We'd have the rest of the week for a worthy attempt.
A late night drive. A best guess off a map. An embarrassing lack of noise and light discipline. But we made the long walk through the sleet and were enjoying the marginal comfort of our last minute ground blind idea. Periodic jokes about our chances.
Out of the corner of my eye, something small was pecking at the ground.
I think there's a squirrel out there
A minute passed and it looked bigger.
Dude, I think that's a turkey
It grew again, the high curved line of a haunch, wrong in the gray light.
Oh shit, I think that's a bear
Then a head came up beside the body and the whole thing resolved at once into what it had been the entire time. A deer, head down, feeding, a hundred yards out.
Every hunter knows those five minutes. Your eyes invent things in the half-light.
Ten minutes into the season, we took her. We had done everything wrong, but there she was.
Hours later, soaked through and drinking Bloody Marys, the story got its name. Remember when we thought it was a squirrel? Then a turkey? Then a bear?
But it was never really our story. Everyone who spends their time out there ends up with one, and everyone who hasn't is just one cold morning away. We made this stuff because we loved ours and wanted to wear it.
Go get yours.
