I do not want to be this person I have become. I remind myself of Widow Needlemeyer, who Papa spoke of as if she were the saddest thing he’d ever come across. Her husband had died so many years ago no one could recall much of what he looked like. About all they could agree on was that he did really exist. Beyond that he was a mystical character. But Widow Needlemeyer, she was a real corker.
I never said much to Papa about her, but when parents were around she was always kind as a cool swim on a hot July day. But when we were sent to help her with some chore or other— and it was usually me because I was the girl—why, she was a pinch-faced old thing with flint-rock eyes and a lipless cut for a mouth. Nothing came out of her mouth but sour-apple meanness. I do not know of any child who liked her.
My windy point is not that I wanted to recall that old woman at all, but at some time early in her life a bad thing must have happened that changed her. After that she nurtured routine, did the same thing the same way at the same time, day after day, all her life. As far as I know she is still doing that today.
And she is who comes to mind when I see myself in my routine. It is nothing I enjoy, but it is a way to fill the time each day. I wonder if that is the best way to be? What is so wrong with going inside the nest for the night and making tea and rereading passages from the Bible and Papa’s travel guides, the same pages I have read hundreds or a thousand times already?
But I know that such a life is as deadening to the Janette deep in me as a wolf attacking me is to the outside of me. So I climbed back down, and watched my breath rise up in front of my face for a few moments. The day was a gray one and did not brighten as the hours lengthened.
Then I thought of the snare—I had forgotten it—and a smile came to me.
It was like a present sent by a mysterious person. There could be anything awaiting me. I reckoned there was still the better part of an hour of light left to me. So I set off with a kick in my step that hasn’t been there in weeks. Anticipation drove me forward.
But nothing could prepare me for what I found.
I followed the short trail I had made leading southeastward from the camp. Within two minutes it brought me to the game trail that cuts across my trail. I follow along it, though not on it, for fear of leaving tracks that will scare off rabbits.
I try to be silent in the woods but it is of little use. I am not a graceful person at the best of times, and with my rag-wrapped boots the size of tree stumps, a rabbit would be hard-pressed to miss my sign.
I recognized the birches flanking the trail. The snare lay ahead, beyond a dip in the path. I heard a commotion, and seconds later I saw what made it. And it sickened me to my heart. It makes me feel the same way now, as I write this.
I had caught a rabbit in my snare, to be sure. But it was not even half grown. A baby, and it struggled. Even from my distance of twenty feet I could tell what had happened. Since it was so small, the snare had grabbed too much of the rabbit. The leg and shoulder had prevented the snare from snapping its neck.
It had broken its shoulder instead. I knew this because bone jutted through its storm-cloud fur. All around the wound a clot
of fresh blood matted the fur and strung, freezing, to the ground. Each time the rabbit twisted and thrashed, more blood pumped out.
I must have made a sound, some exclamation, for the rabbit kicked with fury, squealing and spinning and twisting on the twine snare suspended by the bouncing, springing stick. I froze for the moment, not knowing what to do.
The most awful thing about the scene was the fear in the little rabbit’s wide, unblinking eyes. Its mouth, with glinting teeth, stretched in a leer, and it made those high-pitched squealing sounds.
I hated myself at that moment more than I have ever hated anything or anyone. How could I ever do such a thing to another creature? One so innocent.
I thought perhaps that writing it down in the journal might help me be shed of it, might learn how to make it better. But then I think of that rabbit’s eyes and hear its sad sounds, and I know I will be a long time in getting over it.
Papa and the boys would laugh at me, tell me I am being silly and sentimental. That the rabbit was put there by God for us to eat. And there is truth in that. If I had caught a full-grown rabbit, I would have felt bad. But I would have made a stew and done my best to tan the skin. That baby rabbit, though, cannot compare. It made me feel lonely.
You may tell by now that I did not skin that rabbit nor eat it. I slid out my knife, grasped the end of the blade in my socked hand, and whispered, “I am so very sorry.” I closed my eyes and swung the handle like a short club. I delivered a blunt, hard blow to the rabbit’s head, felt it hit, and I opened my eyes as the little back legs drew upward to the body, then sagged downward in death. I untied the snare twine, held the little body aloft at knee height, where it spun slowly while I decided what to do.
Then I did the only thing I felt would be appropriate. I kicked a hole in the snow to one side of the tiny trail, and laid the rabbit in it. It has been a long time since I held another living creature and the little rabbit did not change that. I had killed it and I suddenly felt weary and guilty and too weak to cry. I covered the little body with snow and looked down at it.
“Lord, please . . . let this rabbit into the Hereafter, and please forgive me for what I have done. I was greedy for stew.” And do you know? Even when I said that little prayer, when I spoke that word “stew,” I ran my tongue over my lips like an animal that can’t help being hungry. But unlike an animal, I did not eat that rabbit. I wasted it. I killed it and I wasted it. Not like an Indian at all.
I take small solace in the fact that in this mountain wilderness, something, likely a fox or coyote or wolf or weasel, will find it and eat of it. But it won’t be a Janette.
As I pulled down the snare, I knew it would be a long time before I felt comfortable in setting one again. Still, I reckon it will happen, especially considering how my meat supply is diminishing each day. I also learned that any dreams I may have had of a pair of luxurious rabbit-fur-lined mittens were gone.
Good riddance. For now.