My Hunting Career

(9)
When we opened the trunk the smell of dead rabbit was overpowering. When I tried to extricate the dead rabbit from the trunk by grabbing him by his hind legs he came apart in my hands. He must have been dead there at least a week.

I did not learn my lesson from that. Instead I would learn my lesson some years later in Goodland Kansas while visiting a 'friend' of mine. We were in his back yard. I had a BB gun. There was a bird in the tree above us. I took aim at the bird with the BB gun and pulled the trigger. The bird fell to the ground. I walked over to the bird who was mortally wounded. I observed the bird's death throes. The bird was opening and closing his beak as if to breathe. As the seconds passed I noticed that the bird drew his head up toward his back in a kind of terminal mechanical gesture. Then the bird died. I was appalled.

Since then I have not killed an animal.