Red Earth Review #6 July 2018

would come back and eat them, though we agreed this would be a kind of cannibalism. *** We were walking back towards Tyler’s to pick up another bullet when Jack spotted a snowshoe hare trying to blend in with the ground foliage. The four of us fanned out. We’d never caught a rabbit before.

They were too quick, and they could outlast us. But rabbits are stupid, and we thought we might get lucky. It tore off through the woods, the four of us hollering after it. The gun in my hands slowed me down. Jack tripped over an old bicycle someone had left out. I heard Dan shouting from the lakeshore.

Tyler climbed dripping out of the lake. He held the rabbit upside down by its feet. It kept trying to jump away, but this just bobbed it up and down while Tyler kept ahold of it. “Like a living yoyo,” Jack said.

Jack and I wanted to name the rabbit Yoyo, but Dan wanted to name it Mariah after Jack’s older sister whom the rabbit vaguely resembled. Jack said, “That’s stupid. We don’t even know if it’s a girl.”

Dan said, “Yoyo isn’t a real name. That’s bullshit.”

But Tyler said, “It’s my rabbit. I’ll name it whatever I want, so fuck off,” and that settled it.

Tyler handed me the rabbit by its feet. He said, “Hold this a sec. I need to put a dip in.”

I set the gun down and pinned Yoyo against my chest. I could feel her tiny heart pumping away. My dad said that rabbits could die from being too scared, and I hoped Yoyo wouldn’t die. Tyler popped his tin open and slung a dip into his mouth, rolling it around like an old pro. He unlaced his right shoe. My dad liked to say he became a vet to help sick animals, but mostly people paid him to put their dogs to sleep. If Yoyo had been smart she’d have bit me and run free, but she wasn’t. If she’d been smart, Tyler would never have caught her in the first place. He wriggled back into his sock. I handed him the rabbit. She left a patch of lake water on my shirt.

Tyler held her against his chest with both hands so she couldn’t jump away. Her pupils filled her whole eyes. We found the road near Mark Olson’s place. Tyler’s grandpa was only another quarter mile walk towards town. I said, “Old man Olson feeds his cows Gummy Bears.”

Everyone stopped.

“Bullshit,” Jack said.

Tyler held Yoyo by the ears like he had pulled her from a hat. “No fucking way.”

“It’s true,” Dan said, “Just the other day we saw it.”

Jack asked, “Don’t they eat grass?” !172