Drive - A Memoir 54th Installment
our
sticks together to keep pushing the jackrabbits along. When we get
closer to the snow fence the funnel gets smaller and the line of
people get closer together. The horsemen drop out for fear that while
we are clubbing jackrabbits, we might hit their valuable horses. The
closer we get, the thicker the jackrabbits become, and when they
realize they’re trapped, it gets real intense. The jackrabbits are
forced into the pen along with ten or so young men who kill them all.
A run of the mill drive count is ten or fifteen thousand jackrabbits
and a good drive can have as many as twenty five thousand. When we
come out of the pen with our hands and faces covered in blood, guts
and hair we race over to get our hot chocolate and doughnuts…..”
“Enough
Casey,” Russ chides me. “He gets the picture.” Bootsey Monte
Everett Rudd looked horrified.
“There
will be drives in Mud Lake and Hamer areas soon. If you’d like to
go, you can ride with us.” Russ continued.
No
answer.
From
there we wandered over under the spreading cottonwood tree to where
we were working on the Whiz Gizzy. I picked up a tie rod that came
from a semi truck. We were going to use the rods for traction
masters. The end of the three quarter inch rod had the treaded
coupler tightened on it leaving the other end of the coupler open. I
looked at the open end, three quarters of an inch inside diameter and
about six inches deep.
“Let’s
make a cannon,” I announced.
“How
do we do that?” Russ was always willing, always curious, but a bit
less daring.
“Come
on,” I raced into the old house, pulled out the junk drawer and
inside, among nuts and bolts, was a few ball bearings we called
steelies. I picked one that I thought was about three quarters of an
inch and five or six smaller steelies. The big one didn’t quite fit
in the tie rod’s open end. “Perfect!” I shouted. We then
tip–toed into the hunting closet and filched five twelve gauge
shotgun shells and raced at a run to the old cottonwood. The Old Man
is very particular about his ammunition, and I hoped he didn’t keep
count. We cut the shells ends off, dumped out the shot, and collected
the black powder. We poured the powder from the five shells in the
tie rod end, put in one of the shotgun shell primers, stuck in the
smaller steelies and pounded the big steelie into the tie rod opening
with a sledge hammer. We breathed easier – not dead yet, even
though the shock of the hammer could have set off the primer.
“Okay
now what?” Russ was overthinking it, “We don’t have a way to
fire the primer without a firing pin. Should we drill a hole for a
fuse?”
“Too
much time and trouble, let’s just
500 more words tomorrow
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