The 'DOORWAY' Buck...

[CM Sackett]

A few of my long-time friends have enjoyed the following. If you fine folk find a measure of value and Smile-Time in the sharing, I'll post (in stages) about 17 chapters' worth of this upcoming book.

The 'DOORWAY' Buck is the first in a series of 12 volumes from “The Endless Season” books. Based on the joys and wonder a boy of any age can find as close as the fields and woodlots out back, these adventures go a little deeper than the events of an outing.
So, what’s the book about? Well, you might say it’s about something I’m fairly familiar with, that not every young man has a dad, growing up… that’s just one of the facts of Life. But every boy should at least have someone who stands in the gap, and makes the road to ‘manhood’ a little less confusing, frightful… and long.


Hope you enjoy...



copyright 2005... CM Sackett
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AT THE DOOR...
“Was you… aiming for his butt?”

Now, even in the best of times that wouldn’t have been very funny. But coming from a voice I’d never heard before, only inches from my ear, in the middle of a thicket where I just “knew” I was the only living thing for miles… it was down right cruel. And how in the world had he gotten so close to me without so much as the whisper of a sound in all these leaves and branches and brambles and briars? I spun around, powered a bit by reflex and a good bit more by embarrassed anger. And I was ready for anything.

Anything, that is, except him .

As my eyes began to lay hold of the body behind the breath on my neck, I saw a man looking intently past me (literally 4” from my shoulder) at my buck laying there on the ground, with my arrow still sticking out of his ham like an antenna on the quarter panel of an old Dodge.

His nose was sharp and short, kind of like you’d see on a pixie, or an elf in some Santa Claus print. His hair was as white as the first snow that would come the next mornin’, and was standing up like shocked bundles in front of the short-billed “woolie” he had tilted back on his head. His eyebrows, just under a wrinkled forehead were every bit as hoary and thick and unruly as the tangle we were standing in.

As I took in the rest of his frame at that moment, I noted that his head was stretched to the end of his time-chaffed neck as he studied the scene (hmm, I can't help but chuckle now, thinkin’ back on it… he looked like a turtle reaching for a treat…). His shoulders didn’t even seem to fill out the faded CPO jacket he wore, but they were soldier-straight. And his arms were back, with his hands past his hip pockets like a skier getting ready for a jump. The man was honestly intent on what he was lookin’ at.

And then, with that same intensity, he turned and looked me over.

Under those wild white bushies were the greyest eyes I’d ever looked into… pale and cool, almost like wet granite. In them, I saw a combination of curiosity (as crisp and genuine as that of any child), humor (not malicious, mind you, but damn mischievous nonetheless) and something else, that made me instantly glad I hadn’t challenged him, sight unseen. Yessir, these were the eyes of a MAN. I hadn’t had much practice at being one yet, but instinctively I recognized one when I saw him.

“You still ain’t told me, son… is that where you were aiming?”

Now why did he have to go and say that again?!

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[CM Sackett]

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“Of course not! What do you think I am, an idiot?!”

He cocked his head a bit and said, “I’m still making up my mind on that point.” As he said it, the right corner of his mouth drew back, ever so slightly, into a dimpled grin. Nothing else in his posture and demeanor changed at all… ah, except his eyes. I did notice a flash of fire in them, just for an instant. Then he turned and looked back at the buck.

“How’d you find me, anyway?” I said.

“Oh, I’ve been following your trails for almost a mile, son. You stuck with him longer and through thicker stuff than some men, who know how to track. That says somethin’ in your favor.”


“What do you mean… ‘who KNOW how to track?!” I was getting mad again.

He just smiled.

“I don’t think I mean anything boy, except what I just said. Take his tracks, now… they made sense right off; yours took a minute or two to figure. But when I did, it was pure pleasure seeing you stick with him. Like I said, a lot of fellas who know how to track wouldn’t have gone through half the crap you just did… to find this deer. That says somethin’ for you, for sure.”

I was just beginning to enjoy his company. Then he had to go and say “ this ” deer… the way he said it.

“Mister” says I, “for an uninvited ‘guest’, you sure are full of opinions (for a moment, in my youthful arrogance and ignorance, I had forgotten that “something else” in his eyes).

He straightened then~~ turned full to me, and with the same soft, unassuming lilt in his voice, but with the fire-flash dancing in those greys, he said, “And for an inexperienced, unschooled tenderfoot who can’t even hear an old man with nylon swivels for knees coming up on him… you’re awful full of ****-n-vinegar.”

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[CM Sackett]

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We stood there for a moment just staring at one another. Me with my best imitation of “You’ve gone too far, now BACK UP!” look (well, you remember what it was like to be a kid just comin’ into a man’s world ~~ when you had no clue how you were supposed to look or act in this type of situation, yet doing your best to act like you did… yeah, THAT look). For his part, the fire was still dancin’ in his eyes, but then they began roaming the whole of my face, as though they were searching for something they’d lost. Or forgotten.

And suddenly, they softened. He shook his head, and said, almost to himself, “I’m sorry son. Let’s get this one back to camp.”

And without another word he stepped lightly past me and grabbed one side of the rack. I turned and watched him in dumbfounded silence, then found myself moving toward the same task. Void of any conscious thought. Overflowing with a myriad of feelings.

I knew something unique and strange had just taken place... stranger still, because I found myself glad that he was there, this funny little man with the nylon knees and the fire in his eyes. Little did I know that at that moment, because of this little buck, I was standing at the door of one of my wildest adventures... and the richest of friendships.
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[CM Sackett]

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The Door Opens…
As we came up out of the thicket and stepped onto the field edge I asked him, “Hey, aren’t we going to gut this thing or something? I mean, wouldn’t that make dragging him easier?”

He never even broke stride, “If’n he had any size to him that might be a consideration.”

He turned his head and gave me a wink.

I had to chuckle at that one, my own self. For now that I’d laid hands on him, he wasn’t NEAR AS BIG a buck as he’d seemed when he was working the trail that doe had come down. But with steam lifting off the mornin' frost… his nose on the ground like a bloodhound and his bleached rack a bobbin’ with every step, he had seemed to be every bit the monster trophy my frantic nerves had made him. I suppose him being the first buck I had ever been close enough to pull back on had something to do with it. But I wasn’t about to let the old man know that!

“Besides” he went on, “if you’re willin’ to learn, I’ll show you how to take care of a critter in the field without making a mess, losing any meat, or taking much time. And there’s times, son, when keeping those three to a minimum can save your life.” And then he turned and looked me full in the face, “Learn to keep such things in mind, boy… even when you think it won’t matter.”

I found myself listening intently to his every word as he spoke of things “…to know” and pointed out features and facets of the fields and thickets that I’d never noticed. Funny, he didn’t ‘act’ like a “teacher”, but I gleaned more on that walk back to my camp than I’d learned from all the books and experts I had sought out to help me feed knowledge to this passion I had growing inside me. And in spite of myself, I found myself hoping he’d stay on for coffee and rations once we made camp.

I needn’t have worried…
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[CM Sackett]

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As we approached my camp he turned us South into a small draw that led away from it and the seep I’d set up next to.
“Hey, where you going? My camp’s that way!”

He didn’t speak until we stopped, on the lee side of a huge blown-down sycamore near the feeder creek at the bottom.

“Yessir, it is. Now stop a minute, and think. Which direction is your camp?”

“North… and a bit East, I think.”

“Yep. What else?”

I could see he was trying to teach me something. And while, for the life of me, I couldn’t imagine what, I went along with it. “UPHILL!”

With a slight sigh he said, “Yes… what else?”

“A LONG WAY UPHILL.”

He was looking straight at me now, everything in his visage coaxing me on to recognize and grasp the rest of the pieces to this puzzle he’d put before me. But the only things I could see at the moment were that I was tired, I was cold, I was at the bottom of a draw that didn’t have to be gone down into and that I was going to have to drag my deer right back up out of. And I was standing in it with this odd little man whom I had never met, never seen, had no clue who he was… and quite frankly, was beginning to think I wouldn’t give a damn if I never did.

“Mr.” I says, “I don’t know. I don’t know what else it is you want me to ‘see’. I don’t know you… and I don’t know what the hell we’re doing down here!”

He just grinned, looked from me, back up the draw and said, as softly and gently as if he were paying me a compliment, “Ignorant. Ignorant as Hell… but honest. A man’s gotta like that.” And then, without waiting for me to decide whether I was angry or not, he went on with the ‘lesson’…

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[acthunter]

what a great story mate , i look forward to the next instalment........

[CM Sackett]

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“Your camp is on a sweet little knoll, just off the flat we used to call Lost Lodge, over that way.” As he pointed, he turned back to me and said, “You chose well, by the way. Most folks head on up to the flat and use one of those old cabins. Never understood that, myself. Their scent and sound spread all over the gaming grounds, up there. They can’t hear the night sounds around ‘em, and can’t see the stars when they’re out. Why would a man do that to himself?”

As he came to that last question his voice trailed off in almost a half whisper. And then he seemed to catch himself, and went on… “That seep you’re watering at travels through nearly 800 yards of shale before it pools up there. It’s the sweetest water in 400 miles, son… that’s a fact. It’s an underground capillary of the aquifer that forms Ben’s Branch, a little east of here, and the Buffalo that cuts its way through the mountains back to the west. That aquifer also feeds this creek down here. And with you parked at the seep, this is the nearest water for 2 miles for all the critters. Do you understand now, boy?”

I didn’t. And he knew it. So, he went on…

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[CM Sackett]

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“The weather’s changed, son. This is the second mornin’ in the 20’s… and snow’s coming. Lots of stuff ain’t holed up for the winter just yet. And there’s things in these mountains that’ll need what we leave of him to keep their own fires a-burnin’."

"And some of them won’t be bashful about getting their share."

"You leave it anywhere near your camp, where a cross-wind n-such like can ring the dinner bell far and wide… they’ll come for the leavin’s and leave you with a ‘thank you’ you just don't need in this country... 'specially this time of year.”

“Taking care of him down here makes a friend of the wind, the trails and the nature of things. They’ve got cover. They’ve got water. They’ve got no added reason to come up and investigate your camp.”

It did make sense, but I wondered why we hadn’t done all this at the thicket. That was almost a mile as the crow flies from camp. I mentioned as much.

“Well, you do as you decide, boy. If that’s what you think best, then drag him back out there and have at it. I just figured you might want to hunt that ground again over the next 2-3 days. After all, there’s some benches, just past that thicket, that this young’n’s granddaddy calls Home.”

“And while Death is a part of the livin’ up here, the added traffic of coyotes, cats and ol’ Blaze nosing around all this might bump that log-racked monster off his pattern just enough to spoil your getting him.”

“But, like I said… you do as you decide.”

As he finished, he reached for something I’d noticed before hanging from the front of his belt. In one fluid motion, and almost as if by magic, there appeared in his hand a thing of wonder, the likes of which I had never seen before. As he knelt by my buck I stepped closer to look over his shoulder.
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[CM Sackett]

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I could tell it was a cutting piece of some sort, that much I made out fairly quick. But its shape, design… and what it was made from were a complete mystery to me. And I had a strong affinity for blades.

