Texans liked to brag that everything’s bigger in Texas. That might be a little exaggeration, but with two things I think it’s pretty much the truth. Rattlesnakes and jackrabbits in Texas come in three sizes: big, bigger, and biggest. I’m also of a mind that there are more of each of these critters per square mile than anyplace else. At least, it seemed like it.

You couldn’t walk across the farmyard without spottin’ at least one rattler. Pa was kept plenty busy just keepin’ the rattlers away from the house. The snakes liked to stay around the granary where they’d find plenty of rats to eat. While we appreciated their service gettin’ rid of rats, it was just too dangerous for them to stay around the farmyard. I could watch out for them, but my little sisters and brothers might not be fast enough to avoid them. So, Pa had no choice but to kill the snakes when we’d find one.

Pa had told me once that a hair rope would keep out a rattler, so I wondered why we didn’t just put a real long rope ‘round the yard. Pa said that only works when you’re campin’ out. That puzzled me some. I asked him why it worked only then and he tol’ me that the rope circle had to be small, just enough to surround you when you’re sleepin’. I could see that maybe that might be true, so I asked him why it worked at all. He said, “Eddie, that’s because the rattlers are superstitious.” I thought that mighty funny at the time, but found out later it was an old joke.

We didn’t see the jackrabbits as much, but we knew they’d come in the middle of the night ‘cause we’d see the holes they’d gnaw in the granary walls. The better the crop, the more jackrabbits there’d be. I guessed that the one would beget t’other. Around these parts, we called them deer rabbits, as they appeared to be as big as deer. Of course, that was also just a joke, but if you see a jackrabbit’s ears stickin’ up behind a mesquite bush, you’d swear it was bigger’n the seven or eight pounds they’d usually weigh.

Because the local farmers and ranchers saw ‘em both as a big problem, on occasion they’d get together and go huntin’. This most happened in the spring or fall when the rattlers were birthin’. The reason bein’ if they found a rattlesnake den, they could kill upwards of a hundred baby rattlers at one time. In the meantime, the men could also be lookin’ for jackrabbits.

Up to fifteen, twenty men would fire up their trucks and head out with their .22s and a bunch of boxes to collect up the jackrabbits. The jackrabbits were tough, but could still make a passable stew, so no sense in lettin’ ‘em go to waste.

A big part of this expedition included moonshine. The hunters would head out in the early afternoon and start drinkin’ right off. By dusk, most of ‘em couldn’t hit much of anything, but were havin’ more fun tryin’. The hardest part of the trip was avoidin’ bein’ shot by somebody else. Mostly, though, these men knew what they was doin’ even when they could hardly see straight. I was glad that Pa wasn’t a drinker, as I’d see how stupid the men would act. I guess that would be one more reason why I respected my Pa.

When I turned twelve, Pa let me go along on a hunt. Course, I didn’t drink no moonshine, but I already had my own .22 rifle and was gettin’ to be a fair shot. My Pa doesn’t kill animals for sport and neither do I, but we had a farm to run and both the rattlers and the jackrabbits were causin’ enough problems that we had to do it.

I’ll admit, I did enjoy goin’ out with the men. It was fun to be bouncin’ around in the back of Pa’s Model A truck scannin’ the prairie for either of the offendin’ beasts. If’n anybody spotted somethin’, we’d stop and get out of the cars and trucks and start huntin’ on foot. We’d all go off in different directions so as to cover the most ground.

We’d found a den of rattlesnake babies. There had to be a hundred or more, none of ‘em over six inches long. They were small, but plenty feisty as they coiled up and shook their little one-button rattles just like the big ones. I turned aside as I didn’t want to watch them killed. It’s one thing shootin’ at somethin’ from afar, but the men were stompin’ on the little snakes to kill ‘em. It turned my stomach, so I couldn’t watch. I went off in another direction.

I was goin’ along pretty slow so’s I wouldn’t step in a snake hole when I heard the squeal of a rabbit in pain. A lot of folks don’t realize that rabbits make a sound like that. It’d send shivers up your spine. I went quick toward the sound and found a bullsnake at least six-foot long if he were an inch. He was all coiled around a baby cottontail and his mouth was gaped open holdin’ onto the rabbit. The poor little rabbit was half swallowed, but the snake had made the mistake of tryin’ swallow it from the rear instead of the head. The cottontail was strugglin’ and screamin’ so much that the snake looked downright annoyed.

Now, we don’t hunt bullsnakes, as they’re the natural enemy of rattlesnakes. And, we don’t hunt cottontails, as they weren’t big enough to do much harm. We pretty much left them both alone. The sound of the little rabbit’s screamin’ just ‘bout broke my heart. I run up to them and stepped down on the snake’s neck just back of the lump that was the rabbit’s rear end. That stopped the swallowin’, but now I wasn’t sure what to do. I laid down my .22 and grabbed the cottontail by the ears and commenced pullin’. A bullsnake’s teeth point backwards, so the rabbit was pretty much stuck in the snake’s mouth.

I was apullin’ and the rabbit’s cryin’ and the snake’s whippin’ round tryin’ to get my foot off’n his neck. No progress was bein’ made by any of the three of us.

My Pa had heard the rabbit, too, and he comes runnin’ over and sees the fix I’d got myself into. He started to laugh some, but when he looks me in the eyes, he stops right quick. He started pullin’ the snake’s mouth open and tryin’ to unhook the teeth from the rabbit. I let up pullin’ to allow Pa to work the rabbit loose.

Soon enough, we’d got the rabbit out of the snake’s mouth and Pa set the little guy down easy. I reached down and grabbed the bullsnake by the neck where I’d been standin’ and flung him as far as I could. He hit the ground slitherin’ and was gone in a second. Pa and me took a look at the cottontail, which was lookin’ somewhat bedraggled. He was layin’ there pantin’ and started tryin’ to pull hisself with his front legs. It looked like he’d got a broke back and I was thinkin’ we have to put him out of his misery.

Pa picked up his .22 and started to draw a bead on the cottontail’s head when it looked up at him with those big ol’ eyes. He stayed his hand. “Maybe he’s just stunned,” he said.

While we were standin’ there watchin the rabbit, a couple of others came up to see what we’d found. Pa told them about the bullsnake and they thought it a pretty good joke that I’d try to save a rabbit from a snake.

After a bit, though, the rabbit started to move his hind legs a little. He hunched them up under him and slowly inched his way into the underbrush.

We went back to the truck and Pa decided we’d had enough huntin’. Neither one of us had the heart to kill anything, at least not that day. I hoped that cottontail recovered and went about his business. I also hoped the bullsnake went off an found himself a meal, but I was glad that it wasn’t that cottontail. Life is hard on the prairie, but there ain’t no sense in relishin’ the death of any animals, not even the rattlesnakes and jackrabbits.

The End

Marva Dasef is Oregon native who had been working as a technical writer and programmer until September 2005 when she retired. She is now turning her attention to fiction, beginning with stories based on her father's childhood in West Texas. This story is about as close to the truth as one can get when writing about Texas, where everything is bigger and the stories taller.

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