The Troop

by Gayne C Young

  I looked through the opening in the brush again and said, “I think the one in the front is the biggest.”

  Dad handed me the AR and said, “I agree. Take her. There’s one in the chamber. Safety’s on.”

  I carefully took the rifle and pushed the barrel through the opening. I put the butt to my shoulder and looked down the open sites. I leaned forward then pushed the rifle firm against a vertical branch for support. I found the lead deer and aimed just behind her shoulder. I clicked the safety off and let out a half breath then gently squeezed the trigger.

  The rifle thundered, Liam screamed awake, and the deer jumped then came back to earth, spun around and fell dead.

  “Warn me next time!” Liam shouted while holding his ears.

  “I thought you were awake,” I laughed.

  “Sorry about that Liam. I thought you were awake too,” Dad said. “Let’s give her a minute or two.”

  I nodded then cleared the chamber and handed the rifle back to Dad.

  “Good shot,” Dad said

  “Loud shot!” Liam complained. “Real loud.”

  I grabbed the pole with the rope and walked towards the deer along with Dad and Liam.

  “Good shot,” Dad said again looking down at the fallen deer. “She didn’t suffer at all.”

  “Nope,” Liam said. “She just died.”

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  “How’s your side holding up Liam?” Dad suddenly asked. “I mean, do you think you and Taylor will be able to carry this deer on your shoulders back to camp?”

  Liam saw a way out of work and his mouth pulled into an evil smirk. He held his side and said, “Man, I’d love to be able to help but I just don’t think I can. My side just hurts way too much.”

  “That’s OK,” Dad smiled. “Taylor and I can carry her back.”

  “Again, I wish I could help,” Liam lied.

  “Oh, you can still help,” Dad almost chuckled. “We’ll let you field dress her.”

  Liam’s face dropped.

  Dad grinned from ear to ear and handed Liam his knife. Liam reluctantly took the blade and stammered, “I’ve never gut a deer before. Just rabbits...”

  “That’s OK,” Dad assured him. “I’ll walk you through it.”

  Liam rolled his eyes and moaned, “OK. What do I do?”

  Dad walked Liam through gutting the deer. He showed Liam where to cut, how deep to cut, and told him how to best remove the organs without getting himself covered in blood. I could tell Liam was pretty grossed out as he turned even whiter than his normal pale self. All in all though, Liam did a pretty good job.

  Until he nicked the deer’s stomach open that is.

  That let loose some of the nastiest smelling intestinal gas I’d ever smelled. Liam got a huge whiff of it as he was squatting over the animal when he nicked its gut. He shot up, stumbled a few feet away from the deer, then started gagging like he was going to puke.

  “It’s not that bad,” Dad scoffed. “I’ve smelled worse coming outta you after downing all those onion rings on the way out here.”

  I laughed pretty hard at that one.

  Liam didn’t.

  He just barked, “Not funny Mr. Hammond. Not funny,” and continued gagging.

  Dad laughed and said, “I thought it was funny.”

  “I did too,” I added.

  “Ha. Ha,” Liam complained.

  Dad motioned Liam back to the carcass and ran him through the rest of the field dressing process. When he was finished, we tied the deer to the pole by its legs and were ready to hoist it onto our shoulders when Liam asked, “Are we just going to leave the guts here?”

  “Yeah,” Dad said. “Unless you want them for some reason.”

  “No. I just mean won’t it scare of other animals?”

  “No,” Dad replied. “Buzzards will eat most of what’s here by night. Then the coyotes will get at it after dark.”

  “OK,” Liam answered in a tone that suggested he didn’t believe what he was being told.

  “Before we go,” I started. “Can we go check on the bird traps? They’re just up the road.”

  “No. We need to get this meat back to camp,” Dad explained. “Plus, I want all the scouts to come out to check the traps to see how it’s done.”

  Dad slung his AR then we hoisted the deer over our shoulders and started back for camp. Johnny, Jack, and Matt were at the smoking rack when we arrived.

