Chabo's Journal: When you have a vegan at your mercy, kill them!

Note: This is a continuation of a series of stories written by a central Texas police officer named "Darth Tang", which are being archived by Chabo, with no editing. Read more about this project.

This story was originally posted on November 30, 2003.

About a year and a half ago I was seated in my office at home (a bedroom I call my office because that's where my (non-Net) computer, three desks, bookshelves, swords, most guns are.

I was cursing every Scot that had ever been born and wishing Ireland would sink into the Atlantic (playing Medieval: Total War, in other words). My wife was sitting on the back patio watching the sun set over the lake.

Suddenly, I hear her yelling. I grab a handgun and run outside; the Darth Force is streaking towards the edge of the lake through the growing twilight, and my wife is hollaring at me that coyotes had jumped the fence. She had sicked the dogs onto 'em.

I trotted down there as a massive fight broke out; its two hundred yards or so, and I wasn't in a hurry, as coyotes won't stand and fight.

Except that they were, in fact, feral dogs, not coyotes, and they did stand and fight. And I ended up in the freakin' middle of it.

After much ado, shouting, barking, shooting, and general mayhem which could have been avoided and which was completely unnessessary, the invaders were driven off. I picked off one as it cleared the fence, and popped a couple wounded. Between the dogs and me, we had killed four.

The Darth Force was prancing around high-fiving each other and telling each other how tough they were. I was scrabbling around looking for the empty sppedloaders, and mumbling to myself.

My wife runs up with a portable spotlight and a pistol. Turns out the dogs were chasing a deer, which was why she threw the Darth Force into the fray, and then called for me. Of course. The county is under rabies quarantine for the last year, so lets mix it up with some strays. I could have gotten a rifle and sniped 'em off from the porch, but oh, no, there was a freakin' deer involved.

The deer, a big doe, is toast. She had bled out during the fight. She had a fawn, just at running age; it had a bad injury to a front leg, a bite wound, which was why the dogs had been able to catch the doe: she wouldn't leave her fawn.

"Give me the SIG and get the dogs wiped off,' I told her (I was out of ammo, not having planned on a freakin' firefioght to save Bambi). 'I'll take care of this.'

'Its still alive," my wife observed of the fawn.

'I'll take care of it.'

'Its so little.'

"I SAID I'LL TAKE CARE OF IT! GO TO THE HOUSE!"

OK, so we load the Darth Force and the freakin' fawn into my old truck and go to the vet, where the dogs get boosters and a couple stiches. The fawn gets its leg immobilized. I get to shell out $250.

"Let' take it by the Animal Shelter," I suggest.

"Its a little buck. I'm going to name him Butch.'

[/me rolls eyes]

So Butch gets goats milk in a mix my wife found on the Net. He won't run off, oh no, my wife has a way with animals. He curls up in her lap and drinks out of a baby bottle (you have to pay for baby bottles, BTW. Not free. Nor is goat's milk and the other crap he gets.) Later, he gets mush, and weeks later, she cuts up deer corn into bite-sized portions.

The Darth Force, who kill anything they can get ahold of, and tear up everything that isn't alive, includeing the wireing harness on my boat trailer, leave the damn thing alone. Its small, helpless, wobbles about on three legs and a walking cast, but nooooo, they leave it alone. They've chewed apart the PVC vents to the sepic systems twice, but Butch they leave alone.

Admittedly, twice he served as bait on a long tether by the lake while I lurked on the back patio with a sandbagged Remington Model 700 (.270, 4x Weaver scope), until my wife found out about it. The stray problem was solved by then anyway.

Then came deer season.

My acrege is fenced and posted; I don't hunt (for sport, although I shoot feral hogs and other pests), and I don't want anyone hunting on my property. It has casued a couple problems in the past, but nothing big. Deer end up on my property (I swear, they can read signs), but they hide in the uncleared areas, out of sight.

Except Butch, who is on four legs and deer corn that doesn't need to be cut up. He's a fat little bastard without a care in the world. My wife puts a flame red vest on him with 'Pet' in reflective tape (they don't give that stuff away for free, either, in case you are wondering).

This leads to discussions with guys who can't read 'No Tresspassing' signs. I do not like social interaction unless its planned. I see enough people at work. When I'm home, I do not want to be disturbed. This is why I live out in the country, on my own land, away from everyone else. I should put 'Stay the fuck out, heavily armed anti-social bastard lives here' signs out.

And now its deer season again. Butch has a respectable little forked rack. The back patio is nice concrete slab; two thirds of it has a roof over it, about 12' by 20', while the last third, around 15' long, is a half circle without a roof, extending out about 15'. The front patio is slightly smaller.

It gets below freezing at night. There's frost on the ground. I'm sleeping on the back patio on a Army cot and sleeping bag (with M-4LE) because spotlighting is not really poaching when its deer season. [rolls eyes again]

And of course, Butch has to come over and nuzzle me whenever he hears me move. Brown-nosing little bastard. And of course, since I'm outside, the Darth Force has to investigate every freakin' thing in order to look good in front of the boss; after all they get to sleep all day after I go to work. When they're not snoring underneath my cot, that is.

Heed my advice. Would that I could have!