"....AND he's going to get laid."

Right after I wrote my blog on Friday, Al Blanchard showed up. The dead doe was still laying in the snow in front of the house. He congratulated me and i told him the whole story about how badly the gun was shooting, how i had no bullets left and was going right to Walmart to get supplies. He studied the gun and we determined I also needed a very tiny allen wrench to adjust the sights. He handed me the gun back and i asked what he had done with the bolt? He said he hadn't touched it. Fuck! The bolt had somehow slid out of the gun, while I was dragging the deer home. Al and I retraced the groove in the snow, all the way to the gut pile. Al even brought along a magnet he uses for nails in the driveway, but we came up empty. Now the gun was totally worthless.
So, all my good intentions of staying legal were shot once again. So I went to Walmart and bought 12 ga. slugs instead of black powder supplies. Once again, it was the spirit of the law. I would put one slug in the gun...but carry some more in my pocket...just in case. Bird was coming up to put on some drives for me. Little bro Duke was coming to town and one doe was not enough. Plus a little meat for GNJohn would be nice. Also, Carlito had told me of an 8 pointer he had been seeing. "He's running on that back ridge. Only coming out just at dark." he offered. I invited him to join us, but he declined. "You have to be lucky to get a shot. I'd rather sit." Each had it's merits. But, a nice afternoon in bright sunshine and deep fresh snow, with Bird as my driver sounded too good to pass up. Then, just before we went in the woods, I heard from Shewho. She was coming for a visit. So far the day was going quite well.
We decided to do the cemetery drive. I stood right where Carlito had walked up on me taking a crap, a few days earlier. The radios didn't work. There was so much snow weighing down the hemlock branches you could hardly see 50 yards, in little pockets. I didn't have much hope of seeing anything. Then I thought I should move to another spot about 50 yards towards the driver. Everything was silent. As I stood there day dreaming, with no rustle or warning, out stepped a buck. I raised the gun, but didn't shoot. It looked like that big 4 I had seen. Then the sun caught a brow tine. I pulled the trigger. It went down. I fumbled for another shell in my pocket and chambered it as i walked up on the deer. It was crawling over a deadfall, when I shot it again, killing it. It was the 8 pointer.
After Bird and I got it home and hung it in the pine tree, it wasn't much past 2pm. We were done. OK, it wasn't completely legal, but it was close. And man, did I feel good. Two deer in one day, with a mile off gun, a lost bolt, heavy snow, radios that don't work and lucky shots. (I'd just caught the doe in the neck, and broke the buck's back with the first shot.) An inch higher on the buck or lower on the doe and i would've missed entirely. If I hadn't had a second shot I'd have had to straddle that big thrashing animal and slit his throat. No thanks. I can't even step on a fox. So as Bird and I downed a few celebratory Budwissers, Shewo called and I told her about the buck. She told me later, that after she hung up the phone, she actually said aloud. "AND he's going to get laid."
So it's over for me. Deer season, that is. And what a way to end it. Bird and I with two eights. I may even get that buck mounted. I want to mount it as a dead deer. Taxidermists always try to make mounts look alive. I want to have this deer look just like it does now, solemn, majestic, hanging from my porch rafter. You could never, in a million years, replicate what it looked like when it silently stepped into that snowy, hemlock clearing. And then I saw a brow tine.