  “We got us some meat!” Johnny hollered.

  “Yes sir,” Dad proudly exclaimed. “Taylor made a clean shot and Liam cleaned her out like a champ.”

  “Except for when he cut into its stomach,” I chuckled.

  “Ha. Ha,” Liam argued back.

  “No worries there Liam,” Johnny assured him. “No worries at all.”

  “Let’s get her hanging,” Dad said.

  “Sure enough,” Johnny said before turning to Jack. “Go get the others out of bed. We’re going to have an early morning lesson in deer skinning, deer butchering, and jerky making.”

  Jack said OK and headed to the tents.

  “I’m thinking we cook the ribs and a few hunks of blackstrap for breakfast,” Dad offered. “Smoke the rest as planned.”

  “Sounds good,” Johnny said. “You can’t beat ribs for breakfast no matter what kind they are.”

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  We all watched as Carl and Jack skinned the deer. Dad and Johnny offered advice and told the rest of us to pay attention as our time to do the same was coming.

  “We’re going to need lots and lots of meat,” Johnny offered. “Lots and lots.”

  “You and your lots and lots,” Liam chuckled.

  Once the deer’s hide was removed, Andrew and Matt took over for the butchering part. Again, Dad and Johnny offered instruction and praise.

  We sprinkled the cut strips of meat lightly with salt and pepper then placed them on the smoking rack. Johnny again joked about putting ghost pepper sauce on the meat but then said he was going to have to save all the sauce he had for himself. We all said that we didn’t have a problem with him hoarding the sauce at all. We put the ribs on a rack high above the campfire and each cooked small chunks of meat with long skewers. The backstrap was tender and made for a fantastic breakfast. The ribs turned out great as well, but we all agreed that they would’ve been a lot better if we had some barbecue sauce.

  When breakfast was done and all the meat was smoking on the rack, we all set off to check the traps. I don’t know what time it was, but it was probably still early morning as it had yet to get too hot. We passed the small blind I’d shot the doe from then hiked another 200 or so yards to the first bird trap only to find that it was empty.

  “Well, that sucks!” Liam complained.

  “Yeah,” Andrew agreed. “But we’ve got two more to check. Maybe they’ll have a bird or something.”

  “Let’s make sure this one works before we move on,” Johnny offered.

  “I know it works,” I assured everyone. “There’s still a trail of corn to the trap and the same amount of corn on the inside of the trap as there was when we set it. Nothing found this one.”

  “Gosh, you’re smart,” Liam laughed.

  “Hey Liam,” I replied

  “What?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Both of you hush,” Dad said.

  “So, nothing found this corn or was interested in it,” Johnny thought aloud. “Let’s move onto the next one. Hopefully it caught something.”

  Unfortunately, Johnny’s hope proved false, as the next trap was empty as well.

  The third trap however proved very interesting for a lot of reasons.

  “Look!” Luke almost screamed as he ran towards the last trap. “There’s birds in it!”

  “Walk, Luke!” Dad yelled after him, but Luke ran on towards the trap anyway.

  “What a spaz,” Liam scoffed.

  “There’s three birds,” Luke yelled from his position next to the trap.

  We all reached the trap just as Luke
was about to put his hand in it

  “Stop!” Dad yelled.

  Luke froze then backed away from the trap.

  “Do you not see that?!” Dad yelled even louder. He was suddenly really, really mad.

  “What?” Luke almost cried. “See what?”

  Dad pointed to the rear of the trap. There, under a sprinkling of dirt and bird feathers was a snake coiled into a knot.

  “Wha’?” Luke continued. “What?

  “There’s a snake in the trap!”

  We all stood over the trap and stared at its contents. At the front of the trap three quail paced and fluttered in panic. At the rear lay a snake with a hump the size of a tennis ball bulging from its midsection.

  “Looks like he got to one of the birds already,” Carl offered.

  “What kind is it,” Andrew asked.

