Rabbit and the Hunter

It was in the fall of the year that I discovered the true origin of the legendary terror of the North woods.

I was hopping along in the woods, nibbling nettles, munching moss, and scarfing down skunk cabbage when I heard human sounds.

Cautiously moving towards the disturbance, I soon came upon the campsite of a large hairy man. He had draped a big tarpaulin over a low-lying tree branch and fixed it to the ground by pieces of branch that he had sharpened to a point at one end. Nearby, a long-haired dog was scratching himself and shedding hair.

By his mumbling, stumbling manner I could tell that this man was a "beer hunter." He went into the woods, ostensibly to hunt deer, but spent most of his time guzzling beer, eating badly cooked pancakes smothered in molasses, and sitting in front of a smoking fire made from green wood.

He had started on the beer early, had stripped down to his trousers in the warm afternoon, and was now attempting to pour warm molasses out of a huge crock jar onto a large stack of pancakes.

As I watched in fascination, he tripped over a tree root, narrowly missed falling into the fire, and spilled the crock of molasses. He then slipped and landed face down in the spreading pool of that icky, sticky goo. He slipped again when he tried to get up and landed right back in the stuff, but on his back this time. He rolled over, dead leaves and debris sticking to him, and rose unsteadily to his feet.

He tried to wipe the warm molasses off his naked torso with his bare hands but succeeded only in spreading it further.

Now thoroughly coated in molasses, he grabbed the dog and tried to wipe the molasses off him by rubbing the startled pooch over himself like a towel. This managed to add dark brown hair to his coat of molasses . . . and now his sweaty, sweet exertions attracted a swarm of bees.

With a roar, he batted at them with his large, sticky hands. He grabbed a can of beer out of his tent, popped the top, and poured the foaming liquid down his throat. This seemed to calm him temporarily and he belched hugely. But the bees came at him fiercely and stung him above his left eye, which swelled shut immediately.

Well, he lit out of there, roaring in a drunken rage, swatting bees, and running crookedly through the underbrush until he came crashing out of the woods onto the near-by highway right in front of two maiden school teachers taking pictures of a rare ruby-breasted bull-finch twittering in the tree above them.

Wild eyed, he roared drunkenly at the two terrified women. Glaring at them out of his one blood-shot eye, he waved his arms at the besetting bees and charged back into the forest.

[Wow! Instant legend! The headlines next day read "SASQUATCH ATTACKS!"]

I hopped as fast as I could but lost him in the greenery. But then I heard a sound like a foghorn in mud. Hopping toward it, I found that it emanated, along with a very bad smell, from the large, hairy beer hunter crouched behind a low bush.

Suddenly, he stood, pulled up his pants, and went crashing through the underbrush right in front of me. I froze with fear, not daring to move lest he see me, and watched as he staggered through the forest toward his camp, trailing both foul language and smells.

Figuring that I had seen everything that might be interesting, and finding myself in the midst of some truly succulent greenery, I decided that my curiosity was satisfied but my stomach was not. What is more important than a good meal?