by Bill Heavey
Path to Enlightenment
This whole job-marriage-family thing is putting a serious crimp in my deer season. Had I known before what I know now, I might have done things differently. Think of a hunting version of the 1970s TV series Kung Fu. Orphaned as a child, I enter a monastery in Iowa, where I learn the secret rites of Unitarian Universalism and purify both mind and body by continuous practice of archery and still-hunting. One day, after besting the emperor’s vain eldest son in a 3-D tournament, I am forced to flee, driving first prize: a Dodge SRT-10 Quad Cab (Viper V-10 engine, custom Mossy Oak paint, power-bulge hood, and cigar lighter). I become a nomadic monk, hunting and fishing my way from town to town, teaching the Ten Suggestions that lie at the heart of Unitarianism and encouraging people to form meaningful discussion groups. In time I attract disciples, young men from farming villages who are drawn to my humble dignity and secret knowledge of deer. Eventually, the emperor’s son, regretting his rashness, seeks me out to apologize and offer vast sums of—
Jane taps my foot, jolting me back to the fluorescent lights of Parent Participation Night at Emma’s kindergarten. My butt, I now notice, has gone numb from the folding metal chair. It no longer belongs to me. It has gone away to become someone else’s butt for a time. Like the soul of a shaman, it will return to my body upon completing its quest. Strange that it never goes numb in a tree stand. I could be out there now, 20 feet up and 50 yards inside the timber on a trail leading to what I believe is the last standing patch of corn in the county. Were I not trying to amass credits as a good father (so that I can get back to the woods another time), that’s where you would find me. I missed the first day of bow season back in September for a similar meeting, Parent Orientation Night, which was unnecessary in the extreme. Not only did I already know the layout of the school, I had logged it into my Garmin as a waypoint.
Tonight’s riveting presentation is something about Preparing Our Children for the Future. Under the new Standards of Learning (official slogan: “Creating a nation of professional test-takers, one worksheet at a time”) the school day is now so crammed with opportunities for your child to check the right box that if he or she is tardy more than three times in a semester, you can officially kiss college good-bye and start planning for that career in cosmetology.
I wonder if all this hothouse learning is what my daughter truly needs to flower. Perhaps I should field-school her during October and early November. Liberated from the confines of the classroom, a radio-collared girl running the woods in a zigzag pattern might flush bedded deer my way during the slow midday hours. Mom would not go for it, of course. Nor would some of the more alarmist child-protection people. But they wouldn’t necessarily have to know. And Emma, who learns quickly, would probably not need a shock collar after the first couple of outings. She’d be getting healthy exercise, learning about the deer woods, and spending quality time with her dad. A win-win-win situation, and only during archery season, of course, because Emma’s welfare comes first.
The meeting finally ends. The spirit of my butt returns to its corporeal home. At the school playroom, a quietly fuming sub hands us our little monster, whose legs are encrusted with paste, glitter, and paint. “Like the circus girl,” Emma chirps.
We get home and see that our neighbor has put up an electric Christmas reindeer, a motorized wire skeleton covered with tiny white lights that turns its head every 15 seconds. As Jane precedes us into the darkened house, I grab my daughter’s shoulder.
“Emma,” I whisper, hunkering down next to her. “Deer! Don’t move. Let’s sneak on it.” There is a lone pine sapling between us and our quarry. Using it to shield our movements and waiting until the deer looks away, we begin the stalk. Emma totally gets it, staying low, using a slow heel-to-toe weight transfer, and freezing when the deer looks back. Once we’ve gained the tree, I tell her that it’s too open for us to stalk together. She must go on alone. If she can touch its flank undetected, count coup like the Indians, she will have passed a great test as a hunter. She nods solemnly and steps out at the deer’s next movement. Two turns later, she touches the glowing haunch. “Did it!” she crows.
“Whoo-hoo!” I shout. “Emma! Hunter! Circus girl! Deer stalker!” I swing her up in my arms and back to the house. As I take her inside, she asks, “C’we go hunting again tomorrow?”
