Story Time by Bro. Ed includes mostly real life events.
It had been a wet fall, in fact, it was the wettest year on record for the state of Arkansas and on this particular late November morning it was unusually cold. It was still dark as the old man and young girl left the house to make the trip several hundred yards back in the woods to a deer stand the old man had built in the hot summer three years earlier. Because of the freezing temperature, not only were they carrying a rifle and the heavy backpack which contained all kinds of stuff one might need (those items were always carried but never used) the old man had brought along a bulky sleeping bag in hopes of keeping the young girl from freezing to death, as well as a fold-out stool. They moved slowly up the hill in the dark using only the light from a small flashlight to guide them on the clearly marked trail until at last they came to the twenty-foot-tall deer stand. Under the watchful eye of the old man the young girl climbed the ladder first. The old man then made two painful trips up the ladder, because in the spring he had undergone surgery on his left knee and had a bone spur removed from his left ankle, neither of which had brought much relief from the ever-present pain, to bring up the stool and sleeping bag. Once settled in, he spread the sleeping bag on the floor of the deer stand and the young girl crawled in and quickly was fast asleep. As the old man sat in the cold darkness tears filled his eyes as he lovingly looked at the sleeping bag on the floor. His thoughts raced back through the years when in another place and a long time ago he had sat with his own son, and later his daughter, in the deer woods. Having been retired for several years, he now had more time to think about his family and things he wished he had and had not done. He for sure knew he could have done better by his wife and their two children but at the same time painfully realized that life does not allow for a redo. He had - long before this cold November morning - resolved to do his best to get it right this time.
At last the sun began to rise and light began to push the darkness away. Although the old man had hunted from this stand, no one had ever harvested a deer here. The old man was hopeful that this just might be the day. Now the young girl sleeping in the bag on the floor was no stranger to deer hunting even though she was just nine years old. She had taken her first deer with a crossbow when she was seven and number two with a rifle at age eight, as well as, number three, a four-point, last month with a muzzleloader. At last the quietness of a calm morning was broken by the sound of a gray squirrel running around as it forged for an acorn on the forest floor. Then suddenly in the distance the old man caught sight of antlers as a buck was moving through the woods some hundred yards away. Very softly he called the young girl by name as he touched the sleeping bag, gently wakening her. She knew why they were there and was immediately awake. She stood slowly and quietly to her feet and began searching the woods for a sight of the buck as the old man lifted the rifle to the shooting window. But, the buck quickly disappeared in a valley below. The girl never saw the deer and the old man knew it would have been the biggest buck yet for her. The two of them stood side by side in the cold on that November morning as each had their thoughts of what might have been. After what seemed a long time, though in reality no more than five minutes, the buck suddenly reappears. This time the young girl catches sight of the buck as it slowly walks down the valley and is now in plain sight. As she positions the rifle and gets ready for a shot, the old man makes a grunt sound stopping the buck in its tracks. The old man - looking through his binoculars - has a full view of the deer, but she cannot find the buck in the scope. The deer begins to walk again and once more he stopped the buck by the grunt sound, but again the girl cannot get a shot. This happens two more times as the deer moves out of sight. Just then that buck slowly turns around and begins to retrace his tracks. When the deer seemed to be in a spot where she could get a good shot, the old man gave another grunt and stopped the deer for the last time. With the buck standing broadside at one hundred ten yards the girl takes the shot. She thought she hit it but was not sure. Once more on this cold morning tears began gathering in the eyes of the old man, but this time they were tears of joy because as he watched through the binoculars, he knew the young girl had just gotten her biggest buck yet because he saw it fall after running about forty yards. Before the two of them climbed down the ladder the old man and young girl bowed their heads and thanked God for the privilege of enjoying what He had created and for making memories they will cherish. And, maybe someday, bring tears to the eyes of an older woman as she looks back on this experience with the grandfather who loved her so much and strived to get it right!
