Both of us were nine at the time, impressionable if not gullible, and we were awed by the significance of the event…for our first deer hunt we alone were awarded the honor of accompanying our fathers to the woods to learn how to hunt whitetails and the Santa Claus Buck.
“And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm
In the heart of the furnace roar.
He wore a smile you could see a mile
And he said, “Please close that door.
It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear
You’ll let in the cold and storm.
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee,
It’s the first time I’ve been warm.”
Uncle Wally’s eyes glittered in the lantern light as he read The Cremation of Sam McGee, a 50-year tradition in our family to christen the new deer season. Outside, a cold wind ruffled and snapped the sides of Dad’s old umbrella tent while a fine snow ticked against the canvas. Despite the two feet of straw layering the tent floor and the sleeping bags pulled tight to our chins, Bob and I shivered in our long woolen underwear and grinned at the poem’s climax.
Already a foot of new snow brightened the woods and stuck to the branches like fresh paint. Dad said nature was sprucing up the forest and painting the woods white for our first deer hunt. Bedded down for a frigid winter night in Michigan, we had come of age to hunt the 40with our fathers and their older brother Harry, nicknamed Kook for reasons inscrutable to us at the time.
Kook was a conundrum. Sporting Teddy Roosevelt glasses and a cigar clamped between his teeth, he looked like he knew more than you did. Distant, clipped in manner and tone to youngsters like us, you were never sure if he liked you. I only knew that he liked Triscuits and a Single Budweiser after work, once gave his wife waders, a minnow bucket and spinners for her birthday, and kept a cardboard money box on top of his first television, quarter an hour if you wanted to watch, my first experience with pay-per-view. Bob and I were a little afraid of him. Authoritative and definite, what he said we believed and what he ordered we did. Abraham had nothing on us.
Both of us were nine at the time, impressionable if not gullible, and we were awed by the significance of the event. Like the other young hunters of the family who had preceded us, for our first deer hunt we alone were awarded the honor of accompanying our fathers to the woods to learn how to hunt whitetails and the Santa Claus Buck.
Of course, back then most boys our age knew something about hunting. Living in a small town in northern Michigan meant plenty of plinking with bb guns and .22s out in the backyard at squirrels, rabbits, gophers and Pirate, our famous burlap deer. Designed by Kook, it was the Frankenstein of decoys.
Stuffed with straw and jerry-rigged with metal loops to slide on a stretch of clothesline at the back of the property, the decoy sported stick legs, a big set of rattling antlers and a black eye patch to test our marksmanship. From a distance you’d swear he were winking at you. A loop in the front allowed one of us to attach a line and pull it past the other at varying speeds, stopping, starting and running in a hobbyhorse sort of way. Awaiting autumn and hunting season as if they were Christmas, we spent many a summer afternoon at “Pirate Practice” to sharpen our shooting skills.
Our training began in earnest in the fall. During duck season our fathers shook sleep out of our eyes for dawn hunts and schooled us in the importance of wind direction, decoy arrangement and gun safety. We lugged wet burlap sacks full of Herter’s decoys, wooden and heavy, through the marsh and winced at duck blind coffee that burned our throats.
“What’s that one?”
“Mallard.”
“Drake or hen.”
“Drake, I think.”
“How do you know?”
“It had a green head.”
“Good boy.”
Other days we trudged through thick grouse cover or marched in a row across pheasant fields, fathers beside sons.
“Hen or rooster?”
“Hen.”
“How do you know?”
“You didn’t shoot?”
“Not good enough.”
“No cackle, all brown, shorter tail.”
“Good boy.”
The quizzes varied from hunt to hunt. Bird recognition, more gun safety, compass reading, animal sounds and tracks, proper clothing, first aid … our fathers drilled the rules of survival and sportsmarnship into us. Four “good boys” for each of us in a day resulted in the privilege of shooting their guns. We relished the moment, even when the kick of their Winchester 97s bruised our shoulders and nearly knocked us down. Before long we shared a single-shot 20 gauge and critiqued each other on form and style, both of us soon claiming our share of birds.
