Lawyer Dean couldn’t wait to show off his new Bronco, and when he asked Clyde and me to hunt ducks at Po’ Boy Brake, “best” was how he described everything about his four-wheel-drive beauty, especially the winch.
“On the off chance we get stuck and there’s trees nearby, we’ll just winch ourselves out,” he boasted.
Clyde and I were ordinary farm boys with an extraordinary passion for shooting ducks. Although a trip to a paradise like Po’ Boy in a fine sporting vehicle excited us, we’d soon regret leaving our warm beds that eve of Christmas Eve.
Upon reaching Po’ Boy, we heard the frenzied feed call of mallards. “They’re funneling down like confetti on the other side of this slough,” Clyde yelled.
Dean firewalled the Bronco into the quagmire. Slush swished by as the straining motor roared. Manhandling the naked lady steering knob, he plowed on. Suddenly the world went from slurry to silence. The Bronco bottomed out and its engine stalled.
“That willow tree clump will do,” Dean pointed, wading off with winch cable in hand. Wrapping it around the willows, he shouted, “Kick the winch in gear, and y’all pull yourselves on over.” The winch worked fine — pulled the willow clump straight to the Bronco. Again, quiet … only distant quacks, now sounding like laughter.
“Gonna be a long walk to the nearest farm,” Clyde moaned, as he pulled on his waders. Leaving the shyster sitting in his half-sunk Bronco, we headed out.
Hours later, we trudged up to a mailbox with “Jones” scrawled on it. Hopefully, Jones would loan us his one old green John Deere to retrieve the Bronco.
“That tractor’s mah livelihood, but hit being Christmas, go ’head and use it,” he said. “Refill the radiator before you crank ’er.”
Clyde and I had always driven red tractors, but we didn’t think there was much difference in green and red ones. Standing on the hood, I loosened what I thought was the radiator cap as Clyde passed up a water jug.
In those days there was one big difference in the tractors: Red ones had the radiator in front of the fuel tank; green ones were the other way around. Ignorant of this, I poured water in the fuel tank and plopped into the seat to crank it.
Crank it did. But the engine’s fibrillating clack indicated something was bad wrong. Hearing the Deere’s death rattle, Jones appeared instantly, dancing barefoot on the cold porch, foaming at the mouth like a grizzly, and screaming, “Ethel, brang the shotgun quick.” Off we galumphed in our waders.
After dark, Po’ Boy Brake is cold and spooky. Clyde, Dean and I shivered through the night, no visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads.
Trekking toward civilization at daylight, our lawyer buddy told us he had a wonderful dream during the night. For Christmas his parents gave him a very special gift for his Bronco — a new, bigger winch for next year’s duck hunt at Po’ Boy Brake.
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