  “Looks like a rat snake of some kind,” Johnny offered. “Not poisonous but he for sure would’ve bit the hell out of you if you’d stuck your hand in there Luke.”

  “Yeah,” Luke sighed. “I guess.”

  Dad took a huge breath and said in a much calmer voice, “You can’t run ahead like that Luke. We always stick together, and you sure need to pay attention to your surroundings and to what’s going on right in front of you. Johnny is right; that snake could’ve bit you.”

  “But it’s not poisonous,” Luke stuttered in defense of his stupidity.

  “What if it wasn’t?!” Dad barked back his voice rising in anger again. “As it is you could’ve been hurt. Badly. If it had been poisonous; you could be dead.”

  “Remember guys,” Johnny directed. “We’re on our own. There’s no way for us to get help if something serious happens. And even if we could get to help, like a hospital for example, there’s not a lot they can do with no electricity or access to new medicine.”

  “Or anti-venom,” Dad offered.

  Landed nodded and stared at his feet.

  “We just wanna make sure everyone stays OK,” Dad assured us. “And I’m sorry I got so upset.”

  “OK,” Luke mumbled.

  “That would’ve been funny though,” Liam said out of the side of his mouth. “To see Luke get bit by a non-poisonous snake.”

  I guess Dad heard this as he said, “Hey Liam.”

  “What?”

  “Shut up.”

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  We all backed away from the trap as Dad turned it on its side. The snake and the birds slid to the bottom in a mob of violent confusion. Johnny shoved a long stick into the trap and pinned the snake behind its head. This really pissed it off. The snake twisted and writhed, and Johnny looked like he was having a hard time controlling it.

  “You sure you got ‘em?” Dad nervously asked.

  “Yeah, I got ‘em,” Johnny answered.

  Dad reached in the trap and grabbed one of the quail. It fluttered and fought but Dad held it tight. He handed the bird to Matt and said, “Don’t let it go.”

  “I won’t,” Matt promised.

  Dad reached into the trap again.

  “You better hurry,” Johnny warned. “He’s not real happy.”

  Dad trapped the other two quail against the inside of the trap and grabbed them and pulled them out. Johnny unpinned the snake by lifting the trap off the ground with the stick still inside. He used the stick to open two of the jail bars at the bottom door and the snake fell free. It coiled in defense then puked up a partially digested quail and slithered into the brush.

  “Nasty!” Liam laughed.

  “Guess he was pretty stressed,” Johnny offered.

  Johnny put the trap back on the ground and Dad and Matt put their birds back inside it.

  “We’ll keep them in this until we’re ready to cook them tonight,” Dad stated.

  “We really need to make a cage to keep birds in,” Johnny explained. “That way we can keep all three traps out here hopefully catching more birds.”

  “I agree,” Dad said. “Sounds like a good afternoon project.”

  We carried the trap with the three quail back to camp and placed it under the dinning fly. Dad had Matt and Carl cover the trap with a few leave covered limbs saying that it would help calm the birds.

  “We don’t want them stressed,” Dad explained.

  “Just cooked,” Liam said before wondering about the regurgitated quail we had left out on the road. “Do you think that thing would be good to cook? I mean it was still pretty much whole. It just looked kind of wet.”

  “Wet!” I barked. “That wasn’t wet. That was snake snot! It was covered in snake snot.”

  “Tell you what Liam,” Dad interrupted. “You’re welcome to try and eat him, but you can’t bug any of us about it when you get sick.

  “I was just wondering,” Liam said. “I wasn’t actually going to do it. Like I’d eat a puked-up bird.”

  From there we split into two groups. Johnny took Matt, Carl, Liam, and me down to the creek to make another few sets of bricks. Luke and Jack stayed at camp with Dad to make a small birdcage. We worked pretty much all morning and by the time we headed back up to camp we had crafted another 32 bricks.

  “We’ll sit out the heat of the day then hopefully make at least another 32 breaks this afternoon,” Johnny said on the way back to camp.

