Interesting Way To Ruin A Hunt

[FIELD ETHOS]

Interesting Way to Ruin a Hunt | Field Ethos

By Kyle Wright Good bucks on camera in August don’t always stick around until October, but this one…

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By Kyle Wright

Good bucks on camera in August don’t always stick around until October, but this one did. He first showed up in a bachelor group with a couple of buddies. Those two eventually left for either greener pastures or hotter does, but this one stayed. And, because the buck steadfastly maintained his summer feeding pattern into the fall and wasn’t in the least bit camera-shy, I got to watch him shed first his velvet and later his summer coat. I learned his habits and picked up on his preferences. Never have I been more confident of my chances with a deer; I practically had him home and hung above the fireplace.

I hunted the buck on a couple of the cooler evenings, but I decided to wait until Oklahoma’s muzzleloader season opened before I hunted him on a morning. Opening day of muzzleloader season would feature a full moon, but it was the right time of year to be in the woods, and I wasn’t about to waste an opportunity to hunt with a rifle in my hands.

To access the ladder stand from which I’d be hunting the buck, I’d park my pickup at the edge of a fallow field and skirt its edge, walking underneath a canopy of live oaks at the head of a draw, before dropping down and creeping across a few yards of open ground. I stepped out of the truck that morning and was met with a whisper of west wind, ideal for the stand I intended to sit. I shivered for the first time that fall and inched my jacket’s zipper closer to my chin.

I didn’t bother with a head lamp for the walk in; the full moon was plenty bright enough to light the way. I was looking down, focused on where I placed my feet, when another whisper of wind, this one from the north, made me look up. The north wind was less than ideal for my stand, and I decided to wait until it blew itself out before continuing. Scanning the skyline, my eyes were drawn to the canopy I was soon to walk beneath. There, hanging from the canopy’s uppermost branches and silhouetted against the full moon, was a body on the end of a rope. I felt another breeze of that north wind and watched in horror as it swung and spun the corpse.

The plausible explanation came to me in a flash. The guy whose place I was hunting had made his money employing men with strong backs, if not sharp minds, and one of them, disgruntled and down on his luck—and probably drunk to boot—had probably been fired from his job and decided to make a statement by ending his life on his employer’s property.

My mind raced with responsibility. What was I supposed to do? Call the authorities? Cut down the corpse? It wouldn’t be daylight for an hour, at least. Could I even do what needed to be done in the dark? I debated and finally decided that I couldn’t let the poor soul swing another second. I ran back to my pickup and pulled it around until its bed was directly below the body. Then I climbed into the back and reached up for the rope.

When I did, another gust of wind blew the body against me. It wasn’t the weight of human flesh I felt, though. The body was insubstantial, its limbs plastic and hollow. What was going on here? I stepped up and onto the edge of the truck bed and shined a flashlight. My beam fell upon a mannequin’s featureless face. And that’s when I remembered a comment made in passing a few weeks previous by the man whose place I was hunting.

“I’m taking my grandkids on a Halloween hayride this year, and I’ve got some surprises planned for them. I’m going to scare those poor kids to death.”

 

[Rubberhead]

Sorry @FIELD ETHOS if this is a high-jack but your thread reminded me of this. The events were from 2001 but I first posted it in 2013 on a duck site. It is 100% true.

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It was January 3rd, 2001 when Alan and I launched my little duck boat. Alan lives on the west coast but usually visits his mother in Charleston over Christmas and makes time to spend a morning or two on the water.

We were there a little early and it was a weekday but we were the first and only rig at the usually-crowded landing. That combined with a quiet, still fog left us both with a creepy feeling. Something just didn’t feel right. We even made mention of it to each other and decided to take our time going down the river. We didn’t want to risk getting into trouble when we were the only ones on the water. Besides, there was no one to race to our desired spot.

Halfway down we rounded a corner only to see a boat adrift mid-river. He must have used the landing on the ICWW because, like I said, there were no other rigs parked when we launched. The driver flagged us down with a q-beam. We approached – that sense of dread creeping back into our forethoughts. The man asked if either of us were someone by name – a name I can’t remember. We told him no. He asked if we knew him. No, again. I pumped him for details but the stranger got strangely aloof. I wanted to know if he was with the police or DNR. He said no but that he was ‘working with them’. We continued down the river leaving the strange encounter behind us.

The sun burned off the fog and the disquieted feeling he’d had in the dark. Only from looking at my journal do I know that we didn’t kill a duck that morning. It was only when we got back to the landing that we began to put the pieces together.

The landing was absolutely swarming with sheriffs, their deputies, a few highway patrol and a lot of DNR law enforcement. My truck was the only rig with a trailer in the otherwise crowded parking lot. After pulling up to the dock, I was told that I couldn’t land my boat there. Again, little explanation was offered even after trying to pry. During the conversation with the apparent man-in-charge, a helicopter had come up river and was now hovering over the ramp. The headman’s radio came to life and I overheard the pilot saying that he could see the truck in the water at the bottom of the ramp.

It turns out the man whose name I can’t remember had left a suicide note at home detailing his plans and had driven his truck into the water at the landing. Alan and I had literally launched our duck boat right over the top of his truck and his body. They still wouldn’t let me land the boat so Alan drove my trailer to the landing on the ICWW and I met him there with the boat. I was a little angry. The landing is a 30+ minute boat ride, in the cold and I was close to out-of-gas by the time I got there. That morning changed me, though.

I can’t stand near a stranger, or talk with a casual acquaintance without wondering if they aren’t hiding the same torture that the man in the truck must have felt. I wonder if he hid it from his friends and family or did they suspect he might do what he did? I wonder if I would, again, arrive just a few minutes too late to be of any help to the next person that might need me.

If anything, I owe a thanks to the man whose name I can’t remember for at least making me more aware of those around me.