by Rusty W. Mitchum
Huntin’ is different now than it was when I was a kid. We didn’t have all these huntin’ shows on the Outdoor Channel and such. All we had was the American Sportsman with Curt Gowdy, which mainly consisted of watchin’ Bing Crosby and Phil Harris sittin’ in a duck blind or huntin’ quail and, tellin’ jokes, and stuff like that. Now-a-days, with a few punches of the remote you can be huntin’ Kudu in Africa, Red Stag in New Zealand, or Musk Ox up at the Arctic Circle. It’s probably a good thing we didn’t have the Outdoor Channel back then. If we had, I probably would weigh about three hundred pounds and be the color of an egg and still livin’ at the ol’ homestead camped out on the couch.
My only exposure to Africa was from Tarzan movies, which I watched religiously. Heck, that’s where I learned to talk to animals, here let me teach you something. If you say the word “ungawa” to any African animal, they’ll do whatever it is you want them to. If you want an elephant to sit down, say ungawa. If you want your pet monkey to go into the jungle and to bring you back a peach the size of a watermelon, say ungawa. I got kicked out of the zoo back when I was a kid for yellin’ ungawa at the monkeys. By the way, the monkeys at the zoo must think ungawa means throw your doo-doo at the kid yellin’ ungawa. Where was I? Oh yeah, hunting.
My first exposure to hunting was when I was six years old when I got my first BB gun. That’s right, my dad gave a six year old a BB gun. Deal with it. That BB gun was the best gun I ever owned. I killed bears, lions, tigers, and elephants with that gun, and I did it without any BB’s. That’s right. My dad gave me the gun, but did not give me any BB’s. Being of sound mind and body, he knew that if I had BB’s, he would probably live to regret it, plus I think my mom had a say so in it, too.
Well, after killing all the bears, lions, tigers, and elephants in my back yard, I decided I needed some ammunition, so I could shoot the more dangerous animals such as sparrows and Blue Jays. Well, since my dad wouldn’t get me any BB’s, I did the next best thing. I remembered my momma had a little bitty jar of silver BB’s that she decorated cakes and such with. Well, I borrowed some of those BB’s and proceeded to load my BB gun with them. The first one shot out of my gun fine. After that, nothing came out. But, that didn’t stop me from trying. I shot and shot and shot, but nothing came out. In fact, my gun quit workin’. When it quit workin’, I took it to my dad, and told him that my gun was broke. He took it into his shop, and proceeded to take it apart. Well, when he pulled the magazine tube off of the gun, a fine stream of powder poured onto his work bench. It was white powder mixed with little silver flakes. He looked at me, and I broke down and confessed what I had done. Although confessions did not keep you from getting a whippin’, afterward you were told that they were proud of you for tellin’ the truth, which was supposed to eased the pain of the whippin’ a little. It didn’t. But I didn’t get a whippin’. No, Daddy emptied all the powder, oiled the gun up, and got it workin’ again. Then we went down to the Cope’s Country Store and bought a 3 cent pack of BB’s. After that, there wasn’t a sparrow or Blue Jay safe.
My first exposure to big game hunting was just a few weeks after I got my BB gun. We lived on an old oil topped road and behind our house was a about a thousand acres of woods. I don’t know who those woods belonged to, but I figured they were mine, so I treated them as such. This place was a boys dream; woods, a creek, and big mountain (small hill) and lots of stuff to shoot at. Well, I was walkin’ through the woods one day, when I saw somethin’ comin’ down the trail toward me. I stopped and hid behind a tree and watched it. It was pretty far away and just looked like a big lump of fur. I got my BB gun ready just in case. In just a little while it got near enough to see what it was. It was a ‘coon (that’s a raccoon to you city slickers out there.) Well, I watched that ‘coon lumber down the trail toward me. Now I had already figured that my BB gun did not have a lot of range to it. In other words, it wouldn’t shoot a long ways off, so I figured I’d wait until it got really close and I’d let him have it. I was already thinkin’ of what a hero I would be when I walked into the house with a big ol’ ‘coon. Not only that, I could make myself a ‘coonskin cap like Davy Crockett’s.
