Life on the farm. 1983

At first I didn't know what it was, the sound in the night, the screaming, the calamity in the chicken coop. When I found the body the next morning only the head had been eaten, the headless body entangled in the barbed wire of the pig fence. Soon after that another attack, and then the mother duck and her chicks were gone. The hens left the coop and began roosting in the trees. Through the winter my black lab Banner and I would track the varmint, in the moonlight following the tracks, the dog excited by the prospect, listening in the cold sharp air of January. My sketch book evolved into an engineering notebook with elaborate devices of capture and torture that would have impressed Da Vinci. More chickens died. I installed spotlights to add an element of surprise, to possibly get a shot off from the barn window. Weeks would pass between attacks.

After several months the chickens didn't matter any more, I now needed the chickens for bait. I slept in the back of the 37 Plymouth, waiting, cursing the phantom, the dog in the front seat softly panting in the night. I devised traps with sliding doors and nets, the chickens became walking zombies having been through so much trauma.

Then on the night of the Vernal Equinox, late while I was still painting, I heard the familiar commotion of panic in the coop. After pulling the lights I opened the loft window as quietly as 8 months of waiting for that moment allowed, and waited patiently some more. Under the light of the full moon I could make out the shadow, the stop-and-go movements, the cautious maneuvering of the killer. With my single shot .22 ready, I knew I had only one chance, and God knows I didn't want to have to go into the bush after a rogue coon, even with my trusted guide M'Banner by my side. The raccoon moved into the open and stopped, I had a bead on him from the get-go, when he paused I fired. He didn't make a sound, he didn't move, he just fell dead.

Somewhere in the heavens it is written, somewhere we all have our name upon a bullet of some sort. This guy had it coming. The chickens slept well that night.