Sweet Home Alabama

One of the founding members of Lynyrd Skynyrd died the other day of a heart attack. Keyboardist, Billy Powell was the only survivor of the plane crash that claimed the lives of three members of the band back in 1977. But apparently he couldn't outrun a bad ticker. Now like any true Southerner, I'd place Skynyrd right along side the greatest rock bands of all time. They essentially created the Southern Rock Sound of the '70's. They are legends in every sense of the word but I've always found it strange that their biggest hit song sings the praises of the state of Alabama but when in fact the band is actually from Florida.

On my way home tonight, one of the local radio stations here in Atlanta played Sweet Home Alabama in tribute to Mr. Powell and the tune got me reminiscing about my own personal experiences in the fourth state to secede from the Union. Unfortunately my only memories of Alabama are primarily limited to horse shows and deer hunting, in that order.

I used to HATE go to the horse shows that Mom and Dad drug me and Joe to every weekend during the summer when we were kids. I always thought racking horses were just so boring. Why couldn't they have been into saddle bronc or bull riding, or even barrel racing. Anything but racking horses. But two positive things did come out of the experiences I guess. One was my lifelong love of comics books started during these weekend excursions. The places where we went to show Mom's horses were typically small, backwater towns in Mississippi or Alabama. So to keep my and Joe occupied for the duration of the event, Mom and Dad would find a local convenience store and buy us a stack of comics. To this day I still have a secret adoration for a good graphic novel.

The other, positive that came out of the horse shows was Dad's connection to some good deer hunting property through out Alabama. Our Horse trainer, a man named Elwin Heatherly, lived in Arab, Alabama, and over the years hooked Dad up on some sweet hunts. When I was old enough, I was allowed to tag along on some of them.

Now the following little stories occurred over twenty years ago, so I may not be entirely accurate in relaying the facts but I'll do my darndest. Most of my recollections hunting in Alabama is a mish-mash of pre-adolescent memories anyway.

One of my most vivid memories of hunting Alabama, happened just days after I killed my first deer back in sixth grade. The day after Christmas, Dad and I loaded up the truck and drove down to Arab, where we picked up Ewin Heatherly, and headed down to Selma. When got into Selma, late that night, and needed a place to stay. Elwin, who apparently was good friends with the local sheriff and was himself an honorary deputy of the county told us to head over to the county jail. When we got there, the sheriff, showed us around the place and allowed us to sleep in one the vacant jail cells. For a ten year old kid, I was half excited about this overnight adventure and half scared to death. I remember Dad and I drifting off to sleep that night, to the loud cursing and yells of the inmates on the other other side of the wall.

The next morning the sheriff, point out a large pond in the back of the jail where he a had a small goat tired up near the edge of the water. The sheriff said some of his deputies were trying to lure a alligator out of the pond with the goat. Once he crawled out to snack on the goat, they where going to pump him full of bullets. Apparently the gator had recently dined on a couple of the sheriff's prized coon hounds.

After leaving the jail, we headed up to a large cotton farm just outside of Selma. As we pulled up to the house, it immediately reminded of Tara from Gone With The Wind- a massive antebellum plantation house. The mansion's owner was a fellow by the name of Tommy Trailer, who by my accounts came from some old-time Southern money. I remember the man being loud and obnoxious, but boy did he have some impressive deer heads hanging on the wall. And that was why we were there in the first place, to hunt his property.

On his estate grounds, Mr. Trailer had several African-American wandering around, and as it turned out they had been employed to run with the dogs during our hunt. You see in this part of Alabama, we were going to be driven deer, which meant that hunters would be placed in strategic locals and dogs would be set out to flush the deer towards the hunters. Only Tommy Trailer didn't have enough dogs, so he made some of his black employee run with the pack. Obviously this was extremely dangerous, but several of these guys were very poor and needed the money. As we rode out to the deer woods in the back of a pick-up, one of the black gentleman kept begged Dad and me to be careful and not shoot him. He said one of his buddies was shot and killed doing this several years ago. Good Grief.

When we reached woods, I was dropped off in a spot overlooking a narrow logging road and Dad was dropped off about a quarter mile past me to watch a power line. About fifteen minutes later, they turned the dogs loose. In between their loud yelps, one could distinctly hear "WHOO! DON'T SHOOT ME! I'M A MAN! I'M A MAN!"

