyway, dozens of times, once Grampa had sneaked me a peek at his collection of coins the trains had turned into foil.
Down the way, the preacherâs wife emerged from the back door of her house, crossed the clearing, and took the stairs to the church basement. She did not look in my direction. I crossed the tracks and made my way to the grove of trees, sure I would only slay the prize by tracking it to its lair.
When the ditch entered the grove, it widened, making scummy pools behind fallen tree limbs. I found a small burrow, but it probably belonged to a snake. Beyond lay a thicket that could have served as somethingâs den. But when I reached it, I found absolutely no sign of life.
Back home in Park Forest I often retreated to a little woods a block away from our house. Sometimes I would scare up a pheasant in the prairie beyond it or see a rabbit running away. It never seemed particularly wild there, but compared to this it teemed like the African savannah.
To get to the other side of the water, I had to walk across a fallen log, using my rifle like a tightrope walkerâs pole. I was more than halfway there when I started to get into trouble. My toe stubbed on a big knot. The rifle began to teeter wildly. The next thing I knew I was lying in the fetid water.
It wasnât deep, but it soaked my pants and one side of my shirt. Thankfully, the barrel of my rifle stayed dry, but the stock had sunk deep into the mud. I leaned on it to get upright and eventually was able to reach dry ground. But as I did, my foot pulled out of my shoe, leaving it mired in the sucking muck.
Some hunter! I looked down at my pants and could not help thinking of a little boy who has peed himself. Then suddenly I felt someone watching me. I turned. A squirrel had me fixed in its gaze. The first quarry of the day, and it was stalking me.
As I raised the muddy rifle butt to my shoulder, the
Behind the church lay an immensity of cornfields cut through by a ditch big enough to require a culvert under the C&EI tracks. I let myself down the bank until my Keds touched the moist matting of grass at the bottom. A few hops from rock to rock carried me across the slow-moving water.
I saw no sign of weasels in any direction, so I decided to lie in ambush, cradling my rifle across my lap, safety off for speed, finger on the trigger, waiting for the moment when a weasel was foolish enough to show itself. I sat perfectly still for what felt like hours, then the fidgets got the better of me. I brought my rifle up and fired at a stick twenty or thirty yards away. I thought I saw it jump and counted this as a kill. Then I lay back again and waited.
There were burrows everywhere that must have led to underground quarry. Did weasels live in burrows? I should have asked Grampa, who knew about everything. It had been Grampa who had taught me to recognize the long, curving berm in a lawn that meant a mole. Technically speaking, I guess I had already killed my first mammal when a spring-loaded trap I had set drove a sharp trident into the soil as the mole passed beneath. But this was no more satisfying than catching a mouse. I only knew I had succeeded by the mole guts on the tines.
Out in the sun nothing was moving except the water. There werenât even any fish in the ditch because between rains it often completely dried up. I stood and walked downstream in the direction of the railroad tracks. Maybe on the other side, where the ditch ran through a stand of trees, I could find varmints.
When I got to the tracks, I stopped on the ballast and found a good rock to place on the rail. It balanced neatly on the steel surface thathad been polished by the trains. My mother always warned me not to place even so much as an old penny in the way of the big diesels that roared through Abbeville. âYou donât want to be responsible for a wreck, do you?â she said. But I had done it anyway, dozens of times, once Grampa had sneaked me a peek at his collection of coins the trains had turned into foil.
Down the way, the preacherâs wife emerged from the back door of her house, crossed the clearing, and took the stairs to the church basement. She did not look in my direction. I crossed the tracks and made my way to the grove of trees, sure I would only slay the prize by tracking it to its lair.
When the ditch entered the grove, it widened, making scummy pools behind fallen tree limbs. I found a small burrow, but it probably belonged to a snake. Beyond lay a thicket that could have served as somethingâs den. But when I reached it, I found absolutely no sign of life.
Back home in Park Forest I often retreated to a little woods a block away from our house. Sometimes I would scare up a pheasant in the prairie beyond it or see a rabbit running away. It never seemed particularly wild there, but compared to this it teemed like the African savannah.
To get to the other side of the water, I had to walk across a fallen log, using my rifle like a tightrope walkerâs pole. I was more than halfway there when I started to get into trouble. My toe stubbed on a big knot. The rifle began to teeter wildly. The next thing I knew I was lying in the fetid water.
It wasnât deep, but it soaked my pants and one side of my shirt. Thankfully, the barrel of my rifle stayed dry, but the stock had sunk deep into the mud. I leaned on it to get upright and eventually was able to reach dry ground. But as I did, my foot pulled out of my shoe, leaving it mired in the sucking muck.
Some hunter! I looked down at my pants and could not help thinking of a little boy who has peed himself. Then suddenly I felt someone watching me. I turned. A squirrel had me fixed in its gaze. The first quarry of the day, and it was stalking me.
As I raised the muddy rifle butt to my shoulder, the
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