Boy, they're spooky. That's the third one I've flushed so far this morning and I haven't got a shot yet because their so far away. After a break I'll get back on the logging roads and skid trails and go uphill towards the ridge. It will be a little quieter and maybe I can get a shot at one or two.
The icy water chilled his mouth and sent feelers of pain racing through his tongue and teeth. He swallowed quickly and then sucked warm outside air through his teeth to neutralize the cold. He smiled and greedily sucked up another mouthful of the crystal clear liquid. This time he held the water in his mouth and after it had warmed up slightly he sloshed it around in his mouth to wash away the gritty, dry feeling along with the sticky half dried spit which coated his throat.
"You’re greedy. Damn! You can't have all of the sandwich, only the crust." Brad fed his mutt the upper crust of his sandwich while she sat next to him on the damp stream bank and begged for more. He slit open the Jiffy muffin mix with his skinning knife and poured some of the dry yellow mix into the palm of his hand for her. Her moist pink tongue slurped up the sweet mix and she slobbered on his fingers in her anxiety to get every fine grain of sweet cornmeal.
"OK. OK. Have some more.
"This has got to be better than the plain cornmeal the mountain men and long hunters used to eat. We can at least eat this raw. Huh, Dog?"
The dog ignored the offered second helping and everything Brad had to say besides. She had decided the mix was too dry for her taste and hurried down the bank to reach the crystal clear water. She noisily inhaled several mouthfuls from the two inch deep stream of icy water before she flopped down on her right side in the middle of the creek bed.
"Come on, Dog; let's go"
If I take the middle road I can hit the stonewall just below the blueberry pasture and then cut across the pasture to the back road into Lynd. If I want I can walk out the Crane Road and go to Simpson's or to my house.
Brad picked his way from one logging spur to another then he went up a series of skid trails which were starting to grow up in willows and every other kind of tree seedling which could take root in the granitic soils.
Where the cat skinners dove their big machines down over the short steep pitches the last two spring runoffs had washed and torn away what little topsoil had survived the initial logging and in some spots even the rocky sub soils had been scoured down to bare granite bedrock.
Brad stuck to these scoured areas where he could walk quietly since there were few if any leaves underfoot and the dirt which did remain was hard and rocky. The last few steps before the flat bench that Brad was heading for were steep and treacherous with loose rock and dirt lying on top of an almost vertical rock face. When he was still a couple of steps from the top Brad stopped to look and listen. The flat was several acres across with very little underbrush and a little patience could get a wise hunter a grouse or two.
There's the stonewall. I hit it right where I wanted to.
What was that noise? The stupid dog. There she goes over the wall into the cultivated blueberry pasture. What's she doing?
He watched as his brown and white mutt came back out of the pasture towards the wall then she jumped up onto a large flat granite boulder that was part of the stonewall. She balanced herself on the top of the wall for several seconds as her nose worked overtime across the top of the rocks.
She sure smells something on the wall. That jerk, she can't walk the wall like a cat. She's going to fall and bust her stupid head.
Brad was watching when the dog jumped off the wall back into the blueberry pasture and raced up the long slow hill towards the top of the mountain before she disappeared from sight and hearing. It wasn't unusual for her to race about and go off on a track by herself and Brad promptly forgot about her.
I never realized there were so many oaks on this bench before.
He stood quietly and let his eyes wander across the trunks of the young trees which had taken root on the flat some forty or fifty years ago. The trees averaged about 14 to 16 inches in diameter and every other one had the smooth green/black bark of a young oak. About a third of them were shiny, steely gray beech trunks.
Lots of good deer and bird feed here with acorns and beech nuts. That brush looks like service berry bushes. The deer will eat those buds, too.
Brad had taken only two steps onto the flat when the Ruffed Grouse rocketed out of the oak and beech leaves fifty or sixty yards away and then continued to sail downhill to take refuge in an isolated stand of hemlock and firs.
Damn! I never flushed him.
Rusty came boiling back across the stonewall! Barking and baying, making murderous sounds she cleared the wall by a foot.
Brad had never seen her react this violently before. She continued to sound like a cat hound when it is running hot on a bobcat track. Brad scanned the area she was charging into trying to see what she could be after. Simultaneously he heard claws tearing into the bark of a live tree and caught a glimpse of a yellowish gray streak going up and around the trunk of a foot thick oak.
What the hell was that!? She's put something up that tree. Listen to her bark, damn.
Brad ran towards the sound of Rusty's insane growls and bays with his single barrel 16 ga. shotgun half way up to his shoulder.
He dodged clumps of brush and vaulted over two rotten, downed trees and a boulder.
Two more long strides put him under the oak and next to his hunting partner.
She was intense on howling and baying at the oak and Brad looked up to where she was pointing with her insane antics.
Fifteen feet up the oak quietly sitting on the lowest limb was the first bobcat Brad had ever treed.
The cat drew its pink lips up and back in a snarl revealing long shiny white canines before it spit at the mongrel harassing it from below.
Those teeth are huge. I hope it doesn't jump if it does it will kill Rusty, she can never take on a cat that size. Damn, he's big.
