First deer! Such an event is as much a “rite-of-passage” for a young man today as it was a life changing event for untold generations of young native Americans whose life histories stretch back in time to the last ice-age’s prehistoric migrations to North America - courtesy of a landlocked Bering Strait.
FIRST DEER:
He crouched below the bluff’s rim, his jaw set grimly against clouds of mosquitoes blanketing him. A repellant kept most from biting. However, they swarmed down ear canals, up nasal passages and he did not dare open his mouth. With clenched teeth, he willed himself not to move.
“Just don’t open your mouth,” he remembered thinking. His determination to stay was steadfast. “Hadn’t Harry said they would cross here?”
He mentally rationalized, “I’ll sit against the base of this large white oak. My back’ll be less of a target to this damned onslaught of mosquitoes. And, it’ll break my outline to anything passing below as well.”
As he settled back, random thoughts wandered in and out of the hallways of the mind. It was 1962. Missouri’s modern day archery deer seasons were in their infancy. Having shot a bow since childhood, he now determined to take a deer with one. Every landowner approached for permission to hunt had refused him - till he asked Harry.
He recalled with embarrassment the first time he drove up to Harry’s isolated farm house near Jenkin’s Bend on Grand River’s banks a few miles north of Bosworth. It was 4:00 A.M. - a Saturday. Approaching the house down a dark country lane, he mentally reviewed his sales plan: “When the lights come on in the house after they get up, then I’ll ask permission to hunt. I’ll be huntin’ by sun-up.”
When you are sixteen winters old, glaringly rude rationale like that seemed appropriate when fueled by selfish over-powering-ambitions commonly accompanying acne at that age. After all, farmers always got up before daylight - didn’t they? What harm in asking a simple question before they get bogged down with daily chores?
The next five years would also teach him there was more to this game then just showing up before daylight with his weapons.
Predictably, introductions took place sooner than expected. A pack of hounds ferociously attacked the car. One grabbed the left front tire by its tread. He then viciously attempted to shake it while tying to rip it from its rim - snarling and growling like a tortured beast guarding perdition’s gates.
Lights suddenly illuminated every upstairs window in the house.
Hurriedly turning the ignition off, the lad prayed hopelessly that act would quiet the dogs. It didn’t work.
“I’ve blown this ,” he thought dejectedly viewing, with no small fear, the pack’s threats to tear the ‘52 Chevy’s doors off their hinges. Presumably, they would then do him severe bodily harm. Turning the ignition off merely encouraged the dogs to think they had a “kill” to their credit. They now gave every evidence of preparing to eat it – fenders and all.
He mustered all the courage he could summon to exit the vehicle. He knew he had to face the music. He steeled himself with the thought: “Don’t show fear or these wolves’ll sense it and tear me apart,” as shaking knees barely carried him to the farmhouse’s front porch and up to the door.
Threatening his every step, the pack grudgingly followed. They formed a snarling semi-circle behind him that effectively discouraged any thought of escape.
The porch-light’s sudden glare startled him. Virtually at that very moment the door flew open. A tall, touseled, white-haired man, with several days growth of grizzled-beard stood in the door way. A long-barreled Colt Woodsman .22 dangled from his right hand - thumb on the hammer ready to cock it. A wide-eyed teenager stood cowering in front of him, retreat cutoff by a pack of snarling half-breed wolves, his face as white as the long- johns Harry wore. …
Years later, as a young man now, while scanning the scene below the white oak 20-some precipitous -yards above the game trail watched, he smilingly recalled how, when they knew each other better, Harry cautiously identified his parentage as three-quarters Cherokee. It fit. He understood Harry’s caution. The ’50s were a time of national racial anguish and prejudice. Harry obviously was sensitive about damaging a bond growing between the two. If possible, the revelation actually cemented their relationship more closely.
In time, Harry taught the “kid” to recognize deer sign, how to set up over their travel routes from bedroom to kitchen, to know what they fed on, and when and where they typically put on the feed sack..
A few years went by. Now, there were job priorities instead of school - a wife and a son. The relationship with the gentle Indian grew much closer with this passage of time. Finally, a fifth deer season loomed on the calendar’s horizon. In pre-planning the hunt, Harry directed him to a well used deer trail at the base of Mohee Bluff. …
A buzzing mosquito trapped in his ear jolted him from his reverie. Automatically, he checked the arrow’s nock on the bow string. Then, he visually assured the waxed string rested securely in each notch of the straight limb bow.
Suddenly, a fox squirrel shot up a tree growing opposite the trail at the base of the bluff. It scolded furiously at whatever startled it. Bushy tail curved over its back, it sat on a limb barking sharp invectives to the left from whence the game trail came.
With his adrenalin pumping furiously, six deer trotted, single-file, into his view. The lead animal passed behind a tree. Then it emerged into an opening in the under-growth. These were the first wild deer he had ever seen in Missouri’s game-depleted forests of that era. However, years of planning for this moment helped him focus on the challenge at hand.
Reflexes took over. First, he focused on an imaginary hair he needed to split. Then, instinctively, drew the shaft to its full 29″ length. A moment’s hesitation insured concentration on which hair was its destination - then he released the shaft. …
From a kitchen window, the aging Indian watched the “kid’s” battered Chevy creep through the gate onto his driveway and slowly pull up in front of the house.
“Better get out there and calm the dogs down so they don’t wake the house. Damn, that boy gets around early,” he muttered to no one in particular. “He otta be out there huntin’ if he’s gonna get his buckskin. Damned fool notion to try and kill a deer with that toy anyhow!” he muttered to know one in particular but himself.
He exited the front door onto the porch. Ambling over to and leaning against a porch post, he tried to shush the ever vigilant dogs. His young adopted protégé, without so much as a wave, exited the car, walked to its rear and opened the trunk. Curiously, still without a word, the “kid” just stood there - obviously awaiting Harry. Just then, the old man caught a glimpse of brown hair bordered with white laying in the trunk!
He flew off the porch, his heart filling with pride at what began to soak in!
It was not a big deer, but it was a FIRST deer. The commitment to take it the “old way” now fulfilled.
Approaching the lad, the old man threw composure to the four winds exclaiming, “You did it! You actually did it “kid!” You brought down a buckskin with that toy!”
The youth’s chest swelled till he couldn’t tell if the joy felt was actually pain or just hurt “good.” Tears of pride and joy dampened both their cheeks.
They shouted, hollered with wild abandon, and kicked up minor dust-storms dancing dusty circles in Harry’s dirt driveway as they hugged and slapped each other on the back.
Years after Harry had passed, the “kid’s” daughter did a genealogy study of the family tree. If only he and Harry had known how much more in common they shared while the “old man” was still here to share the news with.
It probably wouldn’t have made that much difference. They were “blood” brothers as it was. That they both had Native American blood coursing their veins only defined the strength of that bond more clearly: They had been adopted father and son; They had been brothers; They had been best friends.
Conjuring up memories when standing over that first deer, it is clearer now that the event made an old man feel young again through me. The young one grew a tad taller.