| 
Well Phil, you are not the first to misunderstand. So if you are willing to read a little tale, you may find something useful?
I am, what is called a cracker, like my father before me. As to my grandfather, I don't know. He died before I came into this world. Although my father had many brothers & sisters, they never spoke of him but I don't know why? My grandmother, she was white as is my mother so I assume that I am white like my father before me? My father was a tradesman, so he taught me his trade. My father was a hunter, so he taught me to hunt. My favorite memories are of hunting with my father.
In my teens, my father moved out to the Northwest to live. He purchased a herd of horses & a dude riding concession in a small town in Montana. I went to see him so I learned to shoe a horse (out there if you didn't, the horse went unshod) & had some other interesting experiences. During that summer, I would go with a local youth down to the pasture each morning to get the horses. So we would saddle up a couple of horses then heard the rest into town. It was suppose to be promotional thing but few tourist were out at that hour of the morning, anyway we would herd the horses down Main Street of town & into the corral. Feed and saddle the stock, then wait for the tourist to come around & take them out to the old strip mining along the ruby valley then up to boothill, around and about the town.
This was good for the summer but come winter, we would use the stock to set up hunt camps & take out of state hunters in for 10-day hunts. I really enjoyed hunting out there in those mountains, especially because I had been born & raised in a flat semi-tropical land. Which was a plus for me, because when I got to Nam, most guys had never been near a jungle but I felt right at home.
Like most hunters, I have my favorite hunting stories as well, like taking my first deer. As we ran a hunt camp, I had never taken a big game animal myself. When I was younger, my father had taken me small game hunting & on such I had cut my teeth. So when we weren't busy with paying customers, dad took me out to hunt with him, which is when I got my first deer. We were on horse back in some deep snow when we spotted a herd of deer above us at the edge of the tree line. I dismounted & moved up into some cover, where I laid out prone in the snow for a 200yd. shot.
Looking through the scope, I looked over the herd until I spotted a spike buck standing broadside to me. Now, you should understand that although most of the hunters we brought into camp would have been looking for a rack, I was more interested in the meat. the area was open to either sex so I had quite a selection before me. Anyway I sighted in & touched off a round. Suddenly a flurry of snow seemed to rise from the ground & in it the buck had disappeared? I chambered another round then looked around with the scope but just couldn't find hide nor hair of the deer. I called to dad to see if he had saw what happen to him but he just said he hadn't but to take another shot.
Now the herd was spooked, they sensed danger but didn't know where to run? A few would start in this direction or that but they weren't sure which way to run. I picked out a nice doe & took her down with one shot. When she went down, the rest of the herd headed for the hills so dad came up with the horses & we went up the hill to the deer. When we got close things became clear, the buck was standing on a knoll & my first shot had taken him down. He had dropped of the knoll into a swell fill with snow that had caused the snow flurry that had hid him from our sight. The second shot, the doe was anther 20 yd. away so my first deer had been two not one.
We dismounted, dad taking out his knife went to one and I seeking his approval went to the other. He finished before I did & came up to where I was kneeling in the snow. I looked up & saw the acceptance beaming in his face. It was a good hunt. Then he did something that seemed a little strange to me. He reached down into a pool of blood in the snow & drew a line on my forehead? He had taught me to take the bloody snow & rub it on the horses snout to cover the smell of death before bring the horse up to pack out the kill.
Seeing the quizzical look on my face, he said that it was to appease the spirit of the deer to show respect for the gift of life. Not understanding showed in my face so he added that it was kind of an Indian thing to do.
"Terrorist or tyrant, few may come to the Truth that both are poor choice."
[ Edited by cturtle at
]
|