All I have is birdshot for my shotgun. If I don't kill it with the first shot it will get Rusty. I'll use my revolver.
Just take your time and be careful.
Brad transferred his single barrel shotgun to his left hand before he drew his .22 revolver. Quietly, one slow step at a time he started to work his way as close under the cat as he could.
I don't want him to jump.
Nine shots then I'll have to pull the cylinder out to reload. I'll never have time to do that.
The cat was getting nervous and started to anxiously stretch up to its full height while balancing on the one inch diameter branch it had decided to stand on.
Brad watched in amazement and with more than a little respect as the cat spit and hissed its defiance to the dog. It was spitting and snarling and never once looking towards Brad, the dog was its enemy and right now she was threatening the cat's well being.
Here goes. Cock the hammer. Aim between its eyes. Now squeeze - - - slow-l-l-l-y.
The small 37 grain hollow point snapped out of the short four inch barrel.
The cat kept looking down at the dog. It was starting to crouch lower, as if to get closer to its tormentor.
Brad took two steps to his right to get a better angle at the cat's face.
Cock it. There, now squeeze - -sl-l-o-owl-ly.
Another little .22 bullet snapped out of the barrel.
The cat crouched lower. It had its ears laid flat back on its head and was snarling steadily at his dog. The feline gaze never left the dog. Even when Brad hurried around the tree and stood right under it, the cat glared at his feet. Here its four legged tormentor jumped about snarling and barking. Brad had never seen this normally meek and mild dog behave so viciously.
OK. One more shot. Cock it. Aim right between the eyes. Squeeze - - -sl-lo-o-wer.
The cat jumped up to its full four-legged height and glared directly into Brad's eyes. He could see and feel the fire leap from the cat's flashing yellow/green eyes.
/> Son-of-a-bitch, I wounded him.
In one motion he dropped the small revolver back into its holster and threw the shotgun to his shoulder.
He's turning away from me. He's going to jump. Look at those muscles bunch up.
When the brass bead front sight passed across the cat's left front shoulder Brad fired.
In slow motion the yellow body lift off the branch, made a rolling turn before floating to the ground headfirst.
Still in slow motion Brad watched his brown and white dog drift across the ground after the wounded cat.
The dog and cat disappeared into a furious blizzard of yellow and brown spotted fur and dried brown leaves.
The snarling and spitting sent shivers up Brad's back as he jumped towards the fighting animals. He dropped the shotgun into the leaves and pulled the revolver into his right hand.
One more step and I'll be there. I've got to get the cat off of Rusty.
He cocked the revolver's hammer and bent towards the violently wrestling combatants.
There! Its neck!
With one sweep of his left hand Brad grabbed the cat by the scruff of its neck and lifted.
He didn't feel the additional weight of the dog although Rusty had the cat's throat in a death grip and wasn't about to let go.
Brad never slowed the sweep of his arm until the cat cleared the ground. His nose was just inches from the cat's face when he brought the revolver up and jammed it into the cat's ear.
He felt the cat jump twice and heard two muffled reports before the cat went limp in his hand.
"Rusty?!"
The dog had let go just as Brad fired his revolver but she immediately tackled the dead cat when Brad dropped it.
"Here, Dog, come here! Damn it let go!" Brad argued with his hardheaded dog.
"Are you OK. Here, lay down."
Brad checked his friend from one end to the other and could hardly find a hair out of place. When he was satisfied he wasn't going to find anything on the dog Brad turned his attention to the bobcat.
"Let's check its claws and see if he has any of your fur in them, dog.
"What's this. I hit the stupid thing in the front leg with the .22. No wonder he got pissed off."
"Look at that claw, it's huge. At least four times bigger than a house cat's.
"Hey, Dog, he isn't a he. It's a she-cat. She doesn't have any kittens though. At least none nursing."
As he spoke Brad turned to look at his dog and realized she had already wandered off and was busy trailing something through the dry leaves.
"Your probably backtracking the cat, stupid."
The dog just kept going, not paying any attention to Brad's words at all.
Have it your way. Brad thought as he watched his friend turn towards the stonewall.
He saw her climb over the wall while he searched the pockets of his jeans for the two foot long hunk of rawhide lace he always had to carry game. With deft fingers he tied the cat's front paws together with one end of the lace and its rear paws with the opposite end before slinging the still warm carcass across his right shoulder. With the soft fur against his left side he bent over and picked his shotgun up out of the leaves. With a well practiced motion he flipped the spent hull out of the chamber and dropped in a fresh load of birdshot.
Never again will I hunt without some buckshot and a couple of rifled slugs in my pocket.
"This cat is pretty long, but I don't think it's very heavy, Dog. "I can feel its ribs under all this fur.
"Come on, Rusty, let's go down the hill. Come on hurry up."
As usual the dog took her time and while Brad picked his way down through the skid trails and logging roads he started day dreaming.
Twenty dollars, not bad for a sixteen year old kid. Now I'm a real bounty hunter.
The bounty is almost half the cost of a new Winchester 30-30. But I could buy a really good used Winchester for twenty dollars or less.