The dogs ran a small little button buck out of the brush to with in ten yards of my position, where I quickly disposed of the animal with my 20 gauge shotgun. My second buck!

Dad on the other hand, had to watch in utter disgust at the sight of the biggest buck of his life was flushed out of the woods some 80 yards from him. An easy shot with a rifle, but due to the fact we were running dogs each hunter was forced to hunt with shotguns and the distance was too far for his 12 gauge. Dad had to just stand there and watch the deer slip away.

Later that afternoon, back at the plantation, Tommy had cooked up a big lunch for us hunters but refused to let any of the African-American "drivers" to eat inside the house.

"GET BACK IN THAT TRUCK, AND SIT THERE UNTIL I CALL YOU!" he snapped at one man.

Turned out that not only was Tommy Trailer a loud braggart, but we was also an incredible racist. At lunch he bragged to us that he was on the bridge in Selma in 1965 during Martin Luther King's famous march where he helped other racists attack the civil right activists. It was apparently something he took great pride in. Dad and I knew immediately we'd never hunt with this wacko again, and during lunch we snuck some sandwiched out to the some of the black guys who weren't allowed to eat with us.

Though I disagree with just about all of his politics, there are times I'm glad Barrack Obama was elected president, if only for the sake of African-Americans who have been treated like dirt their whole lives by people like Tommy Trailer.

***

Now the following story has been told so many times over the years, I honestly can't recall if I was actually present for it's occurrence or if the story itself has simple become entwined with my memories. In any event, Dad and I traveled to Alabama on another hunting trip a couple of years later. Again, we stopped to pick-up our old horse trainer Elwin along with his brother in-law. We traveled to a place called Cuba, Alabama which lies on the Alabama/Mississippi border. It was long trip and we didn't arrive at the hunting camp until the wee hours of the morning. When the four of us walked into the cabin, we found ourselves confronted with the deafening sound of over two dozen middle-aged deer hunters snoring as loud as they could go. The sound was reverberating off the cabin walls and literally shaking the tiny structure. It thunderous cacophony of severe sleep apnea.

"They Good God," said Elwin. "I've ain't never heard anything like this in my life."

Elwin pondered the situation for a second and eventually had an epiphany. "I'll take care of this," he said.

With that, he marched outside to an old tool shed and returned with an old, rusted-out Craftsman walk-behind lawnmower. He silently pushed the mower to the center of the room, in between the bunks of sleeping men and proceeded to start it up with one quick stroke.

Every man in the room woke up with a jolt, some nearly falling out of their beds. It's a wonder he didn't give some of the more overweight men a coronary.

"Well, I recon that takes care of the snoring," Elwin laughed. "Now the rest of us can get some sleep."


***

On another trip, in addition to Elwin, Dad and I brought along Ray, Junior and Uncle Walt. We were again hunting somewhere down around Cuba, Alabama on the Mississippi line. On this particular hunting property, the land owners had hauled an old box trailer from an 18 wheeler out into the woods and converted it into a sort of hunting shelter. It looked more like something Jason Vorhees would live in, than a hunting cabin but it served it's purpose. They had some old cots in there along with some aluminium folding chairs. I can't remember right off, but I assume they had some sort of stove and ventilation system in there as well.

On the second or third day of the hunt, I shot a little spike buck with my .22 mag. Because it wasn't a large caliber rifle, the deer didn't drop immediately and ran off into the swamp. There wasn't much of a blood trail, and Dad said we shouldn't waste our time looking for the deer. "He's probably in the next county, by now," Dad said. But Junior and I decided we were going to find that deer and the two of us ended up tracking that thing for over a mile. At times we were on our hands and knees searching for minuscule droplets of blood. Eventually we found the little buck, half dead laid up by an old log. After a lengthy debate as to how to finish it off, Junior put the muzzle of his .243 Remington to the deer's head and pulled the trigger.

It wasn't a big buck in any sense of the word, but due to our expert tracking skills, my cousin and I thought we were now certified mountain men.

I'm sure there are more stories from Alabama that I'm leaving out, and I sure Dad has a few of his own, but for now that's all folks. Roll Tide!

