Sometimes, the unexpected falls into our path, and we find out what one is capable of in the blink of an eye.
In my childhood, one of our beloved family pets was a champ, working right alongside us on our dairy farm. The English shepherd had come to be ours by one simple flaw it had.
“This male has too much white on him,” my paternal grandfather said.
My dad explained as we sat down together at suppertime one spring night that his parents never sold pups that were not the standard black and tan. Though my grandfather had cut way back on the number of puppies sold after the unexpected death of my grandmother in 1946, he did raise an occasional litter over the next 20 years.
“I don’t want a whisker of white on them,” my grandfather had said, and there was one in this litter (which would prove to be the final litter my grandfather raised) with a blaze of bright white on his chest.
We all promised we would help with the work of a puppy and persisted in convincing Dad we just absolutely had to have this dog.
Dad chose the name Bill, insisting there would be no argument over it. It might have been the only creature he ever got to name. Bill proved to be invaluable, helping to herd cattle, sort hogs and cull groundhogs in every field he scouted. Dad taught him to leave rabbits alone.
When Bill was about 3 years old, one of my sisters came running to Mom, warning there was a huge battle going on in the pasture field between Bill and an enormous groundhog. Dad was busy planting corn and Mom knew she had to take action. She grabbed Dad’s .22 rifle. We assumed she was taking the rifle to Dad. She did not. We exchanged worried glances as we all tagged along.
When we got to the pasture, we could see blood on Bill’s chest as he and the groundhog fought, round and round in circles. Dad was planting and we caught brief glimpses of him when he turned at the end of a row. He thought Mom chose an odd place to park to bring him lunch but kept planting.
We had never seen our mother touch a gun. This was all new, and it is still emblazoned on my memory. Mom raised the rifle, taking her time.
Bill and the groundhog were not paying one bit of attention to our presence or Mom’s commands. Bill was clearly wearing out, and this huge groundhog was not.
Our dad finished a round and looked up, suddenly taking in the battle scene.
“Oh good lordy, she’s gonna kill my dog!” Dad later said in recalling the sight.
Mom leaned against the car and took her time, calm as could be. We held our collective breath. The minute she saw Bill let go of the groundhog and retreat from it, she took her opportunity. One deafening shot rang out, and the groundhog was dead.
We jumped and hollered and praised Mom as we all ran to make sure Bill was okay. He was bloodied and needed our good neighbor Doc Smith to treat him for some puncture wounds, but Bill basked in the glory of our praises.
Dad later praised Mom for her masterful performance in cutting down the rabid-looking beast.
“I was mighty afraid, I don’t mind telling you,” he said as he hugged Mom.
“Oh, ye of little faith,” Mom said with a hearty laugh. “Just call me one-shot Annie!”
Having tagged along with her brother on his trap line as a child, she said that target-shooting cans with him at the end of the trap check had honed her skill.
“I think it’s something you never forget, just like riding a bike,” Mom later said.
The rendezvous in the pasture is most definitely a page from our childhood that none of us will ever forget, the day we learned our Mom was a one-shot Annie.
