Webs.wofford.edu



A Hunting Story

“You like to hunt?” Nolan asked without taking his eyes off the road.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean ‘You don’t know?’” He was eyeing me now.

“I’ve never been hunting, so I don’t know if I like it or not.”

“You want to go hunting?” he invited, tugging on his beard.

“Sure,” I said, though not really sure at all.

I was not entirely truthful. Maybe I had been hunting some 35 years ago as a teenager. My friend Gene and his younger brother Randy lived with danger. From a cramped rental house shared with a dozen guns and an alcoholic father, they often escaped into the surrounding pine woods with 22 rifles or 410 shotguns to terrorize rabbits, squirrels, wild turkeys, or anything with a pulse. I joined them a few times. Gene loaned me a bolt action 22 rifle with a tiny scope. Noisily tromping through the underbrush with weapons cradled in our scrawny arms, we sought something to shoot. If living things were unavailable, we’d make rusty tin cans dance with bullets.

On the last of these escapades I spotted a grayish brown sparrow preening on a limb perhaps 15 feet away. Peering through the scope I centered the cross hairs on its breast and pulled the trigger. A tiny eruption of feathers spun and swirled where the bird had perched. I found the remains on the ground, red mixed with gray, like my emotions. I was proud of my accuracy, yet ashamed of having needlessly killed this innocent creature. What a waste of time, of a bullet, of a life. It was the only animal I’d ever killed with a gun. I’ve never gone hunting since.

Had the question been “Do you want to kill something?” my answer would have been “No.” Had the question been “Do you enjoy killing things?” the answer would have been “No.” So why had I agreed to go hunting?

Maybe I saw it as another novel experience in what had already been an extraordinary 49th year of my life. In January I had strolled for the first time the streets of Rome, Florence, and Venice, shooting roll after roll of film while studying Renaissance art. In August I had taken my first wilderness hike, backpacking eight days in the Wind Rivers Range of western Wyoming, trekking over 50 miles with a 50 pound pack, mostly above the treeline at 10,500 ft. Thus, when faced with the question “You like to hunt?” my response was driven in part by my desire to sample new adventures. Perhaps my enjoyment of hunting would parallel that of my appetite for Brussel sprouts. Until a few years ago, I found Brussel sprouts unpalatable. Challenging myself to sample them with an open mind on a yearly basis, I discovered that I had developed a tolerance for these vegetables and could consume a serving without revulsion.

Perhaps I had agreed because I’ve heard from so many hunters talk about how much they enjoy the solitude of the woods, the sounds and sights and smells of nature. They claim to be rejuvenated by spent a few hours in the woods away from the cares of the working world. They say you don’t even have to fire a shot to consider the time well spent.

Perhaps I had agreed because hunting is something that “real men” do. Real men patch leaky plumbing. Real men wield hammers, saws, and axes. Real men get dirty and don‘t complain. Real men wear camouflage, but call it “camo.“ Real men scoff at discomfort. Real men are unafraid of cholesterol. Real men appreciate a sharp knife and a lethal firearm. Real men go hunting and shoot to kill.

He might just as well have asked “You want to be a real man?”

My answer would have been the same uncertain “Sure.”

He had popped the question while driving to an “away” game to watch our sons play high school football on a Friday night. Our wives chatted incessantly in the back seat of Nolan’s Tahoe. Nolan’s burly son Jake was the starting center, a 6’2” 235 pound junior whose helmet was decorated profusely with stars earned for especially important plays. My son, at 5’7” and 145 pounds got in occasionally as a wide receiver.

Twenty years ago Nolan had played on state championship teams at the same high school where our sons now burst through a paper banner held by cheerleaders, and where he dated the drum majorette, who now sat in the back seat brushing the hair of their 5th grade daughter.

By the time I entered high school, I too was 6’2” but weighed 85 pounds less than Nolan’s strapping son. Afflicted with Osgood-Schlaughter’s Disease (the very name implying a life-threatening seriousness which is entirely misleading) I had an excuse to avoid sports. My slender shins ached most of the time because the tendons were only tenuously attached to bones. Nevertheless, I admired athletes. One of my duties as the yearbook photographer was to get photographs of these heroes in action.

In high school, real men play football. Nolan and our sons are real men. I took pictures.

Football brought our families together. Meeting for dinner before many of the games, sitting in a tight cluster of portable stadium seats every Friday night, cheering for our sons, congratulating each other after good plays, we became friends.

“What are we going to hunt?” I asked.

“What do you want to hunt?” Nolan responded. “We can hunt deer, turkey, wild pig, whatever.”

“Doesn’t matter to me,” I said truthfully.

“How about deer? I’ve got 40 acres in the southern part of the county that I’ve been hunting since I was a boy. It already has deer stands set up. Good hunting there. Plenty of deer. You’ll have a pretty good chance of getting one.”

