The Sharpshooter / Head Start
I had a great conversation this morning with Mike and
Bill, two brothers-in-Christ that have been a big part of my spiritual and
general life journeys. They are both
regular readers of Embers and Mike was shaking his head as he said, “I
wish I could write like you. I have a
story of deer hunting when I was 13-years old that I would just love to put
down on paper, but every time I’ve tried I just get frustrated.” Mike went on to share his tale with Bill and
I. After listening to him, and fully
enjoying his story, I decided that the least I could do to encourage him to
write it down is to give him a head start.
In my part of the world, it is still a common rite of passage,
not exclusively, but mainly for young boys when they have reached the age of
twelve, to join their fathers in the pursuit of the elusive whitetail buck. Unfortunately for me, my father had given up
on hunting by the time I came along, so I didn’t head for the deer woods until
I was college-aged and well past the point where I was tired of just listening
to the deer stories of my friends, and finally decided to do something about
it. But, alas, I remember now that this
is Mike’s story, so let’s get back on the track.
This was Mike’s second year of hunting. He already knew what it was like to shiver on
the deer stand, waiting for the giant buck that never materialized. But he had the excitement of youth on his
side as his father dropped him off first at his stand, and then he continued on
a couple hundred yards deeper into the woods to his own stand.
Mike climbed up onto his platform that was wedged in
the low split of a birch tree. Mike had
read that the best way to ambush a big buck is to sit up in the air, as deer
seldom look up for danger. Mike’s stand,
however, was only about six feet off of the ground. As that height, or lack thereof, what he had
really done was to put himself in the direct field of vision for every deer
that passed by. He should have about
tripled the height of his stand to make himself less conspicuous, and even at
that he would have had to keep movements to a minimum to escape being found
out.
Mike’s weapon was an old single-shot 20-guage shotgun
that his dad had purchased for him. In
the lefthand pocket of his flannel shirt he carried three slug cartridges. Once he was settled in, he unzipped his
coat, unbuttoned the shirt pocket, and removed one of the slugs. This he slipped into the chamber of his
shotgun, snapped the gun shut, set it across his lap. He re-buttoned his shirt pocket, zipped his
coat up to his chin, and he began to wait.
By now, dawn had melted the last of the night. Back behind him a red squirrel sounded off
with his machine-gun like high-pitched chatter.
A bluejay screeched a response.
About two inches of fresh snow lay on the ground. Mike began to peer as deep into the woods as
possible, slowly, ever-so-slowly, turning his head one way and then the other,
light a lighthouse headlight.
This is the time of big imaginations. Was that sound to his left a step? No, it was just a brittle oak leaf still
clinging to the branch of the scrub oak rustling in the stirring breeze. In his mind, Mike pictured the huge twelve
pointer of his dreams step out of the brush and into the opening to his
right. He glanced over that way. No, there was nothing there, just another
fluttering oak leaf. But wait, was that something
moving? No, it was just a stump. No, wait! There - it was a flicker of a deer’s
ear. So many times, it is the twitch of
a deer’s ear that betrays its presence.
Then the deer walked fully into view thirty yards away. It wasn’t quite the tangle of antlers that
Mike had imagined, but clearly there was a tight little basket rack of eight
points sticking out slightly from between the buck’s ears.
Mike’s heart was pounding so loudly that he worried it
would frighten the buck. Now he remembered
the shotgun still laying across his lap.
He should have raised it cautiously, but in the excitement he pulled it
quickly up to his shoulder. The buck
looked in his direction, but stood still.
When the silver bead on the tip of the barrel slid across the front
shoulder of the buck, Mike squeezed the trigger. The old blunder-bust kicked hard.
As the sound of the blast faded, Mike was surprised that
the buck was still standing there at thirty yards. He hadn’t moved. Mike decided to shoot the buck again, and so
he fumbled with unzipping his coat, unbuttoning the shirt pocket again and
fishing out a second shell. He pushed the
lever and opened the shotgun; the spent shell ejected out and fell silently
into the snow below the stand. As Mike
snapped the gun back shut he noticed that the buck had taken a few steps in his
direction. At twenty yards this time
Mike put the bead on the buck’s should and squeezed the trigger. Mike rocked back at the gun’s report and he
watched the buck take a few quick steps, and then stop again. The buck watched Mike eject the spent shell,
fetch the third and final shell, and slip it into the chamber. Mike thought hard, “Steady, steady!” He put the bead on the buck’s front shoulder
and again squeezed the trigger. This
time the buck seemed to flinch before it began to run back in the direction it
had come from.
Mike scrambled out of his platform stand and hit the
ground running. He ran gasping for quick
breaths in the direction of his father.
As soon as he could see his dad, Mike yelled out, “I filled him full of
lead!” Mike could hardly contain his
excitement as he returned to his stand with his father. They easily found the buck’s tracks in the
snow as Mike recounted the whole scene.
But, although they followed the track for several hundred yards, there
was no blood, not even a single hair. It
was all clearly there in the sign they never found – somehow Mike had missed
the buck clean with all three shots.
Later that day, they set up a target and found that the
shotgun threw a slug a good six inches low at thirty yards. The fact that it was the gun and not his aim
that had cost him his first buck didn’t do much to soothe the
disappointment.
Now, many years later and with a number of bucks
successfully harvested Mike can laugh at the one that he “filled with lead” but
never hit. He believes that he better appreciates
what he has gotten because of those he didn’t get. It’s all gift, maybe even especially when all
you have to show for the adventure is the story.
His Peace <><
Deacon Dan
Photo by Myko Makhlai on Unsplash
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