"Buck!.....Buck!"

I used to do some deer hunting with my grandfather and some of his kin out on the Sabine river bottom. They typically arranged their schedules so they could hunt fulltime for the first week of the season. Of course for many of them it just meant they showed up at the deer camp instead of staying at home. I’m sure many today would have a problem with the kind of hunting we did. We would all have our places on deer stands spread out over a wide geographic area. Uncle Capp would then ride his horse several miles upwind from us and turn the deer hounds loose. The dogs would jump a deer and chase it out onto one of the hunters. This is how it worked in theory and I know it sounds gruesome to some, but believe me there were many, many days where the deer outsmarted the dogs and the hunters.

Many argue the deer never really have a chance in this type of hunting approach but for the most part any time you use a high powered rifle they are pretty much at a disadvantage no matter what approach you follow. Being around a deer camp is what most would expect it to be. There’s coffee to drink and stories to tell and pranks to pull on the unsuspecting. My grandfather used to say that really strong coffee would make hair grow on my chest, so I suppose some of the deer camp coffee which was so strong and thick it was hard to pour, may account for the hair all over my back.

One of the main camp people was named Buck. He more or less kept things organized and going at the camp site. He sometimes would drive the dogs when Uncle Capp couldn’t make it. He was a shaggy looking older man and either had lost all his teeth or left them at home. I will admit I often ducked the food Buck cooked in favor of risking a major cut to one of my fingers in opening my private meal of Vienna sausages and crackers. The cans back then had a key attached and you had to be ever so careful because the tin was razor sharp. It took discipline not to think too much about those greasy gourmet morsels until they were safely out of the can.

One day one of my uncles from out of town had come up to hunt with us. We were all standing around the camp getting organized for the day’s hunt. My uncle worked in an office so he was really taking all the sights in. He was standing and warming by the big fire and he was leaning on his rifle. Suddenly, without any warning or fanfare, a good sized deer came bounding right through the middle of the camp. One of my country cousins started hollering for Mr. Buck. He cried out, “Buck!, Buck!” My uncle looked up, saw the deer, heard “Buck!, Buck!”, raised his rifle and shot the critter. It ran just outside the camp on the edge of the woods and fell over and died. Only one problem. This deer was not “Buck!, Buck!” but it was “Doe!, Doe!”, and killing it was very illegal.

You should have seen everyone run up to that deer like they wanted to take credit for killing it and as soon as they saw it was a doe, they backtracked like they had just come in contact with leprosy or some other dread disease. Uncle Capp finally came over and said, “Well what’s done is done and at this point and time it can’t be undone, so we will just have to deal with it”. He then loaded the deer on the back of his horse and started through the deep woods on some obscure trails back to his home place. My uncle sheepishly tried to explain the “Buck!, Buck!” side of it but by then everyone was grumbling and out of sorts because it had messed up the morning hunt.

I’m sure after everything settled back down this event became one of those stories re-enacted every time they made a new deer camp, and everyone laughed and laughed. It’s obviously one I still remember and it happened nearly fifty years ago. …More later.