Well, it took that ‘coon forever to get within range of my BB gun, but when he did, I was ready. I sighted down the barrel and got my front sight between the notch of the rear sight, just like my daddy had showed me, and I slowly squeezed the trigger.
Let me stop here for a minute. Did I tell you what kind of BB gun I had? Well, it was a Daisy BB gun, but it wasn’t a Red Ryder. Now, I’m not knockin’ the Red Ryder, but the Red Ryder wasn’t the best BB gun Daisy produced. The one my daddy got me was the Daisy Ricochet Rifle. It cost $9.95. It was the good one. This gun made you a better hunter, because you only got one shot at your game. Oh, it was a repeater alright, but every time you shot it, it had a little ricochet noise that it made. If you’ve ever watched an old cowboy show on TV, then you know what the ricochet sound is. It’s the sound of a bullet when it glances off of a rock or something. Well, every time I pulled the trigger on my BB gun, it would make that ricochet sound, “Whinnnnng,” which would scare off anything in the woods. So, if you didn’t hit whatever you were aimin’ at the first time, you could forget about gettin’ a second shot. It didn’t matter how fast you could cock your gun the game you were shootin’ at would be gone. Cockin’ a BB gun is not as easy as the cowboys did it with their Winchesters. If you were a little kid, you had to put the stock of the gun on the ground, put your foot up next to the stock so it wouldn’t move, hold on to the barrel with your left hand, and then cock the gun by pullin’ up on the cockin’ lever with your right hand, all the while keepin’ your face clear of the muzzle.
Anywho, I had my bead on this big ol’ ‘coon. When he got about ten feet from me, I squeezed the trigger. “POW! WHINNNNG!” went my gun. The BB shot out at lightnin’ speed, but since I must have had super vision, I saw the BB leave the barrel and travel straight and true toward its intended target. I saw it hit the ‘coon right between the eyes. I also saw it bounce off the ‘coon’s head and bounce back and hit the tree I was standing behind. The ‘coon didn’t run. He just shook his head. I cocked the gun and aimed back at the ‘coon. He had stopped in the trail, and was lookin’ right at me. “POW! WHINNNNG!” said my BB gun. This time the BB did not bounce back. It sort of stuck between the ‘coon’s eyes, and then dislodged itself, and rolled down to the end of the ‘coon’s nose and dropped to the ground. The ‘coon didn’t even blink. Instead, he rared up (that’s reared up for you Yankees out there) and growled. Have you ever heard a ‘coon growl? Now, I don’t mean a little growl like they’re irritated. I mean a full blown “I’m fixin’ to eat you after I scratch your guts out” growl.
Well, I might have been only six years old, but I was old enough to know that the situation I was in was not good. I turned around and I started runnin’. Well, the ‘coon decided he wanted to see just how fast I could run, so he took off after me.
You know, runnin’ through the woods is really not that big of a deal, but runnin’ through the woods while lookin’ over your shoulder, is a bit more difficult. I bounced off trees like a pinball machine ball, but I never slowed down. I couldn’t because that ol’ ‘coon was hot on my heels. Finally I came to an opening with no trees to bounce off of, so I gained a little ground on that ‘coon. Eventually, I broke out of the woods, and high-tailed it home. I opened the back door and fell into the kitchen. I rolled over onto my back and I was lookin’ up at my mother.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“Woods,” I replied. I would have said more, but that was the only word I could get out with the breath I had left.
“Did you see anything?”
“Coon,” I replied again, gaspin’ it out.
“Oh,” Mom said. “Those can be mean.”
“Shot ‘im,” I said.
“My!” said Mom.
“Ran after me,” I wheezed.
“Rusty,” she said. “Don’t start telling tales now, do you hear?”
“But….”
“No buts,” she said. “Now go get ready for supper.”
“Supper?” I thought. What I really needed was a clean pair of underwear.
