The Deer Hunter- A Halloween Tale

A man was so excited about going deer hunting, it would be his first time ever. His wife told him he should go to church with her instead of going out and shooting one of God’s creature’s just for fun. He tried to justify it by saying- “ The deer ate my garden this year, so its only fair that I put one of them in our freezer to replace the garden they ate and that I worked so hard on. Besides, you know how boring the preacher’s sermons are getting to be.”

He had gone out a few days before the season started, to find a good place to put up his stand. He found a place where there were plenty of signs that deer traveled by there often. It was way up in the head of a hollow around the Smith Branch area. He marked the trail leading there so he could find it when he returned the next day before daylight to hunt.

The next morning he got up way before day light and drove near the place in his 4 wheel drive S-10 pick up. Although it was dry, he park at a wide spot on the dirt road- leaving enough room for anyone more daring than he was to venture further on. A full size truck could get by on his left and there was 4 or 5 feet between his truck and the ditch on the right side, plenty on room he said when he looked. He made sure he sat the brake and locked the doors before heading off in the woods.

He followed the trail he had left the day before, it was plain enough that he didn’t have to use a flashlight. After about a mile long hike, he found the tree where his stand was. It was still a while before daylight when he climbed up. Not long after he heard foot steps in the dry leaves nearby and heavy breathing. He thought that it was another hunter, one badly out of shape from they way they was breathing and overweight from the sound of their heavy footsteps.

They was obviously lost because they kept going around in circles. The circle kept getting smaller and smaller- closer to the tree where he was. Finally the foot steps moved off up and over the ridge before daylight came. He knew that it would be a while now before any deer would come by after all that noise. He stayed there til noon before calling it quits. He hadn’t seen a squirrel or anything come around all morning.

He carefully tied the rifle to the rope and lowered it gently to the ground. He drop the rope and climbed down the tree. When he got down there, he found his rifle shoved barrel first into the ground like it had be dropped from a great height? It was buried plumb up to the trigger in the ground. He looked around in every direction to see who had done such a thing. After seeing no one around- he said; Yeah, I’d hide too if I was you.

He tried to pull the riffle out of the ground, but was barely able to wiggle it. He took off his jacket and hung it on the tree he had just climbed down, this was going to take a while. He worked about 20 minutes to retrieve it out of the ground, looking around every few seconds trying to catch a glimpse of the fellow that did this. I know he’s still around. He couldn’t have got out of sight that quick, in what little time it took me to climb down.

He brushed what dirt he could off the riffle, but the barrel was packed full- he couldn’t get all of it out here. Turning around he reaching for his jacket on the tree- his jacket was ripped to shreds and there was deep claw marks in the bark of the tree. Starting about 12 feet up and all the way to the ground. There were not any claw marks there when he climbed down from the tree, nor were they there when he hung up his jacket.

He turned all the way around looking, but again he saw nothing. It was clearly not a man he was dealing with here. Some kind of very large animal with claws and it had been within a few feet of him in the last few moments or so. What kind of animal could walk through dry leave and not make a sound? A bear has claws, but a bear would have attacked and they make alot of noise. What ever it was- it wasn’t afraid of me, with or without my gun; he said to himself. With haste, he decide not to stick around and find out what it was.

As he headed back down the trail, he could hear footsteps in the leaves following him. When he stopped they would stop, but he only stopped once. He was in a full all out run by the time he got back to his truck. He liked to have never found the key that unlocks the door. And then it took a different key to start the thing up and he had to find it too. Its hard to find the right key when your so busy looking around behind you to see whats been following you the last mile or so through the woods. Them’s long miles, not short ones !

He got it started, revved it up- slammed it in drive and did a little fishtail with the back end which put him right in the ditch. Placing it in 4 wheel drive didn’t help a bit, neither did releasing the parking brake that had still been on when he took off. A cloud of thick dust and blue smoke from the tires quickly surrounded the truck. He turned the engine off when it became clear the truck was staying there. But he wasn’t staying.

Hopefully the noise of the truck had scared off what ever it was that had scared him out of the woods. He put his hand on the latch to open the door when he caught a glimpse of something dart behind his truck in the side mirror and another quick glimpse of it ducking down behind the tailgate in the rearview mirror. The back of the truck was suddenly lifted up and tossed back over onto the roadway. He fired up the truck and took off, in the cloud of dust behind him- he saw a dark figure- something shaped like a man, but taller and more muscular built. It was jumping up and down, swinging its arms as if to say; “And Don’t Come Back!”

He gave up hunting and thats why he never went back to get his deer stand out the woods. Its still there if you want to go get it, but I would recommend that you go to church instead. At least your welcome there. Writen By: Johnny Lee Hall 9-25-01