A memorable event occurred before I started school, and it may have been one of the first outings with the male members of my family, Daddy, Robert, and Mack. Our objective on this excursion was to cut some firewood in a small wood lot beyond the cucumber patch, down in the bottom below the site where we found so many Indian arrowheads. However, when your father’s main interest in life is to hunt ‘round-the-clock you didn’t go anywhere without being alert to the fact that you might happen upon a rabbit or two, perhaps some squirrels or even a opossum, raccoon, fox or wolf. Thus, although we had every intention of cutting firewood, we went to the woods, sans me, fully armed with enough firepower to kill an elephant. As extra hunters, Daddy carried along a squirrel dog, a couple rabbit hounds (perhaps Beagles), and some general roustabouts who hunted any game, but especially fox or wolf. Most were my playmates and good for fine roll and tumble games in the pasture behind the house, but under Daddy’s supervision they became merchants of doom for game animals.
Someone hitched Maude to the two-wheeled cart (WWI Army surplus variety) while Mama helped me into my low-top work boots. Well, they weren’t exactly my boots. I had a small foot, and the boots were somewhere between size 9 and 12 – not exactly boots made for walking! I had several pairs of socks on my feet, and Mama tied the boots tightly because they reached to just below my kneecaps. It was very important to have secure foot ware since every brush pile and briar patch along the way was kicked or shaken, and we went out of our way to make sure we didn’t miss any. For my part, I had a hard time just walking and standing up much less scaring some rabbit into leaving his hiding place and running in front of crazed hounds and excited people equipped with rifles. A little foot in a big boot made for lots of falling, laughter, teasing, and stern commands from Daddy to quit making noise. I never understood how the noise I made walking could possibly have been heard above the din and racket put out by the hounds, but anyway I needed to be quieter – I still need to be!
After lots of personal torment and difficulty, we reached the wood lot, and they set up shop to cut some firewood using a two-man cross cut saw and a couple of axes. I tried to avoid falling trees, flying wood chips and firearms that were leaned against nearby trees. Daddy warned us repeatedly to be careful around any firearms. While the firewood was accumulating in the cart, Maude munched tuffs of grass, switched at horseflies and generally ignored us, but the hounds worked fulltime scouring the nearby thickets. Every so often one of them would blurt out a special bark, at least it was special sounding to the others, but to me all the barks, bays and yelps sounded the same. These barks elicited an equally loud yell of encouragement from Daddy. He was the choir director and after a barking outburst, as the chunks of log were being split into firewood, there was excited discussion about what game might be the object of the barking: cottontail, swamp, or jack rabbit, or perhaps even a squirrel.
We had worked for a while and enough firewood had accumulated to stoke the cook stove and heater for a few weeks. Meanwhile the hounds continued pilfering through the brush. Once or twice work stopped and someone chased through the brush to redirect the hounds or to determine if some game animal had been cornered. Eventually these coaching tips paid off as a hound or two began barking in a more excited manner, and this raised our adrenalin levels to new highs. The hunt was on. Axes and the saw were abandoned, replaced with armaments and off we bounded through the thickets toward the barking hounds. I did my utmost to keep apace by running at top speed but all this accomplished was a multitude of swats from brambles, saplings and briars that sprang upright after being run over by those ahead of me. Occasionally I was stopped dead in my tracks by a sapling striking me flush in the face, and I had to let the stars clear before continuing. Pretty soon, I figured out that I didn’t have to run so closely behind the others, and this helped some.
