George Barnett’s work as a small-town pastor means folks probably won’t challenge him when he tells of the day he picked up a hunting rifle and took aim at an escaped rhesus monkey in rural Mississippi. What started as a routine visit to his mom’s house in Vossburg on Monday is now the latest chapter in the not-so-tall tale that captivated much of the state, after a transport of research primates overturned in Jasper County just before Halloween. Barnett’s wife spotted the runaway monkey as a