Gus Morrison was a bow hunter. Every Sunday morning in October and early November, he worshiped at the Holy Altar of the Great Fred Bear. Every year, he bagged a monster buck from his tree strand, and every year, he filled his antlerless tags, which put even more nice meat for the freezer.
Sure, he’d go out when the rifle when that season rolled around during Thanksgiving week. He’d hang out with gunners at their cabins, sip back a few cold ones, and tell a few stories about the big ones he’d seen.
But the rifle hunt wasn’t for him. He would usually use the opportunity to fill an antlerless tag than to go out after a big buck. The big ones knew where to when the guns started cracking anyway, and they had already had the peak of their rutting madness sated. So this was his time to meat hunt, be cold, and realize that he had mastered a more primal way of hunting than most of the people around him.
So that great October weekend rolled around, and Gus rose before the sun crested in the eastern sky. He showered down in de-scenting soap, and then moseyed out with only a towel around his waist to the shed where his carbon camouflage suit was stored in an airtight bag full of oak leaves. He slipped on the clothes that would mask his scent, and then he painted on the camouflage face paint that would hide his visage from any deer that bothered to look up into the treetops.
He sprayed down his boots with de-scenting spray and did the same with his old compound bow, as well as the quiver and all the arrows. He would not rid his entire being of his stinky monkey human scent, but he would come as close to it as he could.
He dug out the de-scented blanket from the bottom of the airtight bag. He sprayed down the driver’s seat of his truck and placed the blanket over it. Then, he turned the ignition and set out into the early morning darkness for his lease.
He cut off the little two-lane country road that meandered through the hills onto the gravel road meandered over more rolling hills and deep woods. Then he turned left onto the mud track logging road that cut up a steep hill which rose and rose until he came to the top, which was a flattened out Allegheny Plateau “bench,” which was an ancient pasture for sheep. It was now kept open with tractors and mowing machines that came by twice a year.
He parked the truck at the gate, rose from his seat, and carefully closed the truck door . He sprayed himself down with more de-scenting spray, then tested the wind with a bottle of talcum powder. He direction of the wind would tell him in which way he’d approach his tree stand.
He put it up a few days before. It was nothing more than a ladder welded onto a steel platform that was propped up against a big red oak and the festooned tightly against the tree with several strands of thick cable wire. He attached a safety harness to the back of the platform, which had a bench on which he could sit and watch the deer move along the game trails.
With flashlight in hand, he softly maneuvered his way to the tree stand in the oak woods beyond the meadow. He made sure the wind was in his face. He then sprayed de-scenting spray all around the ladder and on his boots once again. Then he climbed up the ladder, put on his safety harness, and then sprayed all around the platform with that spray. He pulled out his bow. Sun began to filter its way in from the east.
The orange and crimson leaves were soon exposed in the coming light. They were not quite at peak, but they were beautiful nonetheless.
And now the shooting time had arrived. Gus sat there as still as an oyster. Gray squirrels fitted among the hickories and white oaks. Chipmunks made little popping sounds through the undergrowth. Blue jays screeched through the trees, and a pair of pileated woodpeckers squawked about and drummed on a fallen log.
A trio of deer suddenly materialized from the woods to Gus’s left. It was a doe with her two fawns, both of which had just recently lost their spots. One was a little button buck, and the other a little doe. The former weighed 45 pounds. The latter about 40.
The approached with the wind in their faces. Their bedding area was just a little bit deeper in the woods, and they had no real reason to worry about the wind as the stopped to munch a bit of acorns before lying down for sunnier parts of the day.
Gus sat so still, but his blue eyes focused hard on the doe and her two fawns. Let them be at peace, and maybe a buck or two will follow them. He’d always followed that formula. It’s how he’d nailed that big twelve-pointer on the opening day two years ago, and he believed the odds were in his favor once again.
As doe and her fawns wandered around the oaks smacking their lips on acorns, Gus heard another noise fill the autumn woods. At first he didn’t recognize it, but as the minutes progressed it grew louder and louder.
