All Entries in the "Hard News" Category
A Dream Shot of Some Consequence HUNTERS SHOOT HORSE
(Delta) It all seemed to make sense, at first. A friend of ours, who shall remain very nameless, was awakened from his early winter hibernation by a loud pounding on his back door. He threw on a robe and stumbled in the direction of the interruption. When he opened the door he saw two men in blaze orange, heads hung down, shuffling their feet, serious about gaining his immediate attention.
“We done shot your horse, mister,” said the first, “and we come to make reparations.
The second man held out a wad of cash that turned out to be one hundred dollars in the company of four more bills of like currency.
“Well, come in,” yawned my friend. “I guess that was the shot we heard earlier. This time of the year one gets used to guns going off all around. What the hell time is it anyway?”
“Bout eleven,” whispered the first looking around the kitchen in the direction of assorted snores from the hallway.
“You people hit the hay early round these parts, heh?” winked the second man who turned out to be from just outside Dallas.
“We’re up here from Texas hunting and despite what you may have heard we’re responsible, respectable and accountable.”
“Then what’s all this about a horse?” asked my friend.
“Well, you remember the part about responsibility?” offered the first hunter. “That only goes so far, I guess. We’ve been prowling these hills for two weeks and ain’t seen nothing of an elk, unless you count the scat. We were frustrated. We were tired and hungry and headed back to a motel down the road when, just as dusk pulled up her skivvies, we saw movement in the hay field just north of here.”
The first hunter went on.
Jim here decided that it might be our last chance at glory so he took a chance. He sighted in and pulled the trigger. Blam! Then blam again. What a shot! Dropped that elk like a ton of greasy enchiladas on a Saturday night! Cow elk too, you know. No horns. And we each had a million-dollar tag right here in our pocket. Some shootin, Jim.”
The second man just smiled, still embarrassed but yet a little bit proud of his expertise with a rifle.
“We climbed your fence and snuck out to the kill which was dead as an armadillo after arm wrestling a semi on Highway 287. Then the problem emerged. It wasn’t a bull elk. No. It wasn’t a buck or doe, but neither was it a cow elk. It was your horse, mister.”
My friend just stared at the kitchen table.
“The old swayback. She was getting to be an old lady, too slow to ride much less dodge a bullet. Where is she now?”
The two men laid the five hundred dollars on the table and told him the mare was still laying in the spot where she dropped. He sighed.
“How am I going to get around reporting this to the authorities?” he asked.
“We hoped the five hundred would help you make that decision. It ain’t a bribe but it’s a far sight more than that old girl was worth alive. We realize that local cops would put our buts in a sling over this episode but I think you can see that out hearts, if not our brains, are in the right place.”
My friend yawned. He though to himself of a new tractor he needed. He thought of Christmas and his kids. He thought of the good it would do to turn these poor hayseeds into the pencil-pushing cops.
“You boys want a cup of coffee? I gotta think this out. Tell me again, what made you shoot what you thought was game on private property at dusk. Don’t you ever read the back of your hunting license. Cripe, at the cost of the thing I’d think you’d memorize every word just in case you lost it.”
The hunters went through their thinking process one more time dwelling on their fatigue and frustration. They apologized again saying that they wouldn’t blame my friend if he turned them in and pressed charges for trespassing and the whole cheroot.
“OK, but if I ever see you on my land again you’ll be the horsemeat,” he said “Now can you find your way back to your motel or should I drive you?”
They both laughed the laugh of men much relieved. They thanked him again and departed. He watched them as he pulled on his coveralls.
“I hope that backhoe starts. I didn’t plug her in and the weather’s turned cold.”
He stuffed the bills into his desk drawer, told his wife he had to check the cows and wandered into the night. He’d bury the mare before the rest of the family got savvy to what had occurred. He drove through the dark expecting a messy ordeal, then he saw the mound of flesh hugging the ground and approached.
“What the hell?” he barked standing over the kill. “It’s an elk. Those morons shot a cow elk and from the looks of things it was a perfect lung shot. I’ll be dipped!”
Thinking that the meat was still good he proceeded to dress out the elk there on the spot. The cold weather had kept it from going bad right away and the lung shot had insured that the meat wasn’t spoiled by adrenaline and trauma.
“Hell of a shot,” he smiled. “Hell of a shot.”
At dawn he woke up his oldest son who helped him cut up the elk and package it for the freezer. It would feed a lot of people a lot of nights this winter.
“Does this mean we won’t be going hunting, dad?” asked the son on the way to school later that morning.
“What makes you ask a question like that, son,” smiled our friend. “In fact I think we oughta stop by and look at that rifle down at the hardware store. It’s been fired a bit but they might let it go cheap if we flash them some cash, heh?”
“Whatever you day, dad.”
(Editor’s note: The San Juan Horseshoe in no way endorses withholding evidence from the law however until we can safely determine who the responsible parties might be we can tolerate temporary storage of such data. In closing, this paper likewise does not ignore good karma, frontier justice, divine intervention or just dumb luck. In short: We suggest that one never look a gift horse (or elk) in the mouth, a part of the anatomy that should remain shut on a host of occasions.)
ANARCHISTS CONTINUE SIEGE OF CNN
(Atlanta) Not since Sherman’s March to the Sea has the onslaught been so terrifying. Again this morning the scorching sun of late summer has witnessed a “raw and agonizing assault” of the Cable News Network by anarchists intent on something or the other.