Lucky In Kentucky Part 2-Electric Boogaloo

Okay so this entry has nothing to do with cheesy '80's break dancing, as hinted at in the above title. (I just like saying electric boogaloo)

But much like that groundbreaking 1984 film, this entry is a sequel- a sequel to the best deer-hunting day of my life. And following the rules of all sequels, this one will feature more action, bigger explosions, more drama, and of course, a bigger, meaner villain. But in the case of this story, replace a bigger meaner villain, with a bigger, meaner whitetail buck. I'm about to go up against the Clubber Lang of whitetail bucks.

Much like Halloween 2, this sequel picks up directly where the original story left off. After field dressing the 8-pointer that I killed Opening Morning, which by the way was the biggest buck I'd ever killed, I dragged his body up the hill to the edge of the cow pasture. (Now that's how you give your legs and calves an early morning workout) I made sure he was tucked away in the shade, since the temps were already on the rise and were expected to top out in the mid 6o's by afternoon) I then took a couple of snap shots and ate a few pieces of beef jerky from my fanny pack. I glanced at my watch. It was only 9:30. I was supposed to meet Dad up on top of the rock cliff at noon. So what do I do for the next two and a half hours? No use hunting my same stand, since it was highly unlikely that another buck of this caliber would come along, plus I'd already tagged out for the day. Nothing to shoot now but does, and I thought I'd hold on to my doe tag for a couple more days just do I can legally hunt the rest of our trip.

So I figured I'd just have a look around the property and see what there was to see. Directly behind my stand was a steep ridge that leads to the power line, where I was to eventually meet Dad. I figured I would I just work my way up the ridge and see if I jumped any late rising whitetails. About halfway up the slope, I caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye. I immediately froze in my tracks and scanned the hillside. About a hundred yards away on the opposite side of small cove I could make out the distinct shapes of several deer. They looked as though they were feeding and completely oblivious to my presence. I brought my rifle up to my shoulder and slowly crept forward as I continued to watch the deer, which seemed to by a group of three to four does. Suddenly a large buck appeared on the hillside and I threw up my rifle. The morning sun was shining through he trees at an odd angle causing a horrible glare in my scope. But even through the glint of light I could make out this buck’s massive rack. Instead of the wide rack on the buck I had just shot, this deer had an extremely tall and high rack; absolutely stunning in shape. The buck suddenly became aware that he was being watched and threw up his head in my direction. The two of us simply stood there staring at each other for what seemed like an eternity.

“Do I shoot him?” I thought to myself. Legally, of course I couldn’t. I had just killed my one and only buck of the season. But Good Grief, this was a nice buck; much nicer than the one I had just sent to the Big Bait Pile In The Sky. It was then I asked myself, “What would Ray do in this situation?” Of course I already knew the answer to that question, Ray would have immediately put a bullet through his chest cavity and dealt with the legal consequences later.

In the end, the ethical hunter in me (I sometimes really hate that guy, by the way) won out, and I took my finger off the trigger and lowered my rifle. When I did, the buck scampered up the hillside and disappeared. My thought was that Dad or Joe could have chance at him this evening or in the following days. It was obvious that I had picked the right spot to hunt.; I was located in what we hunters refer to as Buck City.

Of course when I met Dad for lunch, he read me the riot act over my actions. “You should have shot that deer,” he bellowed while munching on his ham sandwich. “You see that buck again, don’t hesitate. You put him on the ground. I’ll tag him for you.”

But the odds of me running into that same buck a second time were pretty slim. Or so I thought.


We spent that afternoon lounging on the porch of our hunting cabin and making plans for the evening hunt. We decided that the three of us would sit different stands in the same general area where I saw the massive buck from earlier in the day. Joe would sit in the stand where I killed my 8-pointer, I would sit in Dad’s climber just under the power line and Dad would sit in Wyatt’s tripod. Those three positions would form a perfect triangle around the spot I last saw the big boy. If he was still in the area, the odds were in our favor that one of us would see him that night.

We left camp and got into our stands around 3PM. A cold front was quickly moving in and the warm temperatures of the afternoon were beginning to plummet. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t plan for such a rapid drop in the thermometer mercury and I spent the next several hours, freezing my tail off in Dad’s stand. Now I had to hand it to Dad, he had picked a beautiful spot to catch a rutting buck. His stand sat high in the branches of an old oak overlooking a pretty little cove about a hundred yards inside the tree line from a large cow pasture. It should have been a prime spot, but instead I sat in that stand for over four hours and didn’t see so much as a squirrel. Oh well, That’s deer hunting. Sometimes Lady Luck flirts with you and other times she’s nowhere to be found.

