The ranch at Muleshoe was a great place to go hunting. As we enter November I am reminded of quail hunting there. Since the ranch was mostly in Bermuda grass, the only places to hunt were on a couple of the corners that had not been leveled and under irrigation -- and the neighboring ranches.
The ranch was situated in the sandhills to the southeast of town and south of U.S. 84. In the summer it was an oasis of green surrounded by sand hills covered in sage, skunk brush and other plants common to the environment. The surrounding ranches were large -- one in particular covered many square miles of land. They were havens for wildlife and the windmills situated periodically to provide water for cattle, also drew deer, dove and quail.
We had permission to hunt on Melvin Berry's land which adjoined Grandpa's place. It was the first place I was allowed to go quail hunting with the men and to carry a shotgun. It was likely at the age of 8 or 9. When I was 8 my father first allowed me to hunt on a very limited and highly supervised basis. I carried my mother's old .410 shotgun. To the best of my recollection, I was carrying that .410 to hunt quail. For those of you who have shot a .410, you will know that it is not the ideal quail gun. The pattern is small and tight and the reach is fairly short. It takes a highly skilled shooter to be successful with it. I was not highly skilled at that age, but the difficulties it posed may have aided me through the years as I obtained shotguns of my own that were better designed for the sport.
It was early in quail season of whatever year it was when I participated in that hunt. We spread out in a reasonably even line with a fair amount of distance between us and began to walk across the pasture. My short legs made it difficult to keep up with the longer steps of the older men. I was probably more focused on staying in line with them as we moved across the pasture than I was on spotting quail that would hopefully fly up in front of me.
As I struggled through the sand and sage and skunk brush I was surprised by a prairie rattler that decided to warn me of his presence. I quickly raised my shotgun and proceeded to obliterate its head. My dad quickly walked over to see what was going on and saw the dead snake lying there and joked that it probably wasn't much of a threat at that distance to me. He asked me how I saw it and I told him it was rattling. He again made light of it and said I must have just heard it rattling leaves as it squirmed through the undergrowth on that warm, early November day. He was surprised that it was out, but apparently the warmth had drawn it from its den.
He had me take out my pocket knife and remove the rattles from its tail. I probably still have them in a small medicine bottle stuffed with cotton balls. I would be hard pressed, though, to lay my hands on it very quickly.
Just a few short years ago, we were cleaning out my grandfather's barn after his death and getting his farm ready to sell. There was a shop in the front corner that had a pile of scrap iron piled in the corner at the end of the work bench. Throughout my life I had known there was at least one rattlesnake living in that junk pile. As we were cleaning out the shop I warned everyone to be aware of the possibility and so took on the task of pulling that pile of scrap metal out, piece by piece, and tossing it out the door to be loaded into the front end loader of the tractor we were using.
After awhile, the bucket was full and my uncle tried to get the tractor to start and it wouldn't. He climbed down and commented about his difficulty and I said, "Let me try it. It has a trick to it."
I quickly started it and was about to climb off when he said for me to just go ahead and dump it into the trailer and bring it back for more. In the mean time, he went into the shop and proceeded to take my place removing metal scraps from the pile in the corner.
When I returned to the barn with the tractor, my dad was headed to the pickup for a pistol and my uncle was "squealing like a girl" that there was a rattlesnake in the corner of the shop. I just laughed at them and looked in to where, sure enough, there was a prairie rattler coiled in the corner and rattling to beat the band. It was barely visible behind the scraps of steel which partially obscured it.
Dad walked in about that time with the pistol and stood just inside the door, over 20 feet away from the snake, and started shooting at it. I didn't really think that was a particularly good idea since the floor was concrete and he was shooting into a pile of metal and his eyesight wasn't what it had once been.
I said, "Dad, get closer."
"I'm not getting closer to that snake!"
"He can't strike further than the length of his body."
"I don't care, I'm not getting any closer!"
I said, "Well at least let me make it easier for you to shoot him."
So, I walked over to the snake and took an old piece of antenna and drug him out where he was clear of all of the metal and then walked back to Dad and said, "Try that."
By then he had taken a couple of steps closer and shot the snake in the head. It truly was a big prairie rattler.
We carried it out into the driveway in front of the barn where it could be admired and I went back to chunking metal out of the corner where it had been for many years.
I suppose you can figure out why the two events are connected in my mind. I smile as I think about it.
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