Battalions of anarchists, some masquerading as Piedmont fruitcake buyers, others adorned with plastic Ted Turner masks, stormed the studios but were repulsed thanks to the efforts of a palatial guard. Losses were reported minimal since the anarchists were armed only with peaches and the CNN troops with outdated cosmetic artillery and forked tongues.
Leaders of the anarchists, who claimed they were not really on the scene, agreed that they had landed right smack in the tar baby pit this time.
“Didn’t you ever read Uncle Remus and the story of Bre’r Fox and Bre’r Bear?” asked one field commander. “The tar baby just sits there, nice and pretty, like the TV newscasters, and pretty soon everyone in the forest is stuck, even Bre’r Rabbit. I realize it’s a crummy analogy but as anarchists we don’t have to follow any logical patterns, so take it or leave it.”
The goal of the anarchists who aren’t really there is to blow up CNN and save society from too much news.
“There are people who think it their civic duty to watch this journalistic sideshow,” said one tank commander, waiting for another go at the south wall of the boob tube bunker. “Don’t they realize that it’s all a hype. None of that stuff is really going on and if it was it would be subject to evil prioritizing by the TV bosses.”
Insiders say that talent within the CNN redoubt has enough hair spray, mirrors and cold coffee to resist until the holidays. Atlanta Falcons’ games will not be interrupted although some will be broadcast late, disguised as the Larry King Show.
“We hope our message trickles down to other citizen groups and soon all television stations are reduced to rubble,” said the tank officer. “Then we can start building a world free of these dangerous intrusions.
CNN lackey, Jane Honda is scheduled to present CNN’s side in the conflict in a speech before the Daughters of the Confederacy this evening. Ironically enough, that group had considered joining the anarchists as late as yesterday.
An airlift of beans and rice, allegedly organized by the said daughters, failed earlier in the week as strong winds blew the provisions all the way to the Alabama border. A second attempt is scheduled for Friday this time with fresh bologna sandwiches and beanie weenies on tiny polyester parachutes.
“Anything to get rid of those electronic Yankees,” said one member.
Several cable channels have already expressed interest in producing a mini series about siege.
– Kashmir Horseshoe
DISAPPOINTMENT VALLEY OPTIMISTS DISBAND
(Klondike Basin UPS) The Disappointment Valley Optimist Club, long a bastion of positive thinking in Western Colorado, has dissolved as of last night’s meeting. The club, boasting over four members, represented almost 6% of the registered voters in the region.
The official reasons for the fraternal termination were not disclosed but one member told The Horseshoe that it had a lot to do with the Dugout Wash Grange Hall burning down in January.
“We were holding temporary meetings at Mario Crepehanger’s trailer but he didn’t have heat,” said the spokesman. “Then we moved the whole shindig over to the banks of Rabbit Creek but there’s too much fur around there and them rabbits got spots on their little livers this year. We didn’t really want to freeze or get sick so we all went home.”
Unconfirmed sources in downtown Egnar blame the sad occurrence on collusion among several international gravel pit concerns in the valley.
“Those guys didn’t appreciate the Optimists being around, throwing parties and bringing canned goods to the needy,” said L. Flem Cocklebur, who provided the club with whiskey for the past 15 years. “I think they torched the grange hall to further their own selfish ends,” he spat.
It was not clear at press time whether the remaining members of the club would restructure the organization and press on with the “larger-than-life” hostile takeover of Slick Rock that was marked in red on the docket at the time of their demise.
Anyone interested in joining the club or donating weapons at this time is asked to call Crepehanger at the Lone Clone in Norwood.
St. Roscoe’s Adds Jungle Medicine Whiz
(Mañana) The physicians and surgeons at St Roscoe Memorial Hospital today welcomed Dr. Hex LooDioux to the staff of specialists at the institution. LooDioux, from Brazil by way of Sierra Leone will oversee the experimental medicine wing as well as man the emergency room fetish desk on weekends. His education at some of the finest medical schools in Europe was accentuated by three years practicing Candomble’ orthopedics in Salvador and another residency in the remote forests of Borneo studying the effects of pharmaceuticals on the love life of the Dayak fruit bat.
“Dr LooDioux comes well pedigreed,” said Dr. Good-Saint, former AMA poster boy and Director of Medical operations at St Roscoe’s. “His research in primitive medicine and folk cures is equalled only by his exploratory senses and surgical skills. Plus he plays golf.”
Hoping to play down his longtime embrace of Vodun (West African Voodoo), Loodioux has mastered fly fishing and coaches Little League baseball. He has recently joined the hospital bingo league and the local Baptist church. He has limited daily chanting to the early morning and replaced the statue of Mami Wata at the entrance of his office with one of Hippocrates.
Says LooDioux, “According to Yoruba Mythology people who pay for medical services with chickens or goats run the risk of their children being born with facial features resembling these animals.”
While an intern at a private hospital in Dakar, LooDioux upset the local hospital hierarchy by prescribing rum and cigars to most of his patients and performing spells on the sick in their homes saving them the expense and discomfort of a hospital stay.
LooDioux is the third cousin of Prince Elmo Zaribbe of Nigeria, a staunch ally of the U.S. “just so long as the checks clear”. He is said to have 112 wives and over 300 children none of whom have accompanied him to his new post in the Rockies. – Manual Flushe