Just about dark, with my teeth chattering from the cold and my stomach rumbling with hunger, I climbed down out of the stand and headed for the tree line, where Dad was to pick me up in the Ranger. The wind was blowing hard by time I reached the barbed wire fence at the edge of the field. I could see the Ranger parked about 300 hundred yards away at the edge of the field. Obviously Dad wasn’t out of the woods yet, so I decided to cross the pasture and head in his direction. “The sooner we get out of here and into town for supper, the better,” I thought. But just as I stepped into the field, I saw several dark shapes of deer burst from the timber and run into the field in my general direction. Dad must have spooked them on his way out, I thought. There wasn’t enough light left and the deer were too far away for me to make out what they were. Probably just a couple f does. But I slipped my rifle up to my shoulder and crept slowly in their direction in the event a buck was among them. I crested a little rise in the field where I could see the deer more clearly. Just as I thought, four does, but standing in the middle of the field next to a small strand of trees was a much larger deer-a buck. I threw up my rifle and through the scope I could make out a huge, towering rack. He was a definite shooter!

The buck was completely unaware of me standing just fifty yards from him; he was too preoccupied with the does and he couldn’t hear or smell me over the booming wind. I knew this deer was at least as big as the one I had shot that morning. Dad’s words kept replaying over and over in my head like the ghost of Ben Kenobi talking to Luke Skywalker.

“Shooooooooot the buck Rick. Use the Force.”

So standing there in the middle of a darkened cow pasture, I placed the cross hairs of my Nikon scope in the general area of his vitals, took a deep breath and pulled the trigger of my Ruger for the third time in less than twelve hours.

Fire and gunpowder exploded from the end of my barrel, temporarily blinding me in the fading light. The buck jumped into the air, bucked once, and sprinted for the tree line too my left.

My immediate reaction was frustration. “Just great. I’ve now broken the law, shot a second buck, and from the looks of things, I’m going to be tracking a wounded deer all night by flashlight.”

I wasn’t even 100% sure I’d made a clean shot on the buck; it was just too dark. Cursing to myself and shaking my head in aggravation, I loaded a fresh round into my rifle and headed after the retreating buck.

I only took about twenty steps, until I saw what appeared to be the body of a deer lying at the edge of the field. “Holy Cow. I must have put one heck of a kill shot on him,” I thought as I raced over to the buck. “He didn’t run fifty yards.”

Sure enough, the buck was deader than a doornail, and lying in a heap at the edge of the field. And what a rack! He was a massive 9-point, with long, dagger-like tines. After closer inspection of the buck’s antlers, I realized that he was indeed the same buck I had seen on the hillside earlier in the day. His rack dwarfed my previous bucks. “Well, I guess he crossed my path one to many times. Now he’s going to be hanging form a meat pole back at camp.”

While I was crouched by the buck, trying to calm my nerves, I heard in the distance the sound of the Ranger crank up and headlights were soon racing in my direction. I left the deer and hustled over towards the oncoming Ranger.

“Did you shoot,” asked Dad? “Sounded like somebody shot.”

“Oh, I shot alright,” I said with a big grin on my face. “Remember when you said you’d tag that buck if I ever saw him again? I’m going to hold you to that.”

Picture In A Bible

I hope my pastor doesn't read this, since I’m about to make an incriminating confession. There are times, albeit rare, when I find myself getting somewhat restless during the Sunday morning service at church. It typically begins subtly; my tie starts to tickle my freshly shaven neck, my dress shoes suddenly seem to fit just a little too snug, and I begin to glance compulsively at my wristwatch, wondering why the hands refuse to move. Eventually I become as fidgety as a meth addict in the cough syrup aisle at Walgreens and isn’t long before I’m receiving the dreaded stink eye from my lovely wife.