“What in the world is that?” I asked in naked amazement.

He held it up for me to get a better look.

“One of the finest cutting instruments in the world, son. It’s an ulu, made from Russian Jadeite and scrimshawed ivory from a walrus bull that nearly made my first trip to the Sakhalin area of the Bering Sea… my last trip anywhere.”

“Here, hold it. Just be real careful of the edge.”

As he handed it to me, I was as surprised by its heft as I was by its exquisite craftsmanship. The blade, a good 4 inches wide, was shaped like an opened fan. The jadeite was a vivid, rich translucent green… I could actually see through its pearlescent beauty. It reminded me of a South Sea wave, caught and frozen in mid-curl.

The handle fit almost seamlessly with the stone where the fan narrowed. It was ribbed, polished, heavy, and etched with a scene that clearly showed a man drawing a bow… on a HUGE walrus.

I looked up to ask him about it as I handed this piece of heaven back. He was kneeling on one knee and looking off down that dark draw, like he was peering into another world, or another time.

He spoke just as I started to form the words of my question…
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[CM Sackett]

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“At 22, it didn’t occur to me that a ‘blob’ without legs would get so het up over me stepping between himself and the object of his affection, or that a 3,000 pound animal could move like he did.”

His shoulders shook as he chuckled over that.

“But I’ll tell you, now… that twin-pillared behemoth covered 75-80 yards of pack ice like water popping and skipping across a red-hot skillet. And me, being as young and dumb and sure of myself as I was, I just kept sending arrows his way. Got 4 in him… before my 1st lieutenant streaked across that red-eyed demon’s path and tackled me like a freshman tight end!”

“The man saved my life, for sure.”

“And lucky for all of us, one of my arrows did the job and ended the bull’s rage. Seems that in that frozen second of Eternity, one of my sendings happened to catch the beast in mid-lunge, dead center of the chest. The hit was good. And as his massive bulk came forward and down on what remained of the shaft outside his body, instead of breaking it… his own weight drove it the rest of the way home.”

With a final long sigh he brought us both back to the present moment, and the task at hand, as he said, “So, you see boy, we ALL started where you are… full of the Desire ~~ and hungry for the Experience.”

“And right now, I’m hankering to experience my fill of this little fella on the end of a hickory stick, over a warm fire and a cup of steamin’ hot jo. What say we get to it?”
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[CM Sackett]

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He stretched out his arm to hand me his ulu, and said, “I'm sorry boy. I’ve gotten so caught up in this whole thing, I plum forgot my manners… this is your buck. You want to use this?”

“Nossir. I wouldn’t know where to start with that thing.” says I. “Besides, you promised to show me how to butcher a deer without gutting it.”

I could see that pleased him some.

“Well now, so I did, son… SO I DID.”

In the time it would take to tell it fair, the old man worked magic with that blade. It was like watching a dance, really. Like one of those expensive ballets that womenfolk make over so much.

Not overly quick, and definitely with no waste of motion his hands and that flash of emerald green flicked and floated through their task. He made initial cuts down the inside center of each limb to the knee. It seemed the blade barely touched the hide at the groin as he moved along the belly side, and the skin opened like a well-oiled door, all the way to the brisket. Instantly, that sea of glass disappeared under the hair, and with sleek sweeping motions freed the entire body cape up to the back.

After duplicating those results on both sides and around each limb, he grabbed and lifted the tail, and with one flick set it free. The entire skin was laid up over the neck out of the way as he made short work of cutting the quarters, straps and loins loose from their hinges, leaving the spine and the vitals sack intact.

Slick as buttered salesman!

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[CM Sackett]

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The morning was past full-grown and giving way to noon as we made our way out of the draw and up the trail that crossed the benches shouldering the mountain. As we climbed, we threaded through upshots of rock, standing like fierce, ragged sentinels among the oak and hickory. The old man was taking a trail I’d never noticed. And along the way, he continued to open my eyes to a world I’d walked through many a time, but never seen like this before. With a calm, matter-of-fact comment he would point out a plant or a track or an elevation change that wasn’t there until he slowed to show me. And yet, his voice was just as often full of wonder and excitement over some new thing to show me, as if he’d just re-discovered it for his own self and couldn’t wait to share. Later, I would reflect back on how easily he taught, and how easy he made it to learn. He was, I later realized, the first of very few people I ever met who were quite comfortable housing within their heart the wisdom of a sage AND the undying wonder of a child. He was indeed, a MAN.

When we broke through the last canopy of old growth, we came past a massive tangle of wild blackberry and honeysuckle at the west edge of the knoll clearing. At our appearing, the cardinals and blue jays, fluttering among the branches chattered their disapproval at our ‘rude’ interruption of their colorful commerce.

As we stepped on into the clearing the sun was standin’ proud and full on the top step of its angled climb across the early November sky. And the crystal wonderland formed by the mornin’ frost, while maintaining a foothold only in the deeper shadows now, still sparkled like the crown jewels on parade. My Lord! How I loved this land!

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[CM Sackett]

...and that is CHAPTER 1. If you're enjoying, and want to see more... just let me know.


As Always;
CM Sackett

[belegstrongbow]

Yes, thank you, enjoying it very much. Can you please post up some more?

Cheers,
Steve.

[Antarcher]

Is very good thank you. Please do continue

[Paul R]

It's definately a great story CM, I started reading it over on TradGang when you first posted it up and then continued over at Ozbow, thank's for sharing it with us over here.:)

[Thwack!]

Enjoying it is an understatement, captivated by it would be more accurate.

I will keep an eye out for more.

Thank you.

[CM Sackett]

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CHAPTER 2

It’s funny how some of the richest gifts and most treasured items of a man’s walk on this land don’t always come wrapped and packaged in such a way that they’re seen as such… at the time. Like high-grade ore, hidden under the muck and grime of rotten quartz, the strength to succeed, sometimes intertwined and unlocked with the challenge a crisis brings… or the healing and Purpose brought to life and given wing in the wounded and lonely, through the soft ‘need’ sounds and honest love of an infant-child... some treasures don’t show their value till they’ve been mislabeled a time or two.

This one was shaping up the same way.

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[CM Sackett]

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We came into camp and I walked past my fire-ring to a tarp I kept over the supply of wood and sundries (ax, saw and a small can of kerosene). Lifting a corner of it, I picked up a large double handful of kindlin’ sticks and shavings to start the fire with. The old man’s eyes were taking in the whole layout, his head nodding ever so slightly in what I took to be approval of my choices. I didn’t mind that none.

I dropped the kindling in the center of the ring and headed back for the kerosene.

I’d just picked up the can and turned back toward my fixin’s when I saw a fire blaze up in full vigor, devouring my meager offering of twigs and sticks. That old man was sitting there on his haunches, like he hadn’t moved and hadn’t a clue how it happened.

“What?” he said in a tone of innocent surprise.

“You know what.” I said in a tone equally full of confusion and consternation… “How in the world did you do that already?!”

“I’ve been COLD before, boy. Made a promise to myself years ago not to repeat the experience.”

He pulled back the edge of his CPO jacket and reached into a war bag hanging off his right hip that I hadn’t seen before. He called me over and motioned for me to hold out my hand. Into it he dropped three small chunks of dark, heavy, richly aromatic wood.

“What’s that?”… that seemed to be the main thing coming out of my mouth this day.

“Well,” says he, “It’s been called many things over the centuries… “splint light” (the Indians used slivers of it for candles ~~ produced a flame as pure and bright as any lantern), “fatwood”, “devil’s drip”… and “lighter” wood. That’s the term I’ve heard used for it most of my days.

It comes from the heartwood section of nearly all old piney-wood trees. The best I’ve found though comes from what the French call “Pin a feuilles rigides" (the pine with rigid leaves), we call it Pitch or Bull Pine ‘round here.”

“You go ahead and keep those, son. Next time you need a fire, you may not be that close to your tarp… or your kerosene.”

“Oh, and by the way, you better put somethin’ bigger than wishes on this fire, son, before it goes out.”

“I’M NOT YOUR SON!”

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[CM Sackett]

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The words seemed to just hang there in the crisp air, like dirty laundry hangin’ from the campus flagpole. And instantly, I was just that ashamed of them, too.

He had been looking at the fire… my eyes were already locked on him. He turned and looked at me over his shoulder and was smiling like I’d just offered him a marshmallow.

“I know that, son… oh, sorry. Would you rather I called you Travis? That is your name, isn’t it?”

Well I’ll be damned! For about the hundredth time that morning he had just floored me again!

“How… h-how do you know that?”

He reached over to his left and picked up a limb and started breaking it up and feeding the fire.

“Travis, how in the world do you ever expect to conquer these mountains, or what you’re dying to accomplish with that bow there, if you don’t learn to settle down… and observe?”

He grinned… and sighed… and went on.

“I suppose I could keep you in suspense a while longer, thinking I’m some type of clairvoyant or IRS investigator. But truth is, two years ago when you first came up here, you stopped in at the DX station, just out from Mt. Judy. Remember?”

I did.

“You bought hotdogs, a six-pack of RC, a bag of Lays, a Heath bar and a county map. Oh, and $3.12 in ethel.”

“As you were leavin’, you asked about ‘good hunting places’. The fella standing next to the cig machine told you about Lost Lodge, then asked you your name. Remember?”

“Yeah, I remember all that. But where were you?”

“Do you remember, as you came out, you walked over to that ol’ yeller Ford truck with the buck laying on the tailgate?”

“Yes sir. That monster is the reason I keep coming back here!”

He was still smiling… and giving me that intent look, like there was something I wasn’t getting. There was.

“Well son, uhm… Travis. That was my truck."

"My buck."

"...And you’re standin’ on my land.”

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[CM Sackett]

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Those last words obliterated whatever memoried scene his conversation had brought to light, and turned every single atom of conscious thought in my brain into fine stardust, blowing now across a black void of stunned shock. Yessir, you might say I was frozen stiff, and speechless.

Ever been there?


It’s not like I hadn’t tried to get “proper” permission… you can bet your last arrow with 12 days left to hunt I DID! Ever since that fella, Mr. Parks at the DX told me about Lost Lodge, about the spring and the meadows ~~ and the game. I had asked him who owned this ground and where I could find them to ask. He just told me what everyone whom I had asked thereafter said, “Don’t you worry ‘bout it son, I’m pretty sure you got permission. You just go ahead on.”

I asked at the café in Judy (nobody from the area calls it by its ‘proper’ map-name, Mt. Judea… they all just call it “Judy”). I asked at the hardware store, the little corner grocery. I asked the Hefley’s, the Greenhaws, a mister Foster… heck; over the last 2 years I must have asked everyone along Hwy. 123! And always, it was the same thing … I’d get some sly grin, sometimes a shake of the head, and then, “I’m pretty sure you got permission son…” It was almost like it was a conspiracy.

Little did I know how close to the truth that was.

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[CM Sackett]

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“Travis.”

“Travis, son?”

The old man was breaking through the fog.

“If you don’t mind my saying so, you look about like a deacon, his first three seconds in Hell.”

