Save the Trillium!
“You like to hunt?” Nolan asked without taking his eyes off the road as he drove us tothe stadium where we’d watch our sons play football in a little while.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean ‘You don’t know?’” He was eyeing me now and tugging on his thick black beard.
“I’ve never been hunting, so I don’t know if I like it or not.”
“You want to go hunting?” he invited.
“Sure,” I said, because “No, thanks” would seem so rude. This was early in the football season and I was actually hoping to find some friends among the parents of the football players to sit with at the games. Did I really want to go hunting? Maybe. I most certainly wasn’t sure.
Maybe I had been hunting some 35 years ago as a teenager. My friend Gene and his younger brother Randy lived with danger. From a cramped rental house shared with a dozen guns and an alcoholic father, they often escaped into the surrounding pine woods with 22 rifles or 410 shotguns to terrorize rabbits, squirrels, wild turkeys, or anything with a pulse. I joined them a few times. Gene loaned me a bolt action 22 rifle with a tiny scope. Noisily tromping through the underbrush with weapons cradled in our scrawny arms, we sought something to shoot. If living things were unavailable, we’d make rusty tin cans dance with bullets.
On the last of these escapades I spotted a grayish brown sparrow preening on a limb perhaps 15 feet away. Peering through the scope I centered the cross hairs on its breast and pulled the trigger. A tiny eruption of feathers swirled where the bird had perched. I found the remains on the ground, red mixed with gray, like my emotions. I was proud of my accuracy, yet ashamed of having needlessly killed this innocent creature. What a waste of time, of a bullet, of a life. It was the only animal I’d ever killed with a gun. I’d never gone hunting since.
Had the question been “Do you want to kill something?” or “Do you enjoy killing things?” my answer would have been “No.” So why had I agreed to go hunting?
Maybe I saw it as another novel experience in what had already been an extraordinary 49th year of my life. In January I had strolled for the first time the streets of Rome, Florence, and Venice, shooting roll after roll of film. In August I had taken my first wilderness hike with my art historian friend Peter. We backpacked eight days in the Wind Rivers Range of western Wyoming, trekking over 50 miles with a 45 pound pack, mostly above the treeline at 10,500 ft. Thus, when faced with the question “You like to hunt?” my response was driven in part by my desire to sample new adventures.
Perhaps I had agreed because I’d heard hunters talk about how much they enjoy the solitude of the woods, the sounds and sights and smells of nature, about how a few hours in the woods away from the working world rejuvenated them, about howtheydidn’t even have to fire a shot to consider the time well spent.
Or perhaps I had agreed because hunting is something that “real men” do. Real men patch leaky plumbing. Real men wield hammers, saws, and axes. Real men get dirty and don‘t complain. Real men wear camouflage, but call it “camo.“ Real men scoff at discomfort. Real men are unafraid of cholesterol. Real men appreciate a sharp knife and a lethal firearm. Real men go hunting and shoot to kill.
He might just as well have asked “You want to be a real man?”
My answer would have been the same uncertain “Sure.”
Our wives chatted in the back seat of Nolan’s Tahoe as Nolan drove us west. I saw his maroon and gold Wolverine baseball camp that commemorated Woodruff High School’s multiple state championships back in the day. Nolan’s burly son Jake was the starting center for the Wolverines now, a 6’2” 235 pound junior whose helmet was decorated profusely with stars earned for especially important plays. My son, 5’7” and 145 pounds, got in as a wide receiver.
Twenty years ago Nolan had played on state championship teams at the same high school where our sons now burst through a paper banner held by cheerleaders. Nolan had dated the drum majorette, now in the back seat brushing the hair of their 5th grade daughter.
By the time I entered high school, I too was 6’2” but weighed 85 pounds less than Nolan’s strapping son. I had an excuse to avoid sports. I was afflicted with a disease that made my slender shins ache most of the time because the tendons were only tenuously attached to bones. Nevertheless, I admired athletes. One of my duties as the yearbook photographer was to get photographs of these heroes in action.
Real men play football in high school. I took pictures.
Football brought our families together. We met for dinner before many of the games and sat in a tight cluster of portable stadium seats every Friday night, cheering for our sons, congratulating each other after good plays. We became friends.
……
“What would we hunt?” I asked.
“What do you want to hunt?” Nolan responded. “We can hunt deer, turkey, wild pig, whatever.”
“Doesn’t matter to me,” I said truthfully.
“How about deer? I’ve got 40 acres in the southern part of the county that I’ve been hunting since I was a boy. It already has deer stands set up. Good hunting there. Plenty of deer. You’ll have a pretty good chance of getting one.”
“Fine with me.” I said, contemplating a potential dilemma: would I actually shoot a deer I if I saw one?
My wife asked that very question a couple of days later.
“Sure,” I said.
“No you wouldn’t,” she said. She knows me well enough to know that I’d rather not.