Quick studies, Bob and I broke the “good boy” record set by our older brothers and were allowed to attend deer camp at an earlier age than anyone else in the family There was little doubt that we were destined to shoot the Santa Claus Buck.
For what we knew, though, the Santa Claus Buck may as well have been in Russia. It was “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” As if by gag order, no one in the family spoke openly or candidly about the animal to anyone who hadn’t hunted it, a pact of silence that frustrated us.
Even Kook, who supposedly glimpsed the buck first, was tight-lipped. “You’ll know him when you see him” was about all we could get out of him.
The mythology went that only first-year hunters encountered the monster buck and always on the first day at first light. And they always missed, except for Kook, who as an adult glimpsed the animal but sensing something “magical” about it, declined to shoot. Two generations of our family had failed to claim the trophy and over the years whispers of invulnerable and invincible had enhanced the myth. Unable to penetrate the secrecy, the best we could do was wait our turn.
The 40 was mostly wooded, except for a small meadow in the middle, and boasted a trout stream clean enough to drink that zigzagged the property like a discarded ribbon left on the forest floor. Ridges ran a good portion of the woods and pointed to the meadow where a beaver dam widened the stream and created a small swamp. Home of the Santa Claus Buck, Kook called it the North Pole, the very spot where he first encountered the legendary deer and the very spot where Bob and I would hunt.
During the summer preceding our first whitetail hunt, our dads, sometimes accompanied by Kook, took us to the 40 to complete our training. We learned how to split and stack wood, pick and clear shooting lanes, and determine wind direction with milkweed plumes and cattail fuzz. We studied deer trails and droppings and hunted for scrapes and run lines. I could start a fire with friction, build a lean-to and pitch a tent in the dark I knew I would eat white pine bark in a pinch and cook cattail roots if necessary. I carried a mirror for signaling, more food than necessary, a knife, collapsible cup, flashlight and survival kit complete with fishhooks and line.
We were cautioned never to dangle a white handkerchief from our back pockets and never to leave the woods at twilight. More often than not we would place a slug in Pirate at 50 yards and sometimes through the eye patch. And specifically at Kook’s order, we cleared all brush and woods debris out from under a single strand of chest-high wire that supposedly would funnel the Santa Claus Buck to our blind. By summer’s end we were ready.
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Uncle Wally closed the book and laughed. “I always like a surprise ending, don’t you? Alright, lights out,” he ordered, snuffing the lantern. “You’ll want to get up early if you expect to see St. Nick in the morning.” Neither of us could sleep, a couple of cold and shivering Sam McGees anticipating the morning hunt.
Daybreak found us huddled together under a large oak on the edge of the swamp in the middle of the North Pole. Overcast and cold, heavy dark clouds floated in the sky like pieces of grey ice. Snow swirled across us in a blustery wind, making it difficult to see, and stuck to our coats. My hands ached from holding the cold gun and when Bob spoke, I could see his breath.
“Is it my turn yet?”
“No.” The plan was to take turns, an hour on, an hour off.
“I still have 20 minutes,” I replied, clutching the shotgun, careful to keep my hand away from the hammer.
“You just keep looking for old Mr. Claus.”
An hour into dawn, I spotted something sliding along the fence line. I nudged Bob.
“Over there,” I whispered, nearly paralyzed by what I saw.
Bob’s mouth dropped. Seventy-five yards out, the buck angled toward us just like Kook predicted. Moving awkwardly as if crippled, the deer stumbled and bobbed in a herky-jerky gait. He wore a fluffy white beard, enormous antlers and a red hat tipped with a white ball. Oddly familiar in the grey light, one of his eyes seemed to squint or wink.
“It’s him!” Bob blurted.
“Shoot!” I rasped.
At the shot the buck flinched and stopped. A flap of what appeared to be brown fur dangled from his shoulder and fluttered in the wind where the slug had entered.