He had stood up and was reaching for my right hand, hanging limp at my side. As he shook it (like he meant it), he was saying, “I suppose we could have done the introductions sooner, but it didn’t seem to be mattering much. My name’s Daniel Tucker Arnold. Most folk just call me ‘Tuck’”.

“I…I…err…I mean….um….I’m sorry sir….uh… I mean…”

Looking back, I realize he must have been enjoying this VERY MUCH. But that old coot acted like we’d just been discussing the ingredients in a saltine.

“You get that fire stoked a bit more, Travis, and I’ll set the coffee to makin’… if you’ll point me to the pot-n-such.”

Sitting there, under a clean blue sky, we handed first one side of ourselves, then the other to the warm embrace of that fire. The occasional popping of an ember and the soft gurgling of the coffee making were welcomed and calming sounds. The rich, dark aroma of its brewing told me that Mr. Tuck definitely liked it strong, which suited my growing appreciation for this basic necessity of outdoor livin’ just fine.

The Dutch-oven biscuits he had whipped up were posting their own sweet, heady welcome sign right at the front door of our taste buds.

And the main course? Mr. Tuck had seasoned the tenderloins with some ‘secret recipe’ he brought out from a wrap of foil, told me this would make them “some mo’ better!”. As we turned them bit-by-bit with the finesse of hungry men who were enjoying the hell out of the whole experience, it was smelling like he was right… again.

It had been quite a day, already.



...to be continued. Let me know how you find it, so far.
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[CM Sackett]

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CHAPTER 3


If there ever was a king or emperor who even once, experienced a finer feast or richer time than we did that day on a mountain past Cave Creek… I don’t believe they survived it.

The fire had been pitched high, twice. Every morsel of tenderloin (and a smidgen of one back strap), a good bit of molasses and all but 2 biscuits had passed the pallet and pleased the soul. A camp pot of hot-black and a couple of Heath bars later, I thought we were done. And then he pulls out the cigars… this old man was going to ruin my figure AND my upbringin’!

As he handed me my first wrapper’d delight he said, “Some men don’t cotton to a good smoke after a meal anymore… damned savages!”

He winked as he reached for an oak stick at the fire’s edge. Being a closet novice, I watched closely and followed his lead in getting my own started. Well, at least I thought I did. That second tug to get her lit and I felt like someone had glued my lips to the tailpipe of a Rambler! The more I choked and hacked and gagged, the more of that smoke I dragged down to my virgin lungs.

“Turn it loose, boy! TURN IT LOOSE!!”

It took me a minute or so to get my airway clear and some semblance of my composure back. When I did, I just sat there, staring first at this smokestack in my hand… then at the wicked old pixie who’d given it to me. He was sitting there blowing smoke rings across the fire and smacking his lips like it was chocolate cake. Then he had the audacity to turn his gaze on me with the most pleasant look on his face.

“Good, ain’t it?”

I almost joined the ranks of “damned savages” that day.

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[CM Sackett]

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“Mr. Tuck”

“Yes, son?” (that became a habit he just didn’t seem to be able to break… I found myself more and more thankful he couldn’t.)

“I want to tell you how that arrow wound up where it did. You see, I….”

“You don’t owe any man an explanation. Life happens to everyone, son… except legends and liars. I’ve seen you shoot. And I’ve watched how careful you are to work out a critter’s patterns before you set up on them.”

I gave him a look, at that one.

“Well, you DO leave sign young’n. And, I’ve come across you a time or three as you roamed about. You’ll do, boy… you’ll do.”

The fire was still warm, but had settled down under a flickering blanket of coals. The cardinals and jays had moved on to other fussin’ spots. A lone mockingbird, along with a gang of finches had taken their place in the tangle of briars. The clouds that would bring the first snow (and the real beginning of our adventure) in the morning were crowding in overhead like kids at a Christmas store window during the Depression. And I had just taken a dizzying step towards growing into myself a little more, as a hunter… and a man.

In just 4 short hours, Mr. Daniel ‘Tuck’ Arnold had scared the bejeebies out of me, angered the fire out of me, embarrassed the hell out of me… and brought out a desire to be the best in me. I had come into these Ozark Mountains to get a deer, hopefully a buck. It seems that I had also found a friend and a mentor… hopefully for life.


...there's much, much more


CM Sackett

[CM Sackett]

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We whittled the rest of those afternoon hours away as easy as a couple of young’ns with brand new Barlows and a lifetime supply of balsa wood. We joked and laughed and talked about everything… and nothing. We cleared the seep basin of leaves and debris and stacked up more wood and kindling against the coming snows. I noticed that we were gathering a good bit more than I could ever use in a couple of outings, mentioned as much to Mr. Tuck.

“You ain’t the only soul that finds value in this spot, son. Besides, in places like this, leaving a camp ready to come back to while you got the time and inclination and strength, might just save your life sometime… or someone else’s.”

And so we kept warm gathering, cutting and stacking. And the clouds rolled in darker and bluer against the mountain. At one point I noticed the old man was just standing there, staring toward Lost Lodge flat, his head slightly tilted and the beginnings of a smile on his weathered face.

“What’cha looking at?” I said.

“The ever-changing wonder of it, boy. Only God could darken the canvas and brighten the colors on this grand a scale.”

I followed his gaze up to the flat, with that dark muslin backdrop of snow clouds ~~ hedged to the west by the shoulder of the mountain my buck had called Home, and spilling out to the east over the flame-crested tips of the timber that formed the next ridge line. This wasn’t a particularly ‘rich’ Fall for colors. But with those clouds a-broodin’ behind them and the sun still finding ways to light their trembling cheeks, the trees were indeed a pageant of beauties. And we were getting to see it all for free.

I looked back at Mr. Tuck. His eyes were still glowing as he turned and said, “If you can stand an old man’s company, I’d be obliged to share the fire tonight. I’ve got a bedroll and outfit cached behind the seep.”

And then he leaned forward a bit, “And tomorrow, we’ll see if we can’t get you within shaft-sending range of ol’ LogHorn.”

Now what’s a man supposed to say to that?!

“YOU BETCHA!!!”

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[Thwack!]

Still very much enjoying the story.

Thanks

[CM Sackett]

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With a slight flutter my eyes opened to the pre-dawn blackness of 4:00 AM, and I rolled over, eager to get this day started. Took me a second before I realized it was awful bright… for 4 in the mornin’… “WAKE UP OLD MAN! WE OVERSLEPT!!!”

I turned to see if he had heard me. There, on his side of the tent were his ground cover and bedroll, neatly rolled and tied. And lying across them was a bow and quiver! Now where in the world were THOSE last night?!

In the brisk, bright air it didn’t take me long to fetch my layers to me. And as I made my own bedroll secure I heard the sound of a lid settling back down on the Dutch oven. I smiled at the memory of yesterday’s feast. Had to give the old man his due there… he certainly weren’t no slouch around camp. Which wasn’t saying much for me at the moment.

I took another look at his hunting rig as I headed for the flap ~~ it was stunning! The bow was shaped like an old Howatt I’d seen in a magazine. But I NEVER saw a bow like this one! The limbs were a fiery orange on the back and creamy yellow on the belly side. They were some kind of straight, tight-grained wood I wasn’t familiar with under crystal-clear glass. The limb tips were finished off with an amber-colored bone or horn over a pinstripe of jet-black glass. Each overlay narrowed along the limb until it disappeared in a thread-thin point about three and a half inches down the face. But the most remarkable thing about the limbs was the scene painted into the limb face, itself. Running from the threadline of the bottom limb tip, broken only by the riser, and fading into its golden twin in the top limb was a scene of primal confrontation, like the one scrimshawed on the ulu.

Only in this brilliant, life-colored version, there stood a polar bear, glaring across broken and shattered pack ice, sapphire-blue water and a downed seal. The focus of his fury at the other end… a man, who was kneeling with bow drawn and arrow ready. As I looked closer, I could see the faint red dots on the bear’s shoulder… his muscle and sinew had already been breached… twice.

And as if the limbs weren’t enough to cause a man to bruise his jaw when it hit the ground, the riser was…

“Travis, Son! You’re missing a heck of a mornin’ out here!”

As the filtered light of bleached canvas gave way to its source in the world outside I blinked, as much at what my eyes found as at what found my eyes… and the rest of my face. Snow. Huge, heavy flakes… tons of massed white fluff floating and falling softly on everything, embracing whatever it touched with cold, wet tenacity. I looked about me, searching for the familiar outlines of landmarks and camp pieces... too late. The storm had already filled in the gaps and drifted over the particulars of everything in sight, leaving muted contours of white and blue like the great sheets draped over the furniture of an off-season summer cabin.

And it showed no signs of letting up. What had seemed to be such a bright-sky’d morning (for 4:00 AM…) was actually a cobalt blue, filtered through this downward flowing ocean of white. This was a sure-nuff, three-dog, stack-wood snow STORM! And parked right in the middle of it, next to the welcomed halo of a fine looking fire was that old man ~~ grinning like a possum on a pile of muscadines!
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[CM Sackett]

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“Well, good mornin’ princess! Is this a slice of Heaven, or what?!” He was practically beaming… how disgusting this early, this cold and with the hunt this ruined.

“Oh, ha-ha. Trust you to be loving this !”

“You better believe I do, boy. Weather like this, up here in these mountains, it’s like a free trip to another world. Don’t hurt the hunting none, either.”

I think it was my skeptical face that made him chuckle then as he added, with a wry smile “It can even make a fine breakfast… taste better. ‘Course, about now, you look like you need to be downwind of a sure thing to believe it.”

Oh, I didn’t need to be downwind of this layout to know I was just fork-shy of something special!

There, in the soft blue glow of an early morning Ozark Mountain snowstorm, we sat on notched stumps like royalty in an ivory hall. The steaming green enamel campware on our laps was as welcomed for the heat radiating from its bottom as for the bounty within its black-rimmed border. Each plate was piled man-high with almost a pound of heavy peppered, thick-slab bacon, resting on a mound of six scrambled browns. I looked around for the biscuits… I know I smelled biscuits! Besides, I had heard the distinct sound of the Dutch oven lid sliding into place earlier. Tuck noticed my wonderings.

“You looking for something?”

“Yessir. I know I smelled biscuits a while ago.”

“OOHPH! Damn! I knew I was forgettin’ something!”

He stood up so fast he almost turned over the camp pot, sitting at the fire’s edge. Reaching behind his seat he picked up a piece of sycamore bark and began clearing the cool grey ashes from the oven’s lid. Then he took the hay hook I used in place of a potholder and gingerly lifted it.

He didn’t say anything for a moment, and I was just about to start worrying that the blackberry jelly I’d spied sitting in that Griffin’s jar next to the butter box was going to have to be tasted ala’ nude. Then he looked over his shoulder at me with one of those open-mouthed, wide-eyed “OH MY!” looks, and said…

“Wouldn’t you know it? PERFECT!”

They were too.

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[CM Sackett]

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As the last crumb of biscuit was being used to rescue the last bit of jelly-n-egg-n-bacon fragments from being ‘leftovers’ I mentioned to Mr. Tuck that maybe we needed to get a move on. “After all” I said, “we’ve already lost a good bit of time.”

