One of my grandfathers best friends was a fellow by the name of Lloyd Cairnes. Paw and Lloyd were big hunting buddies and used the hunt the upper reaches of the Watershed together back in the '30's and '40' when the two of them worked for the Big Creek Wilderness Camp. When he wasn't deer hunting with Paw, Mr. Cairnes loved to write. The following is a story that he wrote and submitted to
Outdoor Life back in the '50's. As far as I know, the story was never published, but what do editors know? I thin the story is great, plus it features my grandfather as one of the main characters, so I've decided to publish it for the first time here on the blog. I'm also including the cover letter that accompanied the manuscript when Mr. Cairnes sent it to
Outdoor Life. Enjoy.
The Editor
Field & Stream
515 Madison Ave.
New York 22
N.Y.
Dear Sir:
I respectfully submit for publication at your regular rates the attached original manuscript.
I have attempted in a humble way to set forth a story which is true in every detail – affidavits if requested – which happened to Mr. Robert F. Bryson, Horse Shoe, N.C. and myself this past November.
No doubt you have cognizance of the State managed deer, bear and boar hunts which are held each year on the Pisgah, Sherwood and other public Forest of North Carolina.
True, they are relatively small potatoes when compared with the hunts of the North and West, but they afford a very great deal of pleasure to thousands of hunters who would otherwise never have the chance at big game.
The Southern highlands are a beautiful place in the Autumn, and also afford some of the finest deer hunting in the country. Shooting accidents are perhaps at the lowest rate of the entire country, due in large part to the proper management by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission both from and educational and cooperative program.
If there is in your mind any reason why this manuscript is unfit for publication, please take the time to tell me what it is. If there is none, may I hear from you within the near future?
Respectfully yours,
L. W. Cairnes
December 4th, 1951
GrandpappyThe north side of Rich Mountain was dark and cold this November morning. The mountain laurel leaves were curled up into little round tubes which rattled slightly in a movement of air. Overhead, high up on a dead chestnut snag, a woodpecker drummed out a sharp, machine gun – like tune. Far across the heavily wooded valley, the Pisgah Lodge shone in the early morning sun. In the upper edge of the dense laurel thicket through which we had just climbed, following the old Ball-Hootin’ log trail, Bryson and I staring at each other, finally expelled a deep breath and sat down. Except for these sounds, and the dying echoes of three shots rolling now over the far rim of the Big Creek watershed, our forest world was quiet again. Just above us in the trail leaves and dirt were freshly stirred where Grandpappy had been standing. Grandpappy had – but I’m getting ahead of my story.
For more of our years than we can remember, Bryson and I have hunted, fished and wandered over a large area of Western North Carolina known as Pisgah National Forest. It is mountainous plateau from which rises the Pisgah Ridge, or Lodge as we know it, and is drained by the headwaters of the French Broad river. One of these is Big Creek which has its source under the eastern face of Mt. Pisgah. The watershed thus formed is the famed “Big Creek Wilderness” where each year is held a three weeks deer and bear hunt.
The Pisgah deer is a very wary, long-legged, black-muzzled variety of the Virginia Whitetail. For sheer cunning and elusiveness, the Pisgah bucks have few equals. The antlers are erect and round-beamed with upright spikes rising sometimes as much as ten inches or more above the beam.
Grandpappy was a twelve-pointer with a twisted front hoof – as sly and sharp a buck as ever made a track.
We first became acquainted with him in the Fall of 1946 while grouse hunting. Through the glasses we counted his spikes, each glistening like polished metal in the sun. Suddenly, as silently as a ghost, he was gone.
The following year, we spotted his tracks again in the same area during the deer season, but only a fleeting glimpse of him. Stories came in now from other hunters about the great buck. Some claimed to have shot him but the tracks from that twisted hoof were there each year.
We hunted every year and had to be satisfied with other heads, but always I think we left each year with a little bit of disappointment. Grandpappy was still there.
This past October we made our plans as usual, except that this year it was going to be Grandpappy or nothing. Well, you know how the routine goes:
As soon as the trout fishing season is over, the little woman heaves a sigh and allows as how she’s glad that’s over with. Maybe the old man will get his mind back on trying to dig up some new customers. And what is the old man’s mind on now? Counting the days till opening day of hunting season!
He takes long lunch hours and spends it down at the local sporting goods store. “Better let me have a box of 30-30’s Joe.” He slips them inside his bed roll that night. He gets his hunting license and carefully tucks it in the “secret” compartment of his wallet. The first Saturday that he finds himself alone in the house, he takes the rifle out and oils it up. Practices drawing fast beads on the eight-pointer over the mantel. Also practices avoiding all mention of deer hunting when the Mrs. is around.
When the crispy frosty mornings arrive, he begins to go past his driveway and comes to himself at the end of the block. His wife observes that the lawn needs the leaves raked off. He has to don leather boots, flannel shirt, hunting pants and cap before making the long journey to the garage for the rake – which has already been placed where he will trip over it. After looking over the old tent, the camp ax, all his cooking utensils, coiling up a new cord (the old one might not be strong enough to hold Grandpappy to the pole), he finally announces at the back door that he can’t find the rake.
Such was the state of affairs on November 16th, 1951. I came home from work, began talking about the business. The Mrs. listened attentively and went on eating. After supply without warning she remarked that she was spending next week with her sister, for me not to forget to sign my hunting license, that one of the shells had a nick in it, that I’d better get a new joint or pipe for my camp stove and that she had already patched the hole I had burned in the tent last year. My first thought was that if I did no better job of fooling “Grandpappy” then I did her my name would be mud again this year.
