log in the way so I couldn’t make out what it was at first, but then I saw a pair of legs in gray pants sticking out a little beyond the end of it, with the toes of the shoes pointing up in the air, and I realized what it was. It was one of those rabbit hunters. Then I saw the butt of the tommy gun, lying on the ground next to him.
And just then Dr Severance walked over a little to his right and looked down at something else, that was behind a bush. I stared over that way, and doggone if there wasn’t another pair of legs sticking out from behind it too. And another tommy gun. It was the other rabbit hunter.
It sure looked like there’d been a bad accident.
Eight
Just then Pop and Uncle Sagamore walked up.
Dr Severance turned around and saw them.
He took out his handkerchief and mopped his face, and shook his head kind of slow, like it was all too much for him. He sat down on the log where the first rabbit hunter was and let out a long, shaky breath. “Gentlemen,” he says, “it was awful. Just simply awful.”
“What happened?” Pop asked.
Dr Severance mopped his face with the handkerchief again and pointed at the rabbit hunters one at a time, with his face turned away like he didn’t want to look at them. “Dead,” he says, real sad. “They’re both dead. And all on account of one crummy little rabbit.”
“Well sir, that’s a shame,” Uncle Sagamore says, “Just how did it happen?”
“Well,” Dr Severance says, taking a deep breath and beginning to get a-hold of hisself a little, “I was standing there by the trail when I saw these two men walking by up here looking for rabbits. I was just about to call out and ask ‘em, if they’d had any luck, when all of a sudden this little brown rabbit popped out of a bush right between ‘em. It started to run off, but then for some reason it changed it’s mind and doubled back, right square between the two of ‘em just as they both raised their guns and shot. It was the most terrible thing I ever saw in my life. They just killed each other deader than hell.”
Uncle Sagamore bent down and looked at the first rabbit hunter. He walked over to the other one and rolled him over a little and looked down at him too. Then he came back and hunkered down and took out his plug of tobacco. He wiped it on the leg of his overalls, and bit off a big chew, and shook his head.
“Yes sir, by golly,” he says, “it sure must of been a heart-rendin’ thing to see. Pore fellers just shot each other right in the back.”
Dr Severance nodded. “That’s right. That was what made it so terrible. You felt so sorry for ‘em, because they knew it was coming and there wasn’t a thing in the world they could do about it. They both saw what they’d done by the time they pulled the triggers. They turned around and tried to duck, but it was too late.”
Uncle Sagamore sailed out some tobacco juice and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Well sir,” he says, “that there’s the tragic thing about all these city fellers wanderin’ around in the woods a-hunting. They’re helpless. They’re dangerous to theirselves, and that’s a fact, because they don’t know how to handle guns.”
He stopped and looked at Dr Severance, and then he says, “But don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean they’re all like that. Once in a while you run across one that’s just hell on wheels with a gun, and I wouldn’t want you to think I was lumpin’ all city fellers together that way. No offense, mind you.” “No,” Dr Severance says. “No. Of course not.” “But that ain’t neither here nor there,” Uncle Sagamore went on. “I reckon what we got to do now is notify the shurf and explain to him how these poor fellers killed theirselves, and ask him to haul ‘em away, it bein’ warm weather and all.”
Dr Severance nodded. “Sure. I guess that’s the least we can do.”
Then all of a sudden he stopped and rubbed his chin with his hand, his face screwed up kind of thoughtful. “Hmmmmm,” he says. “Gentlemen, I just remembered something.”
He reached back and got his wallet out of his hip pocket and held it in