The Backwoods Rabbit: The Backwoods

By R. J. Betway

The tale begins with a most irreverent rabbit called upon to reenact the harrowing events following the abduction of a rare albino squirrel in a quiet corner of the Backwoods.

 

A wry and devoted homebody, rabbit Suds retells how he and a host of other forest dwellers were drafted time and again to go hounding after some goblin raccoon who made off with the secretive squirrel for his own mysterious reasons. But the smuggler soon loses her to another sordid scoundrel, and then another, and again, until she can no longer tell friend from foe and must decide her own fate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R. J. Betway
• Release date: Jun 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393881490

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Beginnings of a Long Day

Ooww, I had a prickly feeling this morning, right when I first woke up for the third time to some bothersome racket. I tried not to listen, and that was probably my second mistake of the day. My first was waking up at all. I felt around for I don’t know what, and that’s when I got my final warning.

Fine. Don’t go see Mindipin. And don’t come out and eat. Just stay in that . . . that dingy dungeon and starve!

That was Pettal, my better half. We paired up this past summer, and already she—ooww, she meant well, saying I ought to see the possum healer. Maybe she could brew up some tea to lift my appetite, and some other to help me sleep better. Maybe so, but Mindipin’s more witch than healer. And besides, I sleep well enough. It’s the nightmares that keep me awake. Dark, haunting tremors about Boon, the goblin raccoon, and the mad raven and all that other do-good twaddle Asper, my tart little bird friend, just couldn’t leave go. Well maybe it wasn’t all twaddle.

Pettal . . . I called, hoping to make her think twice about leaning so hard on me today. Has the rain stopped?

Rain? Suds, it hasn’t rained for days. Hurry on, I see Epe coming over the rise.

Ooww, spit and farts! That’s the possum’s pet nurse mouse. What was she doing here on my gardening day? Or was that yesterday?

Is the mouse alone? I wanted to know because the last time, she brought some scruffy tagalongs for me to preach to. Said there were far too many folks turning their heads to what happened, telling their gullible whelps they never heard of any mad raven, and saying there’s no end to these Backwoods and no such thing as an albino, and we couldn’t let that be the last word.

Personally, I didn’t see why not, but then Pettal brushed aside the entry vines to our quiet little warren.

You’re not going to like this, she said, fastening a fresh dandelion behind her ear, but Epe’s not alone.

I bit my lip not to swear. How many tagalongs did she have to drug this time?

Suds! Must you always be so indignant and spiky? Even at Epe?

No, I mustn’t! I half apologized before things got out of hand. I’ll go see the possum tomorrow.

No you won’t.

Yes I will. On my mother’s bones!

Your mother’s not yet dead.

All the more reason to trust me. And with that, I dug a little deeper under our scratchy bedcovers and said to wake me when they were gone.

You’re awake now! Pettal huffed and started on about how the back porch was sagging something awful. Then she sighed and gave me this bothersome look till I promised to have a go at it tomorrow. Right after your visit with the possum! she insisted and asked what she should say to Epe just now.

Tell her my grieving’s still ongoing, that I’m abed with the mopes and carrying a dreadful fever. No, no fever! She’ll pour some poison rot down my throat. Tell her I’m out. Out hunting.

Hunting? Suddenly my better half seemed more amused than bothered. She started to titter and asked what I might be hunting for.

How should I know? Butterflies, fireflies. Wild berries, maybe.

What sort of berries? Pettal smirked, as if she needed to know, should Epe be all that curious.

For the love of ivy! I cried and sat up because my head was starting to throb. Tell her any sort you please, just so they’re not from around here! And no sooner had I rolled over, with every intent to resume my nightmares, when the ceiling began to quake, dropping puffs of dust here and there and straight over my head.

I motioned at Pettal to keep still, hoping it was that half-baked turkey who struts by here every dawn and dusk, chasing her own shadow both ways. But that hope was purely wasted, for it was well past dawn, and the drone of childish giggles and hushed-up whispers started wafting in.

Pettal reached down and patted my head like some hard-nosed schoolmarm, declaring my shenanigans needed more work, and pushed me to hurry on—after I raked down the bedcovers. Then she primped at the dandelion behind her ear and hopped outside to welcome that meddlesome mouse and her latest pack of sniveling misfits.

Chapter 2

Epe and the Tagalongs

G reat sunny day, aye , Mister Suds? four pesky brats jabbered just like they’d been instructed when I stuck my head out from behind the entry vines.

They were two lop-eared mouse twins, one plump little skunk, and a surly red tree rat, all squatted on an old tree stump—all smiles and teeth, anxious to be entertained.

I gave a barbed little smile at Epe and hopped off to water the weeds while she and Pettal passed around handfuls of last winter’s seeds and fresh mushrooms—and what not to ask when I got back.

So did you whisper your numbers before coming out? squirmed one of the mouse twins as soon as I was within earshot.

Course he did! pined the other, swiping at his runny snout. He’s a wood rabbit, ain’t he? All fluff and scared of everything and nothing.

And you’re a very rude mouse! Epe told him as she tugged a half-eaten mushroom from his paws.

Well that’s what our mum says! And this time, Epe gave his tail such a yank that he fell off the stump.