“Fine with me.” I said, contemplating a potential dilemma: would I actually shoot a deer I if I saw one? My wife asked that very question a couple of days later.

“Sure,” I said.

“No you wouldn’t,” she said, nearly in shock.

“I’ve been thinking about it. At first I figured that I probably wouldn’t even see a deer so I wouldn’t have to face that decision. That would be the easy situation. But then I thought ‘What would I do if a deer came within range?’ “

“Couldn’t you shoot but miss it on purpose?” she suggested.

“No. I can’t miss on purpose,” I pronounced indignantly.

“Why not?”

“Everybody knows when you’ve fired a gun. You can hear the blast for miles. If you miss, well, that’s embarrassing. Your hunting partners would want an explanation. I don’t like to lie. How would it sound to a bunch of hairy-armed real men to be told by a rookie hunter ‘I promised my wife I’d miss on purpose.’”

“Anyhow, I’ve decided that if I there is some wayward deer unfortunate enough to wander within range, I intend to kill it.”

“Why?” she pleaded.

“A friend of mine at the college loves venison. He and his family make all sorts of things from deer meat. So if I see a deer, I intend to shoot it, try some of the meat myself, and give some to Gerald.“

Thus did I rationalize my decision aloud while silently hoping to encounter only the solitude of nature that unsuccessful hunters claim is so satisfying.

“You may not even see a deer,” she teased.

The hunt would certainly be less traumatic for me if she were right.

“Do you have a gun?” Nolan inquired.

“Somewhere in a closet I have a 22 rifle that my brother gave me when he got the hunting fever. Back in his twenties, he went hunting with a few of his buddies Got a big buck the first time out using one of their high powered rifles. Hunting cost him a small fortune after that. He bought an expensive rifle with a scope, all sorts of camo, even got a 4 wheel drive Blazer. Passed that puny little 22 on to me.”

I paused and then fully revealed my ignorance by asking “Is there such a thing as a semi-automatic rifle?”

“Yes.”

“Then I think that’s what my brother gave me. A 22 semi-automatic. I’ve never actually shot it. It’s probably not sufficient for deer hunting.”

“Right. You’ll need something bigger and more powerful. I can set you up.”

I wasn’t surprised. I had heard from my wife, who works with Angie that Nolan has quite an arsenal. People joke that he could equip the National Guard with firepower.

“What do you want to hunt with? ” Nolan launched into a long list of types of weaponry he possesses but I didn’t recognize any of the terms other than “lever action” and “bolt action.” Those terms triggered memories from my youth.

I recalled shooting a BB gun powered by yanking repeatedly on a lever to generate enough energy to propel a tiny BB perhaps 15 feet along a trajectory nearly as random as a moth‘s flight. I was unfamiliar with the operation of lever action rifles, though it seems that the cowboys of black and white westerns used lever action rifles to dispatch any wildlife and all Indians without remorse.

The only weapon my father ever owned was a bolt-action 22 that he used exclusively to repel unwanted dogs and cats from our rural property. Stray dogs that upset our pets or pooped in our yard were treated to a dose of “rat shot” in the rump. They’d howl and disappear quickly into the woods of our neighborhood, sore but still alive. My father never shot to kill, only to discourage.

As a boy I often pleaded to shoot the rifle, and when I had reached what was deemed an appropriate age (perhaps 12), my father dutifully extracted the dusty rifle from the corner of his closet while my mother concurrently expounded on the dangers of firearms in the hands in of the inexperienced (or even the experienced), recounting tragic stories where lives had been unintentionally abbreviated by incompetent gun handlers, bullets flying from “empty” guns that had inadvertently “gone off,“ instantly creating widows or orphans or vegetables that drool on their pillows in nursing homes for decades. Having heard all this before, Daddy and I slipped out to the back porch where he briefly described the operation of a single-shot bolt-action rifle. In less than three minutes, I had fired a bullet, felt the small shove of the stock in my shoulder, and the gun had been returned to its place of nearly eternal rest in the darkest corner of his closet, obscured by ties received as gifts and worn even less frequently than this rifle was used. This rite of passage was surpassed in brevity only by the “birds and the bees” talk which I apparently missed in its entirety.

I vividly recall the only time I used that gun without permission. Having convinced my parents that I needed to stay home alone for the weekend due to some essential high school function, they went to the beach without me. Returning from an evening squandered cruising MacDonald’s, I backed the car in the carport well past my usual Friday night curfew. Exhausted, I unlocked the door and went inside but as I did, a car passed by on the rural highway in front of our house. In the beams of its headlights I glimpsed a car parked across the road partially obscured by trees. Very suspicious. Why would a car be parked way out here, five miles from town at this time of night? Without turning on the lights, I peered from every window of the house, hoping to determine what type of car it was and perhaps why it was parked there partially hidden among the trees. Impatiently I waited for passing cars to illuminate the mystery but traffic was sparse. My imagination raced. Was someone out to play a trick on me? To threaten me? To harm me? Could that car belong to a burglar? A stalker? A kidnapper? A murderer? Though tired, I was incapable of sleeping with this threat lurking less than a hundred yards from my bedroom.

