High Heels and Air Rifles

Like many campers before her and since, as a little girl Marshall Chapman learned riflery at camp. Here she is at Camp Pinnacle shooting paper targets.

I was raised by a Southern family that didn’t carry guns, at least not the kind you use to shoot people. My father, of course, had a 12-gauge shotgun that he used for hunting dove and quail. When he wasn’t hunting — which was most of the time — the gun stayed unloaded and locked in its case behind coats hanging in a downstairs closet. In our world, there were no handguns in bedside drawers or car glove compartments. If you weren’t in law enforcement, to carry a handgun would mean you were either a criminal or — God forbid — a redneck.

Years after I left home, my mother surprised everyone when she bought an air rifle and began shooting at squirrels. “They’re pests,” she explained. “You don’t want them in your garden.”

At the time, she and my father were living in an old residential neighborhood in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Fortunately, there were some woods behind their house to screen Mother’s newfound activity from the neighbors. Mother kept the air rifle propped discreetly behind a curtain in the den, next to the sliding glass doors that provided a beautiful view of her prized garden nestled among the oaks and pines.

One time she was hosting her garden club in that den when suddenly she spied a squirrel out in the garden, digging among the hostas. She was about halfway into her presentation – “The Compatibility of Shade Plants” – and was dressed in her usual Southern-lady attire, which included a pair of high heels and a girdle.

“Y’all excuse me, just a minute…” she said while reaching behind the curtain for the air rifle, her high heels clicking as she stepped out on the deck and began firing away.

The first contact I ever had with a gun was at Camp Pinnacle in June 1959, during an activity called “Riflery.” I was ten years old. The instructor showed us how to shoot lying down, propped on both elbows, as we squeezed the trigger of a Remington .22, firing at targets twenty yards away. I was a good shot and won medals for my marksmanship, but riflery wasn’t my thing. I much preferred horseback riding. After camp, I never came close to a gun — at least, not for forty years. Then something happened that kindled my interest with a vengeance. My husband and I had just settled back into our house after a sixteen-month renovation. We had emptied our savings and borrowed money to have the house of our dreams. We were happy with the results, and felt the investment worthwhile. One night, after turning out the bedside lights, I heard what sounded like a scratching noise behind the headboard wall.

“Do you hear that noise?”

“Yeah, it sounds like there’s something in the attic.”

As it turned out, some squirrels had gnawed a hole in the redwood siding just above the copper flashing on the roof of our house. The hole was big enough for a tennis ball to pass through. Upon further inspection, I noticed all the insulation on the wall behind our bed had mysteriously disappeared. This was in the dead of winter.

“Damn!” I said to my husband. “Those squirrels have better insulation in their nests than we have in this house we just spent a fortune on. No wonder we’re freezing our asses off. That’s it. I want a gun.”

“What?”

“You heard me. A gun.” I said. “Whatever kind you shoot squirrels with. I want one. Will you get it for me?”

That evening, my husband presented me with a Daisy air rifle, complete with pellets. The next day, I’m in the backyard stalking squirrels.

At first, I could only hit them at close range, usually when they were raiding the bird feeder. Then I started knocking them out of trees. After I killed that first one, I burst into tears, then carefully buried it in one of the garden beds after saying a prayer. After I’d killed four or five, I called my therapist.

“I’m killing squirrels,” I confessed.

My therapist is from rural Tennessee and had killed some squirrels in his day, but he had long since abandoned the practice. I thought he would tell me I had to abandon the practice, too, but instead, he stressed the importance of mindfulness, referring to my newfound activity as a “killing meditation.” My therapist believes everything we do is an opportunity for growth.
That winter, I killed over fifty squirrels. After forty-eight, I quit counting.

Some of my friends were appalled. Others didn’t care. “They’re nothing but rats with a good press agent,” said one.

Sometimes I think back to when I was eight years old and brought into our house in Spartanburg a baby squirrel that had fallen out of its nest. I tried keeping it alive with feedings of warm milk from an eyedropper. When it died, I was devastated. I ceremoniously buried it in the back yard, marking the grave with a wooden cross made from Popsicle sticks. The squirrel’s name ― CLEOPATRA ― was painted on the cross in Mama’s red fingernail polish.

So whatever happened to that tenderhearted little girl? Well, she’s still inside me. But things change. Little girls grow up, just like their mothers. Being raised Presbyterian, a case could be made that I was predestined to kill those squirrels. But most likely, it was just in my blood.