Two years and two days after taking my last buck I would spend the afternoon beneath the canopy of the very same tree where that superb morning hunt took place. I have long decided that good things happened on the 13th, abandoning convention, due to the many bass caught on a “Lucky 13” top water bait fishing as a kid with my Dad. The surface of the lake would be smooth as Jell-O, and black, save for those interruptions of the popping bait harnessing the orange of the emerging sun. All peace shattered in an instant by an angry fish; miniature reenactments of Jonah and the Whale.
On my Mother’s side are superstitious people. God fearing, though wary about some things: my grandmother would be mere feet from her driveway, but should a black cat cross her path she would stop, put the enormous car in reverse, and drive clear around the block to enter her property by an uncorrupted route. I think she imagined the hood ornament of her Lincoln to be crosshairs on that animal. The dilemma was how to run it over without acquiring the bad luck in doing so. She never figured that one out.
Speaking of Lincoln, I will collect good luck when I can. I’m not going to make the block because of a cat, but I will stop for a penny in the parking lot of the grocery store. I’ll also skip work to hunt on the 13th, no matter the month. I’m not sure which of these practices had aligned the cosmos in my favor, but a large whitetail spike was approaching me now. This deer would fit the bill. Probably a 3½ year-old, his peers already nice 8-point bucks. His path would veer just out of bow range, however, yet still an exciting encounter. We’re still early in the hunt, with several hours at hand before dark. The wind was mostly South, with a Westerly tilt. This works very well to hunt here. It is something of a Silversteinian ‘giving tree’; decades of fruitful hunts having occurred at this place. The Spike’s early start on the afternoon itinerary bid well for things to come.
The scene resembled a Christmas card that had arrived earlier in the week: Cardinals as red as an ornament for the tree, while the does had assumed their winter blue, all against the backdrop of low grey clouds marching north to hide the perfect sky. It was very pretty. I didn’t want any more than this. To watch the changing of the guard, as day becomes night, would be a most enjoyable event, especially if coyotes would sing the exit music to this film.
Plans quickly changed when a very nice buck appeared, following an envoy of does. Strutting like a horse invited to the Derby, an All-American in his letter jacket. He seemed bewildered the ladies were paying him no mind, so with a quickening of the pace, he erased the yards between them. One by one, they ducked through a hole in the fence between pastures made big enough by the pigs to negotiate with ease. I suppose pigs are good for something. Ladies first, like red marching ants on a latitude 12 yards before me. Ever the gentleman, the buck would dip through last, gingerly aware, so as not to intermingle his tall antlers with the barbed wire.
The arrow was not so polite. It would come and go without waiting, or asking permission. In a disoriented mania the buck ran directly into a collection of Cedars long dead from the drought. In a spectacular crash, he balled up in the broken wood; a violent collision resembling that of an AMC Pacer shattering an 8-foot privacy fence. Then, to my amazement, he just kept going.
Upon review, that he would keep going made sense. I had hit further back than I wanted, probably all liver. Though, had he jumped the string hard, which this deer in his prime could certainly do, the exiting arrow may have taken a lung. Over an hour would pass prior to beginning recovery efforts. I didn’t want to push the deer. 6 double a batteries, or 4 hours later, depending on how you measure time, I would resign to the fact that the deer would not be going home with me this night. The blood trail was most challenging; stuttering unpredictable specks, the way ketchup from a nearly empty bottle will emerge in tiny drops, though not enough for the otherwise perfect meal. With temperatures well into the thirties, my deer would be fine if found in the morning.
My Dad would join me the following morning, to look for the deer. Beyond a skilled canine, I would choose no other. This compounded my outlook immensely. But as daylight turned into mid-morning, and on to that time that my wife might brunch with friends, my confidence steadily waned as a receding tide. At this point we were not tracking, but looking; circling, then reconvening at last blood, only to depart again. One this way, one that. We have a Jack Russell puppy at home. He will soon be a great ally on days such as this. This thought was disrupted by a shaking phone in my coat pocket. It’s my Dad. I suppose he’s going to say he needs to feed the cattle, then get back to town.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Chase, did you get that picture?”
“What? No… are you serious?!”
“I just sent you a picture of your buck. I’m standing her looking at him, and he’s a good one.”
Beyond a skilled canine, I would choose no other!
Topic: The Wednesday Buck... (Read 739 times)