“I’ve been thinking about it. At first I figured that I probably wouldn’t even see a deer so I wouldn’t have to face that decision. That would be the easy situation. But then I thought ‘What would I do if a deer came within range?’ “
“Couldn’t you shoot but miss it on purpose?” she suggested.
“No. I can’t miss on purpose,” I pronounced indignantly.
“Why not?”
“Everybody knows when you’ve fired a gun. You can hear the blast for miles. If you miss, well, that’s embarrassing. Your hunting partners would want an explanation. How would it sound to a bunch of hairy-armed real men to be told by a rookie hunter ‘I promised my wife I’d miss on purpose.’”
“Anyhow, I’ve decided that if I there is some wayward deer unfortunate enough to wander within range, I intend to kill it.”
“Why?” she wanted to know. Her tone conveyed disapproval.
“Gerald loves venison,” I said. Gerald is professor of sociology at the same college where I teach. “He makes all sorts of things from deer meat. His family loves it.”
If that weren’t reason enough, I added “Doug is convinced that deer overpopulation is responsible for the near elimination of trillium from the forests around here.” (Doug is a botany professor, and a colleague in my department.) “When I went with Doug to his study areas in Croft State Park, I saw trillium growing inside fences which kept deer out. Everywhere outside the fence, the deer nibble the trillium until it is almost gone. Too many deer can be bad for the system, and really bad for trillium. So if I see a deer, I intend to shoot it, try some of the meat myself, and give the rest to Gerald.“
“You may not even see a deer,” she teased.
The hunt would certainly be less traumatic for me if she were right.
……….
“Do you have a gun?” Nolan inquired.
“Somewhere in a closet I have a 22 rifle that my brother gave me when he got the hunting fever. Back in his twenties, he went hunting with a few of his buddies Got a big buck the first time out using one of their high powered rifles. Hunting cost him a small fortune after that. He bought an expensive rifle with a scope, all sorts of camo, even got a 4 wheel drive Blazer. Passed that little 22 on to me.”
Nolan nodded. It was hard to know whether he thought a 22 would be a perfect gun for a puny college professor.
I paused and then fully revealed my ignorance by asking “Is there such a thing as a semi-automatic rifle?”
“Yes.”
“Then I think that’s what my brother gave me. A 22 semi-automatic. I’ve never actually shot it. It’s probably not sufficient for deer hunting.”
“Right. You’ll need something more powerful. I can set you up.”
I wasn’t surprised. I had heard from my wife,who works with his wife Angie that Nolan has quite an arsenal. People joke that he could equip the National Guard with firepower.
“What do you want to hunt with? Automatic, lever action, bolt, or pump? ” Those terms triggered memories from my youth.
I recalled shooting a BB gun powered by yanking repeatedly on a lever to generate enough energy to propel a tiny BB perhaps 15 feet along a trajectory as random as a moth‘s flight. I was unfamiliar with the operation of lever action rifles, though it seems that the cowboys of black and white westerns of my youth used lever action rifles to dispatch wildlife and Indians without remorse.
The only weapon my father ever owned was a bolt-action 22 that he used exclusively to repel unwanted dogs and cats from our rural property. Stray dogs that upset our pets or pooped in our yard were treated to a dose of “rat shot” in the rump. They’d howl and disappear quickly into the woods, sore but still alive. As far as I know, my father never shot to kill.
As a boy I begged to shoot that rifle, and when I had reached what was deemed an appropriate age (perhaps 12), my father dutifully pulled the dusty rifle from the corner of his closet while my mother warned of the dangers of firearms in the hands in of the inexperienced (or even the experienced), recounting tragic stories where lives had been unintentionally abbreviated by incompetent gun handlers, bullets flying from “empty” guns that had inadvertently “gone off,“ instantly creating widows or orphans or vegetables that drool on their pillows in nursing homes for decades. Having heard all this before, Daddy and I slipped out to the back porch where he briefly described the operation of a single-shot bolt-action rifle. In less than three minutes, I had fired a bullet, felt the small shove of the stock in my shoulder, and the gun had been returned to its place of nearly eternal rest in the darkest corner of his closet, obscured by Father’s Day ties worn even less frequently than this rifle was used. This rite of passage was surpassed in brevity only by the “birds and the bees” talk which I apparently missed in its entirety.
I vividly recall the only time I used that gun without permission. Having convinced my parents that I had some essential high school function, I stayed home alone for the weekend while they went to the beach without me. Aftersquanderingan evening cruising MacDonald’s, I backed into the carport well past my usual Friday night curfew. Exhausted, I unlocked the door and went inside but as I did, I noticed a car parkedacross the rural road in front of our house. It was partially obscured by trees. Very suspicious. Why would a car be parked way out here, five miles from town at this time of night? Without turning on the lights, I peered from every window of the house, hoping to determine what type of car it was and perhaps why it was parked there. Impatiently I waited for passing cars to illuminate the mystery but traffic was sparse. My imagination raced. Was someone out to play a trick on me? To threaten me? To harm me? Could that car belong to a burglar? A stalker? A kidnapper? A murderer? Though tired, I was incapable of sleeping with this threat lurking less than a hundred yards from my bedroom.
