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Death of a Chicken Thief
The following story was written by me a few years ago for an English Comp Class I was taking at Drury University. It is based on a true account and I wanted to share it with the forum since it was one of my late Fathers favorites. By the way just in case anyone was wondering...I got an A on the assignment.
The Death of a Chicken Thief
It had been a rough week at work and I was really looking forward to going for a visit to my parent’s home in Ozark county Missouri. Mom and Dad lived on a farm with 660 acres that was bordered on three sides by the Mark Twain National forest.
After I pulled into the driveway and climbed out of my car I went around back and opened the trunk to take out my rifle case as Dad and I always did some shooting when I visited.
Inside this hard case was my baby. A Remington Model 700VS re-chambered in .22-250 Ackley Improved wearing a Leupold 4.5X14 Tactical scope sitting in Burris steel rings. I also had a box of my favorite hand loaded ammo for this gun. It was my own very accurate home brew consisting of Winchester cases, Winchester Large Rifle Primers, 42.5grains of Hogdon H380 powder and a 55 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip bullet seated to just touching the lands of the rifling.
Just as I closed the trunk lid I heard my Mom yelling in the backyard. “Junior, (Junior is my Dad’s first name.) I wish you would shoot that Chicken killer.” I quickly made my way around to the back of the house and was just rounding the corner when I saw Mom closing the door and going back inside the house.
Movement a good distance out in the field behind the house caught my attention and I could see a big yellow house cat running directly away from me with one of Mom’s baby chicks in its mouth. I dropped down to the ground and quickly opened up the case I was carrying and pulled out my rifle and a couple rounds of ammunition.
I opened up the Harris bipod and settled myself down into a rock solid hold in the prone position. I cranked the scopes magnification to 10X which has always been my preferred setting for distance shooting and estimated the range to be just over 300 yards. I felt very confident that I knew the right hold for this shot as I had been out crow hunting with a buddy of mine just a few days before and had taken one bird on that day at a measured 372 yards.
The wind was favorable with just a very slight breeze blowing from the 12:00 O’clock position hitting me directly in the face. I held my crosshairs level with the little chicken thief’s back and eased finger pressure on the trigger. I use to shoot this rifle a lot and spent a good deal of my spare time shooting Bench rest rifles and matches back in those days…but it always surprises me just how sweet it feels to pull a two ounce bench rest trigger.
At the instant the sear broke for the shot I heard the back door opening up behind me and Mom’s voice yelling at me not to shoot. It was too late, as the roar of the rifle drove the Ballistic tip out the end of the barrel, across 320 yards of open pasture and into the body of the cat for a perfect “Texas Heart Shot.”
I lost sight of the cat in my scope as the recoil hit the point of my shoulder and I turned my attention away to see Mom standing behind me now. She informed me that this cat belonged to her friend and neighbor who lived more than 2 miles straight down the road from where we were.
“Nice Shot” I heard my Dad say as he himself came out the back door a big smile on his face and his .243 Winchester in hand. Dad and I walked down to the scene of the crime and with the use of a measuring wheel determined the distance to be 320 yards exactly. The bullet had entered the cat’s rectum and blown out both of its sides all the way down to the ribcage.
Miraculously a few yards away from the carcass Dad saw some movement and sure enough there was the chick that this little sneak thief had stolen a few minutes ago.
The cat’s owner didn’t make a fuss about the death of her cat and even stated that she would have shot it herself had it been her chickens being killed. That’s one of the benefits of living in Ozark county Missouri…country folks are Good Folks and live by the code of what’s right is right.
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Like they say, live by the sword, die by the sword!
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I wanna move to Ozark county. :)
They sound like good people. I would have said the same thing if it had been my cat. People who really love their cats leave them indoors. I now you need an outdoor cat for mousing and such, but if he gets into the neighbor's chicken coop, that's bad.
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That has to be the worst enema ever!!!! Nice shot and nice story.
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Bullseye in the brown eye!
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