Driven by fear, I devised a plan. In darkness, I crept into my parent’s empty bedroom, fumbled to extract the rifle from its repose, pinched two 22 rifle bullets from the plastic case in the top dresser drawer beneath my father’s handkerchiefs, and tiptoed to the carport. I inserted one of the bullets into the chamber and pulled back on the knurled knob to cock the rifle. I silently slid it the driver’s seat of the ‘67 Buick, rolled down the passenger window, and rested the barrel on the window sill, pointed in the direction of the mystery car where a felon certainly lurked. The old Buick cranked and I eased it to the end of our driveway, left hand on the steering wheel, both eyes squinting to see the car still motionless on the side of the road. My right index finger was poised on the trigger.

Impatiently I yearned for a passing car. After what seemed like several eternities, one appeared, and in the beams of its headlights I was finally able to identify the car which had driven me to this predicament. It was a highway patrolman, a trooper with a radar gun out to apprehend speeders. Relieved and embarrassed, I backed down the driveway, went back inside, and returned the rifle to its corner. Once in bed, I replayed the whole saga, chuckling quietly at my lunacy. Then I remembered that I had cocked the gun with a bullet in the chamber. Now it was propped in my father’s closet, dangerous and deadly, only two flimsy sheetrock walls away. I darted into the closet, now gingerly handling the rifle, terrified because I knew of no way of getting a bullet out of the chamber other than pulling the trigger. I fiddled with the knob. I jiggled the bolt. The deadly bullet remained in place. Again, my imagination raced. Supposed I simply returned the rifle to its closet. Suppose someone reached in to tug a shirt from a hanger and the gun went off. How could I explain that? Suppose someone were to get hurt? Leaving that loaded gun in the closet was simply too risky. So I waited until the patrolman had abandoned his secluded spot and then I took the rifle outside, aimed low into the dark woods, and pulled the trigger. At last, the spent casing flew out of the chamber. I returned the blasted gun to the closet and at last went to bed.

“I’ll try the bolt action,” I said, hoping for remedial instruction on the operation of a bolt action rifle that would have been useful 35 years ago.

“No problem. I’ve got a sweet little Ruger M77 you’re going to love. Jake got his first deer with that gun. Maybe you’ll get your first with it.”

“I hope so,” I said without conviction.

“Is Saturday morning good for you?” Nolan probed.

“Sure.”

“What time you want to get started?”

“I can be ready any time.” I boasted.

“How about 4:30?”

“OK. Where?”

“I’m just kidding. 4:30 is too early.”

So he was testing me. That’s OK.

“Well, when is good? I have no trouble getting up early. I’m usually up by 5:30 so I can be ready at whatever time you say.”

“How about we meet at the gas station just off the Interstate one exit above the county line. You know where that is?” Nolan proposed.

“Yes. I’ll be there. Just tell me what time.”

“How about quarter after six. It will be light enough to see. We can walk in and get in our stands before day.”

“OK.”

“You need anything?” Nolan asked.

“You’ll have to tell me what I need. Remember, I haven’t done this before.”

“I’ll set you up. You can wear Jake’s camo jacket. I have a ski cap and some good gloves. You have some boots?”

“I have those hiking boots that I wore in the Rockies. They’ll do, I hope.”

“Be sure to wear a couple pairs of socks. Its going to be cold sitting there.”

Saturday morning I was up at 4:30. In the dim light of our bedroom, I pulled on my red long johns as quietly as possible, dressing in layers, topping off with the fleece hiking jacket that had warmed me well in Wyoming. After walking the dogs, eating my scrambled eggs and grits, and sipping down four cups of coffee, I grabbed a digital camera and departed beneath a starry sky for the 30 minute drive to our meeting point. The sky lightened from an ominous gray as I drove south. I pictured real men at this very moment chugging coffee from insulated stainless steel mugs. I had trouble getting my favorite coffee cup to sit upright in the dashboard cupholder, which was clearly not designed for our twenty five year old wedding china Mikasa Margeaux tea cup.

Nolan flashed the lights of his truck as I entered the parking lot of the gas station at precisely 6:15.

“You need anything?” he nodded to the convenience mart.

“I don’t think so. I’m ready.”

“Follow me. We’re just going a couple of miles.”

