You Never Forget Your First

I killed my first buck when I was in high school. The opening day of the season was a weekday in November. I would have to skip classes to go. Waiting for the weekend was unthinkable. Going on opening day had a ritualistic quality about it to the men of Hopkins County, and I adopted their view of the rite. It was practical, too—the best opportunity to make a kill.

For missing school without an excused absence, the penalty was three points debited to the numerical grade in every class for each day absent. The subject of a “sick” excuse never arose. It was as unthinkable that I would ask Mother or Dad as it was that she or he would write such a lie. Dad wrote a supportive letter to the principal, acknowledging my plan to “play hooky” and arguing the experience was worthwhile. The powers were unpersuaded. Second thoughts nagged, but I was boxed in because at school I had yapped so much about it. Could I thumb my nose at convention, be admired for it, and at the same time demonstrate I could hold an “A” average despite the penalty? It was heady stuff. The game was on.

On the eve of opening day, I laid out my gear and put chains on Dad’s coupe. I slept restlessly and got up about 4 AM and rolled off into a cold, starry morning, the tire chains making a terrible racket on the pavement before I got to a muddy road that led into the Sulphur River bottoms. My greatest fear wasn’t returning empty-handed, there was payoff enough to make up, but that I would slide into a ditch, where I would stay until daylight waiting ignominiously to be winched out by a wrecker.

The car churned through the muck, the headlights yellow beam outlining red mud and crude barbed wire fences beyond the deep ditches on both sides. I found the gate, went through it, and down a slope, following the farmer’s ruts across a bottomland meadow to the edge of a dense stand of oak. I parked and sat for a few minutes with the lights off and the motor running thinking about where I wanted to hunt and soaking up the warmth before going out into the cold.

I recalled a squirrel hunt on the same property earlier in the year. I didn’t see any squirrels and was hiking back to the car when I sat down at the base of a tree for one last time, hoping to see a squirrel in the canopy overhead. The forest floor was open and carpeted with fresh, green shoots. It was a scene of memorable beauty. I looked down from the arbor to see a whitetail looking at me from about fifteen yards away.

It was browsing contentedly, alternately dipping to nibble, then looking up, big brown eyes still, alert for the slightest movement, ears twisting this way and that to catch the faintest sound. It was a scene of perfect stillness, punctuated by faint twig snaps under hoof and gentle snuffles as it sensed the air.  I was as much taken by the beauty of the animal and the idyllic scene as I was by its sudden appearance—as if it had materialized from nothing and would dissolve, leaving me in a fairy tale. Several times I raised my little .22 squirrel rifle and sighted on its shoulder, not to shoot, it was out of season, and a .22 is no deer hunting rifle, but to have the experience, to know I’d made every motion necessary.

It continued to graze quietly. I was an intruder who stumbled into an earthly Eden, privy to a fabulous secret, one worthy of sharing, but beyond words to convey. I stood up. It snorted and bounded through the dappled understory with improbable aplomb, white tail waving stiffly.

I killed the motor, gathered my gear, and slogged into the woods, going back to the place I’d been in the spring. I made a terrible racket slapping my way through the brush by flashlight, but before first light, I was seated beneath the same tree. The grass was wet and cold and the heavy bark made a comfortable backrest impossible to find. The season officially opened 30 minutes before sunrise, a few minutes before seven according to the last issue of our weekly paper. I looked at my watch and imagined my friends as they readied for school. 

I was startled to see a school bus pass through an opening in the distance. I hadn’t realized I was close to a road, nor did I realize how early the buses began their rounds far out in the country—my rural friends gained an added measure of respect. 

Then he was there. How could he have come so quickly, so quietly? With agonizing slowness I edged the rifle to my shoulder, the crosshairs bounding across his chest with each heartbeat. So this was buck fever, the notorious ailment of grade-schoolers, out with their daddies on their first hunt. I looked down without lowering the rifle, took a deep breath, and began to let it out ever so slowly as I began to squeeze. The high-velocity weapon erupted with a roar. He spun around and darted out of sight with powerful grace and speed, his white flag waving taunting farewell. With studied motions that would have been appropriate on a stage, I got up stiffly and made my way softly through the trees. Always check. No greater hunting sin than to leave an animal behind. Then there he was, draped smoothly over the rotted trunk of a fallen tree. His life force was spent, and he lay perfectly still. I stood equally motionless, indulgently gathering every detail, absorbed by unblemished perfection. For a moment I regretted what I had done.

Private conceit quickly gave way to practical thoughts. I was a long way from the car. Following instructions Dad had given the day before, I eviscerated him with the big field knife I had brought as an emblem of the optimism that supported the whole adventure. It was a steamy, bloody job.

I tied his legs together and hoisted him onto my back, spilling blood down my neck. I had walked about a hundred yards when I began to give real appreciation to the word “deadweight.” I had to stop to recover my breath and rest my shoulders every few minutes. Finally, I found I could manage the load best by placing him across my back, with one shoulder in his belly and the other in his bloody chest cavity. 

When I reached the car, I could scarcely believe the mess I saw in the rearview mirror. Returning home from the hunt tired and dirty was a part of the bargain, but I was nothing but a bloody, amateurish mess. I lashed him over the right fender of the car and paraded into town, driving around the town square for maximum visibility. I parked at the Chuck Wagon cafe across from the county courthouse, picking the most conspicuous place in that conspicuous spot.

I had coffee with the regulars and enjoyed telling of the kill. It was a toasty interlude—they seemed to enjoy hearing the tale as much as I did telling it. The venison went to “Preacher,” the man who mowed our lawn. The hide became a rug trimmed with scalloped green felt. The county weekly paper erroneously reported the dressed weight as 50 pounds, spawning a spate of jokes from buddies about bringing home a really big one. But it did little to diminish the glow of satisfaction I felt for having successfully thumbed my nose at the powers that be.