Page 17 - Bill Daye: Stories for Susie

ISSUE : Issue 32

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1982/8/1

I did it 5 or 6 times. "Now," I "I'll take the only chance in the could. said, world, one in a million." So I fired shot. The shot had no sooner gone off when, within 25 yards of me, a deer jijmped up and ran right straight towards me. He had been sleeping there. I had the rifle right on his chest in a second, and down he went. I used to wear moccasins, oil-tanned mocca? sins, going through the woods hunting deer, so I wouldn't make a sound, when you'd crack a stick and walk--you'd be just as quiet as a deer. So this night I was com? ing across the barren, and it was pitch dark, black dark. I had to feel the path amongst the blueberry bushes with my feet to know I was on the path. It's hard where people had been walking so much. And I keep walking on this little hard spot, and going along. I was smoking cigarettes at the time. So I thought--there was a big rock I knew was along the path--and I said, "Now, I'm going to have a smoke." So I took out a match and a cigarette, and I scratched the match on that rock, and when I put the match up to light it, a big buck blew it out right in my face. He was com? ing right towards me. If I hadn't stopped to light the cigarette, I would have run right square into him. My feet were as qui? et as his, me with the moccasins on. Well, boy, I stood and I shivered--a cold chill went up my back like I was frozen. I couldn't move. And he flew by. And there was a big barren on one side. And he got out in that barren, and was snorting and whistling. I was so mad, I up with the ri? fle and I fired in his direction. I swore at him, and I said, "You scared the life out of me--I'm glad that you didn't kill me!" So, I forgot all about. But it was a terrible scare I got. If I hadn't lit the cigarette, I would have walked straight in? to him--our noses were together. So the next year I was out around, I found his bones out in the barren, where the shot that I fired had killed him. One time a chum of mine says to me, "Bill, my uncle has quite a few hens and chick? ens." He says, "Let's go into the big bam over there some night and get one of the hens. We can sell them to the Chinaman. We'll get 25 cents for it, and we can get a big basket of blue grapes." I said, "I don't like the idea, but I'll go for once." We went around the bam. There was a lock on a window, which we couldn't get open, so the first door that was open, we got in there. We had no light. We were searching around. The first thing, there was a cack? le from one of the hens. He said, "That's where the hens are." We went over, and the first time he touched the hen, the hen made this big noise. There were blood-curd? ling screeches and yelling. And Frank was drove from the one side of the bam across to the wall on the other side on his face against the wall--and he was howling and screeching. "Well,"