  We arrived to find Dad, Luke, and Jack finishing up their birdcage. It looked pretty much just like our traps except had only one entrance and it was a lot smaller. Dad explained that we’d use this newly constructed cage to carry birds from the field back to camp.

  “I think we should make a big permanent enclosure somewhere near camp,” Dad suggested. “One that we can keep lots of birds in. That way we can hopefully build up some stock.”

  “Stock?” Andrew asked. “What do you mean by that?”

  “We want to get to where we always have a ready supply of food,” Dad explained. Whether it be lots of jerky or a dozen or so birds waiting to be plucked and cooked. We don’t want to just collect enough food for our next meal. We have to start thinking ahead.”

  “Speaking of our next meal,” Johnny said. “Who’s up for some jerky?”

  “Is it too soon to say I’m sick of jerky?” Liam moaned.

  “Yeah, Liam, it is,” I said. “Way too early.”

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  We spent most of the afternoon under the dinning fly and out from the underneath the brutal west Texas sun. It was hot nonetheless though and we were all sweating. Anytime anyone complained about the heat, Dad or Johnny would chime in with, “Drink some water.” Because of that, it didn’t take long for the complaints to stop. Johnny spent his time on the radio while Dad rummaged through the trailer looking for something or cleaning it up. After about two hours of that he came out to under the dinning fly, his hands loaded with socket wrenches and pliers.

  “Time to do some furniture shopping,” he exclaimed. “Who’s with me?”

  “Where are we going?” Luke asked. “I thought everything was closed. And that we couldn’t drive anywhere.”

  Everyone but Dad and Johnny moaned or chuckled at Luke’s ignorance.

  “We’re not going anywhere, Luke,” Dad explained. “Except to our vehicles. We’re going to pull the seats out, so we have more comfortable place to sit while we’re out here.”

  “Good idea,” I said actually excited about the prospect of sitting on something more comfortable than a folding chair.

  Dad handed out some tools then approached Matt.

  “Matt,” Dad said in a caring voice. “Is that OK with you? It’s your truck now.”

  Matt looked like he didn’t understand the question then suddenly came to. “Oh yeah, that’s no problem,” he answered before laughing, “But I call shotgun.”

  “Don’t even ask,” Liam groaned towards Luke. “Because there ain’t no shotgun.”

  “I know that,” Luke insisted. “I’m not stupid.”

  We split into three groups and divided ourselves between the vehicles. Unbolting the seats from the vehicles was pretty easy but getting
them out of the vehicle took some maneuvering. Once we were done, we had six bucket seats and three bench seats. We arranged them under the dinning fly in no particular order then tried them out. They were all a lot more comfortable than our folding chairs but were far lower to the ground.

  “I’m gonna put my chair on top of some bricks once they’re done,” Carl announced. “So I can get it to actual sitting height. Climbing out of this thing is tough.”

  “Yeah, wait until you’re 43,” Johnny yelled from his post at the radio. “It’ll be a whole lot tougher. Believe me.”

  “I hope I’m not out here when I’m 43,” Carl countered.

  “I hope so too,” Dad said. “But Carl you got a good idea there. The only concern I have about it though is when.”

  “Huh?” Carl questioned.

  “We need bricks to improve our dinning fly area here, for the dam, and now to raise our chairs up off the ground,” Dad replied. “In what order do you think we are to do this because making that many bricks will take time.”

  “Not with me in charge of making bricks,” Johnny yelled once more from his radio console.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be trying to reach the outside world or something?” Liam chided.

  “Hey, Liam,” Johnny said.

  “Yes sir,” Liam answered.

  “Shut up.”

  Everyone cracked up at that one.

  Even Dad.

  “Back to our brick order though,” Dad said. “Or the order in which we’ll use the bricks…”

  “I say making the place more comfortable comes first,” Carl confessed. Then the chairs then the dam.”

  Dad nodded and said to the rest of us, “What do y’all think?”

  We all said we agreed then got back to work on turning our ideas into realities.

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