Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in Tyler, TX, moved to Florida, now back in Texas, just outside of Fort Worth, aka Cowtown — doesn’t get much more southern than The World Famous Fort Worth Stockyards. No matter where I go, my heart will always belong to Texas.
Bronco Blitz Monsoon
A Tuesday afternoon.
The cowboy watched from his porch as two red-tailed hawks fought over a field mouse. He named the first one Bukowski, after his favorite writer, and the second Bronco Blitz Monsoon, simply because he liked the way it sounded. The mouse, due to its insignificance — for the purpose of the cowboy’s birdwatching, not in the world — received a simple name, the generic designation of Field Mouse One.
Bukowski and Bronco Blitz Monsoon began to poke and prod at Field Mouse One, mostly from its eyes and belly, and it started to bleed profusely. Naturally, this only hastened the birds’ frenzy to feed on it, turning them into sharks smelling blood in the water. Out of pure instinct, they proceeded to circle and yawp and jump and flap their wings.
Field Mouse One was scared, of course. But it was a fighter. And even though it could no longer see — because it is impossible to see without eyes — it was able to feel around the yard and navigate the dirt and grass until it found refuge in a small, nondescript box covered in sticks and leaves. The cowboy, generously, began to have hope for Field Mouse One, that it might survive, walk free. But this turned out to be a silly idea. Not because the cowboy was generally an irrational man, but because since the mouse could no longer see — because it is impossible to see without eyes — fear overtook its tiny body and, out of sheer fright, did the only thing it could, which was to run out of the same hole it had just run into for safety and right back into the arms of the blood-thirsty birds.
The mouse’s inevitable death was delayed, however. Because Bukowski and Bronco Blitz Monsoon began to engage in a fight of their own — one for supremacy over who ruled the yard and, ultimately, the rights to the mouse. They worked through a preliminary bout of squawking and pecking, which turned into a round of high-pitched squeals and hollowed knocks — a testing of the waters, if you will — and finally devolved into an all-out brawl. The cowboy sat up in his chair, his ears perked up like a Doberman, and scooted to the edge of his seat. But this also turned out to be a silly gesture. Because just as he did, the battle ended and the birds separated.
Bukowski, the apparent loser, flew away.
Bronco Blitz Monsoon, the apparent winner, stayed.
The bird quickly regained a sense of its surroundings and immediately located Field Mouse One, who had now run out of energy and was only able to make slow circles in the middle of the yard, leaving small tracks of blood behind it. Bronco Blitz Monsoon flew to it, hovered briefly — a way of toying with Field Mouse One — then fiercely gripped the mouse’s neck with its talons. Blood squirted from its empty eye sockets. With its beak, Bronco Blitz Monsoon swiftly separated the head from the body, secured both sections of the mouse with its talons, then he too was gone.
The yard went tombstone still.
The cowboy, overcome with excitement, slapped his palms on the arms of his wooden chair and shouted a series of Woohoos. He then fell back, folded his arms, and smiled a mischievous grin that stretched his weathered face.
And that was that.
A Tuesday afternoon.