I think I'll call the gun shop when I get off the mountain and see if they have a Winchester for about twenty bucks. Maybe less 'cause I'll need two or three boxes of shells to sight it in with before deer season.
Confusion was his first feeling and slowly the confusion was replaced by just plain hurt feelings as he began to feel she was making fun of him. He stared at Annie's straw blond head after his initial attempt to look her in the eye failed when his self imposed guilts crowded to the surface of his mind.
She has always been nice to me, I should have called her. I bet she knows I dream about playing with her bare boobs.
I don't know why she's being mean now and saying shitty things like this to me?
"Brad? Did you hear me? I asked how it felt to be a celebrity?"
"I heard you."
I think she's still making fun of me. And everybody in our class can hear it.
"What do you mean a celebrity? I just shot a bobcat."
"Right! That's what I mean. Like every sixteen year old boy goes out grouse hunting on Saturday morning and shoots a bobcat when it attacks his dog!"
Where did she hear that? I never told anybody the cat attacked Rusty.
"It didn't attack my dog. At least not until I shot it out of the tree. Who told you that anyway?"
"Brad Burgess don't get mad at me, I'm on your side."
The heat of his embarrassment traveled up his neck then spread across his cheeks before it finally ended in his ears as it always did. He knew they were bright red and this added to his agony in attempting to face this petite girl he kept dreaming about dating and having for a girlfriend and maybe, just maybe, if he ever got lucky enough, to make out with.
Why do I act like this? Why can't I just be cool and talk normally to her?
"It really makes me mad when people make up things and change the truth about the things I do or know."
"You shouldn't think so much about it, or worry about it. Just be yourself, Brad. When you behave like this, it makes it awful hard to lo-- like you. Sometimes you can make me so damn mad I never want to see you again."
Annie turned away and started up the aisle towards her desk.
"Until next time, then I want to be your friend again." She spoke softly over her shoulder but never slowed down.
"I'll see you later, Brad!" She turned and came back to him.
"Yeah?"
"Oh, pooh. Never mind, bye. I'll see you later." Exasperation was clear on her face when she finally turned and left him standing by his desk.
She didn't ask me to the Sadie Hawkins dance Saturday night. I guess I won't go.
TWENTY ONE
"Listen to that pup run! He's on a hot one alright!"
Jim Lorain was a big, dark French Canadian who was probably three quarters Indian and he owned the 18 month old Black and Tan pup they were hunting with. He also owned a big Redbone hound which was Brad's favorite. They had run Big Red, the Redbone, for three nights this week so Jim said the old dog had to have a couple of nights off.
"He sounds like he's tracking good, Jim. At least for a pup."
"I think he's going to be a go-getter, Brad. He's right tight on that coon's ass now. He sounds a little strange though."
"Blackie is baying like he's a little pissed off, Dad. You don't suppose he's on a house cat do you?"
"No. No damn house cat could last that long, Joey. He's already been on him for ten minutes. I think it's just a wise old coon that's giving the pup a work out."
Joey Lorain, Jim's youngest of twelve kids, shook his head slowly as if doubting his father but Brad could see he wasn't going to argue with him.
"He's coming off the ridge, Dad. Is he going for the creek?"
"That pup isn't water smart. Jump in the Jeep, quick!
We'll go down to Wilcox's intersection. Then if the coon goes for the creek you and Brad can run him down or get to him before he drowns that stupid dog.
"Jesus Christ, be careful though. Don't shoot the God damn dog just because th
e coon is sitting on his head and trying to drown him.
"Hit him with your damn flashlight or something. But don't try to shoot the son-of-a-bitch."
Brad and Joey exchanged glances in the dim light of the Jeep's narrow back seat and snickered. They had both heard the story at least a thousand times by Brad's reckoning.
One of Jim's older boys had tried to shoot a coon off a hound's head in a creek much like this one and killed a two hundred and fifty dollar dog.
Brad also knew Jim had never forgiven his son and the boy, now a full grown man with kids of his own, never again hunted with his father.
Twice during the half mile trip to Wilcox's intersection Jim stopped the Jeep in the middle of the road and everyone held their breath until they heard the pup baying loud and clear and still a little mad.
"He's still coming down the ridge but not so straight down now, so you boys jump out here and if he starts across the road scare the coon up a tree or back up the ridge.
I'll be back in a couple of minutes."
As soon as the Jeep roared off down the road, Brad checked both his flashlights. A small, two "D" cell light he used once in a while for walking. And a six volt lantern style was hanging from a leather strap on his left shoulder.
Each of the boys carried a .22 semi-automatic pistol with a spare magazine and had a skinning knife in a sheath hanging from their belts.
"Did you get that High Standard sighted in, Brad? Or was it just you?"
"I think a little of both, Joey."
Although Joey Lorain was two years younger than Brad, they had been equal coon hunting partners for a couple of years. They were stomping their feet more from nervous energy than in an attempt to keep their feet warm even though the November air was getting chilly. They kept waiting and listening to the hound as he turned across the face of the ridge for the third time instead of continuing towards the road.
"Damn! What's he doing, Brad? He sure is running a long time for a coon."
Struggles of a Country boy Page 18
