The Huntsman Testifies

I'll make this one short after a long workday. And I'll relate not the work but the brief and thrilling amusement that broke up the time. When the light began to fade around 4 I was reminded again of my snares. I went outside, equipped with 12 gauge and snowshoes, only to discover that my cleverly fashioned, cleverly placed snares had again been cleverly avoided. At the site of the second snare a little ways up the hill, there were squirrel signs everywhere. Tracks, droppings, nutshells, everywhere these nutshells, even...wait a second...yes, nutshells flaking out of the canopy overhead. I looked up, scanned, swept, focused, and saw a tree squirrel frozen against the trunk, giving me the squirrely eye of the hunted. Having been without tail or hide to my credit during this new year, my reaction was automatic. I released the pump action with my thumb, fed a shell from tube to chamber, undid the safety, sighted and BLAM! my quarry fell dead out of the tree. Its unseeing eyes were obsidian, its little rodent's teeth yellow and fluted, its hindquarters sanguinary with the result of the blast. I picked him up by the tail and happily strode home over midwinter's white crust. Once I'd wrangled off my snowshoes and convinced Tipper that she in no way stood to benefit from my kill, I fell to the process of gutting, skinning and butchering. After past misfortunes, I was relieved to find the pelt relatively intact. There was also no lead in the body, so I stuck most of the flayed carcass in the freezer. The only parts I fed through a hole in the ice covering the creek out back were the head and paws. Result: A clean kill, the beginnings of a forest critter stew, and another puzzle piece in my coming line of fur couture.