As I fell in behind Nolan, a huge pickup truck towing a trailer with an impressive all-terrain-vehicle joined our caravan. I thought to myself “I bet these veteran hunters get a kick out of observing inept newbies like me. Today, in the absence of deer, I’ll be the entertainment, but that’s OK. They’ll set me up for some prank. They’ll glance at each other with knowing grins when I do something stupid. Being the rookie is the price of any new experience, a price I’m willing to pay. There’s probably no other way that I’d be able to go deer hunting. I’ll hold a borrowed gun in a borrowed camo jacket sitting on someone else’s land aspiring to shoot someone else’s deer. As long as any mistakes I make are simply gaffs that hurt only my pride, I’ll play along and try to keep a sense of humor.

I followed Nolan for several miles on a narrow two lane. When he eased into an overgrown yard by an abandoned home place, I pulled my minivan into the tall grass beside his 4X4 pickup.

Nolan tossed me an insulated camo jacket, a pair of thick wool gloves, and a plush head warmer that matched the other items. We dressed quickly, talking softly in the cold air, mist appearing with every breath. I joined Nolan by the bed of his truck where he opened two large cases as if they were laden with plutonium bombs. From one he extracted a sleek rifle which he inspected briefly before showing me how to load it.

“This here is a Ruger M77 Bolt Action,” he said as he admired the weapon. He showed me how to put a bullet into the chamber, the mechanism of the bolt action, and the safety. I paid close attention to the safety, a little black sliding lever operated by the thumb. In the back position, the gun is on “safety” meaning that it won’t fire even if the trigger is yanked. In the forward position, the gun is armed and infinitely more dangerous.

“Take a look through this scope,” he urged, handing the rifle to me.

“Amazing!” I confided. The lenses were huge. The image was bright and crisp even in this early light.

“That’s a Leupold scope. A pretty good one,” he stated with pride.

“No doubt about that,” I said, trying to imagine what Bambi and his mother might have to say about this apparatus.

He opened the other case and lovingly lifted a beautiful rifle with an even more impressive Leupold scope.

“This,” he announced “is my pride and joy. It’s a Ruger, too. A 308 International. See how the stock extends all the way to the end of the barrel. But the stock doesn’t touch the barrel. You can slide a dollar bill the entire length between them to prove it. This is a fine gun, alright.”

I appreciate precision equipment. Instead of firearms, my closets contain perhaps 30 cameras. Some are sparkling chrome or brushed aluminum antiques nestled in form-fitting leather cases. Agfas and old Kodaks with delicate knobs and levers. Bellows and prisms. The biggest one, a Grundlach view camera made of wood in 1932 holds sheets of film measuring 8 x 10 inches. The camera bag I carry around every day weighs over 25 pounds with two camera bodies, modern electronic marvels, and three lenses, one of which has vibration sensors and motors that counteract camera movements that would otherwise contribute to blurry images. I realized that I admire finely crafted instruments whether they’re intended for shooting people, landscapes, or animals in the landscape.

As we pulled on hats and gloves and zipped up zippers, Nolan told me the story behind his favorite rifle. It belonged to a long-time friend of his who had been called by a buddy to help drag out a deer his buddy had killed. On the way into the woods, Nolan’s friend had been shot and killed by the very man who had called to ask for his help. Nolan’s friend had died on the spot. Nolan had begged the man’s wife to sell him the gun for several years. She finally relented, perhaps knowing that each time Nolan went into the woods with that gun, he‘d once again be hunting with an old friend.

Maybe my mother was right. Guns are dangerous, and in the hands of the overanxious, they’re certainly deadly. I rechecked the safety on m M77

Dressed head to toe in camo, Nolan ordered me to lift each foot so he could spray something on the soles of my boots. Thus prepared, we began our stroll into the woods down a narrow path that rose and fell, branching left and right beneath pines and oaks. Fallen leaves of autumn silvered with a thin frost muffled our steps. Nolan spoke even more softly once we entered the woods, providing a few final suggestions to improve my chances.

“Be real quiet once we get there. And no quick movements. Everything has to be in slow motion so as not to scare off the deer. If you see one, bring the gun up real slow. Aim just behind the shoulder, low, to hit the heart. Avoid the shoulder or the rump. That spoils the meat.”

We walked a little farther in silence.

“Your stand is on a hill where you’ll have a 360 degree view. The hill rises up behind you and there will be a slope in front of you. As you’re sitting in the stand, to your left at about 10 o’clock is a creek. Deer like to move along that creek bank so keep a good watch down there. That’s a sweet spot. I’ve shot many a deer from that stand.”

We walked on without speaking. Then he said softly “We’re coming up on your stand soon. I’ll point it out to you. I’ll head on down the same trail and over to the next hill. You won’t be able to see me, and I can’t see you, but we can hear each other if we speak up. If you get cold, just yell out “I’m cold” and we’ll leave.”

According to the radio, the temperature was 31 as I was driving to our meeting point. I had already decided they’d have to haul my frozen carcass out of the woods before I’d confess to being cold. Real men don’t get cold, or if they do, they’d never say so.

