Wintersong
You will always be my children; I will always be your pa.
Big Empty Encounter
A long stretch of dark, empty woods stood between them and the truck, and the big bear kept edging nearer, so close now they could hear his nasally whine and the soft rumbling in his throat.
Bullets and Blessings: An Easter to Remember
The fork-horn buck was big trouble, even after he was dead, and the wild stories about the little deer rattled around town like
a rock in a milk pail.
The Steakhouse Stickup
Hugo, Minnesota, straight up U.S. 61, the murderous old two-lane between St. Paul and Duluth. Up and down some timbered red-iron hills, around others, potholed, icy sometimes, frosty others, slick always, so deadly Bob Dylan wrote it into a song: “God said to Abraham,...
Greatest North American Hunting Trip Ever
It was the greatest North American hunting trip ever, though the men’s survival was always in doubt. Fall of 1804, Meriwether Lewis was halfway up the Missouri, St. Louis to Great Falls, though he could not name the Great Falls until he had seen them, yet many months...
Joshua Slocum: Lost At Sea
His interests were narrow but deep—deep as the deep blue sea. Joshua Slocum was born to a sea-faring life in 1844, “on a cold spot on coldest North Mountain on a cold February 20,” back when ships were wood and men were iron. His granddaddy was an American Quaker, a...
Confessions of a Lead-Slinging Luddite
What if I told you more white-tailed deer have been taken with an 1894 30-30 Winchester than all the other sundry deer hunting cartridges combined? What if I told you that you could hunt worldwide with a battery of only three rifles, a 22 Long Rifle from 1887, a 7...
Cold Mornings on the Little Choptank
It’s icy on the river, but with geese hovering above, it’s a mighty good place to be.
A Cat and His Hats
Other hats await, too. Hats I will someday own. I don’t read the girly magazines any longer, but I’m still dog-earing and sweating up the catalogs. The boys blew ashore just a little after four. They had started out in the wee hours aboard the Marsh Hen, a...