EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
I sure do want to know what Berry does for a living today!!!
Same cabin, different story. We had gotten a new town cop who had moved from back East and brought along his son, Barry, who was our age and had started attending our high school. Come fall Barry wanted to do some hunting so we invited him up to the ranch/cabin to hunt with us for the weekend. First day we get to the cabin, settle in, do a bit of hunting, eat dinner etc. finally we are getting settled in for the night and Barry insists on sleeping in the top bunk. My friend Ryan was in the middle bunk and Skip and I were in the double bunk on bottom. Just about the time we were drifting off to sleep the coyotes started their nightly serenade.
Barry bolts up, as much as he can with maybe 2 feet of headroom between his bunk and the roof, "Whats that!!??"
"Coyotes" I tell him.
"Will they bother us?"
"Probably not, they sound like they are off a ways........ besides.... its mostly bears we have to worry about" I say with a grin.
"BEARS!!??" Barry sits up again. "There are BEARS here??!!"
"Of course, what do you think did all this damage to the end of the cabin?"
Now, when they built the bunk room on the end of the cabin it was added with 2x4 walls and they didn't bother with things like real windows or insulation. The 'windows' were clear plastic sheeting covered with chicken wire that started halfway along the wall opposite the bunks and then wrapped around the corner and came halfway along the other wall towards the bunks. In many places, through holes in the plastic and the wood 'siding', you could see straight outside. In winter the only way you didn't wake up a meatsicle was you had the pot belly wood stove so hot you could just about read a book by the glow
So I tell him a tale about how that used to be an all-wood wall but some guy had been staying up there alone and a bear ripped through the wall, killed him and dragged his body off into the woods. When they fixed the cabin they didn't bother putting all wood back up since it didn't slow the bear down anyway. The other guys jump in with stories about hunters being killed and eaten by our 'Giant Western Coyotes', bears, mountain lions etc. Couple times I scratch on the cabin wall and then hush everybody with a "Dija hear that?! Somethings outside!" Meanwhile the nearby coyotes are on the trail of something and are really yapping up a storm which just helps with the 'ambiance'
Then I say:
"By the way, if those coyotes decide to come after us that roof probably won't slow them down any, so if you hear something digging its way through get out of that bunk quick."
"WHAT??!!" Barry bolts up again.
"Yeah, I have my rifle right here so you need to get out of that bunk and then I can shoot up through the roof and kill whatever is up there." This time he comes flying out of his bunk, grabs his rifle, and starts pacing. He is visibly shaken and trying to get us to switch bunks with him. Now I am concerned we went too far... don't need anyone getting shot because this guy is so scared. So we get him calmed down and back in his bunk.
About the time I was drifting off to sleep Barry says:
"I gotta poop."
"What?"
"I gotta poop."
"Just go use the outhouse."
Now the outhouse is a good 50 yards outside the front door of the cabin back in some trees. The cabin was up in an area of tall pine trees so you have the noise of wind in the trees, the associated creaking and popping but also there were some other old cabins to the side that had mostly fallen in but some walls still stood etc. Walking around with a lantern at night could be creepy even if you weren't already scared... well... poopless
"I am not going to the outhouse!"
"What else are you going to do?"
"I am going to poop in the trashcan."
"I don't want to smell that. You are not going to poop in the trashcan, just go use the outhouse."
"I am not going to the outhouse so something can kill me and eat me while I am pooping! Just let me poop in the trashcan!"
This goes on for a while. Finally I convince him that he can poop a little ways outside the cabin door with a lantern cranked up bright and we stand guard with our rifles. We will bury the mess in the morning. So Skip stands guard outside the cabin door to the left and Ryan to the right. I am just inside the cabin door 'watching the center' and area behind Barry. We placed the lantern on the ground a few feet outside the door. This is an opportunity that I just cannot pass up, as Barry is creeping out to his pooping spot I whisper to Ryan to wait until he squats and then pop a couple of rounds into one of the old cabin logs and yell something about 'eyes'.
To this day I can still see the image when Ryan fired those shots off. Barry going from squat to bolt-upright instantaneously, eyes as big as dinner plates and face as white as the surrounding snow. Then, pants around his ankles, he flies toward the cabin, leaps over the lantern and dives through the door.
If he was wound up before he is really wound up now, shaking like a leaf, checking and re-checking that his rifle is loaded etc. Eventually we have to confess the truth to get him to calm down. The expletives that flew from him after that are not fit for printing hereI sometimes wonder if Satan doesn't have a special place all warmed up for Ryan, Skip and I due to the fun we had at Barry's expense... but it sure was funny
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When I was a kid in NM my Dad, Mom, and brother all went hunting every year to put venison in the freezer, I was always to young to go. So when I turned 13 yo, my Dad took me to one of their favorite places. He set me up on a boulder and gave me the lecture of safety and he was going to circle to the right while my brother went to the left. If I saw one to shoot it, but make damned sure it was a deer and not a person. Well at 13 I got bored soon and was daydreaming when this big 8 point mule deer just casually walked out in front of me. I was in awe... just starring at it when the light bulb in my head went off, oh yeah, shoot it. So I slowly raise my rifle and take aim. I take a big breath and exhale with a calm inhale I Squeeeese the trigger and he drops right there. I ran up to him and set all my gear on the ground, pull out my tag and tag him. I fire 3 shots in the air to call my dad, then lay the rifle down and grab my knife to bleed him when all of a sudden he jumps up and takes off running with me chasing him. He is up over the hill and across the next meadow when I top the first hill and hear a shot and watch him tumble and go down. I run as fast as I can and run up to the deer when this old guy ( he was probably in his early thirties but when you are 13, that is old) walks calmly up. All out of breath I am trying to tell him that is my deer. He looks at me and explains he only heard one shot and he knows that he shot it, besides I don't even have a rifle ( remember I left it back at camp). And I am arguing that NO, that is my deer, that is my tag and that makes him my deer! He looks at the tag then looks at me, looks at the tag then looks at me. Shakes his head and says... "Son, if you can run fast enough to tag him, you can have him" and walks away. After getting my Dad to help carry him back we discovered only one shot in him and one of the points knocked off. I guess I just knocked him out while someone else shot my first deer.