“Sure, monkey,” I answer, suddenly overcome by love for this child who has descended from the heavens to ruin my deer season, to complicate and enrich my life beyond all measure. “You and me, we’re going to sneak on every deer in the neighborhood.”
V
MAKING INCOMPETENCE PAY: THE WELL-SEASONED SPORTSMAN
The Fat Man
Any time you throw together a bunch of guys who don’t know one another in hunting camp, it takes a bit of scratching and sniffing before the top dog emerges. I have been in this situation often enough to know three things about the process:
1. I am not in the running.
2. The initial front-runner rarely holds the lead for long.
3. Watch out for the fat guy.
I was recently hunting caribou above the Arctic Circle in Alaska (a phrase, incidentally, that I now work into every conversation I have, including with whomever is on the other end of the intercom at the big red drive-up menu at Wendy’s) when I found myself sharing a tent with Steve Freese, 56, a newly retired Douglas County, Nebraska, cop, who clocks in at 5-foot-8 and about 245. He has the widest-set eyes I’ve ever seen on a human and a head like a bowling ball.
The younger men figured that putting the two hunters most at risk for rapid-onset Alzheimer’s in the same tent was a no-brainer, which suited us fine. Young guys invariably assume their lives are unique and fascinating, but older guys know that, superficial differences aside, we’re really all as alike as eggs.
The superficial difference between Steve and me was that I spent 10 minutes each morning rooting around in my duffel for any socks and underwear that might have been miraculously freshened by 24 hours in a tightly packed bag, while Steve would simply fillet a vacuum-sealed plastic pouch and remove clean socks and long johns. He had made these packets up using a Cabela’s food vacuum sealer. “Handiest damn thing you ever saw,” he said. “Food is just the beginning.”
As we all sat around the fire the first night, Steve sipped a Beam-and-Sam’s-Club-cola. One of his last duties as a police captain, he said, had been as a trainer, whipping new recruits into shape before they could hurt themselves or, more important, older cops. “First thing, I’d ask them, ‘How many of you guys have heard that there’s no such thing as a stupid question?’ And they’d be so eager, you know, just clawing over each other to get their hands up first. ‘Well, that’s a bunch of bull crap,’ I’d tell them. ‘Your best move for the next two years is to shut up and listen.’”
Later, we all weighed in with our hunting plans and ambitions. Steve opined that he was as likely to take a caribou close to camp as not; other factors being equal, he preferred less hauling to more. Sure enough, at about 2 P.M. the next day, he dropped a heavily racked bull just 350 yards from camp. Hearing the shot, I hustled over to help, arriving in about 20 minutes. By that time, Steve was cleaning his fingernails with his knife. At his feet lay four neatly butchered quarters, hide still on to protect the meat, and a small mountain of expertly cut tenderloins, backstraps, neck roasts, and rib meat. Nearby were the clean, white bones of his bull, innards intact. It was astounding knife work. “You didn’t gut him,” I said, making my daily entry in the Stating the Obvious Sweepstakes.
“Just more work,” he replied.
I made him a deal on the spot that I’d carry his meat if he’d help butcher mine. When they saw the carcass, most of the other guys followed suit. The fat man’s stock had begun to rise. Steve also turned out to be the best cook in camp, pushing it higher still. It was as if he had known all along he would be the lead dog and couldn’t be bothered to compete. Pretty soon, he had only to casually note that we were running low on water
or that a pan needed cleaning before one of us, me included, would quietly hop to. One of the younger guys, handing him a Beam-and-Sam’s-Club after Steve had made the venison fall off the guy’s bull like it was overcooked stew meat, asked if the drink was mixed to his liking. Steve nodded deeply, then threw me a little wink as if to say, Rookies. You gotta love them.
Everybody ended up taking a bull, some as far as 2 miles away over the tundra. None was as big as Steve’s. Last I heard, at least two of the guys had bought vacuum sealers, along with a large supply of gallon bags. Steve says those are the perfect size for a change of socks and long johns.
