Ghost Editor II

A reader questioned Daddy and the group's hunting behaviors.  Let me just say that the veracity of this document is questionable - embellishment was frequently pulled out of his toolbox.  He could just as easily have said, "I dropped flat and put my hands over the back of my head, praying that no one actually managed to shoot the deer - what if he fell on me? - "Vermillion Died of Antler Puncture Wounds After a Hunting Accident."

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Seems we ate Thursday's meal on Wednesday and all kinds of things that required comment and advice from the expert.  But nobody got sliced or maimed.

I purposely slept late the next morning.  Cresswell, Williams and I left camp about 8 a.m. to go up into the mountains in back of the camp to see if we could locate a deer that Chastine had wounded the day before. 

We didn't get there because just as we cleared the timberline, a nice buck came out of the brush about 600 yards around the mountain.  I was shooting the .270 that day and after considerable blasting - four shots in all - he dropped.  He had been hit three times.  He was a nice 9-point buck.

By the time the three of us had dragged him into camp, it was lunch time.

Chastine and Dirks came in - they had killed a buck farther up in the mountains and were unable to bring it in without help.  After lunch, Chastine, Cresswell, Williams and I went after him and got back to camp about 3 p.m.

The only times Brice got more than two blocks away from camp was when he was in the car.  Moral:  watch that second can of beer.  All of us had had our limits at this point.

We also had a hassle of static that would make a UN meeting seem like a tea party about who was going to take which deer.  I got the one that I wanted - the doe.  The boys thought I was gypping myself but I would rather have the young doe meat and I don't want to get into the habit of shooting at does. 

We broke camp and tore out for home.  Our bunch drove steadily and arrived in Kansas City October 18th at 10:20 a.m. 

We had a butchering job the next day.  Brice's deer was spoiled - he gave it to the dog kennel.  Poetic justice, eh?

We all certainly enjoyed the hunt.  The only drawback being cold, dust, lack of water and by no means least important, lack of helicopters for carrying dead deer back to camp.