Something for Stephen to Read in Three Springs

Mark Short took me hunting in his pick up truck during an ice storm. It was already the second week of buck season and I hadn’t bagged one yet. There was only one day remaining to hunt legally and after three years of roaming through the woods in fluorescent orange, I had yet to kill my first deer.

Locals were beginning to question my manhood and comments like, "He should have been a girl," were circulating in small town sportsmen circles.

Mark, a friend of my father, was determined to help me make that step to manhood.

Mark was known for his ability to track down white tails. At sixteen I was eager to pull the trigger on my 30-30 and shoot one between the eyes just to keep the gossip at bay.

"Ain’t nothing gonna break my stride, ain’t nothing going to slow me down," played on the radio at least three times that day as we drove along dirt roads on Jack’s Mountain.

Mark seemed nervous as I hit the high notes of that song. He asked me if it was a man or a woman singing. I explained that I wasn’t sure.

I was bored out of my mind and my eyes were weary from scanning the passing thickets of brush for four legged creatures so I reached over and turned up the radio.

"I don’t know Chuck, the deer are not going to be moving around when it’s storming like this. If we want to find one we are going to have to get out of this warm truck and scare them up a little."

I poured the last bit of hot cocoa from a metal thermos, rolled my eyes and agreed to face the frigid air again for the sake of sportsmanship.

I thought I would never bag a buck and agreed to leave the warmth of Mark’s truck wishing I had never pissed him off by turning up the radio when that song played for the third time that day on WHUN.

"I always see deer down in Sink and Run. What do you think? Do you want to take a walk down there?"

"Sure," I said, realizing that he, like the deer, was playing hard to get.

He was ready for it, I could tell. All I had to do was reach over and make the first move but I didn’t want to make it so easy for him. Despite those heavy insulated hunting pants, I could tell he was ready for it.

At fifty yard intervals we walked side by side through the forest trying to scare out the deer.

"Oh the games people play," I sang to myself while stepping quietly on slippery, ice covered stones in the woods.

"Here it comes, Chuck!" He yelled from behind a thick pine grove.

The buck was headed straight for me.

I lifted the gun and pulled the trigger without aiming through the scope.

The buck did not fall but stopped dead in its tracks. It blinked at me a few times. Both the deer and I could not believe I missed that shot.

The animal turned around, flashed me his white tail and ran in the opposite direction.

Kaboom!

Down it went.

"Way to go Chuck! You got it!" shouted Mark.

He showed me how to cut off the scent glands on the deer’s legs and the proper place to put the blade of the knife, just under the white fur on the belly of the deer in order to gut it properly.

I helped him lift the white tail so that the blood would drain from the cavity we had cut.

It took both of us to drag that ten point out of the woods and put it on the back of his pick-up.

When we made it back to hunting camp, Mark told everyone that I shot that buck right between the eyes on the first shot.

I didn’t understand why he gave me the credit, especially when I didn’t share my last cup of warm cocoa with him.