I started to point out that she hadn’t drugged them nearly enough, when Pettal butted in.

Well your mum’s not wrong, she agreed as the twin climbed back up. We rabbits are fearful of many things. But just like us, don’t you tremble in the deep of night when the wolves come howling and sniffing at your door?

The young lop-ear looked my way and then lowered his head.

And what of the blue-eyed crows? she asked them all. When that gruesome rabble comes squalling through the morning mist, full of their heathen mischief, don’t they set your hearts afire with fright?

This time, the mouse twins and the skunk all looked at one another. The young tree rat was staring off into the trees, bored to no end.

Well, Pettal smiled and leaned in, so do our hearts quiver at such times. So hard that we need a way of calming ourselves, even after the danger’s past. We stay as quiet and still as this stump you’re sitting on, let our ears rake the wind for certainty, and then, when we’re positive it’s safe to move on, whisper our numbers for good measure.

The plump little skunk giggled and raised her prissy black tail, asking how high we must count for our good measure, when the bored tree rat spun around and offered two acorns apiece if we’d skip past all that guff and get on with the guts of the story.

Now, Pettal would rather I called him a squirrel, as rightly he is. But I just don’t see much difference from one to another. They’re all tree rats, born pirate thieves, and ornery to a fault. And this one started down that stump and toward me till the nurse mouse stopped him cold.

I don’t mean no harm, he told Epe. But I got my own questions.

Go on, then, she said. Just remember what I warned you, little Basil Red.

Yeah, yeah. No fighting, biting, or tail pulling.

And . . .

And don’t press the rabbit too hard. As he finished, his eyes caught Epe’s nod to proceed. Then, back at me, he said, I only want to know if the story parts are all true or full of puss?

Puss? I thought about asking him which parts he was referring to, but that would only prolong the whole affair. So I simply told him it was equally true, wall to wall. Then again, I remembered, some odd parts might be suspect, depending on and if I was present.

Aww, twix! went the tree rat. I mean that part where you meet up with the High Swamp Owl. Were you present at that part?

Ooww, that, I said back, not having as clear an answer because the swamp owl wasn’t at the beginning but more in the middle, and I hadn’t even started. So I hemmed and hawed, trying to shuffle Cleary’s part more toward the front. But all that did was get my head to throbbing again and those mouse twins to quarreling with the skunk over who got to finish that last mushroom. Then surly little Basil Red snatched it up, and all the others went hounding after him.

Surprising and not, it seemed my class was at recess. I shrugged over at Pettal and the nurse mouse as I ambled off for a quiet drink, with the notion to go have a serious look at our sagging back porch. That way, I wouldn’t have to relive all that bygone twaddle again. And I had my mind made up to do just that when you-know-who called my name and said to hurry on, as recess was over.

Some nosy woodpecker couldn’t help sniggering from the shaded maple boughs overhead. I hollered at him to mind his own business and to leave me to mine. But I wasn’t going back without some well-thought-out plan. So I hunted down a wiry swishing stick, brushed back my ears, and hurried on.

Epe’s got them under control for the moment, Pettal prattled as I hopped up, swishing the thing back and forth. But she’s near out of threats and, and—what’s that about?

Protection! I snorted boldly, holding my swishing stick high, and reminded her how it ended the last time I was made to preach.

Well that washout couldn’t be helped, she reminded me back. Maybe if you’d try starting at the beginning, you wouldn’t lose your place so often and make a mess of it like before.

Maybe not, I admitted and stopped right there, having a sudden chill. You mean for me to start at the very beginning?

Precisely.

But, Pettal . . . my condition!

You and your condition can thank me later, she said, smiling like I didn’t have a choice, and held out her paw for my total surrender.

Ooww, just bury me now! I grumbled and handed over my only protection before she could pile on any more logic. Then I hopped out into the yard and plucked at a few juniper berries, dawdling out a start here and there, and slowly sifted my way back to that ominous night and the first sign of trouble.

Chapter 3

Trouble in the Trees

So there I was, in the clammy jaws of night, digging a thorn out of my backside, when some squabble flared down the row. Midden thieves, I supposed, after seedlings and root scraps banked in earthly hollows. Or perhaps it was some lost brat screeching to be found in the murky darkness. Either way, it was trouble only half done, so I gobbled up the loose pellets I’d dropped and padded lightly down the old Bottoms Trail for home.

Scratchy sounds off in the distance stopped me a couple times—busy little feet scurrying through the damp undergrowth. Each time, I braced myself till the noise ran off. Then I whispered my numbers and pushed on alongside the Eerie River, near where it bends and gushes down into an abyss of wild forest. I wouldn’t be going all that far, of course, and hadn’t when up the hill came a pack of white-faced chipmunks clutching their belongings. There must have been eight or nine of the little gremlins, and maybe half that many behind, all quibbling—should they go left or go right—and scarcely bothered when I jumped off the road ahead of them.

Then they were past. And I sat there sniffing uneasily and thinking for a long while—well I didn’t really know what to think, of them or the slumbering pines that began to stir on either side, for there was no wind to speak of. Yet they were prodded from their mulish sleep, croaking at