Fortunately, I have in my possession a secret weapon that comes in handy when combating severe bouts of “Church Boredom.” Tucked within the deep recesses of The Old Testament in my trusty King James, is an old dog-eared photograph of myself standing atop the summit of Mount Oliphant in Northwest Colorado. My Remington 30.06 is slung at-the-ready over my shoulder, while the vast Rocky Mountains unfurls like a magnificent, endless tapestry behind me.

My father took the photo, as I posed proudly on the first day of my inaugural elk hunt, when I was just a twenty-two year old kid, fresh out of college. Now, some thirteen years later, I use the picture as a visual aid that allows me to mentally escape the occasional dull church sermon.

It’s amazing how the memories from that day come rushing back when I sneak a quick peek at that faded 4x6 Kodak snap shot. I still remember Dad’s words that first night in camp.

“We’re heading to the top of Oliphant in the morning,” he said pushing away from the dinner table inside the cook tent. “Get some sleep, you’re going to need it. Tomorrow, I’m going to show you some of the prettiest elk country in all of Colorado.”

At the time I had no idea what an Oliphant was and I particularly didn’t care for Dad’s tone when he said, get some sleep, you’re going to need it. From years of chasing whitetails with Dad back home in our native North Carolina, I’ve learned those words usually mean I’m about to walk the soles off the bottom of my Danners. But the promise of prime elk habitat piqued my interest and I drifted off to sleep that first night in camp, dreaming of sun-dappled forests teaming with big bulls.

We crawled out of our sleeping bags the following morning at the unholy hour of 4AM and saddled the packhorses by the pale glow of a propane lantern in the biting cold. After shoveling some half-cooked bacon and eggs down our gullets and bidding the customary “Kill a big ‘un” to the other members of our hunting posse, Dad and I eventually found our selves riding through a lonesome, dark stretch of forest, deep within the Elkhead Mountains. As we plodded along to the rhythmic clip clop of horse hooves against the frozen trail, my overactive imagination conjured up images of what it must have been like to have lived the life of Old Jim Bridger or Liver Eatin’ Johnson, sleeking through the timber on their trusty mountain steeds-keeping one eye open for big game and the other for hostile Crow warriors.

Eventually we came to a fork in the trail where we quietly dismounted and tied the horses to large spruce tree. Dad showed me how to wrap orange ribbon to the horse’s bridles and panniers so that they wouldn’t be mistaken for a couple of elk by some optically challenged hunter.

My legs were stiff and cramped from the long ride out of camp, but I managed to keep up to the quick pace Dad had set for us up the winding path. A mile later, we emerged into a small clearing just as the Eastern sky was aglow with the first light of dawn.

“Well there she is,” Dad puffed in the frosty morning air. “Mount Oliphant.”

The mountain, silhouetted against a crimson and purple sky, rose like an enormous, stone shark fin out of a sea of evergreen timber. It’s summit topping out over 11,000 feet above sea level, dwarfing our mountains back home in Appalachia.

“You ready?” Dad asked.

I nodded instinctively, though I wasn’t entirely sure what lay in store for me.

“Good. Now take it slow and easy, watch your step and follow right behind me. And what ever you do, when we get back home, do not ever tell your mother what we’re about to do. She’d kill us both.”

We began our ascent on the western slope, scrambling up a steep slide of ice-laden boulders, where one miscalculated step could have sent us tumbling end over end, into the jagged, rocky abyss below. At times, the climb became so steep, we found ourselves on hands and knees using the butts of our rifles to propel us forward. It also didn’t help matters that an angry, Katrina-force wind was doing it’s very best to pluck us from the narrow ridge and hurl us, flailing like rag dolls, into the next state. Dad was right- if my mother could have seen us at that particular moment she’d have beat both of us within an inch of our lives.

“I’ve seen elk run over these rocks at an all out sprint, and never break stride,” Dad said, his voice muffled by the howling wind. “For such a big animal, they can really move when they have to. Amazing animals.”

Half an hour later, our undershirts thoroughly soaked in sweat and our lungs screaming in the oxygen-depleted air, Dad and I finally crested the summit.

We stood in silence for several minutes, catching our breath and staring in awe of the unblemished landscape that sprawled endlessly below us. Off to our right we observed a pair of bald eagles cruising the thermals over the snow-capped peaks in the distance. It was as though we were literally standing on the roof of the world.

“I killed a bull up here on this top several years ago,” Dad said. “Didn’t get above zero all day. I had to build a fire while I was quarterin’ him up, just to keep my fingers from freezin’ off.”

