The Hunt

One day my Mother came outside,
To the shade of the old apple tree,
And looked askance, as what she saw.
'Twas, my dog, Tail, and me.

All stretched out, in the soft green grass,
As comfy as we could be.
She said, “Why don’t you both get up,
You’ll be the death of me.

Take your gun, go get some meat,
We’re running mighty low.
I could see that if we wanted supper,
We would both sure have to go.

So we climbed up on a razor back,
Or hog back ridge, they’re called,
And hunted quietly through the trees,
Where the hornets’ nests were balled.

It wasn’t long before I spotted,
A deer with massive horns.
He looked real fat, he’d eaten well,
On mushrooms and lush acorns.

I snapped a shot across the canyon.
I saw him stop and fall;
I hurried down and up the side,
But he wasn’t’ there at all.

Then, I heard him moving.
Down the mountain side.
So I took off down right after him,
My dog, Tail was by my side.

I could see he was headed right
Towards my Mother’s kitchen door.
So I never shot, but chased him down;
We were running then, full bore.

So I whooped, and yelled, and hollered
And dog, Tail, let out a squall
Well, Dad came out a runnin’;
As the deer banged the milk house wall.

He hit so hard, it broke his neck;
He fell, in a pile, 'bout the door.
Dad just laughed, and said, “By Damn.
You’ve never done that before.”

But Mother didn’t seem to like it,
As she turned and walked away.
She said where we all could hear her,
“After this, hunt ten miles away.”

*****

I've never been hunting, and I like it that way. I'm not a fan of guns in my own hands. Having that kind of a weapon is a big responsibility. I've only shot a gun once since my days in Boy Scouts. If I'm ever in the position where I had to hunt or starve, I might try this "crash the deer into a solid object" method so I wouldn't need a gun.