“Lost?” he said in mid sip. “Young’n, we haven’t lost anything.”

His words hung in the brisk air for a moment like the large flake I was watching drift down to my own steaming cup.

“Travis, you got to learn to read your surroundings, and move in rhythm with them. This snow started falling a little shy of 11:00 last night. In a little over eight hours it’s accumulated over a foot and a half. And right now, she’s comin’ down at the rate of over 3 inches an hour.”

“Now, you take a look over there, to the West. This storm spun in here following the Buffalo River channel. You see back that way, over the river? She’s letting up. Another three or four hours and this will all taper off, the sun’ll come out on those Southeast meadows… and so will the does.”

I was right there with him, soaking up every bit of information. Until the word “does” slammed against my ear.

“DOES! I thought we were going after ol’ ‘LogHorn’. What do we care what does are doing?”

He spewed coffee, and actually went to one knee… laughing!

“Son, I swear! Here it is, coming on the second week of November. And you want to know why we’d care WHAT THE DOES ARE DOING?! You sure you’re past puberty?”

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[CM Sackett]

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CHAPTER 4

As the snow continued its soft, swirling swarm to the ground you could almost watch the folds and drifts grow and spread. This was my first real snowstorm up here, and I was suddenly even more grateful for my campsite. I had chosen it mainly because of its remote beauty… and the seep (it was a good 600 yards off the main dirt Jeep path that led to Lost Lodge). But I had taken into consideration, however lightly, that the limestone overhang the tent and firepit were tucked into could serve as a break from winds and rain… and thank God, snow.

The clearing that formed the rest of the knoll had been absorbed into the rumpled blanket of it all, right up to the overhang. But here, although a few large intruders sifted through the trees that clung to the upper edge of the cut, nothing lasted but a smattering of gold and blush painted leaves… a banked fire… and good company.

As we sat there, warm and free in this transforming oasis of the Wilds, the fire crackled and popped… the camp pot sighed and gurgled… and the rest of the world lay silent, blue and frozen.

“Mr. Tuck.”

“Yes, son?”

“I saw your outfit.”

“Yessir.”

“Mr. Tuck, I ain’t never seen anything like that bow… or quiver.”

My eyes were fixed on him, my ears eager for the story. For a moment, he sat there on that stump with his coffee cup poised half way to another sip. Slowly, he lowered his arms back down to where they were resting on his knees. And as the steam lifted and rolled from the cup, his eyes seemed to be looking through it… into another world.

I noticed he did that a lot.

“Well, if you’re interested, and willing to go fetch it, I’ll tell you about that particular rig.”

I nearly tripped and fell… I got up so fast.

I came out of the tent with them both and headed over to hand them to him. “You hold it, son. This coffee cup’s feeling awfully comfortin’ right about now” he said with a grin. I didn’t mind that at all.

As I turned the bow over in my hands, marveling again at the story on the limbs and the exquisite features of the riser, he started.

“Early part of ‘34 was a perfect time for a sure-of-himself twenty year old to get out of these mountains and go see the world. Tweren’t no jobs, and with no real family to hold me it just seemed like the natural thing to do, to head out.”

“Used the last $2.80 I had to catch a bus out of Harrison down to OKC. From there, I followed that new ribbon of road they called “66” all the way to Barstow. Then I hitched a ride with a chicken truck to the Bay area.” He chuckled over that memory and added something about not being able to get too excited over fried chicken ever since.

“When I hit San Francisco, I was tired… I was hungry… and I was plumb broke. So, as I drifted down to the Embarcadero I was ready for whatever job a man might offer my hands and back. At Pier 5 I ran into a gentleman looking to add two more crew members to a vessel sailing for Seattle, then Alaska. I figured that’d do.”
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[CM Sackett]

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“So, I worked that supply junk on up to Ketchikan and hauled my freight ashore… me and the captain didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye on how a man pulling his weight ought to be treated. Safer for both of us, that way.”

“Anyhow, I hit the docks with good wages and a strong desire to see more of this new wonderland I had discovered while she was still shining in all her unfrozen glory. And that’s exactly what I did.”

“One evenin’ in a local establishment, I struck up a conversation and eventual friendship with the red-headed 1st mate of an “old style”-whaling vessel registered out of the Chukchi Sea area of Russia. By night’s end we had clasped hands… I was going aboard.”

As he continued, I sat enthralled and dumbfounded. His vivid, yet matter-of-fact recounting of tales of the rigors and terrors and joys of working those sapphire chasms of the Bering and Chukchi and Beaufort Seas were as surreal, and yet, just as palpably “real” as the surroundings in which I was hearing them. And as he spoke to me there, man to man, the realization that THAT is exactly what he was doing left me as warm and strengthened as the coffee on my lap… that I had totally forgotten about.

He got up and grabbed the pot and refilled our cups. Then he stood at the edge of the overhang watching the snow’s silent assault for a moment. As he turned and headed back to his seat, he said… “So, I spent two whaling seasons aboard the Одобрение Ветра (Favoring Wind). Didn’t take long to work my way from general hand to “striker”, that’s the fella that handled the deck gun and killing harpoon. Seems the skipper was watching me and a couple of the boys one day hunting seals on the pack ice, for something to do… and eat.”

“You see, on our first stopover in Nome, after I’d joined the crew, I picked up a nice yew and bloodwood flatbow. She was short for those days, only 62 inches. But she was a lively sprite. And the fella I bought her from had taken real good care of her… I don’t think he ever braced it. He had ordered it from of a magazine advertisement in ‘ Forest and Stream ’. Anyhow, he was headed home to Burlington, Iowa and seemed to have lost all affection for those things of his current surroundings, except cash. So, I had me a good bow, and a heck of a time!”

“Seemed a perfectly natural thing to have around in that country in those days, what with all the game and time… and need.”

Tuck paused, ever so briefly. He seemed to actually gasp, or start at the sound of that last word coming back to his ear. I was to understand why, in just a few minutes.

He talked of trapping in the cold, off-season ~~ when the fall and winter blast would lock the whaling waters behind crushing, jumbled masses of opalescent pack ice. Spoke of hunting the caribou of the great Porcupine herd during the nuliavik tatqiq (“moon when caribou rut”) under the saw tooth sentinels of the Brooks Range. And the fire flashed in those grey eyes, as the misty memories of the splendor of Sheenjek Valley became the crystal clear murals his words were painting on my mind. From the banks of the shallow Jago River to Wainwright, Meade River, and several other locations along the Arctic Slope Tuck Dodson and that flatbow made meat… and friends.

“That’s where the story on that bow comes in, son.”

“The winters of ’34 and ’35 weren’t bad… as a matter of fact, according to their standards, they’s most tolerable.” He looked out towards the Buffalo; the snow seemed to be easing a bit. I rose to fetch the coffee as he continued, “Me and another lower 48er I met my second April there, Ben Arden, we both made off like bandits trappin’ and trading with old Tom Gordon at the outpost on Barter Island.” He grinned big, tossed another small offering to the fire and said with his trademark chuckle, “That Gordon now, He was a character!”

“Anyhow, Ben was an Idaho boy from the Thompson Pass area of the Bitterroots… he was good company, and a hell of a shot.” Tuck motioned over to my rig leaning against the tent flap, “Yeah, Ben liked those ‘longstyks’ like yours. He used a 70-inch thumper that he’d built himself, back home. Never had much use for that much wood, myself, but in Ben’s hands… it was a wicked thing of beauty!”

I was liking this Ben fella. I was liking him a lot!

Tuck continued, “The scene on that bow you’re holding happened during the siqinrilaq tatqiq of 1936.”

“What’s a ‘sigi…n…’… what’s that thing you just said?”

“Oh, I’m sorry boy. Sometimes I forget and pass out words I’ve grown comfortable with like everyone else ought to know them… siqinrilaq tatqiq …that’s the Inupiat way of saying December. It means (“Moon with no sun”). Ben and I had shared many a hunt and warm fire with those folks over the course of the previous season. During that dark and dreadful time, we shared our lives.”

“That winter of ’36, and from what I heard later, the next one, as well, was just plain brutal. Ben and I both had made plans to pack it in and head for home in September. We had actually become quite prosperous young men for those times. With nothing more than a bow, a quiver full of “Closed” signs…” (I learned that that was one of his favorite terms for a hunting arrow. And on his string… that’s exactly what they were!) “…woods skills and a love for the Land, we made our early fortunes.”

He took a sip.
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[Sambar Hunter]

to long to read :)

[CM Sackett]

I'm actually sharing quite a bit of an upcoming book, here. My apologies if it doesn't fit this board's culture...


CM Sackett

[Antarcher]

Please continue Mr Sackett as people have a choice as to whether they read a post or not. I for one am enjoying it as it is a well written piece for sure.

[Thwack!]

I'll second that Antarcher - a very enjoyable read.

[mick thomo]

i agree. i'm totally hooked.

[CM Sackett]

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“Well, when we got to Barrow the ice flows had already cut off any sea exit for quite a ways. And as anxious as we both were to get home, we had enough sense to know that fighting the situation would, at BEST, skinny our money belts far more than we were comfortable with… and the scenarios went downhill from there. So, we figured to winter one more time with our friends, and help with the hunt. And that’s just what we did.”

“Nobody starved in our group, although I did hear that the folk around Kaktovic had it pretty rough. But it was a hard one.” He motioned toward the bow… “On that particular hunt, Ben, myself and two young bulls from the Inupiat camp had actually been hunting seals and musk ox to share with other villages and to trade for store goods at Gordon’s post. We’d been on the ice over the Beaufort for three days, hadn’t seen a thing. Then we hit the mother lode.”

“The grating moan of the ice shifting and jostling against itself was all we had heard… that, and the wind. Then, on our fourth move we heard the distinct bark of a seal, just over an upshot of ice ahead. We got down and crawled to the leading edge… there were breathing holes as far as the eye could see! In the next two days, we and our friends took 18 seals, fifteen of them with our bows ~~ and that polar bear.”

What I was thinking must have made its way to my face (I just couldn’t imagine shooting a large, lounging lump of lard on the ice as being any sort of challenge…), for the old man turned a keen eye to me, leaned forward a bit, and said, “You need to learn this too, Travis… what your eyes ain’t seen, your hands ain’t touched, and your life ain’t done… ain’t always safe ground for such easy judgment.”

There was no ‘threat’ in it. His tone was as soft and even as ever. But I definitely saw the wolf in him then… and the sense of what he said, in the years to come.

“Anyhow. We had us a stack of meat behind us, and that one you see on the bow before us when that old boar decided we had fixed him just about enough lunch. And if one or two seal carcasses would have set him up to table enough to leave the rest be, we’d have been happy to share. But like some men, it was plain that THAT wasn’t in the picture of his mind… at all. So, we made our stand.”

“Ben’s the one who realized right off that our being knotted up together like we were, not only wasn’t scaring this devil, it wasn’t going to do us any good in besting him. So he sent me to the left flank and our friends, with their toggle-harpoons and one throwing lance, to the right.”