“One more thing,” he whispered. “If you hear me shoot, be ready. The deer may come your way, so have your rifle up and ready to fire. Likewise, if I hear you shoot, I’ll sit tight for a few minutes in case they come my way.”

Optimism and precision equipment. I appreciate both.

After several forks in the trail beneath the thinning canopy of hardwoods, Nolan motioned to a clearing where a deer stand was strapped to a stout oak. With a nod of his head, I left the trail and quietly crept to my perch. Nolan walked on, turning around just before disappearing. He raised a gloved hand in a gesture of good luck and benediction.

My deer stand was a metal contraption slanting maybe 15 feet up the downhill side of the tree. It was held in place snugly by nylon straps and remained motionless as I climbed the metal rungs. It nestled beneath an ancient homemade wooden stand, the floor of the original structure now serving as a roof over the newer model.

It was an awkward climb, with the rifle dangling from my shoulder, nearly clanging against the metal ladder. I rechecked to make sure the safety was on. I tried to move slowly and without sound, worming my way onto a tiny platform beneath a safety rail. There was a strap of nylon tarp slung between two rods that was to be my seat for the next few hours. I wriggled into position, pleased that the seat conformed to my buttocks. I checked my watch. 6:38 am. I leaned back to survey my domain. As Nolan said, the view was 360 degrees with the stout oak tree at my back providing the only obstruction of the smooth hill that rose gently. Oaks and hickories, the largest some two feet in diameter, towered above. The creek to my left ran quietly in its little ravine. Beyond the creek was a stand of pines with their needles the only green in this serene setting.

“I’m hunting,” I thought to myself as a smile spread across my face. Still, I worried that a deer might appear.

The woods were quiet except for the little sounds emanating from a couple of squirrels scurrying from trunk to trunk. I practiced moving slowly, lifting the rifle to my shoulder in a way that would be unnoticed by a deer only seconds before it would feel a sharp pain in the chest and hear a loud blast. I practiced looking through the scope at a small woodpecker that busied itself for several minutes tapping at the bark of a tree just in front of me. I practiced adjusting the focus and zoom of the scope. I listened to a raucous band of crows engaged in some antics in the pines across the creek.

In about an hour I counted eleven gunshots originating from varying distances in all directions. Would that be eleven dead deer, or perhaps some combination of dead deer and excuses that totaled eleven?

The sky gradually lightened, dawn became day, and the drab leaves still hanging loosely from trees took on more color. As the frost melted, more and more leaves let go and launched into lazy spirals, one by one completing the cycle, returning to earth to become soil and perhaps in a decade to reincarnate as a leaf for yet another season. It was about this time that I had to let go some of that coffee I had enjoyed several hours ago.

I agree with those hunters who say that time in the woods is worth it whether is game taken or not. Unoccupied by the numerous and mostly inconsequential crises of work, hunters let their minds wander. Mine did.

I thought about the hunters of Daniel Boone’s time, armed with clumsy unreliable muzzle loaders, hunting not for pleasure but of necessity. No Gortex waterproofing nor windblocking breathable fabrics that wick away moisture from the skin. No socks of such chemical and mechanical complexity as to warrant their $12 price and page-long descriptions of their features in hunting magazines. No camo patterns printed in Taiwan or China. These were primitive American hunters unaided by Leupold or Bushnell or Swarovski from Japan and Germany. They hunted at ground level in boots that could be worn on either foot with the same degree of comfort or discomfort. They hunted without a license or safety training. Without sticks that, when bent, emit heat in the hunters boots or gloves. Without shock-absorbing foam filled cases to transport their weapons. Without polarized sunglasses, trail mix, Vibram soles and steel toes and shanks. And without aerosol sprays to disguise or disorient.

Considering all these advantages, perhaps hunting is unfair. After all, what modes of defense do deer have in the absence of technology? Motivated by hunger to search for food, motivated by indescribable, inexplicable and inescapable forces to mate, deer venture timidly in the sole environment that is available to them, equipped only with a keen sense of smell, acute hearing, decent eyesight, and paranoia that makes them wary of every snapping twig or commotion in the leaves. What if a deer could….

Suddenly my fantasy was shattered by a nearby gunshot from the direction where Nolan had disappeared. Recalling his advice, I brought the rifle into position in case frightened deer were retreating in my direction. I clicked the safety switch forward. Perhaps 30 seconds later, I heard another blast of equal magnitude. I remained on high alert.

Another 20 seconds, and then I heard “G.R.”

“Yeah,” I yelled back.

“Come on down.”

“OK.”

I flipped the safety on before clambering down the ladder. By the time I had reached the ground, Nolan was standing on the trail where I had last seen him. I hurried over to see what was next.

Nolan was grinning widely, unable to conceal his excitement.

“You hear two shots?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“That was me. I need you to help me get those deer.”

“You got two?” I marveled.

“Yep.” His eyes were sparkling.

