Double Cross
| Firearms - Shotguns |
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Five minutes later we were running flat out after another tom. Without slowing down, I managed to check my gun to ensure it was unloaded, then had to grab my hat as it slipped from my head. Then we were in bamboo over my head and I heard "Come on!" A muddy root tripped me up and the black water grabbed my boots and sucked them down. I was wondering if I was in some quicksand, but I was able to get out. We set up and I tried out my then new Lynch box call. Though I thought it sounded terrible, we heard a distant gobble. Was that across the creek, where we had come from? Back we headed for our other crossing spot, and he stopped to take off his socks and boots and roll up his pants legs. He slid down the bank, using a small tree for brakes, and I straddled his shoulders. The creek bed had shifted after a flood, and he about went down in a place he had previously trusted. We wound up at an unfamiliar spot on the opposite bank, and when I tried to climb up, I realized the whole thing was covered with briars. The gobbler thundered, close, on his own. My partner's feet were freezing. I had to climb out, so I grabbed the least thorny piece of vine I could grab and it promptly broke away from the bank. We nearly both went in the water, but, miraculously, he managed to right himself. Another gobble, closer. This bird was killing us! I spotted a small opening a few more feet away from our usual spot and grabbed a gnarly root, glad it was cold and there was no snake sunning on the other side of it. When I was halfway out, he pushed me up the rest of the way and followed me. The bird had either heard us or not; we assumed he had since he shut up. Boots on, ease through those trees there on hands and knees, moving our guns with us. We set up on the first decent trees we found, which happened to have a little cover in the form of some palmettos perfectly placed in front of our legs. "Yawkyawkyawk?" a curious hen eased into view, head thrusting forward, then back in that strange birdwalk they have. Naturally she chose the moment when my hand was in midair and my gun was not yet loaded. The palmettos gave me just enough cover to ease a shell into my gun. Its slight click intrigued the hen, who walked closer, by now also tilting her head side to side in a naive effort to figure me out. That hen walked herself right up on the other side of the palmettos and nearly stared into the barrel of my gun. I tried not to blink as a mosquito, who hadn't heard mosquitos only come out when it is warm, decided to dine on the bridge of my nose, which was unfortunately accessible over my mask. "Yawk?" That was her last attempt. She wandered off and I drew a deep breath. "LOBBLELOBBLELOBBLE!!!" Mental checklist. Gun's loaded, I'm covered from the gobbler's direction. Ease the safety off. Then I saw him. He was threading quickly through a stand of small pine trees. He was coming straight for us! He was on my side, so I eased my gun in his direction and when he went behind a tree sunk down till I could get my gun in my shoulder pocket. Wait a minute…where'd he go? Where he had been, there were now only trees.
© August 2008 |
It had been a long morning's hunt. We had crossed the freezing cold creek barefoot where it was wide and shallow, over sandbars strewn with river rock, and hunted hard in the swamp on the far side. Though it was cold, the lilies were starting to bloom. He took a photo of me sitting amongst them grinning, with my shotgun, Southern Belle. 