Rabbit and Tracks

Jim O’Leary Rabbit and Tracks

We were walking the railroad tracks through the north woods outside of town. Soldier Creek moved along in the same direction as the tracks but in a meandering way, so a number of trestles had to be crossed where the creek went wide and then cut back in, passing under the tracks.

Soldier Creek got its name from the soldiers who occupied the army post on a bluff overlooking the creek over a century ago near where the town library now stood. The soldiers gave the creek a name just as the army post gave the town a name, Fort Dodge.

It was mid-November, and we were hunting rabbits. It was around 3:30 and the sun was already getting low. I was with my friend, and as the area became more open the two of us left the tracks and moved down to the outside edge of the heavy brush in the railroad right of way. My gun was a single shot 20 gauge. My friend had a 12 gauge pump, overkill for rabbits.

We walked easily, making the brush crack and crackle as we moved so the rabbits would run. Then in the orange–gray light a rabbit flushed. It bolted to the right. Its white tail was easy to follow, and I saw that in its run to the right it would end up crossing the tracks. I moved the barrel of my shotgun to the point where the rabbit would reach the tracks and, without really aiming, fired as soon as it came into view. The rabbit went into the air; actually, it was blown into the air and made an elongated fullbody somersault, twisted, and landed on the far rail of the track. I started walking to it when I heard the rabbit start to scream. Some people think rabbits are totally quiet. Not always. Their scream is long and sharp and they don’t stop. When I got to it I looked for a rock or something to use to hit it on the head. There was nothing around so I hit it, hard, with the butt of my gun. The screaming stopped. I picked it up and put it in an old lined game bag I had gotten at a yard sale a year earlier.

My friend joined me and we stood for a bit. “Good shot,” he said. “Did it you hear it screaming?” I asked. “Yeah, sure was loud. We need to bring something with us so we can whack it quick and take it out of its misery,” he answered. “You know, Kawskiz’s Sporting goods has good black jacks. Maybe we should get a couple.”

“Right,” my friend said, “they’re going to sell black jacks to a couple of high school juniors.” “Guess you’re right.” We moved on, hunting for another half hour. We didn’t kick anything up so we quit. It was getting dark.

We were walking on the tracks back into town.

“You know, there are a lot of ‘possum, muskrat, and mink along the creek and, further up, beaver are starting to move in,” said my friend.

“Yeah, my grandfather told me a couple of years ago the beaver would come back.”

“We might want to think about a trap line.” “Worth looking into,” I said. We walked until we got to the bridge that went into town, climbed the embankment up to the sidewalk and walked home. The rabbit in my bag wasn’t heavy.