I called Steve recently and got him in a duck blind along the Missouri River, where he was hunting, evidently in the company of a cop he had once ridden with. “Hang on a sec, Bill,” he said. Gusts of wind buffeted the mouthpiece, then I heard that familiar voice calling: “Same rules as in the squad car, Kevin. If the weather turns bad and we’ve only got one raincoat, it’s mine.” It sounded as if the fat man was doing just fine.
A Missed Connection
Not long ago, the editor in chief of Field & Stream, Sid Evans, invited me on a two-and-a-half-day deer hunt at his father’s club in Mississippi. To understand what an editor is like, picture an Afghan warlord—bloodthirsty, cunning, perpetually bent on revenge—plying his dark art in a room decorated with the trophy skulls of his enemies. Lose the turban, give him some skin-care products and a little dental work, and—voila!—say hello to the boss. But make no mistake. The dynamics are unchanged. When he issues an invitation to me, a humble foot soldier, I accept instantly.
The plan was to meet up at the Memphis airport with Evans’s father, John, drive south to the 6,000-acre club near the Mississippi River that he shares with about 30 other members, and hunt the muzzleloader season. I met Sid and both of his parents at baggage claim, and we caravanned to a barbecue joint for massive quantities of pulled pork and coleslaw. For an editor, Sid comes from amazingly upright stock. His father, affable and easygoing, is a diehard bowhunter and fisherman. His mother is a woman of goodwill, beauty, and charm. I doubt that these were his real parents.
After lunch, the men loaded up and drove south into Coahoma County. As we crossed the great hump of a levee, I resolved to ingratiate myself with the actor portraying John Evans because that guy has a gate key to 10 square miles of deer heaven—bottomland hardwoods under intense QDM. Members shoot only bucks 4-½ years old or older.
Sid and I shared a room at camp. “Fair warning, I snore like a bear,” I said. (I was looking forward to tormenting his sleep, as he so frequently ruins mine with 4 P.M. e-mails suggesting a quick total rewrite of a story by the next morning.) “Me, too,” he answered brightly. Then he rolled over and fell instantly asleep, an ability common to Stalin, Hitler, and other despots. Disturbingly rhythmic snoring kept me awake for hours.
Dark and early the next morning, we headed out to stands where good bucks had been seen recently. “You snore like a damn chain saw,” I told Sid.
“Really? You were moaning all night,” he answered. “Sounded like a crazy woman having a bad night at bingo.” This was all the more embarrassing because it was probably true, as my wife has reported similar sounds.
I had brought my bow along, a not-so-subtle reminder that I possess a skill Sid has yet to master. After a full day afield during which nobody saw a buck, I decided that the point had been made and asked his “dad” if I could borrow an extra muzzleloader. I had revenge in mind. On our only other outing together, Sid had boated a big tarpon, while I had demonstrated why I should never be given a loaded fly rod. But the rut was winding down, and the second day passed with little more activity than the first.
On the final morning we just had time for a three-hour hunt before dashing back to Memphis. I sat in a ladder stand overlooking a promising brushy area. With 15 minutes left, a set of big brown antlers popped into sight, headed toward me through the tangle. My view was lateral, offering no indication of width. Nor, in those few moments, could I count tines. But the prison break in my chest said that this was a shooter. The buck came quickly up out of a small gully and stood for a moment in an opening 80 yards off. As the crosshairs settled on his chest, I fired. He galloped off and was gone. From sighting to shot had taken all of about eight seconds. Sid came over at the sound, and together we madly searched the area for sign until we were in real danger of missing our flights. All we found were a few clipped hairs where the buck had stood.
To his credit, Sid seemed genuinely sympathetic. “You’ve been shooting a bow all year instead of a rifle. And you’d never even shot this gun before. It happens.” I began wondering if the boss possibly was a mammal after all. Speeding to the airport, we slapped together sandwiches from a cooler in the back, and I slipped the man playing his father my business card, just in case. Once past security, Sid and I shook hands and headed for our gates. After about 30 feet, something made me turn and look back. Sid had stopped too. He smiled slightly and, as if at last freed from the role of gracious host, suddenly grabbed his throat and stuck out his tongue—the universal “You Choked” taunt. Then he was gone.