“I hit him!”
Seconds later the buck continued to stagger, moving down the fence.
“My turn.”
Buckshot already in hand, I grabbed the gun, loaded and fired. Again, the buck stopped, peppered with holes but still standing, seemingly impervious to injury. Dumbfounded, Bob and I stared at each other in disbelief when the animal hobbled off. Throwing training to the wind, within minutes we rushed to where the buck had stood. No hair, no blood, no footprints, nothing except scattered bits of straw that we assumed the deer had foraged from a neighboring field.
“He must be made of magic,” Bob concluded.
Our Dads and Kook awaited us at camp. “See anything, boys?” Dad asked, trying to keep his lower lip from trembling.
“We thought we heard shooting.” Uncle Wally turned to hide his mirth. By now Kook was guffawing, pointing at Pirate propped against a tree sporting a beard and Santa hat, burlap waving in the breeze like a rag doll’s arm where the slug and buckshot had entered. We’d been duped.
Red-faced, we grinned sheepishly, realizing we just had been initiated into the secret fraternity of the Santa Claus Buck, Kook’s crazy prank to keep us on the right side of humility.
“Now you know why I had you keep the fence path clean all summer. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to pull our friend here along the wire,” said Kook, slapping each of us on the back.
“If it’s any consolation, you’re not the first in the family to fall for this stunt,” he added, nodding at his younger brothers. “If I recall, they were shaking so badly they missed altogether whereas you two were right on the money. A real deer would’ve been dead as a doornail. Next time you shoot something with a beard, though, make sure it’s a turkey!” Lighting his “victory” cigar with a cocky flourish, Kook sauntered off chuckling to himself.
A couple nights later after each claiming a real buck, Bob and I huddled in our tent and again laughed at each other before shivering off to sleep. In the morning we would help our fathers tear down camp and pack the truck for the journey home while Kook hunted the last few hours of the weekend. Except for some sort of ruckus that awoke me near dawn, porcupines I figured, I slept like a dead man.
Packed by late morning, we nursed bitter coffee and watched Kook trudge through the snow toward us. Ten yards out he stopped, removed a cigar from his mouth and spoke confidently.
“Nice try, boys.”
“What?”
“You didn’t think I was going to fall for my own trick and take a shot at Pirate, did you? Where’s the coffee?”
“Here.” Dad poured him a cup. “Now what are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about. Where’s Wally?”
“We forgot to pack Pirate. He went to get him.”
“I’ll bet he did.” Kook blew on his coffee, sipped and smiled smugly. ”You could’ve at least put the haton him right instead of sticking it on one tine.”
Confused, Dad frowned. “Kook, in God’s name, what the hell are you talking about?”
Uncle Wally whistled from behind the buck. ”You better take a look at this!” he yelled. “Old Eye Patch looks like he went a couple of rounds with Joe Louis!”
What was left wouldn’t have filled a bushel basket. Torn in half; ripped and gored, burlap spilling straw across the snow, the decoy looked like it’d been attacked by a bull. All that was missing was a matador.
Uncle Wally leaned and picked up the fake beard.
“Talk about a haymaker. Pirate looks like he ran into the real Santa Claus Buck. I wonder where his hat went to?”
Dad cocked an eyebrow at Kook, whose face blanched like a watercolor caught in a rainstorm.
“Son of a bitch!” he swore, throwing his cigar into the snow and storming off after realizing the answer to Uncle Wally’s question.
“How’s that poem go?” Dad called after him, grinning. “‘There are strange things done… ‘” Before he could finish, our laughter echoed all the way to the North Pole.
There’s something about the deer-hunting experience, indefinable yet undeniable, which lends itself to the telling of exciting tales. This book offers abundant examples of the manner in which the quest for whitetails extends beyond the field to the comfort of the fireside. It includes more than 40 sagas which stir the soul, tickle the funny bone, or transport the reader to scenes of grandeur and moments of glory. Buy Now
