Daily Excerpt: Of God, Rattlesnakes, and Okra (Easterling) - Attacked by an Eagle
Excerpt from Of God, Rattlesnakes, and Okra (Easterling) -
ATTACKED BY AN EAGLE
About a baby-snatching eagle, beloved bulldog, killer rattlesnakes, dumb turkeys, angry sisters, and hard times.
What chance would a kid with a penknife have against a starving eagle? The
Hattiesburg American, our daily newspaper, reported that a huge eagle
had seized a baby and flew off with it. The baby’s mother had placed her infant
in a cradle to be near as she hand-washed its clothes in an outside tub. The
hungry bird was apparently watching the baby. When Mom turned her back, she
swooped down without warning.
The baby’s
attacker was thought to be a mother eagle feeding her young. She likely had a
nest nearby. As the paper went to press, the baby was still missing.
The story
made a deep impression on mothers of our rural area. It was a call to arms, the
hot topic at Sunday schools and ladies socials. “Our babies must be protected!”
The
episode etched itself deep into my gizzard. Search parties launched into nearby
woods and swamps. The baby was never found. Time passed; the nightmare faded.
One day
Daddy sent me to bring home our milk cow. She was in a far back pasture. I was
jogging along, thinking boy stuff, when something causes me to look up.
A monster
eagle was standing erect in the path up ahead. Her gaze was fixed on something
off to my right. She was a towering fright to behold--and I was all alone.
The old
gal was blocking my path--or what would’ve been my path. Now, I was not sure
which way to turn.
Deadly
still, she was silently watching whatever had attracted her attention. Her
great wings were half-raised like she was poised to attack. I froze in my
tracks and melted to the ground.
The giant
predator looked as tall as a man. Maybe she hadn’t seen me yet. I was
hyperventilating.
“Thank the
Lord, she’s looking the other way.”
News
flashes at the movies have been showing our WWII troops flattening themselves
on the ground when they come under enemy fire.
“How long
can I cower here before she turns and sees me?”
Every sin
of my young life paraded before me. Why did I give Momma such a hard time? Why
didn’t I go forward when Daddy made those altar calls?
“You gotta
scat outta here!” I told myself.
Hugging the
ground, gulping field dust, I began crawfishing--backing away, inch-worming and
slithering snakelike, straining to see if she’d detected me. The great
feathered carnivore was still watching for prey, looking in the opposite
direction.
“Lord,
you’ve spared me so far—don’t quit now!”
Heart
thundering in my temples, one elbow bleeding from shimmying across the dirt, slowly
I was gaining ground….buying time …putting breathing room between me and that
hungry mother.
Then, God
be praised, I remember my knife. Daddy had given me a little pearl-handled
pocketknife for my birthday. I rolled over on my back, fumbling in my overall
pockets. Trembling hands grasped the knife. Opening the blade, I gripped the
handle with a spurt of adrenalin. As the distance between me and that flying dinosaur
grew, so did my bravado.
“Well,
Mrs. Eagle, you think you’re going to kill me and feed me to your hatchlings
like you kidnapped that baby, but—and here my fingers lock in a death grip on
the tiny pocket knife—you’re going to have the fight of your life!”
My
imagination soared. When she attacked, if I could slit her throat, the battle would
quickly turn in my favor. Instead of being dead meat, I’d be a hero. The Hattiesburg
American would run a story about the baby snatcher meeting her fate.
“BOY KILLS
THE BABY KILLER” scream tomorrow’s headlines. “SLASHES HER THROAT WITH A KNIFE.”
A photo would
show me holding the dead monster, her jugular vein clearly severed, her
windpipe still pumping blood. In my fevered brain, the thrilling headlines
continued: A MUTILATED KID FIGHTS FOR HIS LIFE AND WINS….MOTHERS, YOUR BABIES
ARE SAFE. DOWNTOWN PARADE PLANNED…. HERO TO RIDE IN MAYOR’S OPEN CONVERTIBLE. PRESENTED
KEYS TO CITY…MADE HONORARY MEMBER OF RESCUE TEAM.
Of course,
I’d accept all honors with genuine humility, regardless of how greatly
deserved. “I only did what had to be done to make sure no more mothers go to
bed at night grieving over an empty cradle.”
Suddenly,
I awoke with a start. How long had I been daydreaming? I was still lying in the
dirt with every muscle trembling when it dawned on me the songbirds had stopped
their chatter. The world was strangely silent.
Maybe the
creature had circled around to attack from behind. Turning my head ever so
slowly, my eyes locked-in on the adversary. All my courage melted.
“Better a
living dog than a dead lion,” said a wise man. Got it!
Still, she
hadn’t spotted me.