Mr. Tuck reached over and gently tapped the figure on the limb. “Ben, he stayed head-on with the bear, waving that bow of his and hollering and cussin’ him like the last drunk to leave the bar (giving us time to get in place). That was the grittiest and bravest man I ever knew…”

The old man stretched and scanned the western sky. “Snow’s letting up, son. It’s almost time to get up there amongst ‘em.”

My protest was rather strong and immediate, “You haven’t finished your story YET!”

I saw that pleased him. I didn’t mind doing that.

“Oh, I got time to finish the story, boy. I just figured you’d be itching to be out making your own memories, instead of just sitting around, listening to mine.” he finished with a laugh.

“I’m making memories-a-plenty, right here.”

My matter-of-fact way of saying it sounded… almost like him! Startled both of us a bit.

“Well, alright then. Where was I? OH… Ben caught his foot on a bump on the ice and fell forward, straight at the bear. WELL, that lit the old boy up! He woofed and started forward, not fast, but with purpose. Ben was trying to gather his battle gear to him for a proper response. He finally got a feathered cedar on the string and, in his understandable excitement, sent it just over the mountainous shoulder of the beast.”

My own eyes were dancing now! My arms unconsciously and instinctively raised the bow in phantom support of the scene playing out in his story.
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[CM Sackett]

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I caught myself, and looked over at Mr. Tuck sheepishly, thinking I may have just made a fool of myself. Needn’t have worried… he was at “full draw” his own self… with nothing in his hands but memories! His voice was raising in pitch and intensity, just enough to let a person know he was THERE… relivin’ every frigid, frightful SECOND! He went on…

“I knew I had to turn that bear. My first shaft took him clean behind the shoulder; the dark fletching vanished into the white of him before I even realized I’d loosed it. He didn’t blink, he didn’t baulk, he didn’t break stride… he just lowered his head and picked up his pace.”

“Ben was scrambling to find an arrow that hadn’t been broken in the fall. Our young friends (neither of whom was over 14) were standing there, sixty feet beyond the path of the beast, transfixed, as the stuff of fireside story and tribal legend passed from nightmare to nightmarish reality before their young eyes.”

Tuck gave a short, soft chuckle… “I don’t remember it being a ‘willful’ act of bravery, son ~~ so much as a deliberate act of desperation. But I found myself running and focusing right at that growing red hope, screaming like a banshee and giving wing to arrow after arrow as I worked to intercept this enemy of my friend (funny, that’s all I thought of the beast as… in those slow ticks of Eternity).”

“Anyhow, I guess my ‘war cries’ sparked the budding fires of man-ness in those young’ns… ‘cause son, THEY CAME ALIVE! They started for him with a primal growl, like your best dog on a bad coon! The older one grabbed the throwing lance out of his friend’s hand on the run, skidded to a stop just fifteen feet from that heaving wall of muscle and madness and let her fly! Oh, THAT gave him pause!”

The old man grimaced, as though he was having sympathetic reflex contractions.

“That big fella was game… I’ll give him that! But as he skidded around, actually bumping the seal carcass, to meet the sting that boy had put into his left side ~~ head on, I drew one final nock to my cheek… hesitated just long enough to focus on the blood-soaked crease of his massive shoulder… and sent that shaving point home at three steps (I could actually feel the heat from his body…). At that same instant, Ben, who had never flinched or faltered in his search for a workable shaft, shot from one knee… from directly behind the seal. The arrow entered the sinews of the neck, right at the base of the skull… and sank half its length into the giant’s last thoughts.”

“The bear crumpled and rolled another ten feet from his momentum. Fierce. Phenomenal… and quite dead.”

Tuck sat there for a moment, staring into the fire as though it were a portal into that day, that experience. I sat stunned, staring at the bow as though the bear was actually still in motion… the man still waiting for just the right instant to release.

And the snow… stopped.
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There's more... much, MUCH more.

[belegstrongbow]

Great story. Thanks again for sharing it. Looking forward to the rest.

[CM Sackett]

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CHAPTER 5

The sky cleared, the air brightened… and the land lay silent. Looking out across the knoll and on up to the azure-toned vista of the flat, it was almost as though Newton county had been swallowed by the snow, and I had been bodily transported to that fierce, rich Northern land of Tuck’s memories. I actually caught myself looking into the snow-bound timber for a glimpse of Ben, or the young Inupiat warriors… or that bear (I still chuckle every time I remember that. But you know how it was at 18, the hair’s a growin’ on the chin… but the imagination is still as bald and vivid as a child’s! I was all right with that. Still am).

Mr. Tuck was adding a large stump piece to the fire. Noticing the tilt of my head and knitted brow he said, “On days like this son, leave a night-burner on for a watchfire. It’ll burn slow and steady and warm. That way, anyone who might come across the camp whilst we’re out will find a welcome break in their walkabout. And, even if we get back mighty late, she’ll be here to greet us with a warm embrace and a ready bed of coals.” And then he added, with a sly grin and a wink, “Roughin’ it don’t necessarily mean a lack of comfort”.

My ‘book-learning’ came to my tongue faster than my mouth could bridle it ~~ “Well, I’ve read where you’re supposed to always put a fire out when you leave camp.”

He just smiled as he tucked a few pieces of tinder into his war bag, “Read the same thing a time or two. But don’t ever let passive learning override active thinking, son.”

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[CM Sackett]

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“Take a look around you. There ain’t nothing under this overhang to catch and hold a flame long enough to do any damage. And it’s plain from the patched holes in your tent, and the current selection of fire pieces that you’ve learned how to pick your camp wood better.” (…this one had me smiling. I’d almost burnt the thing up the year before when I threw a moss-barked pecan log on my first morning’s fire. Man, did she ever pop and spit!)

He took note of my grin, shook his head, and then continued, “And as for out there… even the Keeper of the Fires of Hell couldn’t get that lit today.” Then he turned to face me, “But you do as you decide. It is your camp. And that makes what any other man thinks on the subject just what it is… just~ their~ opinion.”

With that, he took his bow off to the other side of the fire and began drawing it back bit by bit, time and again, until the weapon was finally brought to full draw... and his muscles and joints to full limber.

I had never met anyone as seemingly prepared for a situation as Mr. Tuck, any situation. Everything I ever saw him do made perfect sense (even if some of it was after the fact). The term I later came to use to describe him was ‘self-possessed’. He was utterly and completely confident, and proved to be rightly so, in every circumstance I ever shared with him. And yet, I have never been around a man who was less inclined to (or who had less use for) bragging OR false modesty. That’s what I mean by ‘self-possessed’. He was whole ~~ complete in his manhood… without pointing it out himself, and totally aside from what anyone else thought of him. He put it to me this way, once…

“The Good Lord made me, boy. Gave me every gifting, aptitude and skill-set I have, just like He gave the trees their strength, the stream its chuckle and the fox its cunning. So the braggin’ rights are His. And so far, son… those things have been enough to keep me, and others alive… and to keep my word good. From what I’ve seen in this world, that’s enough.” And then, with the life-fire a blazing in those grey eyes, he added, “I have no problem standing in the company of ‘men’.”

He sure as Hell didn’t.

But what I marveled at most, and came to cherish and treasure above all else about this crusty old man was the uncanny ability, and pleasured willingness he displayed in giving me room… to be a man.

And since this was my camp, I made an executive deciscion… “Fair enough” I said, “Let ‘er burn.”

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[CM Sackett]

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There was well over two foot of snow covering our climb to the meadows, with many a drift longbow-deep. Trudging through it would be no picnic on the flat. But our path also wound through the benches of timber, rock and blow-downs, tangles of blackberry and honeysuckle, Virginia creeper and pepper vine… not to mention the hundreds of gullies and washes that cut their own sign into the face of the mountain. All of this now lay under a seemingly even blanket of soft white, only slightly rumpled here and yon… and nowhere showing any sign of the slippery, bone-splintering possibilities lying beneath the façade.

I was just about to step out into it, when the old man brought me up short.

“Whoahoh! Where you headed?”

“I’m going huntin’.”

“Like that ?”

I looked down and gave myself a good once-over. My boots were tied, my coat buttoned, and the brand new wool gloves I had picked up in Bellefonte were looking mighty spiffy on my numbing fingers. I had my bow, quiver, arrows… I looked back over my shoulder at him, “Yeah… just like this. It’s all I got.”

“Well don’t you think snowshoes would be nice? And something a little more suited to the current background than those forest-green canvas Keys you got on might not hurt.”

He was starting to bug me again.

I turned back to face him. He was sitting there at the fire with that beautiful, dark, shaggy-furred quiver on his lap. He was leaned over like the great Thinker, with an arrow in his right hand, touching the broadhead to the thumbnail of the other. His face, close to his ‘work’, was a study in total concentration… like he was performing some delicate surgery. He never even looked up.

I stood there watching him for a moment, curious as to what exactly this whole ritual was about, but too young and impatient to ‘waste’ time asking. So, I blurted out the brilliant response I had been working on, “Well, the last time I checked, there wasn’t a snowshoe store around the corner, or a “WHITE-SALE” going on at the seep!”

The broadhead stopped in mid-tap.

_________________

[CM Sackett]

_________________________________________________

Tuck moved his jaw around a bit, like he was trying to pop it back into place, but didn’t look up. “If mouth was a measure of manhood Travis… most boys, and all currs and porch-pups would be giants.”

He leaned a little closer and focused on his thumbnail, which was beginning to show the furrowed results as the broadhead caught at even the slightest contact, all along its edge. Then he slowly raised his gaze to meet mine, which wasn’t wavering… just yet.

“But it’s not, son. Being a man is a matter of action and results, not talk and intent.” His tone was calm and even. His eyes… his eyes held no flame, they looked almost cool and sad. That’s when I had to look away, even though I wasn’t quite finished with my defense.

“Yeah, well… I’ve grown awful tired of people making fun of me all my life! I maybe ain’t got ‘ family ’ or tons of stuff, but I don’t ever stick my hand out, I don’t ever pester anyone!”

Tuck pursed his lips as he sighed and slowly scanned the glistening horizon. “Yessir. Folks’ useless cruelty can get mighty old in a hurry, that’s for certain. But this day isn’t “ all your life ” Travis, and I ain’t most “ people ”. He leaned over, way over, to catch my downcast eyes. Slowly he brought us both back to a level-chinned look, as he added…

“And this ain’t no dressin’ down, just a statement of what is, son. I’ve been young, and I still remember the feelings and processes of growing into myself. Anger, fear, wonderings… I got no problem with any of those.” He broke the tension some with a chuckle, “Hell, I still deal with them myself, from time to time!”

“But I stopped the useless practice of barking at other men many, many years ago… and I damn sure don’t have any use for it when I hear it coming off the porch, my way.”

I had definitely been chastised ! Calmly. Quietly. THOROUGHLY.

“Yes sir. I’m sorry.”

He was already in motion, even as the words were leaving my shame-chaffed lips. He reached out to shake my hand, and said, as lightly and matter-of-factly as if we’d just reach a mutually agreeable business deal, “Fair enough. Nuff said.”

“Now if you’ll look about your camp a little more closely, you may find you have more ‘ stuff ’ than you thought.”

