The Diamond Bikini by Charles Williams

I cut off the trail and ran up that way. But just before I got there he waved his hand at her and I heard him say, “Go on back to the trailer. I’ll take care of these yokels.”
    She left and started walking away through the trees, and I turned and was going to run over that way to her but just then I saw Pop and Uncle Sagamore coming. If they saw me here Pop would give me a tanning for sure for not minding him. I looked around real fast, trying to see if I could get away by running in the other direction and then circling back, but there wasn’t much chance. There was some thick bushes just to one side of where Dr Severance was, though, so I dived into them and hid.
    Now that I knew she was all right I wasn’t worried any more, so I began to be curious about what Dr Severance was doing. I parted the leaves a little where I was lying, and I could see him. He was only about ten feet away, still looking down at something lying at his feet.
    There was a log in the way so I couldn’t make out what it was at first, but then I saw a pair of legs in gray pants sticking out a little beyond the end of it, with the toes of the shoes pointing up in the air, and I realized what it was. It was one of those rabbit hunters. Then I saw the butt of the tommy gun, lying on the ground next to him.
    And just then Dr Severance walked over a little to his right and looked down at something else, that was behind a bush. I stared over that way, and doggone if there wasn’t another pair of legs sticking out from behind it too. And another tommy gun. It was the other rabbit hunter.
    It sure looked like there’d been a bad accident.

Eight
    Just then Pop and Uncle Sagamore walked up.
    Dr Severance turned around and saw them.
    He took out his handkerchief and mopped his face, and shook his head kind of slow, like it was all too much for him. He sat down on the log where the first rabbit hunter was and let out a long, shaky breath. “Gentlemen,” he says, “it was awful. Just simply awful.”
    “What happened?” Pop asked.
    Dr Severance mopped his face with the handkerchief again and pointed at the rabbit hunters one at a time, with his face turned away like he didn’t want to look at them. “Dead,” he says, real sad. “They’re both dead. And all on account of one crummy little rabbit.”
    “Well sir, that’s a shame,” Uncle Sagamore says, “Just how did it happen?”
    “Well,” Dr Severance says, taking a deep breath and beginning to get a-hold of hisself a little, “I was standing there by the trail when I saw these two men walking by up here looking for rabbits. I was just about to call out and ask ‘em, if they’d had any luck, when all of a sudden this little brown rabbit popped out of a bush right between ‘em. It started to run off, but then for some reason it changed it’s mind and doubled back, right square between the two of ‘em just as they both raised their guns and shot. It was the most terrible thing I ever saw in my life. They just killed each other deader than hell.”
    Uncle Sagamore bent down and looked at the first rabbit hunter. He walked over to the other one and rolled him over a little and looked down at him too. Then he came back and hunkered down and took out his plug of tobacco. He wiped it on the leg of his overalls, and bit off a big chew, and shook his head.
    “Yes sir, by golly,” he says, “it sure must of been a heart-rendin’ thing to see. Pore fellers just shot each other right in the back.”
    Dr Severance nodded. “That’s right. That was what made it so terrible. You felt so sorry for ‘em, because they knew it was coming and there wasn’t a thing in the world they could do about it. They both saw what they’d done by the time they pulled the triggers. They turned around and tried to duck, but it was too late.”
    Uncle Sagamore sailed out some tobacco juice and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Well sir,” he says, “that there’s the tragic thing about all