The Rodent Slayer

Just have to tell you this quick:

Q and I went on his first hunt last Saturday. We drove to Adams, where I went deer hunting last year, and pulled out Dad's .22 rifle that he bought when he was in grade school 70 years ago. With hooded sweatshirts to ward off the mosquitoes, we marched into the woods to hunt squirrels, for which the season had opened on September 8th.

I had already briefed Q on how it works: walk a ways, stop, listen. Since there are still so many leaves on the trees, they'd be harder to see, and we would certianly hear them before we could see them. Especially on a day like Saturday - cool, with wet branches, but no rain. Just some fog. Every time they moved, they set the rain to falling from the branches.

We walked for probably ten minutes before we heard our first one, and split up to try to come at it from two sides. Q was very excited about our hand gestures back and forth - we tried to maintain a pretty silent presence, so as not to spook the little critters unnecessarily. And it worked - we trooped right up under the tree where the squirrel was doing its business, and I began to maneuver for a shot.

Q watched for the squirrel and alerted me every time he caught a glimpse; I followed his lead and eventually got a decent look. Probably forty feet up, straight above us, more or less - he stopped moving, and I fired on him, center mass.

He dropped to earth as limp and as dead as could be. As he fell, Q said "Whoa!", and I couldn't help but release a "Ha! Viste eso?" Both were still echoing in the air when the squirrel landed against the tree, caught in the light brambles there.

We examined it. I had caught it right in the belly, and it had exited high out its back. I imagine the sudden drop in blood pressure had done it in. Q was most fascinated by how soft its paws were - they have knobby ridges on the undersides of their paws, tough and soft at the same time, each one protruding outward and riding underneath the curving claw above it. It surprised me - seemed almost like the pad would prevent the claw from catching on the bark. We talked about that a while.

"I feel bad for him," Q said. I looked over at him, and he was still smiling, hands on his knees, content in the ambiguity. Caught himself on the fence between pride and celebration, and the empathy and respect he's always felt for animals. A poignant moment best not marred by any paternal yammering. So I let the emotions ring and hang in the air, and didn't interrupt.

After a few seconds, he said, "Podemos ver adentro?"

So the cleaning began. I really only split it up the middle and removed the organs, which we inspected. Intestines, stomach, heart, lungs, etc. Left the skin on to keep the meat clean, slipped it into the bag I wore across my hips, and on we went, chuckling with our success, listening for more.

Probably half an hour later, we were standing under where we had recently heard movement, and the wait was getting long. I said to Q, "Well, he's not moving. But we know he's here - we heard him. So before we move on, I'm going to see if I can provoke him. I'm going to make a sound like a squirrel, and if this is his territory, he won't like it. Let's see if I can fool him." And I made taut smooching sounds, long and high, in my best imitation of a squirrel call.

A red squirrel immediately sprinted straight down the trunk of a pine tree not twenty feet away from us, claws rattling on the bark as he came. He got four feet off the ground and leapt for us, landing on a downed branch, teeth bared and tail bristling - which was when he realized what he was looking at. I didn't see his facial expression - he turned too fast for that, floundering not to lose his balance, and sprang back to the trunk to race back up as fast as he had come down. Q and I laughed and laughed. Not willing to shoot squirrels quite that small, and unaware of its legality in any case, we spared him and turned back to the woods to look for other prey, Q firmly convinced that I am a forest Jedi.

Saw two more, but never got a good shot. And then we went home. Where we skinned and boiled our prize, and roasted him on the grill beside sausages that very same evening. Absolutely delicious.

I will be doing that again, friends. With a little bit of luck, it will be with Q. But failing that, I'm going out myself. I haven't felt this refreshed and grounded in a long time.

Other updates as events dictate...