Now what in tarnation did he mean by that?!

_________________

[CM Sackett]

_________________________________________________

I scanned the area around the tent, even went behind it… nothing. I peered into the deeper recesses of the cut… nothing. Mr. Tuck was rinsing and setting the pot up for our return coffee (“plannin’ for contingencies” he called it) and acting like there was nothing else going on… mean ol’ man!

Finally I glanced over at the tarp I used to cover my wood and sundries, and noticed it seemed a bit ‘fuller’ than I remembered. Walking over to it, careful-like, I looked back at Tuck, he was holding his bow up and looking down the limbs, like he was inspecting it. Just as I reached for the corner of the tarp he said, “Well, go ahead son. It won’t bite.” As the covering peeled back I caught a glimpse of white fur… and what seemed to be honey-colored ribs of polished wood.

“Pull ‘em on out, boy! It’s time we were getting’.”

He walked over and picked up various items out of the pile, leaving twins of each and every one.

“If a boy’s going to hunt proper in this kind of world, he ought to be outfitted proper for it… don’t you think?”

I wasn’t sure what to think. I didn’t know what half of this stuff was. He must have figured as much, for as he was donning his own pieces he would point out the corresponding item for me…

“That’s your vest. That long, course outer layer is polar bear… no, not that one. Those hollow-core hairs are just the thing for keeping ol’ Jack Frost out and holding what’s needed in. Sheds water well, too. It’s lined with Merino wool and filled with Canadian down. You won’t be wantin’ for warmth in that, son… and a vest allows you to stay quick and ready in your movements, without worrying about your string slapping some big ol’ bulky sleeve.”

I took off my coat with obvious reserve. He just grinned, “Go ahead, put it on.”

It didn’t seem to weigh much, but when it settled on my shoulders I could tell already that whatever heat I put out, it would send right back!

The buttons were double-tapered cylinders of ivory, each about ¾ of an inch in diameter and two and a half inches long. Oh, this was nice!

“Here’s your leggings. They’re of the same makings, same critter. You just wrap them around the front of your legs… like this. O.K., now take those four back cords and run ‘em around the back of your legs and through the eyes… there you go. Now, tie a knot in them, make sure the ones around your knees are loose enough to let you bend without binding up. That’s the ticket!”

The cords on the leggings were wrapped in wool and fit snug, yet soft across the backside. The eyes, or ‘buttonholes’ tapered to a slit. The knotted cord just naturally slipped to the narrowest point at the back and settled in. Dandiest thing I ever saw!

There was one piece of fur on the ground… and what I took to be snowshoes, although I’d never seen any like those before!

“Well, pick it up, son. That’s your hat.”

As I bent over and took it to hand, I could see it was a fox skin of some sort. The fur was long, thick, silky soft and glistening white… with an unbelievably thick luxurious tail that would all but cover the neck side of a good-sized man. There were four arrow-shaped ivory buttons around the perimeter of this little beauty, and a larger one at the top center. I looked from the hat to Mr. Tuck.

“Them’s to keep your wool liner in place during needful times, like today. And, when you don’t need to keep all that steam in…” He took a hold of his and undid the buttons, pulled the shaped fleece liner away, revealing a red silk inner lining! “Yours is the same, son, except the lining is royal blue.”

He grinned at my dropped-jaw gawk.

“Just because its woodsman wear boy, don’t mean it can’t have class… now come on. It’s time to introduce you to ol’ LogHorn.”
_________________

[CM Sackett]

_________________________________________________

We sat on our notched thrones, looking like key players in a Jack London novel as we went to putting our snowshoes on.

“Mr. Tuck?”

“Yessir…”

“Sir, I’ve seen pictures of snowshoes before…”

“Mmm hmm…”

“Well, all the ones I’ve seen were kinda long and narrow. These look like… giant pizza pans!”

He chuckled as he cocked his head and looked at the one on his left foot. “Yeah, I never really thought of it that way. But now that you mention it, they DO.”

As he held the other one up, he said… “There’s bunches of different designs for them, son, dependent on the terrain and the travel patterns and needs of those building ‘em. The ones you’re talking about come from the Athabascans in Alaska and the western territories of Canada. And when you think about it, it makes sense in that part of the world to build them long and narrow.”

“The country they travel is more open, covered with pack ice and rolling tundra, mainly. Why, I’ve seen ‘em more than five feet long and all dolled up with paints and beadwork. Some say it’s all for show, but I walked among them Travis. And them people like their fancies as much as you or I, but there’s a practicality and economy of movement and resources in everything they do up there. That paint and bead work can serve as a good signpost on that canvas of blank white when needed, and mainly works like a rancher’s brand. You walk up to an abode, trading post, or local establishment, you’ll see them lined up, leaning against the outside wall. You can tell every man in there by the unique patterns on the shoes.” He turned his head toward the flat… “That can even save your life, sometimes.”

“These here came from a Cree friend of mine up around the village of Fort George, Quebec (*now relocated to Chisasibi). In LongWalkin’ those primordial timber-tangled wonderlands I quickly learned the value of these “pizza pans”, as you call them! Their short, round stability don’t get hung up in brush fingers and such near as easy as those others might.”

“The set you have on came from him as a gift, some years later… as if friendship with salt-o-the-earth good men requires ‘payment’!”

I was shaking my fox-ed head in rapt astonishment ~~ was there a place on this planet that old man had NOT been?!”

_________________

[CM Sackett]

_________________________________________________

It was just shy of 11:00 when we stepped beyond the overhang and sunk the first circled sign of our intentions into the leading edge of that virgin wonder. Each step raised a swirling vortex of fresh powder, our shoes making only the slightest “Fffphhff” sound as we made our way out to the main Jeep trail that pointed the way to Lost Lodge Flat. Three steps into it I was feeling like a sophomore at the senior prom… dancin’ in boxes!

“This is going to take FOREVER!” I moaned. “How in the world do people ever get anywhere in these things, anyway?!”

The old man (whom I’d noticed, by the way, wasn’t flailing his arms and legs like a chicken on a bungi cord!) turned back to me, with that Cheshire cat grin of his…

“Why Travis, that sounds like a voice from the past!” he chuckled. “I said almost the very same thing my first time on them.”

Well, that helped… some.

“Remember son, each day has its own tempo, the rhythm of it set fresh every mornin’ by the weather, the surroundings, and the myriad of other things that make this a living, breathing world. A man what wants his plans to succeed would do well to take the time in his planning to allow for that… and learn to move in step with what he finds.”

“As for them shoes, you’re trying to ‘walk’ in ‘em. You gotta STEP in them, like this.”

I watched closely as he picked his leg straight up, moved it with economy and purpose around and directly in front of the other leg, and placed almost the whole of the shoe’s perimeter down in one smooth motion.

“You see, boy? Days like this aren’t made for a stroll… and neither are these things. But, one step at a time, you’ll eat up far more ground than a man without ‘em, and have energy left for the tasks at hand, once you get there. Hmmm?”

My head was nodding, even as I worked to imitate his graceful advance. “Like this?” I asked.

“Mmm Hmm!”

It was feeling better… and I was ready to roll!

_________________

[Ozchuck]

woo, good reading.
Your own works, I assume?
Also I'm confused about the decade this one takes place in.
Would it be fair to say, maybe, that its the 60s?
With the guy Tuck being maybe in his 50's?


I'm not really sure because the language reads like an old western movie in my head, and yet the older dude did his travelling in the 30's

I'll re-read chapter one and find out.

[CM Sackett]

_________________________________________________

The clouds were rolling up like bolts of grey and blue muslin as they marched on East; their tattered ends now even with Lost Lodge Mountain. Looking over my left shoulder I could see the ramparts of the Buffalo River bluffs in the distance, shining right back at the sun as it re-staked its claim to the day. The shadows were still strong where we were, but I was beginning to think Mr. Tuck might have been right about those fields… and our chances.

It took us over a half-hour to reach the branch road that would take us on up to the flat. I commented on the fact that it took so much longer than usual.

“Yessir” he said, “but you can sweat just as easy in the 20’s as you can in the 80’s, son. And even on a day like this, that can prove deadly.” He paused and took in the scene of tree-lined powder with a deep sigh, “Besides, being the first humans to break ground on a whole new world ain’t that common a thing these days… and gives a man something to savor.”

As we “Fffphhff’d” our way on up the trail I began to enjoy the “rhythm” of this day like few others before it. A couple of times we came across tracks, and Tuck would stop to reveal the ‘story’ they told… “You see them series of big holes amongst those coyote tracks?”

“Yessir.”

“He’s scent trailin’ a vole, or rabbit, or something under the drifts. The holes are where he was pretty sure he had ‘em dead-to-rights, and dove in after them.”

Before these last two days, I would have never believed that holes in a snow bank would have been worth looking at, let alone be the least bit interesting. But I was enthralled! This old man was gooood! He was very, very good.

“Well,” I said, “…did he get ‘em?!”

“Not yet.”

“Oh” says I, trying to rush my ‘wisdom’ a bit, “…that’s because there’ no blood on the snow, right?”

Tuck gave me a wink, “That would be one possible sign, boy. Good thinking.”

I smiled.

He continued. “But take another look Travis. See how ‘clean’ the hole is… no wallerin’ or tearing about? There’s no struggle, he’s still just exploring.”

We’d gone about another thirty yards when the whole lane looked like 50 coyotes had had a barn dance!

“Look Mr. Tuck! He GOT HIM!” (you’d a thought I was a six year-old at Disneyland…).

He chuckled, “Well, they definitely said some ‘howdies’ here.” Then he pointed with the limb tip of his bow, “But you see that single hole, over there towards the brush, about ten steps? And then that other one a few steps further, over there… right into that briar patch?”

“Yessir.”

“My guess is, that’s where that old rabbit (we’d finally seen his tracks amid the churn of torn snow) got tired of the dance and headed home.”

“So... you don’t think he got him?” I wasn’t so sad about a coyote going without a meal as I was about my tracking ‘skills’ once again proving to be incomplete… at best.

“Well son, a scene like this is where your blood-sign should definitely show itself, don’t you think?”

Yep. That made perfect sense. DANG IT!

“That, combined with those holes over yonder, and the fact that the coyote tracks lose focus right here and start meandering towards the Lodge, makes for a pretty good chance that he ain’t tasted his lunch… yet.”

Tuck’s eyes were gleaming, as though he were as excited about these leftovers of drama in the snow as I now was. And you want to know the truth? He was. That was another wonderful facet of the old man’s draw for me. His knowledge and experience and wisdom, they never acted as a gulf between us. On the contrary, he had a wonderful capacity for using them all as a natural bridge between where he was, had been… and I desperately wanted to be.

_________________



...there's much more.

[CM Sackett]

_________________________________________________

CHAPTER 6


We cleared the last small rise, at the end of the up-sweeping curve that marks the eyes’ first framing of Lost Lodge. The cabins, the hotel and restaurant, and the lodge itself were bundled in thick, fresh blankets of white. With the sun beginning to sparkle off their clean, crystalline covers, they looked almost alive… like the warm, welcoming havens of human enterprise, laughter and sport they were built to be ~~ and not the abandoned, haunting reminders of broken dreams and the unrealized plans of “outsiders” they were.

