Drive - A Memoir 13th Installment
an
accurate gun but also a dangerous one. A young, new and excited
hunter may see game and in a moment of excited jitters, shoot his
foot off.
I
put the bullet in the chamber the bullet warm from my pocket. I
figured we were close enough to where I needed to do my business.
Russ
immediately reminded me, “Take it out. You know smart hunters never
climb through a fence with a loaded gun – only stupid hunters do.”
“I
know that. I sort of forgot the antelope was on the outside of our
fence,” I muttered. We quickly went through the ‘fence–rule
ritual.’ First, I emptied the gun then passed the gun to Russ and
climbed through the fence. Then Russ passed me the gun and climbed
through…kind of like a ‘do–si–do’ with a rifle. We hurried
to where we were before. “OK, there are the ears I saw,” I said,
recognizing the spot.
“Or
imagined I didn't see anything!” Russ was back to his usual
judgmental attitude of an older brother. We advanced a little
forward, creeping to the side until we found our spot. I knelt on one
knee, brought up the gun, and tried real hard to hold it steady. Russ
whispered, “That is him, now I can see his whole head from here.”
then with a teasing sing–song rasp he said, “Did you remember to
put the bullet in the chamber?”
‘Dope
slap!’ I needed one. “I’ll never get the respect I deserve
until I stop making little kid mistakes,”
I admonished myself silently. I quickly, but with deliberate motions,
opened the bolt, slid in the bullet, and resumed my position.
Karraaack!
The shot popped the top of the antelope's head off with an ear still
attached. As the echo of the gun's bark faded away, Russ uttered,
“That was cool!” in obvious admiration. Then, as of one mind, we
raced over to take a look. It only took a few moments of sights and
smells before we backed away.
“Yuck!
This is the stuff nightmares come from,” I said to Russell taking
only a short breath. It was obvious that there was nothing to keep
with this one, and I was pretty sure it was dead before I even shot
it the second time. I didn’t like the way I felt. Even though we
were standing on public land held by the Bureau of Land Management I
felt like I was trespassing on someone’s place and suggested
nervously, “let’s get out of here.” Russ instinctively knew
what I meant and I’m sure he felt the same dread, “yah, we need
to get back on our farm.”
We
gathered up the antelope Russ had shot, and lugged it to the tractor.
Even though this carcass wasn’t too heavy I was glad we had the
tractor. I would’ve hated carting this dead weight all the way back
to the house. As we laid the antelope over the hood of the tractor,
Russ
500 more words tomorrow
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