Drive - A Memoir 72nd Installment
its
privileges. Russ went first, missed. I drew the bow, a breeze stirred
the branches, and I wondered if I had to allow for windage. I held
left, the arrow missed to the left, well that answered that question.
Russ missed, complaining that the sun was in his eyes. My turn next,
a hit! The bird impaled, skewered about half way down the arrow’s
shaft, and took its first and last flight via my arrow as it arced
up, then down to the ground. Russ shot his next shot which was pretty
much straight up, and moments later, the arrow clattered down through
the branches fairly near to us. “That was close,” he said.
“Actually,
I thought it was fun! I think we’ve discovered a new way to get the
old adrenalin pumping.” I said, and without another word to each
other we trotted out into the open field. I shot the first arrow as
close to straight up as I could. I was a little guarded, pulling the
bow only about half way. The arrow went up about a hundred feet,
seemed to float an instant, and came down with a thump, sticking up
near by. We looked at each other, eyes wide and smirking. We took
turns each time shooting a little higher, and a couple of times the
arrow stuck up quite close to us. Russ took a full draw and shot.
“I
lost sight of it,” I shouted.
“So
did I.” “RUN!” Russ yelled.
“Which
way!?” I cried out. “Run under it; or stand here, even odds.”
We just stood there, knees bent, scrunched down, hands on heads,
elbows in and eyes shut. Thump. The arrow lit a few feet way; we
never did see it coming.
“Well,
that was a rush,” I grinned. “Let’s do it again!” I figured a
half pound arrow with a blunt point just falling by gravity couldn’t
kill us, just inflict a ‘world of hurt.’ It was then I saw the
unthinkable crisis. The dairy cows were out and in the new hay, and
one cow was down…bloat!
We
took off like warriors, whooping and hollering. The race was on. When
cows are out they want to stay out; it’s like ‘chasing cats.’
Russ was swinging the bow over his head, and I was waving my arms
like a demented old windmill. As we chased them out of the new hay,
Russ took off for the house “Fix the fence; I’ll get the knife!”
He shouted over his shoulder. A couple of rotted fence posts and a
cow’s unwavering belief that ‘the grass is always greener on the
other side of the fence’ motivated our stupid bovines to break
free. Unfortunately, this is how the sequence of events plays out:
1.
The crazy bovines push the fence.
2.
The posts break.
3.
The fence falls over.
4.
The cows think they are lucky.
5.
They eat new
500 more words tomorrow
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