We walked up a small hill where Nolan’s stand came into view. Behind his stand, the land dropped off sharply to a big creek.

“One fell where I shot it. We’ll have to look for the other one.”

“Good,” I thought to myself. Now I’ll get a more complete hunting experience. We won’t emerge from the woods empty handed. Furthermore, I’d heard stories of hunters having to scour the woods to locate a wounded animal.

Just behind Nolan’s stand was a faint trail in the leaves used by animals to traverse the bluff above the creek. Forty yards from his stand we found the smaller deer sprawled on the ground. Nolan lifted its lifeless head to reveal where the bullet had entered just behind one eye. On the other side of the head, much of the face had been ripped away as the bullet exited. The deer’s bloody tongue was stuck out to one side.

Long before the hunt, I had wondered what my response to blood and death would be. After all, I faint nearly half the time when I have blood drawn for a routine physical. If I ever watched the needle go into my arm, I suspect that number would peg at 100%. So when confronting a bloody animal, lifeless yet still warm, would I respond by collapsing into unconsciousness. Would I heave? Would those feelings of guilt and wastefulness that accompanied my slaughter of a sparrow emerge?

I had my answer. I had remained calm and unemotional while inspecting the entry and exit wounds. This dead dear was not so different from road kill deer. The animal was already dead when I arrived. Seeing a dead animal is very different from seeing an animal transition from life to death. I didn’t witness the last desperate gulp for air, the involuntary twitching of limbs, the sparkle in an eye fading to the dull dim glaze of death, the waning pulses of blood which finally subsided. I wasn’t witness to the dying so I still don’t know how I might be affected by that experience. I’m sure it wouldn’t be pleasant, but just how unpleasant it would be remains a mystery. Anyhow, I didn’t have time to contemplate because Nolan reminded me that we must find the other deer.

“Look around for a blood trail. There should be some blood on the ground near where I shot the other one. Once we find that blood, we can follow it to the deer.”

Beginning at the body of the first deer, I hunched close to the ground, inspecting the leaves for blood but found none. It would be easy to miss blood which would blend in with these wrinkled leaves of oak and hickory. I scanned in ever expanding circles.

Nolan headed down the embankment toward the creek. “Hurt animals seek water,” he said. “That other one is probably down by the creek.”

I continued to search for a blood trail for several minutes until Nolan called out from a distance “G.R. Over here. I’m down by the creek.”

I scrambled down the steep hill through a stand of briars and underbrush growing in the muddy sand of the flood plain. Once at the water’s edge I saw Nolan downstream, dragging a large deer from the current.

“Pretty good size, huh?” he winked.

“Look at this,” he pointed to the left shoulder, which swiveled freely in every direction. “She must have broken it when she fell down.”

“Did you find a blood trail?” I asked.

“Nope. Did you?”

“No.”

“So how did you find her?” I asked.

“I thought I heard a splash in the creek after I shot her. Sure enough, she came down here to die.”

“How much does she weigh?” I asked.

Nolan tugged at the carcass to estimate its heft. “I’d say about 145 pounds,” he mused while pulling on his beard.

“That’s way too heavy to drape across our shoulders and walk up that hill.”

“Yep, but we do have to get her up that bluff,” he asserted as he pulled a sturdy knife from his camo pants. He cut a section about two feet long from a stout sapling. He deftly pierced the blade through the skin between the ankle bones and Achilles’ tendon of each hind leg. Next he jabbed the sapling through both holes, creating a makeshift handle that would allow us to drag the carcass a bit easier.

I grabbed my side. Nolan grabbed his, and we lunged forward, the carcass dragging behind, flopping and tilting as we struggled breathlessly through the briars and brush, using our free hands to tug ourselves upward by pulling on the trunks of small trees. During one of our three rest stops where we panted for breath, I suggested that Nolan refine his technique such that the larger deer would collapse where shot and the smaller deer wander off. Nolan agreed.

Our leg muscles stinging from the exertion, we finally drug the bigger deer alongside its partner atop the bluff

“Let’s go get the truck. I think it will make it down the trail so we don’t have to drag these things a half mile,” Nolan suggested.

“I like that idea!”

As we walked back up those trails which were well lit by a Carolina blue sky at 8:15, I asked Nolan how he would get the deer out if he couldn’t use the truck.

“I have an ATV at the house but the battery was dead this morning. If I had to, I’d use it to drag them out but I’m pretty sure we can get the truck down there.”

He stopped suddenly to point out a bare patch on the trail.

“Look at that scrape,” he said. “A buck’s been in here recently. Check out those tracks. He came through here after we did.”

I saw lots of fresh tracks along the trail.

“I actually pulled the trigger four times this morning,” Nolan confided.

“But I heard only two shots come from your stand,” I replied.

