"Four. And big! Why that devil was wearing a thirty-eight-inch collar, a size sixty-four jacket, and the biggest whip antenna I ever saw."
There might also be a few additional difficulties in the eating of game.
Your wife might have to warn the children, "Be careful you don't crack your teeth on a piece of Daddy's buckshot and watch out for the little wires and electrodes; they might catch in your throat and choke you."
Nevertheless, any extra dental and doctor bills would be more than made up for by your savings on hunting clothes. Since all the animals will be wearing red, the hunters can wear any old thing they want--as long as it isn't red. Wearing red, in fact, might be disastrous. Hunters who mistake people for potential venison will plead, "I saw this flash of red and thought sure it was a deer. ..."
Now I'm not one to swim upstream in the river of progress. The old days are gone. But I know that sooner or later I'll have a relapse and be carted off to a psychiatrist to be set right.
"What seems to be your problem?" the psychiatrist will ask.
"Well, Doc," I'll say, "I keep thinking about these naked animals."
"Yes," he'll say, "that is rather serious. Such tendencies are doubtlessly the manifestation of some childhood experience."
And you know, he'll be right.
The B'ar
Rancid Crabtree was ranting and raving when I charged into our kitchen.
"Thar's a gol-dang b'ar in maw brush pile," he said.
My grandmother's nose quivered. "Open the window, child," she said to me. Personally, I thought Rancid had a rather interesting smell, kind of tangy, like game hung a bit too long in warm weather.
"What's this about a bear?" Gram asked, shoving a couple of fresh-baked cinnamon rolls in front of Rancid and pouring him a cup of coffee.
"Thar's a b'ar in maw brush pile," Rancid repeated. "Ah thank the critter plans on passin' the winter thar."
"Well, what's that hurt?" Gram said.
Rancid looked at her in disgust. "You can't never tell whan ah might need thet brush pile fer something'," he said. "What right's thet b'ar got movin' in like he owned the place? Any number of nice caves around but he's got to hole up in maw brush pile. Wall, ah ain't gonna stand fer it.
B'sides, ah've been hungerin' fer some b'ar steak, anyway."
"Then just shoot him and be done with it," Gram said.
"That's what ah needs the boy fer."
"What?" Gram said.
"What?" I said.
"Ah needs him to stand on top the brush pile and poke a pole down into it and drive the b'ar out so ah kin get a shot. Won't be nothin' to it."
"There won't be nothin' to it, all right," Gram said, "because I ain't lettin' him do a fool dangerous thing like that."
Gram and I agreed on few things, but this happened to be one of them.
just to make it look good though, I threw out a half-hearted beg.
"Aw c'mon, Gram, let me do it," I said.
"Nope!"
"All right." There was no point in pushing her too hard.
"What's the matter?" Rancid said, giving me his mean look. "Yer begger broke?"
I could see he was disappointed.
"Hey," I said. "How about Ginger Ann? I bet she'd do it."
Ginger Ann was a woman who lived alone back in the hills on a little ranch she had inherited from her father. I'd heard it said of her that she could out-work, out-fight, and out-swear any man in the county.
Once I'd seen her ornery old cow horse throw her flat on her back, for no reason that I could see except he thought it might be a good joke.
She was up in a flash, fists doubled and biceps knotted up to the size of grapefruit. She delivered the beast such a blow to the ribs he would have fallen over sideways except for a nearby tree. While he was still dazed she stepped back into the saddle and said to me, "Don't mind us, boy We do this all the time."
That was one of the reasons I thought Ginger Ann might be just the person to drive a bear out of a brush pile.
"Gol-dang," Rancid said, "ah never thought of Ginger Ann. Ah bet she would do it."
"I wouldn't mind going along to watch," I said.
"Suit yerself," Rancid said.
"You just take care you don't get hurt," Gram warned.
"Shucks, thet b'ar ain't gonna hurt nobody," Rancid said.
"It ain't the bear I'm worried about," Gram said.
We got into Rancid's old truck and rattled over to Ginger Ann's place, an ancient log house slouched among a scattering of pine trees and the assorted remains of hay wagons, cars, trucks, tractors, and contraptions that defied identification. She seemed delighted to see us.
"Ah was wonderin' if you would help me to shoot a b'ar," Rancid said to her.
"You bet," Ginger Ann said, taking her .30-30 off the wall. "Let's go.
"Hold on a minute," Rancid said. "You won't be needin' thet thang, because ahim gonna do the shootin' mawsef. All ah needs you fer is to drive the b'ar out of maw brush pile."
Ginger Ann shoved a box of shells in her jacket pocket. "Why can't you drive the bear out and let me shoot it?"
"Ha!" Rancid said. "'Cause yer jist a woman, thet's why. Ah never know'd a woman yet could shoot worth a dang."