The next thing that remains clear in my mind was three days later at 5:00 A.M. Bryson was wanting to know how many eggs I wanted for breakfast. As I returned to wakefulness, the ten years span of the past twelve months came to an end.
By daybreak we were scrambling across a fallen log over Big Creek at the mouth of Rich Cove. High above was the top line of the mountain silhouetted against the eastern sky. We were headed for the high branches above the head of the cover just under the top.
The air was clear and cold, and underfoot the frosty leaves from the hardwoods were covered with a think frozen coating of snow from two days before. Every step sounded like crunching ice. It was no day for stalking, so we figured we might as well get up to the benches as quickly as possible and still-hunt until the frost melted.
We slipped along as quietly as possible but were still making plenty of noise. The going was getting steeper now. Frequent halts were made to avoid getting completed winded. Deer tracks were everywhere and one deposit of dung still glistened on the snow. Common sense told us to take a stand here, but the lure of the heights where our big buck hung out pulled us on.
The floor of the valley began to drop away from us. We passed the old trestle where the log skidder had once stood. What had been the fairly even grade of the logging railroad had now become the steep ball-hootin’ trail down which some three decades ago the virgin logs had been slid by gravity down to the loading dump at the railhead.
Numerous rains had turned this trail into a two foot deep trough filled with leaves, over which it was impossible to move quietly. We followed the edge, holding onto saplings, and about halfway up I was panting like the engines which had hauled away the timber. Stumps of chestnut as much as five feet in diameter stood like monuments all around us.
We had stopped to rest on a little rise, when two does fled up the other side of the cover, their white flags marking their course. Overhead, the woodpeckers had begun their morning tune-up. We should have been in our favorite stands by this time, but for me that mountain seems to be getting higher and steeper with each passing year. Bryson didn’t used to have to wait for me to catch up like he does now. He’s never said anything about it though – just acts like he’s tired too. But he can still carry a 200 hundred pound buck back to camp and never falter.
Just at sunrise, which on the north face of the mountain was about 9 o’clock, we entered the last heavy laurel thicket. The trail still led upward, and we knew that as soon as we had climbed through this last thicket we would come out onto the open almost flat benches that were to be our stand that morning. We were counting on Grandpappy to use this natural crossing over the benches that morning too.
By now we were perspiring freely, and that spells cold once you have taken a stand, but our goal was now in sight. Just before emerging from the upper edge of the laurel we sat down on a fallen log to regain our wind. The old logging trail knifed through the thicket to make an ideal shooting lane, but with no visibility to either side.
We had been sitting on the log for not over three minutes when I felt Bryson’s elbow in my ribs. He was pointing to my right with his head turned sideways listening intently. I bent my city-deadened car in the direction he was pointing, but it was several seconds before I heard the sound I had waited twelve long months to hear. The unmistakable “jab-jab-jab” of a deer walking over frozen leaves. Could this be the mighty buck we had so carefully planned on seeing this morning? Or was it an eager spike-horn or curious doe?
We were in “buck country” as we call the high ridges. The walking continued and I knew the deer would cross the trail about seventy yards above us. In the heavy growth bordering the trail I knew I would have no glimpse of him until he entered the opening to cross it. I also knew if it was the old monarch we were hunting, he would in all probability stop just before entering the opening and after satisfying himself that no danger was there, go streaking across in a mighty bound that would carry him to the safety of the other side.
The steps halted at the edge of the trail. I strained my eyes and ears but could find no target. I looked at Bryson. He pointed silently at a huge stump which blocked his vision up-trail. When I looked away from Bryson and back to the trail I froze mentally and physically. There in perfect range, head and shoulders protruding from the laurel stood Grandpappy! There was no doubt about it – there just couldn’t be two such bucks on this one range. The utter magnificence of that head simply paralyzed me. I don’t know how long it took me to raise my rifle. I don’t even remember if I took aim. I don’t recall hearing any shots. But I do remember seeing the most magnificent buck ever to show himself to me turn in the edge of the trail and vanish as completely as if he were a ghost. And there were the three empty shells lying on the snow crusted leaves – time honored symbol of “no venison.”
Long, long after I saw all this, the last echo’s of three shots registered on my ears. Bryson and I stopped staring at each other and started breathing again. He picked up the three empty shells and put them in the pocket. I lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. After a long minute Bryson said it was a long way back to camp and we better get started.
When we reached the mouth of the cove again back at the creek, we turned to look back toward the top. The sun was now shining brilliantly over the north side of the divide. The laurel sparkled and glistened like millions of diamonds. Somewhere along the broad band of impenetrable thickets Grandpappy had bedded down for the day.
Somewhere in the opposite direction Bryson and I were headed for another twelve months of waiting. For just as long as we are able, no matter how much higher and steeper Rich Cove gets with the passing years, we will start the old routine all over again each Autumn.
Did I have a successful deer hunt? Only you can say. I’m sorry if you thought this was going to be one of those: “….. and the mighty buck fell like a pole-axed steer, drilled at two hundred paces with one shot from my trusty rifle.” Sure I like to bring home the venison, but I don’t always do so. Neither do more than half the guys who go each year. Aren’t they entitled to a story once in awhile too?
