When I was younger, I used to go deer hunting every season. John, a guy who worked for me liked me, and would invite me to go with him every weekend during the season. His Family had a little cabin in the foothills, there was no running water, you hauled water into the cabin from the hand pumped well outside. We would arrive, and two of his brothers and an uncle would also be there, and we would all hunt. We would also stay up late every night, drinking and playing Peedro. Once...I didn't hunt...I hadn't paced myself drinking the night before.
I wanted to just stay in bed, but they hauled my ass out of bed, made me choke down some eggs, and when we arrived at the hunt site, I THREW ALL OF MY BULLETS into the creek, and said..."This bitch ain't hunting today"...and crawled back into the pickup and went to sleep.
One evening we were playing Peedro, and a pair of pliers like the above were on a nearby table. I had never seen one before, and I picked it up, and turned it around, and asked, "What does this do?" They just kept playing, Jeff, the older brother said "Maybe we'll show you some day." I just nodded, and got back to playing cards.
A couple weeks later, I was VERY familiar with what the piers did. I was dripping in sweat, it was 110 degrees, and I was helping the brothers repair and maintain about a mile of barbed wire fencing. The pliers were clever, you would set the curved side against the fence post, and you could pull the strand of wire very tight, and then hammer a bracket over the wire to hold it in place.
Jeff was a VERY serious hunter, and ALWAYS got his two deer during the season. I asked him for half of a deer, once...I had fired at it, but missed, and it turned and ran over the hill, where Jeff was, and he shot it. I mentioned that I should get a share when he was cleaning it, and after he had stuffed the heart and liver into the cavity, he motioned at the pile of guts and said..."There, that's your share." I did make a half-hearted search for the kidneys, I had heard that they tasted OK, but when I found them I just kicked dirt over them. NO WAY was I going to eat those ugly things.
We also did duck hunting. They had little 'missile silos' in a large Ag pond. There were little islands in the pond, and you would wade out in waist deep water, and pull the cover off a thick aluminum tube that was buried vertically in the ground on the island, and climb in. The tubes could hold two people...but you had to be 'friends', your bodies were almost touching all of the time. We would put a camo net over the dog, and he would watch for ducks. He could see them as well as we could, and when we shot one, he would see where it fell, and then swim out and get it. One outing, John and I missed several times, and the dog looked back at us and growled. I asked why he had growled, and John said, "Buster is pissed 'cause we keep missing".
One duck hunting morning, John called me, and said that he was ill, and couldn't hunt, but that Jeff would pick me up. So, Jeff, this huge, bearded man who had had a football scholarship at AZ State as a lineman, picked me up. It was just he and I hunting, so when we waded out to the missile silos, I thought that I would get my own tube, but he climbed in with me. "Need someone to talk to as we wait" he said. I just nodded and settled in, I wasn't afraid that he would do anything improper, and anyway, I didn't look very inviting in rubber waders that came up to my shoulders. and a thick woolen coat covering me. Plus, I had absolutely NO MAKEUP!! I had started to apply my foundation, but thought..."You are going Duck Hunting in the rain!!! You are nor heading to the Restaurant!!"
We had a nice start. He brought out a 5th of E&J, and took a swig, and handed me the bottle, and said, "Here, it will help keep you warm". I rarely drank at that time in my life, but I thought, WTF, and took a sip. He said, "No, have some more". So, I gulped some more down, and handed him the bottle back. Together, we finished the bottle pretty quickly, and I was a bit affected. I did get three ducks...the limit was five...so that wasn't too bad. I shot the first one...it was a very long shot, and the duck landed very far away. The dog wasn't present, and so I hoped Jeff would be a gentleman, and go get it for me, but he just said..."Go get your duck." I climbed out, and waded to it, and I still had my shotgun, and it was loaded. Jeff had told me to reload, "Another duck might come by," so I did.
I was NOT a happy camper, it was drizzling a bit, and I was wading in deep water, I was cold, I was cursing the very concept of duck hunting, and holding my 12 gauge side by side double barrel blunderbusket, and vowing to MISS every shot after that. I got close to the duck, and Jeff shouted..."P-------!!!" (my name)...I slowly turned completely around, I didn't want to lose my balance, and looked back at him, and he just waved me away. When I returned, I asked him what that was about, and he just said, "Didn't you see that flock of seven ducks? They flew right behind you when you turned around!" I just muttered..."Didn't see no ducks."
The next Monday, at work, John was ribbing me. He said that he and Jeff had talked on Sunday, and John asked how I did on the hunting trip. He said that Jeff shook his head, and said, "You would NOT BELIEVE the things she did!" John said that he just chuckled, and said, "Oh, I don't know...try me."
