It was about 10 days ago and it had been pouring rain since before daylight.

It was a good day to be inside painting a bedroom, which is what Marion and had been doing for most of the day. By evening we were tired and glad to sit for a spell on the back porch for supper. The rain had finally ended. We watched as the setting sun peeked through the last of the clouds, the tall trees on the hill beyond the creek silhouetted against the soft orange sky.

I shuffled like a tired old man bent at the lower back as we put the kitchen in order. I was thinking about taking my shoes off. Sitting on the couch with her next to me. Maybe watch a Hallmark movie if she wanted. I just wanted to relax into the quiet of the evening.

It was then that she spoke up. A gleam in her eye. Her words filled with anticipation. She had something more adventurous in mind.

“Hey, you know what?”

I was afraid to ask.

“What?”

“I bet after all that rain, the armadillos will be on the move. Let’s go see if we can get one.”

“You mean, like, outside? In the dark?”

I was not enthusiastic.

I think Marion’s enthusiasm as an armadillo hunter began many years ago, long before she ever met me. According to legend, a story which I’ve heard several times, she was in the midst of an armadillo invasion at her house up in Newnan. They were digging up her lawn one square yard at a time. She had trapped several of them and relocated them to armadillo heaven.

One evening, a very unwise armadillo wandered in among the shrubbery along the front porch. Mike, who was going through chemo at the time, was sitting out on the front porch. He called to Charlie, their daughter, to get the shotgun.

“I’m gonna poke the bushes,” he said. “You get ready.”

When Mike made a racket with a stick, the suspect went on high alert and started to scamper for the woods. Charlie shouldered the shotgun and with the precision her daddy had taught her, (and I quote Marion) she “rolled that sucker” over before he could get away.

“It was the best shot I’d ever seen,” she said. “We were so proud of her.”

That moment stirred something in Marion’s psyche that remains to this day. To this particular evening. Which is why I’m loading my shotgun instead of taking my shoes off to sit on the couch. And why she’s standing by the kitchen door with a flashlight in her hands.

“You coming?”

She has a smile like the cat who caught a mouse, and we haven’t even been outside yet.

The heavy raindrops are dripping from the trees as we step out into the night. My Remmington 16GA is slung over my shoulder. I feel a little bit like Elmer Fudd being led on a wabbit hunt by Sylvester.

Armadillo hunting, I’ll admit, should be easier on a night like this. They usually don’t spook at the glare of the flashlight. It’s the sound of our footsteps that makes them run away. The constant drip of water is covering the muddy thump and squish of our evening walk.

The high beam white LED light is scanning the near woodland floor around the house. We pause silently to listen for the unmistakable telltale sign of leaf litter being pushed by the nose of a four-legged, armored snowplow.

Nothing. Not a sound.

“Let’s walk up behind the shop. I know there’s a couple of dens back there.”

My ancient hunter senses are starting to pulse. My pupils are wide open as my night vision comes into focus.

“You’re starting to get into this, aren’t you?” she says.

“Shushhhhhh. I’m listening.”

There’s a big soil pile right behind the shop from when we graded the site. On the backside, there’s an active den. I’ve seen the dirt disturbed around the opening on a pretty regular basis. We’re in stealth mode when we take a look over the edge of the mound. But nothing’s moving.

“There’s got to be one out here somewhere,” Marion says.

She swings the light to the right among the trees and fallen logs, and…

“I see something.”

We both stop in our tracks.

Then, from behind the big white oak on the back corner of the shop, we spot him. He’s plowing through the leaves like a bulldozer. We move closer. He stands up in the spotlight on his hind quarters and looks right at us. He’s listening for us. We brace against each other for balance. He starts to move away.

And that’s when I moved in for a closer shot.

Let’s just say that we scored one for the human race. One less trench dug through my front yard. One less nuisance to the foundation around my house to worry about.

We left the shop and turned out the driveway. If there was one, there was bound to be two. We saw our neighbor coming down the drive in his side-by-side. He had been to check on one of his troublesome horses. He saw us in his headlights and pulled over. The shotgun, I think, surprised him.

“What y’all doing?”

“Looking for armadillos.”

“We came down to check on your house while y’all were gone to Guatemala and saw how bad they’re digging in your yard.”

“One less now. We’re looking for a second victim.”

Well, that was it for that night, but the story doesn’t end just yet.

It was warm in the house last night, so when we went to bed, I turned the heat off and opened the bedroom window. I like the feel of the cool night air. It was a full moon, too. The woods were lit up like a parking lot. We talked before we fell asleep about the fact that there would be a lunar eclipse starting about 4am.

About 4am I got up for one of my calls-of-the-night. I wasn’t thinking about the eclipse at all. I came back to bed and settled right back to sleep. It wasn’t long before I felt Marion get out of the bed. I assumed that I had disturbed her, and she had decided to take a turn at the bathroom.

I kept waiting for her to come back. But I was half in and out of sleep. Next thing I knew she was shaking me.

“Psst…psst. Paul…wake up. There’s an armadillo outside.”

I raise my head off the pillow. I can see by the moonlight that she’s bent over at the window next to my side of the bed with her head stuck half through the curtains.

“Don’t you hear that?”

She’s got the flashlight pressed against the screen and pointed toward the woods.

“He’s right behind that tree. Come on. Let’s go get him.”

This is the woman I married. Always ready for an adventure. Never put off by the time of day or night. She lives by the motto that you’ve gotta go when the opportunity comes your way.

Personally, I think the eclipse got to her brain.

To her great disappointment, I grunted and went back to sleep.