RV’ing Blind

RV’ing Blind by Gary Benton
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I grew up in the Missouri Ozark Mountains and let me tell you we were, and some say still are, a clannish group when it came to hunting. All of our best hunting spots were kept secret from “outsiders” and we rarely spoke of what we knew. Oh, we might have shared a location with a family member, but that was about it. See, back in those days we used the game we got to supplement our meat for the table and it was taken seriously. More than once I was sent into the woods for meat with only a handful of shells and I was expected to bring back one animal at the expense of one shell. Now, that helped me become a better shot and over all a better hunter. I learned to get close enough or have the animal come near enough for a killing shot the first time. However, I’m getting off track here a might.

I can remember one hunting trip a few years back that was a lot of fun, but only for us and not our visitors. The snow was falling with big flakes, but the wind was mild, so it was a lazy kind of snowfall. We were in our deer hunting camp back in a thick group of cedar trees. Our luck had been so bad that only one small buck was hanging from an old oak tree.

As I added a log to the dying fire, I glanced around and asked no one in particular, “You see anything today?”

Bubba looked over at me, gave me a goofy grin and replied, “I saw some rabbits, a squirrel, but no deer. I think they knew the bad weather was comin’ and bedded down for a spell.” “Bubba,” Uncle Ben said as he raised his cup of coffee to his lips, “you don’t know fetch from come heah when it comes to deer. Son, you have to almost step on a deer to find one even in perfect weather.”

Bubba, deeply insulted by this attack from Ben, turned red in the face and quickly responded with, “Now, Uncle Ben, that jes’ ain’t true. I’ve got a deer every year, except back in ’68.”

Ben chuckled, glanced around at all of us, and then said, “You call that button buck you got last year a deer? Heck fire, son, I got dogs bigger than that deer you got.”

“Uncle Ben, a deer is a deer.” I quickly added because I didn’t want a verbal fight taking place with the bad weather moving in. All I needed was two men mad and I’d be forced to spend a hunting trip with their bad attitudes. These men were all relatives and difficult enough to spend a lot of time with without them starting a fight. Don’t misunderstand me I loved ‘em all, but my goodness they could sure stretch my endurance at times. I often thought they were like a bunch of kids when it came to hunting and “bragging” was the worst of it all.

“No, not all deer are created equal.” Ben stated as soon as he’d sipped his luke-warm coffee from his cup, “Now you take that eight point buck I got last year, now that was a deer.”

“Ben, you hit it with your truck and that don’t count.” Bubba quick erupted.

“Well, as Gary said a minute ago, a deer is a deer.”

“But, you said they were not all created equal!” Willy threw out quickly and I was surprised, because my man rarely ever spoke. I’d only seen him excited once and that was when the henhouse caught on fire.

“They ain’t all created equal. And, how I got that deer last year don’t matter, the fact is I got it.”

At that point a huge mobile home pulled up the road and drove into the grass. I was amazed at the size of the thing and wondered how much a big thing like that would cost a fellow. I knew it was not cheap and the television antenna alone gave me the hint, not to mention the pure size.

“Outsiders.” Ben said with disgust as he looked the mobile home over closely.

Now, I guess I should explain that an outsider was anyone who was not from our part of the country and one of us. I’d seen folks from the next town considered an outsider when it came to hunting. But, this mobile home had a big sticker on the front window that indicated it was from the big city of Saint Louis, and as far as we were concerned they were serious outsiders. I mean they were from the big city and all.

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