“Am I far enough away to get up and run? Or
will that attract her attention?”
Maybe the
great bird’s asleep, but for how long? Terror was clutching at my windpipe, strangling
me. To escape, I must risk being seen. Gripping the knife like my life depended
on it, my confidence came creeping back.
“You big
overgrown buzzard, you think you will tear me to pieces and feed me to your
little eaglets, but don’t count on it! This is not a helpless baby you’re
messing with!”
All the
time I was talking trash I knew deep down it was a bunch of baloney. “Who am I
kidding?” I told myself, “You better scat while the scattin’s good!”
Rising up
on all fours, I resumed crawfishing inch-by-inch, putting more space between
us. My elbows were screaming. By now, I was half a football field upwind from
the she-devil.
“Time,
that’s all I need, a little more time.”
Encouraged
by my grip on the open knife—and the growing distance between me and the
death-fowl—I lifted myself up, half-crouching half-standing.
I scanned
the horizon one last time and fixed on the enemy. She hadn’t moved or turned
her head.
She may be
trying to fool me into thinking she’s not stalking me. That idea fired me up
with another shot of adrenaline. By now, Daddy’s cornfield is a mere bunny hop
away; the tall corn stalks beckoning. If I could dart into that head-high
thicket, she’d have trouble tracking me or attacking from the air, but what if
she smelled me? Animals can smell a person who’s afraid of them. Not a
comforting thought. I must have been leaving quite a scent.
At last
and still alive, I melted into the tall corn. God is so good! The rows were
running in the direction of home. I sprang to my feet, gripping that precious
pearl-handle lifesaver, and raced like a terrified jackrabbit toward safety.
Bursting
through the back screen door, I nearly tore its hinges off, collapsing on our
back porch. Gasping for air, I rolled back and forth. Daddy and Momma rushed
out to see what all the commotion’s about. They see me rolling on the floor,
open pocketknife still in my clenched fist.
When I’d
caught my breath, I told them my hair-raising tale. Daddy listened with no
trace of a smile. When I finished, he explained, “I put a scarecrow in the
peanut patch yesterday.”
This new
information hit me like a ton of bricks. How could I be so stupid? Will I ever
live down the humiliation? What will my friends think when this story gets out?
Momma saw the wheels turning in my head.
“You don’t
have to worry; we’re not going to tell anyone about this. It could’ve happened
to anyone.” Truly, mothers are God’s gift to the careless and clueless.
The
preacher said he’d dug a hole, set a post into it, and nailed two-by-four
boards crossways on the upper part for “arms." Then, he put an old
raincoat on the arms and hung a baseball cap on the top of the post to look
like a man.
“Or an eagle with her wings stretched out,
looking the other way,” said I.
“I’m so
sorry I forgot to tell you," Daddy apologized as he reached out to hug me.
He really was sorry. Momma felt terrible too, but, not nearly as terrible as
me.
WHAT HAPPENED
TO LUCKY? For the life of me, I can’t remember what happened to the milk cow,
but none of us will ever forget what happened to Lucky. It’s September in the
cotton fields. Bones Courtney, our cotton-picking straw boss, is dragging a
seven-foot long sack behind him, grabbing handfuls of the fluffy snowballs.
Mississippi’s
subtropical sun is shooting thermometers skyward. Shimmering heat waves dance
on the horizon. Snow cone mirages are beckoning.
Perspiration
is melting the leather bands of our straw hats. Sweat runs down our foreheads
into our eyes. Gnats and dog flies are trying to eat us alive.
Bones is
huffing and puffing. His gnarled old hands dart swiftly between two rows of
tall cotton stalks. Stripping off stubborn bolls of cotton, he stuffs them into
his sack as he’s done for five decades. He’s singing his own version of an
ancient Negro folk song:
“You got to jump down, turn
around,
Pick uh bale uh cotton
Got to jump down, turn
around
To pick uh bale uh day.
Me an’ my Margie gonna pick
uh bale uh cotton
Me an’ my Margie gonna pick
uh bale uh day.” 1
Because I
was skinny as a rail, Bones nicknamed me Big Ben. He was a great kidder,
lifting everyone’s spirit:
“Me an’ Big Ben gonna pick
uh bale uh cotton
Me an’ Big Ben gonna pick uh
bale uh day” 2
Bones was
patriarch of a wonderful black family sharecropping a farm next to ours. He and
his wife, Margie, lived just down the road. Margie and their kids were also
helping us that day.
Anybody
showing up for dinner was welcomed at their table—and if they needed a place to
sleep Margie threw a pallet on the floor.
A
salt-of–the-earth soul, Bones limped from childhood polio. Yet, he moved like a
gazelle, picking more cotton than any of us. As soon as the Courtneys finished
picking their cotton every fall, they moved over into our fields to help us.
