2008 Writing D e s e r t E x p o s u r e 
September
2008
Rabbit Hunting
It's not about the shooting — or the rabbits.
By Danna Stout
In this charming short story set in the post-war Southwest, a rabbit hunt forms the backdrop for re-establishing youthful relationships interrupted — and, perhaps, changed forever — by World War II.
I'll never forget that summer after the war. Ben and I weren't among the hundreds of New Mexico boys who ended up in Bataan, although we heard a lot about that in those days. We were both in Europe, but I never saw Ben during the war. It was in the folks' letters that I learned he'd lost a leg and come home in February, just two months before the war in Europe was over. I was there to the end and didn't care to remember the sights I'd seen there.
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Photo by David Cortner |
It was just good to get home and see familiar folks again. My folks had been tending the farm alone while their only son was away, and there was work to be done now. We managed to get our crops in on time just the same, and by the time summer was in full swing, life on our place was getting pretty familiar again. We farmed down way south of Deming. I grew up there and went to school in the little one-room school house at Waterloo, along with my good friend and neighbor, Ben Wilson. He and his sister and I walked to school together every day for just about as long as I can remember.
Ben came over once in a while now to help me with the irrigating. He got around pretty well with his wooden leg, and he was never the kind to lay down and quit.
"Seen lots o' rabbits around again, Bill," he remarked as he headed home for supper one night. "S'pose we better go at 'em again, huh?"
"S'pose so," I agreed. "I'll pick you up after supper. Tell Leanne, will ya?"
"Yeah, she'll be there, Bill."
To most of us in the area, rabbit hunting was a matter of survival in those days. You kept on top of them, or they'd have your whole garden and the greater part of your crops. They were everywhere.
With that in mind, I pulled up to the Wilson place just past dark and found Ben ready. He called Leanne out of the garden where she'd been working, and I almost forgot my wits when I saw her. Ben was like a brother to me, but his sister was a different story. She ran out to meet us at the pickup, all dirty in her garden pants and polka-dot shirt. Her roan hair, which she always tried to keep curled up, was hanging loose from a day in the sun and wind as usual. Still, she was the prettiest sight I ever saw.
She was only 16 when I'd gone off to war, and now she was a fine young woman. It seemed like I'd been waiting years for her to grow up and marry me. We'd planned on it since we were kids in grammar school. Sure, I'd seen her regularly since my homecoming, but she never failed to catch my attention.
She came running and hopped in the driver's seat of the old '41 Ford like she hardly noticed I was there. She knew I planned on a big old hello kiss, but she paid no mind. That was one thing about my little Leanne — she just did what suited her, and paid no mind otherwise. That used to drive me crazy.
"Well, c'mon, ya bums!" she urged us, "Those rabbits aren't gonna wait all night for us!"
I wanted to protest and tell her she wasn't very welcoming, but after she smiled a howdy at me and slammed the door, I obeyed. Ben and I climbed into the back with our shotguns, and Leanne headed us down the long drive alongside a corn patch the Wilsons had planted. The wind had settled into a whisper of a cool breeze by then, and we both dragged in a soothing breath of sweet air, filled with the scent of fresh corn fields.
"Ahh, Bill, it's good to be home, isn't it?" Ben said as he leaned on the cab of the pickup.
"Better than a lot of folks can imagine, I suppose." I leaned on the cab by my friend. These nights like this seemed to be good therapy for us. They helped kind of untie some of the knots a fellow can find squeezing down on him, and the cooler air began to soothe the heat out of our bones.
A bump nearly knocked Ben off of his good leg, and I held myself back from catching hold of him. He caught himself instead and smiled a "thanks" at me for not helping him.
Ben always said that I understood him better than his own parents did. He said it was hard enough with his "little setback" without always having to look into worried eyes and always feeling a hand on his shoulder asking if he's okay. He said that there comes a time when you just have to let it be okay.
We turned west now into a field of my folks, and I heard Leanne address us out her open window: "Nice night, huh? I gather you two didn't shoot at the last five rabbits because you were relaxing a little. Well, that's great, but if I don't hear some shootin' pretty soon, Bill's gonna drive, and I'm ridin' shotgun with Ben!"
Ben and I chuckled. Leanne was the only person who could read us as well as we read each other. We propped up on the cab and went to work. There were an unusual number of rabbits that night. It seemed like we moved through that field and another one in no time, we were so busy shooting. Inevitably, we ended up in a friendly contest to see who was the better shot. Every now and then I could hear Leanne laughing at our nonsense, and we'd have some words for her, too. She just seemed to be having too much fun driving us around.
I asked, "Leanne, why do you like rabbit hunting so much?"
"Just do."
That was all she had to say? I hated that. When I asked her a question, I thought she should have an answer, but she was so stubborn. Why wouldn't she want to answer a simple question, anyway? Well, I wasn't going to pry. If she wanted to be annoying, she could just be annoying.
"Is it because you're worried about your garden?" Ben guessed. "I know you work your poor dumb head off in it all summer. I bet you wish you could shoot the little beggars your own self, don't you?"
"I'm sure I could if I wanted to," she bragged, "but I don't wanna ruin you boys' fun."
"All right, hotshot, I'll drive, and you get back here with Ben and shoot," I challenged her. I don't know why I did that, because we all knew that Leanne really could shoot anything she took the notion to aim at. Still, we wanted to let her ride shotgun after she went to all the work to haul us around all night.
"You're on!" she declared as she pulled the pickup to a quick stop. She jumped out of the cab and marched her sassy self around back, still looking like she was having too much fun.
"So this is why you like it," I guessed as I met her on my way to the cab. This time I put my hands on her thin shoulders so she couldn't ignore me. "So you can show off your shootin' skills?"
Leanne had crystal-blue eyes, all laced in long lashes, and she pierced them straight into mine. She put her calloused little hands on my forearms and patted them gently as she curved her pink lips into a sweet smile. It looked like she might say something endearing, but all I got was, "I don't have to show off for you bums." At least she said it softly. Then she ran and hopped into the bed of the pickup, grabbed up my shotgun, put her other hand on her hip and said, "Well?"
I took her "gentle suggestion" and got in to drive. I have to confess that Leanne held her own shooting against her war-seasoned brother. She was just too amusing. She would spout a challenge at him or remark on any rare poor shot that he made, but it was all dripping with affection. I thought that if her occasional indifference toward me meant as much as her sass toward her brother, then she must really love me. I found myself smiling.
It was one o'clock in the morning when Ben knocked on the rear window and reminded me that we'd been over every field a couple of times already, and maybe we'd done enough hunting for one night. I agreed and wondered if he'd brought this up in this particular spot for a reason. There was a good-sized pond at one end of this field, fed by an irrigation well, and many a time the three of us had stopped here for a good cooling off at the end of our rabbit hunts before the war. It just kind of seemed natural to do the same now. When I turned my neck to check on my passengers, they were looking in that direction, and their thoughts were easy to read. I smiled when Ben caught my eye, and we took off on the bumpy road through the field with a unanimous "yee-haw!"