The last time I went hunting

   My brother saved me from a rabid dog. In retrospect, I should say, an angel of the LORD, working through my brother saved me from certain death at the teeth of a rabid dog.

   I have never been a good hunter. I tried. I could never aim straight for a clear target using catapults. I tried. I saw very few birds or rabbits in all the times I tried hunting. I did not give up easily. I tried!

   On one occasion I followed my big brother who was a good hunter. We carried our catapults and stones as we went into the bush looking for small birds and animals to bring home for food. My brother went out more often than I did. He was more successful. His aims were good on target. He brought down small  and large birds and often brought down birds in flight! He could estimate the path and aim his stone for a kill.

   For me, hunting was a necessary evil, to bring food home and feed family! For him, I think it was more than that; he enjoyed it. I may be exaggerating by saying it was probably a hobby too, but I believe so. It was hard and dangerous work to me, it was not quite so to him.

   He communicated far better with the hunting dogs and commanded their respect more than I could ever dream of doing. I believe the dogs laughed at me and at my attempts to hunt with them. If I tried to take the dogs out to hunt they spent their time playing with me and just sticking around my perimeter! If my brother took them out they searched the bush and brought important information about the animals he wanted and told him where to go. They seemed to understand each other better than with me.

   On this occasion I was walking along a path deep in the bush when I stumbled across a dog. My brother was twenty feet or so away. I gave a shout that there was a dog a few feet from where I stood. He rushed to my side and saw that the dog was getting up and  getting ready to pounce on me.

   There was no time to prepare a catapult stone and I was too close to the dog.

   "He is mad, he is mad, he has rabies..." my brother was crying out to me as he came crushing through the bushes and threw me to one side, squarely faced the dog.

    It was a big dog but not as large as the ones they feed well. This was an ordinary African dog. My brother was face to face with the rabid dog. As the dog prepared to pounce on him, he went for the open jaws. In one motion I can not adequately describe, he secured his hands, left and right within the two jaws of the mad creature, upper and lower jaws. My brother began to tear the animal apart. He wrestled it to the ground and held it with all strength and tore the jaw bones at the base of the mouth in the process. 

   When he let go, the dog was dying and in greater pain than the rabies in its brain cells. He finished it with a stick. I was watching, my catapults dangling on one arm and mouth wide.

   From there I have no recollection of what he did or did not do. I was far too scared by what had happened. 

   

   I know he killed and threw away the dog and it was very large in my eyes. I also know that was the last time I ever took catapults to go hunting in the forest.