The Saturday Hunt

This is the sixth story from my father about the adventures of two brothers (Rafael and Gabriel) from a very poor family of 10 trying to make a living during the Great Depression in the 1930s.   This story takes place in August of 1932 after the flood, but it was a typical day for the two boys.  The main plot of the story with the snakes was augmented with other short descriptions of building sling shots that he recounted at different times. The other stories can be found in previous blogs: “Our Bridge is Gone,” "Dracula Got us Fired," “Having a Meal at the Smorgasbord,” “The Whipping” and “Coffee, Sugar, Firewood and Meat.”

The Saturday Hunt

The activities in the summer of 1932 were beginning to slow down by late August.  They had helped their father pick the cotton in the Rancho del Carrizo, a farm about 20 miles southwest of the city.  “Helped,” of course, consisted of picking two or three long rows of cotton each day for several weeks.   It was a week and a half since the big flood and things had settled down in the city.  Aside from the railroad bridge being washed away, the lower levels of town, the plaza and “downtown” area included, were totally flooded.  But the waters had receded and Rafael and Gabriel were ready to go out and conquer the world.  Hunting trips was what they did every day but this one, as it turned out, was a special one.

The second Saturday after the big flood they decided to build a new sling shot for Rafael.  The two boys were experts at the sling shot and they could hit a tarantula at 50 feet almost 100 percent of the time.  Birds, cans, snakes, rabbits and any other small creature was no contest to them and they were always in open season.   The flood, had cleaned out the riverbanks, but it also brought in a new supply of materials and they were ready to go end explore.  Hey got up Saturday morning and there wasn’t anything to eat in the kitchen.  There was a small machete in the corner of the cooking area, an adobe fireplace build up so that the cooking area was about waist high.  Chita kept a fire going most of the time and got ups to boil water for coffee every morning.  There was no fire that Saturday morning and Gabriel grabbed the machete and walked with it out of the house holding it next to his leg so it would not be noticed.  Rafael had gone to the water faucet in the back yard to pick up a razor blade.  His father kept his razor in a small wooden shelf on the adobe wall behind the faucet and put the old used razors stuck in a crack on the wood in the back of the shelf.  Rafael picked up the old razor, wrapped it in a piece of old newspaper, put it in his pocket and went out to meet Gabriel already on the way to the river.  

The first thing they had to do is find a mesquite with the branch with just the right type fork.  The perfect slingshot depends on a perfect fork and the hard wood of the mesquite made the perfect fork.  They had to backtrack back inland into the open field away from the river to find the mesquite trees.  A few trees later and there is was, the perfect fork for the perfect slingshot.  Gabriel started hacking at the branch and in short time they had it cut, trimmed and formed to the right size.  “Now we have to look for a sling shot for you” Gabriel said.  “I thought that was for me” Rafael responded.  In short time they found another tree with just the right type of branch and in short time they were on their way back to replace the machete before someone noticed that it was missing.  They put the machete back and made their way back to the river.  The second component of the slingshot was very crucial and they had to find just the right type; an inner tube from a car tire.  It could be a tube from a truck tire but the rubber was heavier and it was harder to pull. Also most of the truck tire tubes were made of synthetic rubber and it did not stretch the same way.  The older cars still used natural rubber.

They did not find any tubes on the river bank but they found the third component, a couple of old shoes.  They cut the leather tongues with the razor blades and they would trim them for the pockets of the sling shot.  They did find a large piece of a car inner tube one on the main road to Monterrey.  Someone must have had a flat and changed the tube leaving the old blown out tube on the road.  It was a treasure because it was real rubber and large enough to make many sling shots.  They took it to the house and sitting on the shady part of the house they proceeded to cut the straps for the sling shot and the thinner straps to tie the main straps.  Cutting the straps was tricky because they had to be smooth cuts with the same width for the whole length of the strip.  Rafael held the two ends of the cut sections and Gabriel held the other end of the piece of tube and slid the razor blade in a smooth stroke cutting each strip about 3/8 of an inch wide.  They did the same process to cut very thin strips to about “rubber-band” size and they would use these to tie the rubber straps to the fork and to the pocket.  They then finished cutting and shaping the pockets for the stones and making the small slits where the straps will be tied.  They put the straps through the slits and folded them over and with the thin straps began to tightly.  They did the same to tie the rubber straps to the fork and they had their new sling shots.

Chita had called them to eat something and they had some beans that had just finished cooking.  It was still early afternoon and they had to go out and try their new weapons.

They started walking toward the empty field to the southeast of town picking up the “perfect” stones, and getting the feel for the sling shot at any and all targets real or imaginary; butter flies, stumps, pieces of paper stuck in the brush, and what seemed to be hundreds of lizards..  They and soon had their pockets full of perfect stones and they had gotten the feel of their new sling shots.  The heavy rains from a week ago had left many puddles, something not normally seen in the dessert area.  There was a large puddle in the distance and Rafael noticed that roots seemed to growing from the branches of a mesquite tree near the large puddle.  As they got closer to see, they noticed that the low branches of the mesquite was cover with rattle snakes, and the whole ground around the little pond was completely covered with snakes – perfect target for their sling shots!  With their pockets full of stones, this was the hunt of the century!  They made every stone count hitting the rattlers in the head.  Once hit, the snake would wiggle and twist and die.  By the time they finished they had killed every snake on their side of the puddle; 32 in all.  Some were very large, taller than they were and most of them had 8 to 12 rattles and some of them had 18.  They cut the rattles and strung them in a long thin branch.  

They were walking back home with their trophies when they realized that they could not tell their brother Alejandro or their sister Chita where they were, not if they did not want to get a whipping for being near the snake den.  They thought about it and decided to put their trophies in a tree and come back for them later.  Before Gabriel climbed the tree, they both checked the branches for scorpions.  There were several resting on a couple of branches but a few shots from their sling shots knocked them off and their trophy went on the tree. 

“Where have you boys been?” Their sister Chita asked.  “Oh, just testing our new sling shots” and they both showed her their new slings proudly.  “Well don’t shoot them in the street and don’t go near anything dangerous,” Chita warned them with an angry tone and went back to doing her chores.  “We won’t,” they both replied at the same time and walked back outside.  They had a couple of cents and they walked to the bakery to buy a funnel of pastry crumbs.