Last Hunter: An American Family Album

Chapter Seven

62 will weaver My father’s deer stand was positioned at the west side of The Cut, at the north edge of the woods on the side hill by a Rural Electric Association pole. Every fall we delivered a fresh bale of straw to the base of the pole. It was important to get the bright yellow, sharp-­ smelling straw bale (the twine, chemically treated against nibbling rodents, was more pungent than the straw) in position well before deer season in order to let the wind and sun dissipate its color and scent. For the hunt, my father parked his pickup a few yards away, out of sight in the brush, and with a walking stick navigated the rough ground to his straw bale seat—which also held in the heat of his legs. On those gray November days, with a blanket over his lap and with some dried weeds or light brush drawn up around his boots, he was nearly indistinguishable from the REA pole. His view commanded east across The Cut as well as the main deer trail at the west end—only thirty yards to the side and slightly below. By the 1970s, even his brothers acknowledged that my father could no longer “drive” (that is, walk), and so this prime spot became his. Gerry and I were resigned to being drivers, trampers, and brush beaters until our fathers died—the epiphany of which (I was in my twenties at the time) was a kind of blue sky moment. I stopped resenting the hard slogs through the brush and began to take great pride in tracking a deer—real hunting, as I saw it—and trying to push one out to my father’s gun. On one of those colorless November days, the drivers gathered on the gravel road a half-­ mile south of the railroad tracks. We spread out in an irregular picket, about a hundred feet apart, and waited long minutes in silence to make sure the standers were in place. A thin, needling snow fell; a light the last hunter 63 breeze quartered to the southeast. Usually it was the oldest driver who gave a hand signal to move into the woods, but I had slowly come, over the years, to gather some ­ authority. I was a good shot, a jump shooter who could knock down a deer when it leaped from its bed, one who seldom fouled up (there are endless ways to miss a deer). On this day, the Weaver cousins and a couple of their friends, locals who knew the drill, looked to me for direction. In hunting, it nearly always pays to wait just a bit longer; I gestured accordingly . Two of the youngest cousins, knowing they had the brushiest, lowest cover to fight through, stamped their feet impatiently. They just wanted to get this over with. Hunting is largely about the weather and time. There are confluences of temperature, light, and wind when the odds are stacked against the hunter. An overly warm or a bitterly cold day, too much sun or too little, dry leaves that make for loud woods, swirling and inconsistent wind—any of several combinations make the chance of shooting a deer like winning the lottery: while it conceivably could happen, it is not likely. At other times, like that day, conditions favor the hunter. Low barometric pressure. Damp, gray, chilly skies. Light snow drifting straight down, muffling sound and scouring the air. Human scent does not travel well; like wood smoke falling down the sides of a cabin on a still day, it pools at ground level, stays close to the body. Underfoot, the oak leaves were limp and soundless. There was an incipience: something was going to happen. I finally signaled our line forward, and we entered the woods. With rifle at the ready, I walked a minute. Stopped. Watched ahead and to all sides. 64 will weaver Faint thrashing sounds came from the younger cousins fighting through the brush. I glanced behind, then moved forward again. About a hundred yards into the woods, two deer— small ones—bounced up and bounded forward out of sight. Marchers halted; we passed a silent wave up and down the line. The deer were headed in the right direction, and we pressed on. Halfway to the railroad tracks the timber grew taller, and in the swale the brush thickened. On a steep, oak-­ covered...