It was the sound of hounds on the track. Every few seconds, one of the hounds would let loose a baying cry, and as soon as Gus knew the sound, he began to worry. The hounds were not far off, and they sounded like they were coming down the same trail that the doe and fawns had used to enter the oak lot.
He hoped the hounds were not on the deer trail, for if they were, they were sure to ruin the whole hunt.
The deer stopped their munching of acorns. The big doe stood erect and sharp on her legs. Her big ears were up, and she looked down the game trail with wild eyes. Then she stomped her black left hoof, blew out a warning wheeze, and the whole band bounded down the game trail, white tails flashing wildly toward the sky as they disappeared from view.
Not a minute later, the baying hounds appeared upon the scene. Two black-and-tan coonhounds. They were fat hounds with shiny black coats and deep rust red markings.
And they were not broken off deer at all. They were hot on the trail of the doe and her two fawns, and their wild baying surely scared off all the deer that day.
Gus let loose a few expletives, and the hounds looked up at man in the tree stand. They wagged their stupid hound dog tails and grinned up at the man in the tree stand with faces all goofy.
Gus thought he should collect those hounds and take them home, but he decided against it. Just them run the deer, and let their master sort it all out.
But for now, the hunt was over. He climbed down the ladder of his tree stand and walked back. He went home and went to sleep and repeated the whole ritual on Sunday morning.
This time, no deer came wandering down the trail, but both hounds came with their trail singing cries. And Gus cursed them and crawled down from tree stand.
He decided to try again that evening, but this time nothing came. Only the squirrels and chipmunks beat out any cadence of life. The hounds had run all the deer off.
He hoped that this had been just a one-weekend deal. Some half-baked coonhunter had turned his dogs loose in the woods in hopes of breaking them on deer, and he figured that if he went out on the next Thursday evening, things would have a chance to quiet down.
Twenty minutes after he was seated in his tree stand, the hound baying began to sound, and he watched with horror as a big buck– at least a ten pointer– came racing down the game trail with both hounds in hot pursuit.
And so Gus was now angry. He decided to take a personal day at work and slide by Eustace Sims barber shop. Eustace knew all the comings and goings in the county, and Gus needed a haircut– and a few answers.
When Gus arrived at Eustace’s place, all the regulars were hoping for the tale of a the big buck Gus just bagged, but when he told of his hound predicament, Eustace knew the full story.
“Well, sorry about your luck, Gus, my man, but I meant to tell you a few weeks ago when I saw you at the diner that Travis Baker, Old Maxwell’s son, has moved back to the family homestead. They say he’s got many head of hogs loose on that rocky land, and I heard he bought him some coonhounds from a hot shot breeder in Kentucky. I don’t think they were well-trained yet, and I figured they’d give you some trouble.”
“Well, I think I’m gonna have to make a visit to Travis Baker this evening,” said Gus as he slid down into the barber chair for one of Eustace’s infamous hatchet jobs.
By that evening, Gus had a bad haircut and a bad attitude. He drove his pickup out along the road that took him to his hunting lease, but this time he turned down a little creek road that emptied down into a hollow. As the truck sped along into the hollow, he came into a land of boulders and closely cropped grass, and then he came to a gait with thick woven wire fence all around. He opened the gate, drove through, and shut it. And as he drove, the came into the presence of so many swine of all shapes, sizes, colors.
These were the hogs that Eustace had told him about. And then he came to the farm house, a chipped paint old ranch house that Maxwell Baker had made for himself in the big woods. Maxwell had since moved away, but Travis had returned to make a go of it as a big farmer.
The house was on the other side of a fence, and when Gus got out of his car to open the gate, he had to kick away a few smart pigs who thought that a gate opening was the perfect chance for a jail break.
As he walked up to the farmhouse door. He spotted the two hounds tied in the backyard to steel drums filled with straw.
They weren’t loose all the time, Gus thought to himself, and that explains why they were so fat.
