by Myna Chang

April 12, 1936

I press my forehead against the windowpane. Outside, jackrabbits fight in the darkness. Their cries raise the hair on my neck. I knock once on the glass. Hundreds of eyes turn toward me, glowing like scattered embers.

Papa pats my shoulder. “Don’t fret, Johnnie. You can stay home tomorrow.”

The newspapers say jackrabbits are a plague, eating everything the drought didn’t already kill. Our cattle are withering away with no feed. Chickens are all dead.

“I’ll do my part, Papa.” After all, I’m almost twelve.

I turn back to the window. Somewhere in that plague of rabbits is the little jack I rescued from a barbed-wire fence after the last dirt storm. That was weeks ago. Little guy’s probably grown, by now. I picture its frightened eyes, remember its shiver as I eased the barb from its leg.

***

We gather at dawn, hundreds of folks from the surrounding counties. Forming a ring, driving inward. Banging metal pans and hollering.

Jackrabbits dart from the scrub in panicked circles.

Then: the thud of hickory clubs. Cracking bones. Squeals. Other boys laughing. Dust rises, thick with the smell of blood and I stumble, looking for Papa; he’s clenching a limp jack by its ears, swinging it onto a pile.

Vomit burns my throat.

I want to run home, but a rabbit breaks through the line, pitching straight at me. Sunlight glints orange in its eyes. “No, no,” I whisper. My heart hammers and the club is heavy and slick and wrong in my hands—but I’m almost grown. I need to do my part.

I close my eyes…

…and swing.

***

Papa’s already gone to bed, but I linger by the window. Outside, it’s quiet. The silence burrows under my skin, hangs heavy on my bones. I tap the glass. Nothing stirs but an echo. A crack. A keen.

I tap the pane again. And again.

Photo by Valentin Lacoste on Unsplash