“Do you think Cowboy might be after a coon?” Mack asked. “Naw, listen to how the hound’s circling back and forth, no coon would run like that and besides it’s daylight, and the coons went to bed before the sun came up. I think they are headed for the slough. I bet it’s a swamp rabbit!” Daddy declared. I didn’t know anything about rabbits, but if it was exciting to them, it sure tickled me plumb to death. Later on I learned that swamp rabbits (Sylvilagus aquaticus) were larger, up to 6.5 lbs, than cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus floridanus), up to 4.5 lbs. From Daddy, “You boys spread apart a little bit ‘cause I don’t want that swamp rabbit to circle back and run around us, but be careful if you happen to see him ‘cause I don’t want someone to get shot.” Amid all the confusion, the others kept repeating high-pitched vocal encouragements, and Daddy occasionally blew his hunting horn, mostly little short bursts, to make certain the hounds could hear him above the racket. Daddy used a cow horn, or infrequently a goat horn, that had a special mouthpiece fitted on the tip. He could signal commands with the horn to a pack of hounds from as far away as a mile or more. Since he was a musician, his horn sang out clear notes and could be downright melodious if he desired it that way. He rarely tried to make music with his horn, but a few hunting buddies could blow taps and simple musical pieces on theirs.
After an eternity to me, but perhaps only 15 minutes, of chasing after the hounds, Daddy announced at the top of his lungs to the rest of us, “Cowboy has got it treed.” This didn’t mean as much to me as it did to the others, but now we crashed through the brush with renewed intensity, although I wasn’t sure what to expect. Soon enough I learned. After a few minutes I completely lost sight of everyone, but there wasn’t any danger for me as there was plenty of noise to guide me. In fact, the noise probably woke the dead in cemeteries all over the county. Finally I arrived to find the others standing next to a very large tree. The hounds were barking as loudly as possible and clawing at the base. When I got closer I could see a hole that was big enough to hold a basketball. Apparently the animal had temporarily escaped the approaching hounds by climbing into a hollow space inside the tree. I had no clue what kind of animal was in the hollow, but the others had convinced themselves that it was a rabbit. In any event, the adrenalin level was really maximized by now. No amount of intense excitement exhibited by any athlete under game conditions was greater than our father’s on these occasions, and that attribute lasted until his dying breath.
In a few minutes, Daddy had cut and stripped a small sapling and shaped a fork from two little branches on the small end. Then he inserted the fork end into the hollow of the tree until he touched something that moved, and he immediately commenced twisting the sapling round and round in an attempt to snag the animal’s fur in the fork. The objective was to snag and then yank the animal out of the tree, but the animal disagreed and climbed beyond the reach of the sapling. Daddy sent someone to get an axe. In a few minutes, the axe appeared, and Daddy lined up to chop a hole in the tree. “I’ll take care of this dad gummed (probably a little more expletive-laced expression was used) rabbit,” and he swung the axe in a circular arc above his head, obviously aimed about head-high on the trunk of the tree. However, as the axe came down, a little branch suddenly appeared out of nowhere (overlooked in the adrenalin-fired prelude), and diverted the flight of the axe. Instead of landing solidly with a whack in the side of the hollow tree in front of us, the blade landed at a glancing blow in the side of Daddy’s head, just above and behind his ear, about a two- to three-inch slash. Fortunately Daddy had a leather cap on, and the axe struck at a glancing blow or we would have had a really bad situation. It was grave enough for me.
The sight of blood pouring out of my father’s head and him cussing the branch for getting in the way was somewhat unsettling, if not downright comical now. Simultaneously, he grabbed his head, pressed the gash closed, and started looking for his leather cap knocked loose in the event. He started reassuring us that it was a little cut, and it would be fine. As soon as he located his leather cap he calmed because it sported only small damage where the axe had landed – I suppose all hunters are practical that way! However, these calming words and actions didn’t help a lot as far as I was concerned, but the others began asking Daddy what to do. Soon a clean handkerchief and some coal oil (kerosene) appeared. Apparently he carried a little bottle of coal oil on his hunting forays; I suppose he started fires and disinfected wounds with it. In any event, they doused coal oil on the handkerchief and directly into the bleeding wound, and then applied direct pressure on the gash and tied the soaked handkerchief tightly around his head. This helped stop the flow of blood. Then he pulled his leather cap down over his head as tightly as possible, and the combination of the coal oil treatment, the pressure from the handkerchief and the hat led to a big reduction in the blood flow. In a few minutes, they went back to chopping a hole in the tree and then caught the game, a swamp rabbit. We had fried rabbit for supper that night, but I didn’t eat any as I was still reeling from the sight of the blood.
1 comment:
Holy Crap.
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