After saving for several years, I bought my first hunting vehicle: an old Ford Bronco. Even though my lifelong best friend and mentor Jaybird shook his head when I showed her to him, I was totally in love with the four-wheel-drive beauty I called Clara, named after my significant other at the time.
“Shoot, that rattletrap would get stuck in a mud puddle,” Jaybird mumbled. “Clara ain’t nothing but a clunker.”
“Aw, come on, Jaybird. Don’t be so critical of my sweet baby. Just look what’s on the front bumper — a powerful winch. On the off chance she gets stuck and trees are nearby, it will pull her out.”
Slush swished by as the straining motor roared
Duck hunting was my passion, and on opening day, I talked Jaybird into going with me to a mallard hotspot: Po’ Boy Brake. Against his better judgment, the old black man agreed. Upon reaching Po’ Boy, we heard thousands of mallards quacking in a flooded rice field, separated from us by a slough. Determined to show Jaybird that Clara could conquer far more than mud puddles, I firewalled my baby and plunged into the slough, shouting all the while, “Jaybird, you’re about to see what Clara can do.”
Slush swished by as the straining motor roared. Manhandling the naked-lady steering knob, I plowed through mud, logjams, and water. Suddenly Clara’s engine stalled, she bottomed out, and the only sound was distant quacks, now sounding like laughter. Pointing to trees on the bank, I boasted, “Don’t worry, this is a small job for the winch.”
After wrapping the cable around a clump of willows, I told Jaybird to kick the winch in gear. It worked fine — pulled the willow clump straight to Clara. Hours later, we trudged up to a farmstead. Hopefully, the owner would loan us an old green John Deere tractor sitting in his barn.
“That tractor is my livelihood, but go ahead and use it,” he said. “Refill the radiator before you crank it.”
Hearing the Deere’s death rattle, the farmer appeared on his front porch, dancing barefoot in the cold, foaming at the mouth like a grizzly, and screaming, “Ethel, bring the shotgun quick.”
The tractors on my father’s Mississippi Delta farm were red, but we didn’t think green and red ones were different. Standing on the hood, I loosened what I thought was the radiator cap as Jaybird passed up jugs of water. Bad mistake. Back then radiators were in front of fuel tanks on red tractors; on green ones they were behind. 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, the farmer appeared on his front porch, dancing barefoot in the cold, foaming at the mouth like a grizzly, and screaming, “Ethel, bring the shotgun quick.” Off we galumphed in our waders, trekking toward civilization and hoping Dad would loan us a tractor to retrieve Clara. “Think he will?” I asked Jaybird.
“If he does, you’ll have to get somebody else to go with you to Po’ Boy. Your baby is just what I named her: Clara the clunker.”
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s upcoming book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
The book will be available before the holiday season. Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (jimmycecilreedjr@gmail.com).
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)).
