The last thing you want when you’re almost asleep at a very remote location is to be rudely awakened with a hand across your mouth and somebody whispering in your ear “Sssh.”
That’s what happened to me last night.
Fortunately it was Doc’s hand over my mouth, and him whispering in my ear. Not so fortunately he followed it up with “I heard something outside.”
Doc doesn’t scare easily, so the mere fact he’d thought he needed to silence me was enough. You know those dreams where you’re desperately trying to move or scream but just can’t? That was me. I couldn’t move, or even whimper. When he then got out of bed, and very slowly and quietly tiptoed over to the shotgun and loaded it in the dark while peering around the curtain and out the window, I thought we could be in trouble.
His last, whispered, words as he very slowly and quietly walked out the bedroom door were “The .222’s loaded if you need it.” How reassuring. I didn’t think it was the time to point out that if you use a gun for self-defense you’re more likely to have it used against you than you are to use it against somebody else. Especially if you can’t move to pick it up!
So I sat up and Doc crept outside and wandered around. With a loaded shotgun and a torch, as naked as the day he was born, only with more body hair. If I wasn’t scared witless I would have laughed. Actually – I did laugh. A nervous reaction – not at Doc being naked, though looking back on it that was funny.
Then he came back in and gave the all clear.
“What was it?” I asked
“I don’t know” he replied
Then how do you know it’s not still there!!!!
Of course I lay there most of the night eyes wide open. Of course Doc when to sleep. Whenever I started dozing I’d hear something and come wide awake again. I contemplated getting up at sunrise, but there wasn’t much to see.
Then I heard a bang.
I shook Doc awake “That was a gun” I said “and it was close.”
Nobody comes shooting up our end of the farm without telling us – unless it’s somebody not authorized to be there. If that was the person (or people) Doc heard last night and they were out hunting (or worse) they weren’t doing a good job of avoiding drawing attention to themselves. Whoever it was and whatever they were doing, there was at least one dick with a gun and they shouldn’t be there.
“What direction did it come from” Doc asked as he reached for the shotgun
So we went through it all again. Doc wandered outside with the shotgun, only this time he got dressed first and didn’t need the torch. And this time I wandered around with him.
And again there was nothing, at least nothing we could see. As we didn’t know exactly where the shot came from it was pointless to start wandering the farm looking for somebody.
“I’m going to make coffee” I said
I went inside, put the percolator on the stove and reached into the fridge for the milk, only to find my hand covered with sticky brown stuff. “Whaaaa?? Aah, darling. I think I’ve found the gun shot.”
Yes, a can of coke had exploded in the freezer. Who said something about dicks with guns?