Ginger Ann stepped out on the porch and pointed to an old car door leaning against a tree thirty yards away. "You see that itty-bitty patch of rust just to the left of the top hinge?" She jacked a shell into the chamber, put the rifle to her shoulder and fired. The door jumped. (There was some question later about whether the door actually jumped, but I saw it.) We walked over, and there was a single bullet hole in the door, drilled neatly through the rust patch.
"Wall anyway," Rancid said, "a car door ain't no b'ar, and ah git to do the shootin' and thet's all thar is to it."
"I'll arm wrestle you then," Ginger Ann said. "Winner shoots the bear."
Rancid sneaked a glance at her right arm. "Ah ain't arm wrastlin' no woman."
They argued and yelled at each other all the time we were driving back to Rancid's place, but finally Ginger gave in and said, yes, she'd drive the bear out of the brush pile.
"All this fightin' has set me on edge," Rancid said. "Let's go in maw cabin and ah'll bile us up a pot of coffee. Than we'll go git the b'ar."
Ginger Ann looked around the cabin while Rancid was blowing dust out of a couple of extra cups and putting the coffee on. "Why don't you ever clean this place up?" she said.
"Gol-dang, what are you talkin' about, woman!" Rancid said, his feelings obviously hurt. "Ah jist cleaned it up!"
"When?"
"Wall, let's see, what month is it now? Anyway, not too long ago."
While we were drinking our coffee Rancid laid out his plan for us. He drew a circle with his finger in the dust on the table. Inside the circle he put a dot. "This hyar's the brush pile," he said, indicating the circle.
"And this is the bear, I suppose," Ginger Ann said, pointing to the dot.
"Nope," Rancid said. "Thet's you, standing on top the brush pile.
Directly underneath you is the b'ar."
"Oh," Ginger Ann said.
Rancid drew a little X six inches out from the circle. "This hyar is me." Then he made a dotted line from the dot in the circle halfway out to the X. "This is the b'ar comin' out of the brush pile. Ah'll shoot it right thar."
Ginger Ann reached forward with her finger and very quickly extended the dotted line out to the X and made a violent swirling motion that sent a little puff of dust into the air.
"What you go an' do thet fer?" Rancid said.
"That's what will happen if you miss the bear," Ginger Ann said with a laugh that rattled the stovepipe.
"Ha!" Rancid said. "Ah don't miss!" He looked down at the spot where the little X had been erased. "On t'other hand, ah can probably git a better shot if ah stand over hyar." And he drew another X some distance off to one side.
"Where's Pat going to stand" Ginger Ann asked.
"There ain't enough room on the
table to show that," I said.
When we had finished the coffee, Rancid put on his dirty red hunting shirt ("maw lucky shart"), picked up his ancient .30-30, and we headed out to the brush pile. Ginger Ann carried the pole over her shoulder.
The brush pile was in the middle of a small clearing Rancid had cut in the woods when he was a young man and thinking of becoming a farmer.
This evidence of ambition embarrassed him considerably, and he explained it away by saying, "Aw was insane at the time."
"Smell thet b'ar smell?" Rancid whispered when we got to the clearing.
"No," Ginger Ann whispered. "All I can smell is ... When was the last time you took a bath, anyway, Rancid?"
"What Y'ar is it now?" Rancid said.
The brush pile was about eight feet high and laced with small logs sticking out at every angle. On one side of it was what appeared to be an opening--the place where Rancid had indicated the bear would exit.
After sizing up the situation and making a number of calculations based upon previous experiences I'd had with Rancid, I selected a moderately tall tamarack tree and climbed about halfway up it. My perch on a stout limb gave me a good view of the scene.
Rancid took up his position off to one side of what he had determined to be the bear's path of escape. He seemed a bit nervous. I could see him rummaging around in his pockets, looking for something. Then he took out a plug of tobacco and took a great chaw out of it. He limbered up his arms, and threw the rifle up onto his shoulder a couple of times for practice. All this time Ginger Ann stood leaning on the pole, watching him and shaking her head as if she couldn't believe it all. Finally, Rancid motioned her to climb up on top of the brush pile, and he went into a half crouch, rifle at the ready.
Ginger Ann made such a commotion climbing up the brush pile that I decided there wasn't a bear in there anyway, either that or he was dead or stone deaf. When she was at last on top of the brush pile, she poked several times down into it with the pole. Nothing happened. I could see that Rancid was getting exasperated.
"Gol-dang it, woman," he finally shouted, "jam thet pole down hard!"
"If you know so much about it, you knot-headed ignoramus, why don't you come do it yourself," Ginger Ann shouted back.
"Ah shoulda know'd better'n to brang a woman to do a boy's job," Rancid said. "Let me show you how to do it." He leaned his rifle against a tree and started for the brush pile.
By now Ginger Ann's face was red from rage. She lifted the pole above her head and drove it with all her might into the brush.
I didn't see all that happened next because I blinked. The bear didn't bother using the door to the brush pile but just crashed out through the side of it--the side toward Rancid. The brush pile seemed to explode, and Ginger Ann toppled over backwards, screaming, "Shoot, Rancid, shoot--before it's too late!"