“That’s right. Let me tell you what happened. I heard something behind me to my right. I listened very carefully and didn’t move. They came closer and closer along that little trail you saw on the bluff. They passed directly behind me in no hurry. I stood up real slow, took aim at the big one, and pulled the trigger. Nothing. I didn’t have a bullet in the chamber so I had to bolt one in as quietly as I could. I re-aimed at the big one and got off the first shot. She took off running down the hill. The smaller one stayed right there. Didn’t budge. I’ve never a deer just stand there so I advanced another bullet into the chamber, took aim at him and pulled the trigger. Nothing. A dud. Never had a dud before. I couldn’t believe it, and I couldn’t believe that the deer just stayed there frozen while I ejected the dud, took aim and fired again. He stood their perfectly still while I shot him right through the head so as not to spoil any meat.”

He told this with great satisfaction, knowing that this was to be added to that ever expanding body of hunting lore.

Back at the truck, Nolan showed me how to remove all the bullets without having to fire the weapon. It looked so easy. Why couldn’t I figure it out that night 35 years ago?

After a jostling ride in the 4x4 with branches scraping and screeching the hood and sides of the truck for much of the way, we arrived in the clearing and hoisted the deer into the back of the truck. I took a picture of Nolan sitting on the tailgate with a dead deer on either side. He insisted on taking a picture of me in the seat of honor.

“Are you about ready for a biscuit?” Nolan asked.

“I could eat one, I guess. I already ate a big breakfast, but if you’re hungry, let’s get a biscuit.”

Several minutes later we arrived in at the same convenience store where he had met a few hours ago. The line at the drive-in window wrapped around the building so we went inside, joining a line of about ten manly men, all completely outfitted in camo, all seeking a biscuit and coffee and conversation related to hunting. Was I now legitimately one of them, standing there in my borrowed camo jacket and my boots speckled with blood? Did my blue jeans betray my inexperience?

Waiting in line, we heard the same question many times. “Did you get one?” When it was Nolan’s turn to answer, he said “No. We got two.” He grinned and nodded toward me.

“He shot two. I helped drag one,” I clarified, giving credit where it was due.

Nolan seemed to know most of the fellows in line and the others seated at the laminated tables. We got our grub to go, strolling back out to the truck where those two deer flopped in the bed, scrambled by the bumpy ride out of the woods.

Was this trip to the convenience mart a ritualistic conclusion of a morning hunting expedition or was it nothing more than satisfying a hunger?

“You don’t eat breakfast before hunting?” I inquired.

“Nope. I did once and nature called all morning while I was in the woods. Most uncomfortable,” Nolan confided.

I elected not to tell him that those four cups of coffee had generated an irrepressible urge about an hour after I had settled into my stand. I quietly wondered how long the smell of my urine would repel all wildlife from that idyllic venue.

“Where are we going now?”

“To a deer processing plant in Union County. They do a good job at this place. They’ll fix it up any way you want it. . Summer sausage. Cubed steak. Stew meat. Tenderloin. If you want hamburger, they can do that too. They’ll even add beef fat to the grind because venison is too lean. The beef fat makes it workable into paddies. Whatever we decide, it’ll come back in about a week neatly wrapped and labeled.”

“Don’t some people do their own butchering?” I asked.

“Some do, but its messy and there’s a lot a waste. Skin, guts, bones, the head and neck. There’s not a whole lot of meat on a deer. These people do a real good job and they’re reasonable. I’m guessing $40 each for these deer. We’ll split it up next week when they call.”

As Nolan drove us across the southern tip of Spartanburg county, passing through Cross Anchor and into Union County, he pointed out the homes of various characters he knew. I learned that the land we had hunted on was now his, having passed from his grandparents through his mother to Nolan. The adjacent property belonged to his cousin who inherited his half in the same manner.

We called our wives on our cell phones. When Nolan bragged to his wife “I shot twice and killed two deer” I interjected “But how many times did you pull the trigger?” He grinned and signaled with a single finger three less than the actual number.

A hand-lettered sign by the edge of the road indicated the entrance to the deer processing plant, a low white building with several additions cobbled to the front. Several pick-up trucks were parked in the lot and successful hunters, careful not to express too much excitement, tugged beasts from their trucks to a shed beside the entry door.

“I bet you’ve never seen anything like this!” Nolan chirped.

“I’ve been to the abattoir to get pig hearts for biology labs. I took a group of students to a turkey processing plant on a field trip. We saw every step of the process beginning with unloading the toms from crates to injecting the breasts with basting solutions to the blast freezing after the labels had been applied.”

“Yes, but I bet you’ve never seen anything like this!” he reiterated, pointing to a sign above the opening to the shed. In bold red letters it said “The Morgue.”

I peered into The Morgue where eight or ten deer were heaped haphazardly on the bloody floor, eyes open, mouths agape, each with a wire tag affixed to an ankle. Arriving hunters knew the routine. They’d get a numbered tag from the registration desk just inside the door, secure it to the ankle and fill out a form at the desk indicating how the meat is to be processed.

