FROM RURAL TO SURREAL

From Rural to Surreal—Once Small Farming Became Latifundia: Part Four

April 10, 2024 

Victor Davis Hanson

4. The Shooter. Two years ago, during record rainfall and snow melt, the ponds were full, the grass was lush, and the once-ossified cottonwood trees abruptly came back to life as they always do after the end of a drought. Ducks and geese were everywhere. Herons flew in regularly. Bullfrogs croaked all night. The farm teemed with renewed life. And shooters (as in not hunters) from the town began appearing in real numbers—illegally shooting mallards, shooting quail, shooting ducks, shooting geese, shooting anything that moved, and those that did not.

It became scary to walk at night. The shooters were usually young. They seemed to ignore that even a .22 short can travel a mile if unimpeded. And they were often firing NATO-caliber rounds that could easily go 1.5 miles. So how do you approach someone with a full magazine shooting at things in the air, on the ground, and at a distance?

Carefully. What do you say to such vandals? Please shoot on your own property? Are they in cartels? Are they hitmen practicing? Are they just kids goofing around? Are they serious shooters merely target practicing? Or are they trying to shoot varmints for the neighbor? Who knows?

When they started shooting, the dogs stayed put and tried to break the foundation doors and crawl under the house. Sometimes they stay there for an hour (one reason I replaced the flexible ducting with sheet metal given the damage they do).

So what happened? I walked over waving, smiled, and politely said Propiedad privada. I tried to explain in Spanglish that it is a scary thing for them to shoot without wondering where their bullets will end up. Luckily, the shooter said ‘Ok, already,” gave me the death stare, and slowly backed away to his truck, waving two other shooters with him. I’ve seen them since but never repeated my stupidity.

5. The Injector. Three years ago, I began noticing an epidemic of spent syringes, foil pouches, and occasionally used condoms tossed in the same place where two alleyways met. This went on for about three months. But I never saw the injector, only his flotsam and jetsam. In the dirt of the orchard, sometimes there were torn pieces of cloth, beer cans, and toilet paper among the drug leftovers.

Then I noticed something. The car tracks out of the orchard always went in the same direction to a rental farmhouse, where a brown car and a known gangbanger lived with his family and perhaps maybe another 10 or so in various attached dwellings and trailers.

So, at last, I noticed the type of car and color. And I began alternating the time of morning and evening walks, starting at dawn, and walking after dark, or starting at 9 AM and returning at sunset. I finally turned the corner into the orchard row and there finally he was with two others, the ground freshly littered around them.

He was the renter of a house. I knew it well for a half-century and could name every law-abiding farmer or renter who had once lived there. I asked him to leave. He did not. I asked again. He did not. I took a picture of his car, his license plate, and him. Without warning he gunned it in reverse and headed exactly where I knew he lived.

I forgot about it. One week later I drove home only to see the barn door battered down, one dog limping, the other three chasing the same car in the orchard now speeding out of the barnyard into the alleyway.

I called the sheriff. As soon as I gave him the description, they recognized the thief and said he was responsible for almost every theft in a two-mile radius. They took fingerprints off the door. And they drove over to the rental. The next thing I knew, the family was gone and with them came a year or two respite from the gang activity. Bravo to law enforcement.