Well, it was about the most exciting and interesting spectacle I've ever had the good fortune to witness for free. I saw Rancid turn and run, and I thought he was going for the rifle, but he went right past without even giving it a glance. Right then was when I blinked. When the blink was over, the bear was just a black streak twenty yards away.
A few feet ahead of the black streak was a dirty red streak. Rancid's hat was still suspended in the air where he had been Standing when the bear first came out of the brush pile.
Ginger Ann finally hit the ground screaming, "Shoot! Shoot!" Off in the distance I could see the black streak and the red streak going up a hill.
About halfway up the hill, the black streak passed the red streak, but Rancid was apparently so intent on making a good showing, he didn't even notice. Or maybe he was running with his eyes shut. In any case, when they went over the hill, Rancid was still running hard and looked as if he might be gaining on the bear.
I slid down out of the tree, and Ginger Ann ran around the brush pile and grabbed Rancid's rifle. "Are you going after them?" I asked.
"No," she said. "If they run by here again, maybe I'll shoot the bear for Rancid. Then again, maybe I won't."
After about twenty minutes, a bedraggled Rancid came shuffling back to the clearing. Without saying a word, he took his rifle out of Ginger Ann's hand and headed for the cabin. Ginger Ann and I trailed along behind.
"No point in feeling bad about it," Ginger Ann said after a bit. "It could have happened to anybody."
"Ah had maw mouth all set fer some b'ar steak," Rancid said, glumly.
"Ah guess ah should have let you do the shootin'."
"Shucks," Ginger Ann said. "I couldn't even hit an old car door. You know that bullet hole in the rust spot? Why, that's been in there ever since my daddy shot it in there years ago."
"Ha!" Rancid said, brightening up. "Ah know'd thet."
"But ..." I said.
"C'mon in the cabin," Rancid said to Ginger Ann, "and I'll bile us up another pot of coffee."
"Don't mind if I do," she said.
"But, Rancid" I said.
"See you later," Ginger Ann said to me. She shoved Rancid into the cabin and shut the door before I could warn him.
I couldn't understand it. Here Ginger Ann had made one of the finest shots I had ever seen, and then she turned right around and lied about it.
She had to be up to something, but I didn't know what, and it worried me.
Before going home, I yelled at the top of my voice, "I saw the car door jump when she shot, Rancid! I saw it jump!"
He didn't seem to hear me.
The Rendezvous
Every hunter knows what a rendezvous is. That's where one hunter says to another, "Al, you take that side of the draw and I'll take this one and we'll meet in twenty minutes at the top of the hill." The next time they see each other is at a PTA meeting five years later in Pocatello. That's a rendezvous.
It is simply against the basic nature of hunters to arrive at a designated point at a designated time. If one of my hunting pals said, "I'll meet you on the other side of this tree in ten seconds," one of us would be an hour late. And have the wrong tree besides.
We work out complicated whistling codes as a means of staying in touch.
"One long and two shorts means I've found some fresh sign and for the other guy to come on over. Two shorts and one long means ..." etc. I go no more than fifteen feet and stumble onto the tracks of a herd of mule deer. They are so fresh the earth is still crumbling from the edges. I whistle the code, low and soft. No answer. I try again, louder. No answer. Then I cut loose with a real blast. Still no answer. By now I've forgotten all about the deer, and whistle so loud the crew at a sawmill three miles away go off shift an hour early. My upper lip has a charley horse and I think I have a slight hernia. The only way he could have gotten out of hearing so fast was if he had a motorcycle hidden behind a bush.
Some hunters have even resorted to two-way radios, but to little avail.
"Charley One, this is Hank Four. Come in Charley One." Charley One doesn't come in. All you can get is some guy in Australia. He is saying, "Roger, I'm onto the bloody biggest tracks you ever saw.
Roger? Where the 'ell are you, Roger?"
Why is it so difficult to keep a rendezvous? Usually it is because both hunters are not familiar with the terrain being hunted. But one thinks he is.
He is the one who lays out the strategy.
A couple of years ago a friend and I were hunting near the Washington-Canadian border in country so rough it looks like it was whipped up in the lava stage by a giant egg beater and left to dry.
The mountains do not have ranges like decent mountains: they have convulsions.
"You cut down over the side of the mountain," my friend said casually, "and I'll swing around with the car and pick you up on the road."
"You sure there's a road down there?" I asked.
"Of course," he said. "You'll come to a little stream and the road is just on the other side of it. there's no way in the world you can miss it."
True to the nature of rendezvous, there was at least one way in the world
to miss it. Six hours later, after having scaled down cliffs that would have made a mockery of the precipices in alpine movies, I came to a stream. By my reckoning, it should have been running from my right to left; instead it was running from left to right. There was no sign of a road on the other side. I sat down calmly to take stock of the situation. When that proved too frightening, I leaped up, plunged into the stream, and started climbing the nearest mountain.
A Fine & Pleasant Misery Page 15
