I hunted rabbits only once, the year my father died. My Mum and I lived on Council Row where red-bricked houses squatted under thick coal smoke and people hunted because they had to. It was the same year Mixamatosis, the rabbit disease, broke out again and the dead and dying animals littered the English countryside.

Our neighbor, Mr. Finch, used ferrets and invited me along whack the rabbits caught in the nets. He only had one good leg and was always on the look for a young boy to do his dirty work. He promised me a rabbit and, though Mum'd not admit it, I know she could use the meat.

Mum told me Finch'd been a dispatch rider in the big war, blown off his motorcycle at Dunkirk. His leg gone and his forehead smashed in, he lay in a pile of dead bodies for two days before someone saw him move. She said they put a steel plate in his head and now he had bad headaches.

The morning of the hunt, I met him at his back porch. It rained that day, but then it always rained. Water poured off his concrete stoop and soaked three rabbits that hung by their hind legs from twine strung between pillars, like macabre puppets. I stared at their glassy eyes until Mr. Finch came out of his house. He wore a Tam-'o-Shanter and a matching tweed jacket that hung loosely on his stooped frame. He smelled of tobacco. There was always a cigarette tucked into the corner of his mouth.

"Always let 'em 'ang a few days before you skin 'em," he said in a low growl.

I wondered about the flies, but said nothing.

"Ready, Boy?" Mr. Finch always called me boy. I didn't mind. My father had called me Spadge, but Mr. Finch wasn't my father.

I followed him to the back yard. The ferrets lived in wooden cages. They smelled - a musky odor that permeated the yard. Mum said they were fed nothing but milk and bread which made them mean like Mr. Finch. Once I'd tried to tame one with kindness and a piece of boiled potato which I offered through the wire of its cage, but it launched itself at my finger and sunk its teeth in my flesh. I let them alone after that.

Mr. Finch, wearing thick gloves, loaded three of the ferrets into a long wooden box suspended over his shoulder by a leather strap. His sandwiches and a thermos were stuffed into a canvas bag that hung from his other shoulder. He ambled awkwardly into the rain and I followed carrying a stick. It was thick and about two feet long; Mr. Finch nodded his approval. Mum had made me a cucumber sandwich that was tucked into the pocket of my raincoat.

Excitement filled me, much like the days before a fishing trip with my father. On those days I lay in bed and listened to him make sandwiches and fill his thermos. We left in the dark and the sun came up as we walked the fields to the river. I always turned to look at the two trails we left in the dew soaked grass.

A big farm lay behind the row houses and Mr. Finch and I cut across its pasture. Sheep shied from us. Rain dripped from their wool and they stared at us with their strange, cautious eyes. We crossed the field and climbed over the stile built into the stone fence. Just beyond it, a diseased rabbit lay in the path, unable to move.

"Put 'im out of 'is misery, Boy!" Finch snarled the word 'misery.'

I looked up at him. Water coursed down his face and I tried to imagine a piece of steel in his forehead.

"Yes sir," I replied and walked up to the animal, stick at the ready.

I'd killed a rat with a stick before. Since my father died, I took over his duties - saving my mom from seeing the nasty creatures that scurried in the coal bin and the shed out back. This was different. The rabbit waited. It panted, its eyes wide in terror. I knew this was the best thing for it, but it stared at me. Its eyes followed me as I approached, and its body quivered in what must have been terrible anticipation.

Mr. Finch moved off and rolled a cigarette. I heard him complain.

"God damned disease. I'll 'ave to go to butcher shop for meat 'fore long."

I turned so my back was to him and hit the swollen rabbit just behind the head. It kicked its legs out a few times, blood seeped out of its ears. Then it stopped moving. I reached for the gray fur. It was matted and open sores pushed out of it, but I wanted to stroke it. Mr. Finch couldn't see my tears.

"Don't touch that! You'll get that disease on yer fingers and pass it to the good uns. Let it lie, Boy. Fox will get 'im."

I quickly reached out and closed the rabbit's eye. I heard Mr. Finch move away in his odd gait and ran to his side. We walked in a silence broken only by the creak of the leather strap. I thought about the rabbit.

"Mr. Finch, what was it like, back then, in that pile of bodies?" I was scared to ask but I had to know.

He stopped and turned to me.

"Why would ye want to know about that boy?" He stroked his forehead and closed his eyes. I thought he might have a headache.

"Well, Sir, my Da' had Meningitis, and he died. I wondered what it was like to be dead, like you, almost, and the rabbit." I wanted to stop talking, but couldn't. "I saw him at hospital. Mum took me there, said I was old enough. Da' didn't move. His eyes stared up at the ceiling, like he was waiting. Just like that rabbit back there, and then Da' died and well, I wanted to know..." Mr. Finch stared at me and my voice trailed to nothing.

He reached out and touched my hair.

"Boy, I don't remember what it was like." He turned and walked back across the fields toward the village. He walked quickly and his bad leg swung out and back.

I let the rain wash over me as my stick flew high into the gray sky.

"I'll never forget," I yelled after him.

§ § §

David Hubert was born in Surrey England, 1961. Alien, 1973. Eligible to vote, 1991 (A few weeks after returning from Desert Storm). Somalia, DEA, Border Patrol, Bright Star, Bold Shift, Provide Hope. U.S. Army Engineer Married with children. Publishing credits include: shortstoriesmagazine.com, storiesmania.com, ravenelectrick.com, burning word, conspire, Cenotaph Pocket Edition, burningword.com, and wordriot among others.

Rolla Area Writing Competition, "Infidelity" 1st Place fiction. Writer's Digest, Honourable Mention Mainstream/Literary Short Story category in the 71st annual Writing Competition.

 

This piece was first published in INK POT #1 - 2003, a literary journal.

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