Night Hunt Poem by Hans Ostrom

Night Hunt

circa 1963

Black sky sagged
with feast of stars,
Sierra: November.

Rapture seized hounds,
Blue-Tick, Red-Bone,
Black-and-Tan.

They yowled, yapped, slobbered.
Feet, ears, tails, and
tongues flapped, spasmed.

Fiercer, stronger than I,
dogs didn't scare
me, age nine.

My father yelled, willed them
to leap in the back
of the Willys pickup;

& off we motored down an
"unimproved, " a crooked road
into woods.To hunt raccoons,

to whom night is day
and humans are strange,
intermittent threats.

Jeep's lamps seized tree-
trunks, boulders, and
snow patches

from black.Haypress Creek's
Canyon: hounds loose now.
Their noses snuffed

snow, muck, and air,
unrolled elaborate,
detailed odor-maps.


Coon-scent, wild scent,
recent spore of hair
and glands: track.

Soon manic yelps and long,
bluesy howls told
secrets from deep woods.

Father chewed snoose,
kept a wool coat
open to cold air.

My feet ached, grew
numb.I wearied, not
knowing what secret,

if any, I was part of.
Father told me what
voice went with which

dog—Jack, Jocko, Striker.
We walked a mile in,
found all three savage

under an oak.Flashlight
beam showed raccoon's
face, which seemed

to question the premise
of this situation.
Father kept a.22

pistol holstered,
didn't use it,
called off the dogs,

leashed them, their lungs
pumping steam into
alpine air.

He took two dogs, gave
me one.I was
nine and short and


tired and cold, so just
one dog was barely not
too much.I wouldn't

ponder excursions like
this til later, or
realize they had to do with

getting out of the house
into cold air, away
from worries about

work, money, time.Night-
hunts let hounds go
to Animal City, let

us stand on crusted snow
in cold air under star-soaked
sky, hearing dogs go

nuts.Night-hunts let us live
just where we lived.
So of course a treed

raccoon had to be
released.Dogs, coon, & I
slept late next day,

whereas Father and Mother
were up early fixing something
or working for money.