He marched up the front porch and knocked on the front door. Travis Baker opened the door, and the two men exchanged their pleasantries. Gus thought he’d be angry and shouting by now, but something told him to hold back.
“Well, my name is Gus Morrison. I am bowhunter who has access to the old Russell McDonald place, and well, every time I go up there…. I…I…see your dogs.”
“My dogs?”
“Yeah, the two black-and-tans. They run a lot of deer, and well, I pay a lot of money to lease that place….and the hunting, well, sucks.”
“I guess I wouldn’t like hounds running off my deer either, but the thing is I don’t know how to train them not to. Dad used to beat his beagles if they ran deer, but I don’t want to beat these dogs. They’re too good to be beaten like that.”
“Well, I don’t think a coonhound would be much use if you never ran ’em, but if you could try to run yours at night and point ’em away from the McDonalds’ place, I bet you could stay out of my hair.’
“I reckon I could.”
“It might work. Also, I know a guy who runs Walkers by the name of Steve Wells.”
“I heard of him. I thought of calling him up to help me train my dogs.”
“I know him really well. He’s got some good dogs, and his don’t run deer. Maybe I should tell him to give you call.”
“That would be awesome!”
“I’ll give him call tonight. What’s your number?”
And so Gus drove back out of the hollow. He called Steve Wells up and gave him Travis’s number.
He waited until the next Sunday evening to go bowhunting again, and as he drove down that logging road he met another truck coming out.
It was Steve Wells, and Gus recognized him instantly, The two men pulled their trucks to the side to make for easier passage, but because they knew each other, both men rolled down their windows and began a good conversation.
“Well, look what the dogs drug in!” Wells shouted out the window.
“Not as much manure as you’re haulin’. Lemme guess, you’ve been up to Bakers breaking them hellhounds.”
“Yessir, and they are pretty well broke off of deer now. Thanks to my little secret.”
“What’s that?”
“Shock collars.”
“Isn’t that what they all do now?”
“Pretty much.”
“How is that a secret?”
“Well, ten years ago it was!”
“You sure do beat all.”
“Well, I don’t beat ’em all, but I do try.”
“So you’ve had his dogs out?”
“Yes, I’ve been running them with Belle and Ol’ Sam, and they know their trade pretty well now. I don’t think they’ll be running any deer, because they both got nice neck e-mails every time they launched on a deer track last night.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, that Travis is a good man. He’s raisin’ hogs and working at the lumber mill down the road. He’s gonna be a great houndsman. This winter, I’m gonna have a new huntin’ buddy. I’m pretty sure.”
“Well, that’s good news. I’m gonna get set up and see if I can get me a buck before the sun sets. It’s was nice talking to you.”
That night Gus set up in the tree stand. He thought he had done wonders by being nice and respectful and not being a raging fool with the young man and his hounds.
He had been surprised at how nicely it worked, and as he thought about what had happened, a ten-point buck wandered out into the oak woods. Gus drew and drilled his arrow into the deer’s heart. He waited twenty minutes, and then he began his blood track.
He came upon the deer in a thicket of autumn olive. He dressed out the nice buck and began the process of dragging it toward the logging road.
As he began that long process, he could hear hounds baying the distance. Travis was turning out the dogs for a good coonhunt.
This time, though, the baying of hounds went down the hollow and away from the oak woods. The dogs were working the creek, where the raccoons lurked about.
As the darkness fell upon that October night, Gus felt lighter and more alive than he had in a long time. Simple human decency had prevailed, and the old rites of Appalachian sportsmen were recognized once again. Each hunter recognized the other’s methods and quarry and did not do the foolish thing and alienate another.
One day, he hoped that Travis would find the ways of the bowhunter every bit as appealing as the baying of hounds. After all, it was his long childhood days of running beagles in the briers that had made Gus love hunting so much now.
But he’d outgrown hounds, or so he thought.
And now the weird thought crossed his mind that maybe he should get a brace of coonhounds to go running on cold winter nights.
But right now, he was lost in the reverie of succeeding in the hunt and succeeding at human relations.
Who could want anything more?
