Last Hunter: An American Family Album

Chapter Thirteen

108 will weaver corners of fields. Each enclosed platform, essentially a tiny cabin on stilts, had a propane heater, a slide-­ open window, and an easy chair—a mini-­ suite wherein a hunter could doze and listen to the Vikings on portable radio, then rouse himself in time to shoot a deer that materialized at the edge of the woods. My father was dead set against this kind of hunting . He hated box stands in general—thought they were a lazy man’s way to hunt and an eyesore besides. But he reserved his full disdain for tree stands. “Only monkeys hunt in trees,” he told me. When I was sixteen or so, and on a rare occasion when I was posted before a woods rather than fighting through it, I climbed high into a Norway pine in order to see over the brush before me. The higher I climbed the colder it got, plus the northwest breeze made the tree sway ever so slightly— not good for taking a steady aim. Waiting for the drivers to appear, I began to shiver and then freeze for real; when I finally gave up and clambered down (making sure, with my stiffened limbs, not to fall and shoot myself), two deer burst out exactly where they were supposed to. I was halfway down the tree, with my rifle slung over my shoulder, and I didn’t get a shot. I lied about not seeing the deer but learned my lesson. By the 1990s, bagging a deer or two no longer required much skill or time. This worked well for me, a busy father-­ writer-­ teacher, but there were losses. All the skills my father had taught me—patience, especially—were no longer necessary. Deer hunting became opportunistic and brief; often I let several smaller deer pass my ground blind rather than disturb the universe of the woods. And then there was the matter of buying special permits for extra deer— an ­ unheard-­ of total of five in some years. Who needed five deer—essentially a whole pickup load of venison? the last hunter 109 On the other hand, a high deer population made it easier for older hunters such as my father and uncles to stay in the game. By 1990, my father was confined mainly to his pickup (around his yard it was an electric cart, and inside the house, a wheelchair); this required him to get a special hunting permit for “the disabled.” I, more than he, was irked at the labeling, but he was philosophical and each year sent in the proof required for his license. He was discreet about hunting from his truck and shooting out of the window (his brothers joked about him having it “easy”); he never parked where he could be seen from the county road. His declining physicality also required adjustments to other areas of his hunting life, including his gun. Young hunters start out with lighter-­ weight rifles; old hunters end their careers with the same. My father, in later years, was good about hiding or at least not fussing over his fading physical powers; while often abrupt about what he needed, he was not a whiner. But after going from wheelchair to electric cart he lost a lot of arm strength and upper-body mass. For most of my hunting life he had shot a .­ 30–06 Remington Model 742, a medium-­ weight rifle of serious caliber; it was a carbine, short with heavy recoil—had a real kick. We shot identical guns, and I learned early on to tuck its stock tightly into my armpit and lean forward when shooting to let my legs and torso roll with the blow—or else I woke up the following morning with an aching, black-­ and-­ blue shoulder . (At an outdoor shooting range I once saw a man lean his sighting eye too closely into the telescopic sight on his own .30–06; the recoil rocked him backward and gave him a gashed, bloody eyebrow.) In my father’s arms the .30–06 looked larger every year. He could not stand up to shoot by then, so during deer 110 will weaver seasons his gun barrel poked out the window of his black Chevy pickup. My mother and I fashioned for him a small sandbag that we draped over the truck’s windowsill. The soft, conforming sand helped him steady his aim...