Daddy
weighed and emptied our cotton sacks as we filled them. Keeping a running tab
for each picker in his spiral notebook, the preacher paid in cash when we
knocked off for the day. As Daddy weighed, we watched his scales to see how
many pounds we’d picked.
“Big Ben, do you think Preacher Man’s gonna
have some ice cream for us at the weigh-in station?” Bones teased.
Daddy was
Preacher Man to our black neighbors. They would do anything for him. They
looked to Daddy for pastoral duties when no black minister was available.
Bones knew
no ice cream would be waiting. What horror awaited us back at the cotton shed,
no one even imagined.
A
windowless log cabin served as weigh-in station and storehouse for the cotton. When
our sacks became too heavy to drag, we’d load them on our backs and tote them
to the shed be weighed and emptied.
By
midmorning Bone’s seven-foot-long sack was stuffed full. Finally Daddy called,
“Weigh-in time!”
This was
the break we’d been dreaming of. Momma would be bringing us a bucket of chilled
water. We headed for the cotton shed, a cup of cold water, and the nearest
shade tree.
“Come on,
Lucky!” Bones called to his ferocious looking bulldog. Lucky was so named after
surviving a life-and-death fight with an angry otter.
The otter
chewed him up and almost drowned him before Bones jumped into the creek to
rescue Lucky. We all loved this miracle dog, a gentle white giant following
Bones’ every step.
Bones had
brought Daddy a dozen cotton picking hands that day—his wife, Marjorie, plus
their kids, in-laws, and whoever happened to be sleeping under their roof.
Now, Lucky
was thrilled to be getting out of the sun. He ran ahead of us, crawling under
the cotton shed floor. The shed rested on concrete blocks, leaving just enough
room for Lucky to hunker down and slide under it.
Daddy
waited at the scales for us to line up with our full sacks and then began weighing
them. Bones is ribbing us, “Now we’ll see who’s been working and who’s goofing
off!”
Nobody
expected to beat Bones. He once picked 400 pounds a day in the cotton-rich
Mississippi Delta. Or so he claimed—and none of us doubted it. We called Margie
“Deputy Dog” because she picked almost as fast as her husband. All the Courtneys
picked fast. My pigmy-sized sack was a joke.
Just as
Daddy started weighing, a bone-chilling cry erupted from under the shed.
Everyone froze. A pitiful howling came next.
Lucky dragged
himself out from under the shed, collapsing at Bones’ feet. His smooth white
skin was quickly turning reddish-purple. Breathing hard, his great chest
heaving, unseeing eyes rolling in his head, Lucky fought for his life. It was
no use. Within minutes he was dead.
What had
happened to Lucky? What was lurking under that shed?
“Rattlesnake!”
someone whispered. We all looked at each other, knowing it was true.
An ugly wound
on Lucky’s nose told the story. He’d confronted the monster but with no room for
Lucky to avoid his strike, the Diamondback had sunk his fangs deep into the
bulldog’s nose.
The poison
shot straight to his brain and heart. Lucky’s luck had run out. He hadn’t stood
a chance. Everyone gathered around his still-warm body. We couldn’t believe our
mascot was dead.
The old
warrior had been a born fighter. Coons, possums, and fox were no match for him.
Even the otter died after their brawl. Lucky was all heart; he took on all comers
and gave no ground. Now this!
What
happened next is seared into our memories. Big brave Bones, hero of our cotton
fields, reached down and picked his beloved dog up in his arms. Looking up to
heaven, he began bellowing like a Brahma bull.
Never had
we seen a grown man cry so. Soon, we were all weeping. How long did he carry on
like that? It seemed forever. Daddy, meanwhile, found a long slender pole to
flush the rattler from his lair. Poking and jabbing, he punched the foul
critter out and killed him. The Diamondback measured nearly six feet long. It
took both of Daddy’s hands to reach around his thick belly.
“Will you
say a prayer for us?” Bones asked Daddy.
“Let’s do
that!” Daddy quickly agreed, sensing the distress gripping everyone. I don’t
recall his prayer, but it helped us cope with our sorrow.
Bones finally
stopped crying. We helped him carry Lucky home. He dug a grave out back, behind
their privy. Together, we buried Lucky.
Bones
revived enough to say a few words about what a good friend we’d lost and how
we’ll always remember Lucky--- which indeed we do.
Postscript:
Daddy couldn’t talk anyone into going back into that field. We feared more killers
were lurking. The Courtneys were too spooked after what happened to Lucky, and
the preacher didn’t have a heart to make his own kids do it. So, the dry cotton
bolls hung on the stalks until they rotted and were disked under next spring.
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