Rabbit Ears

Rabbit Ears, the sheriff's son, had no sense of coordination. So he practiced his ballroom dancing in the hayloft, where no one could scoff at his ungainly pratfalls. A splintery pitchfork with rusted tines usually substituted for a human partner. A fool for superstition, he kept an owl pellet in his forward trouser pocket for good luck. He earned his nickname from his ability to pick up ancient Indian radio signals through his abnormally elongated ears, twisting his neck to fine-tune reception. He usually had to climb onto the barn roof or to the top of a tall tree for a clear signal. Others his age thought him an oddball and were often spooked by his peculiar behavior, but few could dispute that he returned from these strange listening sessions with a discernable knack for prescience.

An attraction to mischief led him to sometimes dangle over the edge of the hayloft and urinate on the barn animals below. This particular prank once resulted in his losing his hold and plummeting to the floor of the barn. He wasn't injured in the fall, but then a horse named Spree who'd had enough of his descending pissery stepped on his ankle with her full weight. To this day he still walked with a twist in his step.

Now, while practicing a particularly tricky box step move, he suddenly froze, ears quivering, brow furrowed. In this pose, he almost resembled a hare that smelled a predator was near. He leaned out the hayloft opening, grabbed hold of a latticework and hauled himself up to the barn roof, nearly missing a rung midway. Crouched on the roof, facing north-northeast, he listened intently to a grainy voice from the past. Far in the distance, in the empty socket of a canyon, concentrated moonlight set fire to a hidden moonshine still.