After recovering from the climb, and snapping some photos, we entered a patch timber that lined the summit. Several yards in I detected an odd scent. It was a musky, pungent odor. A smell that I’d never before experienced in the wild. Dad turned and looked at me with a sly grin. “Elk!” he whispered. There was a noticeable excitement in his voice and a considerable spring in his step as we ventured further within the tree line. The adrenaline I felt climbing the mountain now paled in comparison to what I was experiencing at that moment.

We hunted the summit plateau for a couple of hours, where we jumped a few cows and spikes, but no shooters. From the lack of fresh tracks in the stale, frozen snow that lay scattered in the pines, it became apparent the main herd had vacated the high tops for the warmer confines of the valley below.

“Don’t worry,” Dad said reassuringly. “We’ll jump some bulls this afternoon, when we hunt the benches on the other side of the mountain. The big boys like to lay up in the shade during the heat of the day.”


In addition to the sparse elk sign, there was the discovery of another set of tracks that morning that instantly captured my attention. They were pugmarks the size of a man’s fist and it didn’t take a degree in wildlife biology to know they belonged to large mountain lion. Now for a Southerner, whose only exposure to mountain lions was watching Discovery Channel documentaries such as When Animals Attack, which routinely feature the feline predators mauling and devouring unsuspecting hikers and hunters, I became somewhat paranoid the rest of the morning. I found myself constantly glancing over my shoulder, fully expecting to be pounced upon from behind and my jugular ripped out.

Fortunately, we were both still in one piece when lunchtime rolled around and we located a spot near the summit shielded from the roaring wind by a high rock cliff. By then, the temperature had climbed to a balmy sixty degrees, so we discarded our heavy hunting coats and stretched out on the warm rocks to rest our fatigued and aching feet. While basking in the glorious, high-altitude sunshine, we dined on a hunter’s gourmet of smushed ham sandwiches, crushed Nab Crackers and Little Debbie Cakes, followed by a lovely bottle of lukewarm Redneck Champagne (i.e. Mountain Dew).

As usual when Dad and I are together, our mealtime conversation pertained to topics of the utmost importance, such as the Tarheel’s chances at a national title, the weakness of the Atlanta Braves bullpen and the on-going debate of who was the more skilled stock car driver, Earnhardt or Gordon. Yet in typical fashion the conversation eventually drifted back around to the subject of hunting.

“Now pay attention,” Dad said gesturing towards the northern horizon with a half-eaten Little Debbie. “In this direction, you’re looking up into Wyoming and the Green River. Back this a way, on the far side of those mountains, is Rifle and Meeker, where I used to hunt elk with ol’ Junior Frisbee.”

For the better part of an hour, Dad proceeded to educate me on the names of the mountains, valleys, rivers and creeks that stretched out before us. He pointed out locations on distance hillsides where he and others had bagged bulls on past hunts. He explained to me the resiliency and tenacity of a bull elk and that even a well placed shot in the vitals wouldn’t necessarily bring one down.
“If he doesn’t drop immediately, keep laying the lead to him. They’re tough old boogers.”

Eventually the lecture turned into story-time, where Dad spun hunting yarn after hunting yarn, though I wasn’t sure all of them were square with the facts. I didn’t mind though, I simply sat in silence soaking it all in like a young Luke Skywalker at the feet of an elk hunting Jedi master.

“Appreciate this,” he finally said looking into the distance while savoring the last drops of his soda. “This country may not be like this forever.”

Those words have stayed with me over the years and since that day I’ve killed my share of bulls and can now spin my own hunting tales to any one who cares to listen. But no memory can compare to those of my first day as a rookie in the Colorado high country with Dad at my side. Though I’ve read countless books and articles on the art of hunting elk in the Rockies, nothing has yet to eclipse the wealth of knowledge I received that first hunt in early October.

As far as the old photograph of that morning, it’s still there, hidden somewhere between First and Second Samuel of my Bible, though the older I get, I tend to look at it less and less during worship service. I do hope, however, to add a second photograph along side eventually. Now that I’m a father, I look forward to one day making the same trip to the top of Oliphant with my son, passing along the same wisdom that I learned that day. Only this time I’ll be the one taking the picture.