Nolan and I heaved his deer onto the growing pile, and I strapped tags 957 and 958 to their legs as he wrote instructions for the butchers on the sheet. Coming out of The Morgue, I noticed a sign that said “Horns sawed off. You saw… free. We saw… $2.”

Even as I speculated as to the meaning of this, a teenaged boy appeared with a electric reciprocating saw, the sort carpenters and plumbers might use for renovation work. Grasping a small buck by the antlers, he thrust the vibrating blade into the back of the skull and pushed it forward toward the eyes. Another swift downward cut across the top of the head and the section of the skull with antlers lifted right off. The upper back quadrant of the brain plopped to the floor. The kid stabbed it with the blade of the saw and flicked it into The Morgue. He handed the rack to a proud hunter. Two dollars in twenty seconds. Not bad.

Inside, Nolan and I watched three bare-armed men in long green rubber aprons expeditiously hang each deer by the rear ankles from an electric winch rolling along an overhead track. Each man had his own work station complete with a scale for getting the weight of each animal. They removed the skin with a minimal number of knife strokes and well placed tugs. Hooves were lopped off with a huge carpenter’s hack saw, as was the neck and head. Viscera were slopped into a couple of huge rubber waste bins and soon all that remained were shoulders, hips, and the backbone. Periodically they rinsed away blood and guts with a garden hose while country music blasted from a radio. Each man could prep a deer to this state in less than five minutes, and send the good stuff through a plastic curtain to an adjacent room where men in white aprons expertly wielded all sorts of saws and knives, quickly generating nicely wrapped and labeled packages ready for freezing.

“That one still got spots,” one of the butchers shouted in disapproval above the music, nodding toward a tiny deer. Another butcher confirmed the transgression, shaking his head in disgust. From this exchange it was apparent that some overzealous hunter had violated a code of conduct which resulted in public censure. I became aware that hunters have a sense of right and wrong and that some acts are considered unacceptable and unethical. Those with integrity show restraint and self-control, an attribute of civilized man.

I marveled at the gruesome proceeding while Nolan made arrangements to have the backstraps and sweet meat removed from his larger deer so that we could have fresh venison on the grill that night. We watched in amazement as #957 was butchered right before our eyes. Upon removing the two backstraps, the butcher draped the bloody slabs, each about three inches thick, into Nolan‘s outstretched palms, promising to return from the back room with some wrapping paper.

He was right. I’d never seen anything like this. At the abattoir, livestock would be marched in, shot in the forehead, and promptly processed in much the same manner. The big difference here was The Morgue where a continuous stream of hunters heaped their quarry one on top of the other, appendages akimbo.

On the way back to retrieve my minivan, Nolan suggested how to cook venison to avoid gamey flavors and maximize tenderness. I listened carefully while holding two waxed paper packages, one with a backstrap nearly two feet long, the other with a section of sweet meat from inside the abdominal cavity.

“I’ve had a lot of fun today,” Nolan concluded.

“Me too!” I echoed.

“So, do you like to hunt?”

“Yes, I do! Thanks for inviting me. It has been a great experience. Even better than I had hoped for.”

“Today was a great day but I would change one thing,” he went on.

“What’s that?”

“I’d rather it had been to you who shot the deer. I wish it had been you in the stand where I was this morning, but I thought you‘d have a better chance where you were.”

What a genuinely nice fellow. So unselfish. Wanting to make sure that I’d had a pleasant experience. Sharing his treasured guns. Patiently teaching me and encouraging me. Setting me up in a prime location. Resisting whatever temptation there must have been to pull a prank on me. Heck, he’d probably even be big enough to forgive me for peeing off his best deer stand. But I decided not to find out about that. Maybe after a few more hunts I’ll be willing to confess. After all, veteran hunters who take out a newbie probably deserve some sort of compensation, perhaps some boneheaded act to recollect with a chuckle. I’ll pay up later.

It was nice that Nolan was so concerned with me having a successful hunt. I’m relieved I didn’t have to pull the trigger. I’m happy that I didn’t watch an animal die. I’m delighted that my host had such a special day. I wouldn’t change a thing about the day. Not a thing!

I’ve been hunting, but does that make me a hunter? I’m not sure. I am sure that I spent the day with an authentic hunter. Like many hunters, I came home without having a shot at a deer. Like a real hunter, I enjoyed the solitude of nature. But could I pull the trigger? Could I kill a deer? I think so but I’m content for the time being not having to prove it. Will I go hunting again? Absolutely.

“What a day!“ I concluded. “I can say that the first time I ever went deer hunting, I ate venison from the grill that same night. Do I have to be completely honest and say that you did all the shooting?”

He chuckled. “You can tell it however you want.”

So I have.

G.R. Davis Jr.

23 November 2006

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download