Ursula Vernon - Jackalope Wives

The moon came up and the sun went down. The moonbeams went shattering down to the ground and the jackalope wives took off their skins and danced.

They danced like young deer pawing the ground, they danced like devils let out of hell for the evening. They swung their hips and pranced and drank their fill of cactusfruit wine.

They were shy creatures, the jackalope wives, though there was nothing shy about the way they danced. You could go your whole life and see no more of them than the flash of a tail vanishing around the backside of a boulder. If you were lucky, you might catch a whole line of them outlined against the sky, on the top of a bluff, the shadow of horns rising off their brows.

And on the halfmoon, when new and full were balanced across the saguaros thorns, theyd come down to the desert and dance.

The young men used to get together and whisper, saying they were gonna catch them a jackalope wife. Theyd lay belly down at the edge of the bluff and look down on the fire and the dancing shapes and theyd go away aching, for all the good it did them.

For the jackalope wives were shy of humans. Their lovers were jackrabbits and antelope bucks, not human men. You couldnt even get too close or theyd take fright and run away. One minute youd see them kicking their heels up and hear them laugh, then the music would freeze and theyd all look at you with their eyes wide and their ears upswept.

The next second, theyd snatch up their skins and thered be nothing left but a dozen skinny sherabbits running off in all directions, and a campfire left that wouldnt burn out til morning.

It was uncanny, sure, but they never did anybody any harm. Grandma Harken, who lived down past the well, said that the jackalopes were the daughters of the rain and driving them off would bring on the drought. People said they didnt believe a word of it, but when you live in a desert, you dont take chances.

When the wild music came through town, a couple of notes skittering on the sand, then people knew the jackalope wives were out. They kept the dogs tied up and their brash sons occupied. The town got into the habit of having a dance that night, to keep the boys firmly fixed on human girls and to drown out the notes of the wild music.

Now, it happened there was a young man in town who had a touch of magic on him. It had come down to him on his mothers side, as happens now and again, and it was worse than useless.

A little magic is worse than none, for it draws the wrong sort of attention. It gave this young man feverish eyes and made him sullen. His grandmother used to tell him that it was a miracle he hadnt been drowned as a child, and for her hed laugh, but not for anyone else.

He was tall and slim and had dark hair and young women found him fascinating.

This sort of thing happens often enough, even with boys as mortal as dirt. Theres always one who learned how to brood early and often, and always girls who think they can heal him.

Eventually the girls learn better. Either the hurts are petty little things and they get tired of whining or the hurts so deep and wide that they drown in it. The smart ones heave themselves back to shore and the slower ones wake up married with a husband who lies around and suffers in their direction. Its part of a dance as old as the jackalopes themselves.

But in this town at this time, the girls hadnt learned and the boy hadnt yet worn out his interest. At the dances, he leaned on the wall with his hands in his pockets and his eyes glittering. Other young men eyed him with dislike. He would slip away early, before the dance was ended, and never marked the eyes that followed him and wished that he would stay.

He himself had one thought and one thought only to catch a jackalope wife.

They were beautiful creatures, with their long brown legs and their bodies splashed orange by the firelight. They had faces like no mortal woman and they moved like quicksilver and they played music that got down into your bones and thrummed like a sickness.

And there was one hed seen her. She danced farther out from the others and her horns were short and sharp as sickles. She was the last one to put on her rabbit skin when the sun came up. Long after the music had stopped, she danced to the rhythm of her own long feet on the sand.

(And now you will ask me about the musicians that played for the jackalope wives. Well, if you can find a place where theyve been dancing, you might see something like sidewinder tracks in the dust, and more than that I cannot tell you. The desert chews its secrets right down to the bone.)

So the young man with the touch of magic watched the jackalope wife dancing and you know as well as I do what young men dream about. We will be charitable. She danced a little apart from her fellows, as he walked a little apart from his.

Perhaps he thought she might understand him. Perhaps he found her as interesting as the girls found him.

Perhaps we shouldnt always get what we think we want.

And the jackalope wife danced, out past the circle of the music and the firelight, in the light of the fierce desert stars.

Grandma Harken had settled in for the evening with a shawl on her shoulders and a cat on her lap when somebody started hammering on the door.

Grandma! Grandma! Come quick open the door oh god, Grandma, you have to help me

She knew that voice just fine. It was her own grandson, her daughter Evas boy. Pretty and useless and charming when he set out to be.

She dumped the cat off her lap and stomped to the door. What trouble had the young fool gotten himself into?

Sweet Saint Anthony, she muttered, let him not have gotten some fool girl in a family way. Thats just what we need.

She flung the door open and there was Evas son and there was a girl and for a moment her worst fears were realized.

Then she saw what was huddled in the circle of her grandsons arms, and her worst fears were stomped flat and replaced by far greater ones.

Oh Mary, she said. Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Oh blessed Saint Anthony, youve caught a jackalope wife.

Her first impulse was to slam the door and lock the sight away.

Her grandson caught the edge of the door and hauled it open. His knuckles were raw and blistered. Let me in, he said. Hed been crying and there was dust on his face, stuck to the tracks of tears. Let me in, let me in, oh god, Grandma, you have to help me, its all gone wrong

Grandma took two steps back, while he halfdragged the jackalope into the house. He dropped her down in front of the hearth and grabbed for his grandmothers hands. Grandma

She ignored him and dropped to her knees. The thing across her hearth was hardly human. What have you done? she said. What did you do to her?

Nothing! he said, recoiling.

Dont look at that and tell me Nothing! What in the name of our lord did you do to that girl?

He stared down at his blistered hands. Her skin, he mumbled. The rabbit skin. You know.

I do indeed, she said grimly. Oh yes, I do. What did you do, you damned young fool? Caught up her skin and hid it from her to keep her changing?

The jackalope wife stirred on the hearth and made a sound between a whimper and a sob.

She was waiting for me! he said. She knew I was there! Id been wed I watched her, and she knew I was out there, and she let me get up close I thought we could talk

Grandma Harken clenched one hand into a fist and rested her forehead on it.

I grabbed the skin I mean it was right there she was watching I thought she wanted me to have it

She turned and looked at him. He sank down in her chair, all his grace gone.

You have to burn it, mumbled her grandson. He slid down a little further in her chair. Youre supposed to burn it. Everybody knows. To keep them changing.