I was completely flummoxed. Not by the insult itself, a thing of no particular consequence. What unnerved me was that it was exactly the kind of thing I would have done.
Poor Richard
Last summer, Jack Unruh, illustrator of my monthly magazine column, and I, with no more sense than a couple of babies playing with steak knives, convinced ourselves to take a pheasant hunting road trip to North Dakota in October. We talked it up over the phone until we fell for our own B.S. about pheasants that had never seen a hunter and dogs leaping through the prairie grass. Then, the week before the trip, we both came clean. I admitted I had never actually hunted pheasants. Jack mentioned that his dogs were “unfinished.”
“Willy Mae points when she’s in the mood but won’t hold it. Rudy is like her, only without as good a nose. Plus he pees on my leg sometimes. It’s a dominance thing.” He had also realized that he had better pack a sandwich, as the 1,300-mile drive from Dallas to Bismarck might take an entire afternoon.
To break up the trip, Jack invited his friend Richard Stucky along. Richard is an independent farmer in Pretty Prairie, Kansas, population 604. He doesn’t make much money or get off the farm often, and we sort of patted ourselves on the backs for including him, as if we had started a Take a Farmer Hunting Foundation.
Actually, Richard—a stocky, slow-talking fellow about my age who looks younger, probably because he isn’t worried all the time—hardly detracted from the trip at all. His 100-pound German shorthair mix, Dusty, was a dream dog. “Who trained that critter?” I asked Richard one day, as Dusty released a rooster into his hand. “Me,” he said. Turns out that Dusty gets almost daily practice in season on the quail that Richard raises and hunts on the farm. Depending on what he and his wife, Connie, feel like eating, he also goes after deer, ducks, geese, and rabbits. He has a bass boat and four coonhounds. I was losing sympathy for poor Richard by the minute. Jack volunteered that his friend was the only guy he’d ever known who’d worn out a shotgun. “And he did it on birds alone. No targets.”
I asked Richard about farming. “There’s no money in it, but I’d die if I had to get a desk job. I’ve got about 200 acres of my own and lease another thousand. Wheat. And I do custom harvesting to subsidize the farming. But it pretty much lets me hunt whenever I want to.”
“So you have all those big machines?”
“Yeah.”
‘’Aren’t you sort of screwed if one breaks down?”
“Well, you just have to fix it.”
It turns out that poor old Richard could fix just about anything: green hunting dog, combine, or clogged motel ice machine. He permanently fixed any pheasant that got up within 40 yards of his battered, no-name side-by-side. “Secondhand. Fella at the gun shop said it’s a Belgian. Little shorter stock and a lower comb. Fits me good, especially in heavy clothes.”
We soon discov
ered that he was also the best judge of public-land cover likely to hold birds, so Richard rode shotgun, Jack drove, and I slept in the back. Richard got his three-bird limit every day, often before lunch. Jack limited out some days. And several times I scared a bird so severely with my first two shots that it committed suicide by flying back into the third. Richard, seeing how spastic I became every time a feathered Improvised Explosive Device went off at my feet, had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. “You gotta relax, Bill,” he finally said. “They hardly ever attack people.”
One afternoon, I asked Richard about the shotgun Jack had mentioned. “Dad bought me that gun new, a Franchi, back in 1967 when I was 12. And eventually the little hook in the receiver block that pulls the empty shell just broke off. I got a 1D 4-inch chunk of key stock, cut it, and filed it down to about the size and shape I needed. And then I got a torch and tempered it, guessing how hard it—”
“Wait,” I said. “You tempered it?”
“Sure. That’s where you—”
“I know what tempering is, Richard.” I sat there both admiring and resenting this damn hayseed of a man, a guy who hardly ever left Kansas but knew things I would never know, who was overflowing with kindness and wisdom and vitality. I suddenly felt like a 50-year-old puppy, a bird dog not yet broken from a bad habit of chasing the wrong animals: fame, money, and stuff. I didn’t know how to explain this feeling and knew better than to try.