I devised a plan. I crept into my parent’s bedroom, fumbled to extract the rifle from its repose, pinched a 22 rifle bullet from the plastic case in the top dresser drawer beneath my father’s handkerchiefs, and tiptoed to the carport. I inserted the bullet into the chamber and pulled back on the knurled knob to cock the rifle. I silently slid it the driver’s seat of the ‘67 Buick, rolled down the passenger window, and rested the barrel on the windowsill, pointed in the direction of the mystery car where a felon certainly lurked. I cranked the old Buick and I eased it to the end of our driveway, left hand on the steering wheel, both eyes squinting to see the car still motionless on the side of the road. My right index finger was poised on the trigger.
I yearned for a passing car. After what seemed like several eternities, one appeared, and in the beams of its headlights I was finally able to identify the car which had driven me to this predicament. It was a highway patrolman, a trooper with a radar gun out to catch speeders. Relieved, I backed down the driveway, went back inside, and returned the rifle to its closet. Once in bed, I replayed the whole saga, embarrassed at my lunacy. Then I remembered that I had cocked the gun with a bullet in the chamber. Now it was propped in my father’s closet, dangerous and deadly, only onelayer of sheetrock away. I darted to the closet, now gingerly handling the rifle, terrified because I knew of no way of getting a bullet out of the chamber other than pulling the trigger. I fiddled with the knob. I jiggled the bolt. The deadly bullet remained in place. Again, my imagination raced. What if I simply returned the rifle to the closet? What if somebody reaching in to pull a shirt from a hanger accidentally shot themselves? How could I explain that? So I waited until the patrolman left and then I took the rifle outside, aimed low into the dark woods, and pulled the trigger. Pulling back on the bolt, the spent casing flew out of the chamber. I returned the blasted gun to the closet and finally went to bed.
……
“I’ll try the bolt action,” I said, hoping for remedial instruction on the operation of a bolt action rifle that would have been useful 35 years ago.
“No problem. I’ve got a sweet little Ruger M77 you’re going to love. Jake got his first deer with that gun. Maybe you’ll get your first with it.”
“I hope so,” I said without conviction.
Traffic picked up as we neared the stadium. Nolan found a parking spot not too far from the entrance. We set up a table at the back of the Tahoe and sat in folding chairs while eating sandwiches and potato salad.
“Is next Saturday morning good for you?” Nolan asked between mouthfuls.
“Sure.”
“What time you want to get started?”
“I can be ready any time.” I boasted.
“How about 4:30?”
“OK. Where?”
“I’m just kidding. 4:30 is too early.”
So he was testing me. That’s OK.
“Well, when is good? I have no trouble getting up early. I’m usually stirring by 5:30 so I can be ready at whatever time you say.”
“How about we meet at the gas station just off the Interstate one exit above the county line at quarter past six? You know where that is?” Nolan proposed.
“Yes. I’ll be there.
“OK.”
“You need anything?” Nolan asked.
“You’ll have to tell me what I need. Remember, I haven’t done this before.”
“I’ll set you up. You can wear Jake’s camo jacket. I have a camo ski cap and some good gloves. You have some boots?”
“I have those hiking boots that I wore in the Rockies.”
“Be sure to wear a couple pairs of socks. It’s going to be cold sitting there.”
Saturday morning I was up at 4:30. In the dim light of our bedroom, I pulled on my red long johns as quietly as possible, dressing in layers, topping off with the fleece hiking jacket that had warmed me well in Wyoming. After walking the dogs, eating my scrambled eggs and grits, and downingthree cups of coffee and bringing one for the road, I grabbed my camera bag and departed beneath a starry sky for the 30 minute drive to our meeting point. The sky lightened from an ominous gray as I drove south. I pictured real men at this very moment chugging coffee from dented Thermos jars. I had trouble getting my favorite china cup to sit level in the cupholder of my minivan.
Nolan flashed the lights of his truck as I entered the parking lot of the gas station at precisely 6:15.
“You need anything?” he nodded to the convenience mart.
“I don’t think so. I’m ready.”
“Follow me. We’re just going a couple of miles.”
I fell in behind Nolan in his4X4pickup. Other hunters were leaving in their trucks. I imagined these veteran hunters get a kick out of observing inept newbies like me. Today, I’ll be the entertainment, but that’s OK. They’ll set me up for some prank. They’ll glance at each other with knowing grins when I do something stupid. But that’s the price I’m willing to pay.
We drove along for several miles on a narrow two lane. When he eased his truck into an overgrown yard by an abandoned home place, I pulled my minivan into the tall grass along side.