The place had sat empty, tucked into the flat crown of this mountain for years, like a brand new subdivision that folk had labored to build, walked away from to have lunch… and then forgotten how to get back to. On the second floor of the Lodge, there are still boxes of flyers announcing this “INCREDIBLE NEW LUXURY RESORT!” urging potential buyers to “HURRY!” before this “ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY” passes them by.

Seems no one got the message.

I asked Tuck about it, who started it… why here… and what happened? He smiled as he looked back at the sun, “That one’s best told around the fire, son. Right now, there’s a little clearing just over there a ways,” he pointed to the east, past the last cabin nestled into the edge, where the timber met the meadow “and we got just enough time to settle in there before the world starts to come alive.”

We left the logging road just a couple hundred yards past the cabin and carefully made our way across the last bench. The seemingly impenetrable wall of old growth timber and blow downs suddenly gave way to a high-ridge meadow, right at the leading edge of our mountain.

The last area we had negotiated was a maze of broken bluffs… wild, dark thickets of false grape, Mountain Azalea, low-bushed Huckleberries and Persimmons. At the far end of this oasis (the whole of the thing wouldn’t have rightly covered 200 yards in any direction) were tangles of Trumpet Honeysuckle, Blackberry and Elder-berry, Coral berry, Chickasaw Plum and Rusty Black Haw. I swear to my time! That old man had brought me right into the storehouse kitchen of this entire mountain!

The tail of my fox-hat was wagging like a 3-month old pup over fresh milk as I looked back… and forth… and up… and down! OH MY GOODNESS! This was going to be GOOD!

And the sun was indeed beginning to light the stage… I remember thinking to myself, “Let the show begin.”

_________________

[Shalee]

Thanks CMS for taking the time to post your story here on our site.

I'm thoroughly enjoying it and can't wait to read more.

Can you buy the book here in Australia, I'd like to get a copy.

Thanks again Shane

[CM Sackett]

Evenin' Shalee (http://www.aussiebowhunter.com/member.php?u=682),

Aye, it's for sale worldwide. I'm self-publishing... so it's a slow go, at the moment.

I'm glad you're getting a measure of Smile-Time out of the telling. And thanks for taking time out of your busy day to give a tip-o-the-hat.


As Always;

Sackett

[CM Sackett]

_________________________________________________

I was looking around for the ‘hot’ trail we were to set up on, an old ground blind… or something. Tuck, he just started walking right out into the meadow, straight to a large chimney rock at the Northeast end!

“Well, come on boy.” He said in a low, muffled chuckle “Ain’t you never heard of huntin’ out of a ‘tree-stand’ before?”

As a matter of fact, I hadn’t. Besides, that old monolith sure as hell wasn’t no tree!

That chimney rock was every bit of thirty foot high and 10-12 foot around, standing right out there on its own, in that little dished field. Mr. Tuck later explained how the mountain was pocked with these upthrusts of limestone, “These things are like the core of old ground, son. Over time, the dirt and other less hardy stuff washed or blew away. Not all of them are sturdy enough to climb on… remember that. But those that are can make a fine place to scan the country or cache supplies and sundries for future times.” He stopped and reached into a pocket, and pulled out an ivory-handled Farrier’s pocket knife.

“You see that Travis? I found it and a Cavalry officer’s entire truck wrapped in heavy canvas and oilcloth when I was just a lad, not over 13. It was tucked under a ledge, atop of one of them. The Stars-n-Stripes was a tattered mess, but the weapons and sundries were fine.”

My jaw was hanging open, my imagination working fierce and free!

“Yessir.” He says, “I was just out scramblin’ around like young coons do. Came across this here likely chimley (that’s how we said it in them days…), and crawled up to get a better look at my kingdom. There was a Spencer carbine, complete with two Blakeslee cartridge boxes… FULL. In another oilcloth, he had a Le Mat revolving carbine (clean as a whistle), bullet molds and low-rowel spurs made by the “MEMPHIS NOVELTY WORKS, TENNESSEE” Why, I even found his curry comb!”

“The end of his lance and pennant had been uncovered by some scroungin’ critter. The shaft had been gnawed to half its length. But the point and fore shaft were still good. In a separate diddy I found his sidearm. Boy, was she a beaut! A Remington New Army revolver, complete with holster and caps! I still got it all up to the house, even the shreds of battle flag.”

I asked him how he figured it came to be up there.

“The how’s easy, son. A man put it there. The mystery and the wonder of it to the rest of us is, WHY?” Then he cuffed me lightly on the shoulder and winked, “But, tweren’t no mystery to him, now was it?!”

_________________

[CM Sackett]

_________________________________________________

Tuck led the way as we made our ascent up the side of that snow-coned finger of rock. I could tell right off, he’d been here (and done this…) many a time, ‘cause it took him no time a‘tall to find and clear each climbing notch of slick white, and scramble to the top… I took a bit longer.

Man-O-Man… what a view!

Perched up there, I could see much of the trail we’d covered through the thicket to get here. I noticed another swale I hadn’t been able to see from the ground, running along the mountain’s edge ahead of us like a long, narrow finger swipe out of grandma’s Christmas cake icing. It formed a perfect funnel, leading from the lower benches, where our mountain dove into the dark, deep fold-line between its own North-northeastward footprint and the broad, steep face of the next, running perpendicular to the West. And I could see the scores of trails and bottlenecks criss-crossing both ramparts through the leaf-bare gowns of oak and Bitternut, Mockernut and Ozark Chinquapin… laced with just a hint of color from a myriad of maples, sweetgums and Tree of Heaven. Oh my! Oh my, MY… there HAD to be somethin’ in these woods!

We weren’t up there three minutes before I heard the distinct “kee-ee~putt-purrrr” of a contented hen turkey. Tuck smiled a warm, knowing smile, but didn’t move. I couldn’t help my young self… I turned and looked.

------------------------------

[XTfreak]

Great read sir.
Please continue...
Bill

[Simon_R]

Hi CM, I am loving The Doorway Buck, please keep posting, it is a great read. Also please let us know when the book is available for purchase, I will be buying a copy.

[CM Sackett]

_________________________________________________

From under the canopy of a small stand of cedars they materialized, spilling onto the billowed snow of our meadow like dark, malted milk balls, slowly rolling across a flannel tablecloth. In fairly ordered fashion they came… 10… 20…30… 40… 47 birds! Hens, Jakes, and three nice toms (one was a whopper!) spread out to soak up the sun and scratch for the field’s hidden fare, all the while filling the air with their peculiar brand of dinner conversation. I watched, as the light played off their feathers, creating that flashing kaleidoscope of reds and greens and blues that momentarily adorns their otherwise ‘dull’ brown coverings.

It probably didn’t take them five minutes to cover that little field, but boy-o-boy, what a show! We actually had them directly under us for a spell, totally unaware of our presence. I noticed Mr. Tuck break his stony stance and begin to line up his bow, like a slow-moving Copperhead, his eyes burning a hole in that big tom. I thought for an instant that he was going to finish the draw on him… but then he slowly relaxed and brought his bow back to rest on his knees. The old man turned, winked and whispered “Countin’ coup, son. Just because we don’t aim to take ‘em… don’t mean I don’t aim to think about it.” Then he added with a sly grin, “Besides, I know where he’ll be TOMORROW.”

Made sense to me. My bow hand had been itchin’ ever since the first sight of them! The thought of ol’ LogHorn was the only thing that had kept me still.


The birds finally drifted over to that finger swale at the end of the mountain, and then, just as suddenly as they had appeared… vanished over the edge. We could hear them for another minute or two, contentedly working their way to the next bench and the next morsel, on their way to the roosting trees down along Cave Creek.

Those turkeys had just barely gotten out of earshot when Tuck nudged me. I followed the direction of his gaze. Standing just inside the veil-thin cover of timber, where that finger swale emptied into the meadow… was a doe. There hadn’t been anything there just a few seconds ago… And to me, she looked mighty nervous, kept glancing over her shoulder and twitching her tail like somethin' was after her.

Now what in the world was that all about?!

And Tuck was visibly excited. I could hear his breathing speed up, each breath short and sharp… and he was leaning forward, ever so slightly.



She stepped lightly into the clearing, still keeping tabs on the funnel she had come out of. She paused for a second, giving the ground ahead a quick once-over. Then, after another long, keen look back, her head came up like a woman who was fed up and sure of herself and she broke into a high-stepping trot to the opposite side of the meadow. She wound up just this side of the cedars. She turned and faced her back trail… that head still up, and her ears locked forward.

What was she waiting on?

After this afternoon, I would never have to ask that question again.

_________________

[CM Sackett]

_________________________________________________

I heard his muffled footfalls and his short, staccato’d grunts a good bit before I laid eyes on him. And when I did, he was doing the very same thing my little buck had been doing yesterday… fast-walkin’ with his nose to the ground, like a beagle working a rabbit.

OOOHHH! So THAT’S what they’re up to!!! I was almost embarrassed. If Tuck had turned and looked at me I think I would have been! But that old man was utterly tuned in and zeroed on that buck’s every move, his body and bow slowly keeping shot-flush with the big boy’s chest as he worked his way out of the funnel… and straight to us.

When the buck got to the meadow’s edge he finally stopped and lifted his magnificent head high into the air. He didn’t even seem to see the doe standing stock still against the cedars. He just curled that upper lip of his like a kid at a family reunion, facing the dreaded possibility of aunt Margaret’s “broccoli surprise” and rocked his head back and forth.

Only, I don’t think he was dreading ANYTHING at this particular moment.

Tuck was right; this old monarch was phenomenal! His rack, swaying at the end of that stump-thick neck looked more like the branches of an oak tree than deer horns! And as he brought his head back level I could clearly see the span and mass of the ol’ boy’s glory.

His antlers, except for the tips, were the color of clover honey. The last two and a half inches of each columnal spear were ivory white. The massive beams that served as a solid foundation for 14 spikes (several reaching over a foot into the sky) and anchored the whole arsenal to his head were as big around as a blacksmyth’s wrist. They swept out and forward like the handrail of one of them fancy hotel’s spiral stairs, ending far forward of his nose in a pearly dagger point.

He was just beginning to cross the drifts to his prize, totally unaware of us… when all Hell broke loose!


________________________________

[CM Sackett]

_________________________________________________

CHAPTER 7



The grunt came from behind us, from the overhangs, outcroppings and thicket we had just trudged through to get here… not thirty minutes before. And it locked ol’ LogHorn up in mid-stride! He answered immediately with his own long, low, growly reply, his head swinging up and high, trying to catch the wind of this interloper.

Tuck wasn’t moving. His breathing was slow and measured, and I could tell that the focus of his entire universe was still contained within the boundaries of some small crease or shadow on the shoulder of this magnificent animal before us. I, on the other hand… had to get a look at the new boy!

“Oh, my G……” I whispered. That’s all I could get out. And a whisper was all I could muster.

Mr. Tuck slowly inched his head around to see what could have had me more bumfuddled than the scene below us. “Well I’ll be damned… he’s alive.” He breathed into the frigid air. Seems a whisper was all either of us could come up with, at the sight of THIS!

