Oops (Part 2)

Everybody had to have heard me shoot. There was no denying that report. And if I said over the two way radio (or sent the info in a text message--21st century and all) that I had missed, someone would want to come to the spot and make sure there wasn't a blood trail...and I couldn't have that. Ray Charles (Or Marshall Westmoreland) could have followed that blood trail--.444 Marlin, remember?


No, I had to do better than that. I quickly sent a text to the host and fellow hunter there, "I fucked up."
Which, at first glance, looks like a confession, but is so open ended that I had plenty of spin room should I need it. I've been known to spill forth a passel of bullshit should the need arise.


It wasn't dark yet, or even very near it. In fact, having seen a smallish deer that early in the afternoon hunt should have rung the look-out-it's-a-baby-buck bell for me, but it didn't. So just after 4:00 or so, I had to get him out of there. And I had to be quiet because I didn't want to call attention to myself nor spoil someone just over the way's hunt either. It's easy to sneak around in the woods like that, I mean, I was wearing camo'. Save for the state-mandated orange hat, I was a ghost.


I was a ghost with a diesel truck, however, which meant that its guttural knocking and hacking noises wouldn't do for the others' hunt. So happily driving down to the creek bed to pick up Bambi wasn't going to happen. And, for the second time in a week, I was going to have to drag a deer up hill, for a quarter of a mile. Though not because of the snowy weather this time, but because I wanted to be sly.


And really, that's all the plan I had hatched: get him out of there. Since he was kinda small, I tried the old grab him by the front feet and drag him, my rifle, my poncho (in the stuff sack) and my little stool post haste...but that wasn't working. Where was all the snow of last week? It was gone. Amazing how grabby a dirt road is (without some slippery snow) when you're working hard to go up hill.  So I got to make a trip back to the truck, off load the gear, and half of my clothes, and then head back down to the deer.


A quick lasso later I was dragging this poor little guy through the dirt up the old logging road orange hatless the whole time lest the others see me! And for those who are counting, yes, that's four trips, and that's one mile. Penance I suppose. At any rate, I got him into the back of the truck, and climbed inside and sat behind the wheel. Now I was about to play my hand, about to announce to the world that I had something to do elsewhere.


I didn't want to get busted with Bambi, so I snuck to the old "cleaning" spot where deer were delaminated in years past.  The big oak tree at the old spot had fallen over, and the location of operations had therefore changed, but at either spot, deer are butchered, tucked into a cooler, and carted home. The rest, the offal I think it's called (better than gut pile or carcass) is left there, though off the beaten path for the lazy raptor types--circle of life stuff. It was a quick job, and it was easy to manage alone. The quartering shot had hit slightly back, then diagonally pushed through the diaphragm into, yes, the intestines, so to say the job was pungent is poetic license. But I took my medicine.


This whole operation, coincidentally, had taken until the last legal shooting light, and when I snapped the cooler lid shut on the meat, it was time to rally with the others for show and tell. No one else had shot so I couldn't hide in the background while others retold of their shot and sightings. Everyone would want to hear what I had done, well maybe not everyone, but the host would.


The gang was parked at the new cleaning post by then, and I pulled up. The three others were talking rather quietly amongst themselves as I strolled up. When I got within ear shot, Lowell, the most jocular, asked, "Did you get something?"


"No," I quickly lied. I was out of my camo', and he looked at the blood stain on the left pocket of my khakis.


"Well, what's that? Are you bleeding?" he asked, pointing at my crotch.


By then, Tay, the host, walked up half smiling, thank goodness. "Yeah," he said, "What do you mean, 'I fucked up?'"


"What'd you shoot?" asked Lowell again?


And my whole plan fell apart. I have an uncanny inability to lie to anyone but my wife ('Is that a new gun, brett?' 'No, Lisa.') and cops.


"Uh," I started, "A deer."


"What kind of deer?" asked Tay.


"The kind that you see at four in the afternoon?" I asked, wanting to spill my guts, but still not.


Anthony, the quiet carpenter, spoke up, "A young one." I visibly cringed, and he noticed the grimace in the spreading darkness of night. "Oh, a spike," he concluded.


Busted, I said, "He would've been..."


"Oh man," said Tay, "That explains seeing your truck backing up the hill so early. Did he all fit in your pocket?" He too pointed at my crotch.


"Naw, he was bigger than that. Not much. Here, look," I offered, popping the lid off the cooler. 


Tay looked in, and wasn't too awful disgusted, so I figured I would get an "invite" back. He didn't have too much to say.


Looking back, from a few days before this whole episode, I am reminded of something Lowell had told me: "It's supposed to be fun." And of course he's right. When it isn't fun anymore, I'll go back to grocery shopping and eating at Church's Fried Chicken for all my predatory needs.


But that sinking feeling, when I'd made the mistake of shooting a young deer, will stay with me the rest of the season, but will probably be forgotten after a long hot summer of shooting new rifles and many a clay target. But for the rest of this deer season, I'll be carrying the Leupold 10X50mm's religiously.


And I never regret having lower power scopes than most folks like on my rifles , but the binoculars will certainly make decision time easier. Nothing's funnier than seeing a short action rifle hindered with a 6-20x by 50mm super scope, and nothing's worse than seeing a new shooter (or an old hand shooting awkwardly or quickly) getting dinged in the eyebrow by a less than ideally powered scope with minimal eye relief. 


It almost goes without saying, that mistakes afield are lessons. And the more you hunt, the more you'll make, but all the time, remember, as you freeze to death or carry a wounded deer that you didn't mean to shoot to the veterinarian's office, it's supposed to be fun.


-rbm