What came up that last incline in the trail and topped the southeastern rim of “Chimney Valley” (as I came to call it in later years) was the stuff of legend and lore. Not just because he was as massive and glorious in armament as any creature of his kind, before or since him… and he was, indeed! It wasn’t even that he was easily, utterly, the most unique looking specimen of full-BULL BUCKHOOD to ever drag a hoof… and he most definitely WAS THAT!

It was his manner…

His heft glided over that rise like an emperor, totally unaware of any other creature in the world, except that waiting doe. It was as if LogHorn didn’t even exist… as if his own royal bearing and crown and power set a precedent beyond all challenge, beyond question. Only thing was... ol’ LogHorn wasn’t that impressed.

It was fixin’ to get real interesting!

The new buck had been an incredible sight coming through the shadows of the forest. Nothing about that fact diminished in the least as he marched into the sun-gleamed meadow. He headed directly under us, on the opposite side of the chimney from LogHorn, and made his way toward the doe. For her part, she must have been enjoying herself; her head was bobbing back-n-forth between these two suitors like a judge at Wimbledon.

I had never seen anything like him. His rack was almost a twin match for LogHorn’s, with the addition of another massive tine coming off the left main beam. It dropped just in front of the ear and curved like a great iron bar along his jaw line, ending in an ivory polished three-pronged “knob” just shy of his nose. To call that headgear merely ‘impressive’ would be an affront to a grander truth! But his rack was only the dark tip of the iceberg… almost literally. For, except for a perfect star of Nature’s brown on his forehead, the beast was blinding white! You could actually lose sight of most of him in the snow. That is, until you got to his rump. It was dappled with small spots of blonde and brown, like one of those Nez Perce ponies. As a matter of fact, I learned that’s what Mr. Tuck had always called him, “Mr. App”.

I hadn’t been at this hunting thing all that long, but I knew this… being this close to either one of these creatures would have been the event of a lifetime. But to see them both in the snow, now not more than fifteen steps apart (and no more than 10-12 steps from us), from this elevated stone cloud, sitting beside this man… was the stuff of dreams (still is…).
_________________

[CM Sackett]

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I watched Tuck for some signal to draw, but suddenly he relaxed and started just sitting there, with his hands folded on his lap. I was just about to nudge him to see which one he was going to aim at when the simmering scene below broke to boil.

The appaloosa Monster had stopped to do his own lip curl, stretching his mighty neck high into the scent of the doe when LogHorn decided he had had enough. His eyes narrowed, and his ears laid as flat against his head as a Georgia mule with a carpetbagger on his back. He swelled his already massive chest and shoulders as he stiff-stepped straight at his rival. Mr. App took his time gathering in the sweet perfume of the doe’s romance and then, almost as an afterthought, turned to look at LogHorn. No ears back. No eyes narrowed… almost as if he was mildly bored by the ‘intrusion’.

LogHorn was just beginning the move that would put him parallel to the other buck when the old white demon suddenly lashed out with blinding speed, power and FURY!

Working on playing one last card of bluff, LogHorn was caught almost totally off guard by the charge. He had just enough time to turn his rack and block the oncoming tines driving straight for his heart and lungs… but no time to get set against the bleached locomotive of muscle and madness behind them. The attack drove his head back sharply against his own shoulder, knocked him off his feet and sent him rolling through an explosion of flying snow. The needle-tipped kogatana of App’s right antler probed and searched for an opening into LogHorn’s body as he continued to crowd and push. For a second or two both animals literally disappeared in the crystal cloud their heaving mass had created.

Somehow LogHorn found his footing and pushed back with a power that stopped App like a wall. He held him there as he came fully to his feet. For several seconds the two strained to a standstill as they jostled for an edge. From the set of their jaw to the last tendons of their powerful back legs, the valley lines of muscle and sinew showed in dark, stark relief to the highlighted bulges of determined strength in both combatants.

Suddenly, App gave way… and instantly hooked in and up, as LogHorn’s driving momentum kept his head moving up and forward, leaving his jugular exposed. The tines missed their mark by a hair, but raked the chest and shoulder viciously, leaving four seeping gouges from the edge of the chest to the first rib.

The bucks stepped back then, both of them lifting their majestic heads and measuring one another with a downward glance. And then they crashed together with such a mighty sound and so much force; it seemed to me that the very foundations of their souls must have been shaken! For twenty minutes they thrust and parried with the skill of artisans and the red-eyed furry of last line defenders. The meadow, our beautiful, peaceful meadow was now a torn, churned field of combat, the snow flecked here and there with the blood that each had drawn… and both were spilling.

It had not even occurred to me to raise my bow during this awesome, honorable, primal… private war. I finally glanced over at Mr. Tuck. He was sitting there, his hands on his knees and his head lifted. The look on his weathered face was one of calm concentration. Only his eyes showed any hint of what he might have been thinking… they were dancing with fire.

Both bucks had blood running from their noses by now, their breath coming in great shots of steam as they worked to keep the exhausted engines of their frames fueled with enough oxygen to meet the next onslaught… make the next charge. Neither champion gave any indications of Quit.

LogHorn began to slowly circle to ol’ App’s right (that massive drop-tine had proven to be a formidable foil to any attack to the left). App watched him with a wary eye, but made no shift in his position. LogHorn stepped and feinted a low, driving plunge to the old Master’s chest… not so much as a twitch of a response did it bring. But as the brown bomber lifted his own head to swing about App pushed off with one great heave and drove his rack into LogHorn’s left shoulder, knocking him once again off his feet. And as the younger buck struggled to regain his footing, App picked and hoisted him into a complete flip… and dove in for the kill.

Suddenly, the white buck faltered, slipping or stumbling on some unseen obstacle. His left leg skidded out ahead of him as he crashed to his knee on the other leg. And in that instant, LogHorn gathered himself and lunged at the outstretched limb, his own amber weaver’s beam catching the leg at the knee and driving it back against itself with a sickening ‘Crack!’. App grunted, but then hooked wickedly into LogHorn’s exposed neck as his momentum carried him past, driving his left beam tip deep into the muscle and then raking massive furrows into the flesh, all the way to the shoulder.
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...much, MUCH more to come.

[belegstrongbow]

An extraordinary combination of literature and bowhunting storytelling. I have not read anything as good as this in any hunting publications that I've come across.

We are looking forward to the rest of the story.

[CM Sackett]

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Even as LogHorn’s forward movement brought him full to his feet, and the appaloosa rose magnificently on the three good ones he had left, I knew the battle was over. Both bucks were scraped, punctured, bloodied and battered… and PROUD.

And I was stunned and frozen by what I had just witnessed.

LogHorn shook himself free of some of the snow that had been forced into his coat, like a mustang clearing himself of a mountain rain... but didn’t take another step away from the one who had made him ‘earn’ his now undisputed title. App coughed and blew his bloody nose, like a prizefighter who had just lost a fair twelfth-round decision. Both champions stood there, just inches apart, breathing deeply, each gazing into the distance before them with the same look I had seen on Mr. Tuck’s face a time or two.

“It’s time son” he whispered, “send it true.”

“Mr. Tuck, I don’t think I can…”

He turned and put a hand on my knee, “This ain’t a time for thinkin’, or feelin’… focus, trust your eye, and put the CLOSED sign on him, son”

I had already picked the path, almost unconsciously, a few minutes before. There was a small but distinct puncture wound in the crease of the shoulder now facing me, and as my shaft streaked silently to it, I knew the shot was true… it was.

Neither animal moved at the shot. After their own thunderous, tornadic storm this whisper of lightning didn’t even register in their thoughts. But its effect was sure and swift, nonetheless. The white warrior took two steps forward at the touch of the scalpel’d shaft, then another faltering move that turned him as he went down for good. The doe may have seen us then, or perhaps it was the old monarch’s falling that broke the spell for her. Whatever it was, she, who had watched the entire battle for her affections with almost an air of bored patience stamped her foot, gave a short, whistled blow and bounded into the cedars, with LogHorn trotting after her… nose to the ground… future generations in the makin’.

And the old king lay still.
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[CM Sackett]

...and Strongbow, thank ye for your kindness.


Sackett

[Sagitarius]

Damn, quite a tale. Thanks for telling it.

[CM Sackett]

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CHAPTER 8



Like everyone else who has ever discovered this Passion of roaming the woods and wilds with such a “simple” tool of the Hunt, my mind had imagined a thousand times, in a hundred different scenarios, the taking of a “Buck of a lifetime”. In every instance, this moment was filled with backslapping, hoopin’-n-hollerin’ and the grand feeling of a “conquering hero”. But as I walked silently toward this majestic example of Nature's Pride and Prowess, the only thing overflowing the moment… was wonder (Mr. Tuck told me later it was that way with many ‘milestones’ in Life, from combat to the birth of a child… I found he was right, as usual. But, those are other stories, for another time).

His understanding of such things~~ I guess ~~ is why he gave me room and time to absorb the events of the last hour or so my own way. He was always good at that… never making me feel pressured or small as I sorted new things out for myself. And, I got the feeling that he had his own, deeper memories to spend time with. As I stood there near the buck, Mr. Tuck was slowly walking the field of battle. Here and there he would touch a track… look at the blood sign. He wound up at the cedars; looking into the tangle LogHorn had followed the future into. A low, pure chuckle and a soft "I'll be damned" from him brought me out of myself and back into the bright, clear present. I glanced over in time to see Tuck shaking his head and brushing snow off of his leggings.

“Well son, we’ve got some glorious work ahead of us, and it wouldn’t hurt to make the most of the daylight we got left. So, if you don’t mind staying with your buck a while, my place isn’t quite a mile from here. I’ll just trek over and get the mule. Then we can haul ol’ App out in fine fashion. That sound alright?”

I grinned and nodded. And then, as the old man made for the trail out, I said, “Mr. Tuck. What did you mean a while ago, when you said ‘he’s still alive’?”

He turned and gave me one of them possum grins. “You just spend time soaking up and chewing on your own story right now son. Mine’ll keep till this evening.”

And that's just what I did.

It took Mr. Tuck the better part of an hour and a half to get back with the mule. And in that time I tried to pick some part of the old monarch up off the ground (figured him for big… and didn’t want to embarrass myself when the old man got back)… didn’t get anything very far from the snow. He was a MONSTER! But as the wonder made room for admiration I did have time to look him all over real good. That’s when I noticed an odd bit of dark hair, right in the armpit of his left front leg. The curious thing about it was, it was shaped like a 3-bladed windmill… or a BROADHEAD!

I was going to ask Tuck about it as soon as he got back, but the immediate problem of getting this ol’ boy off the ground drove everything else out of tongue’s reach when I did see him astride that mule. Should have known… that old man had a plan.

He climbed out of the packsaddle and handed me some type of thin rope he’d pulled out of a saddlebag. He could tell I was unfamiliar with it. “Parachute cord, son. It’s come in handy many a time.”

Now where did he get that?

“You cinch one end of that around his back legs, we’ll drag him over to that little outcrop at the southwest edge of the meadow trail.”