It was dawn. It had just gotten light enough that I could legally shoot. And I was sitting on a tree-stand about 6 feet off the ground trying not to breathe so loudly and wishing that the frost would stop forming on my eye lashes.
Deer hunting: it's got to be one of the most pleasant experiences I've ever suffered through.
As I sat there on the stand, I tried hard to stay awake. It was far enough to the ground that I didn't want to roll off. There was a little bit of left over snow on the ground. It was about 20 degrees.
I'd been in the tree since about 6:30 a.m. I was positioned to be able to scan a small apple orchard on the western slopes of the Clinch Mountains. I peered through the morning fog, looking for movement. If I saw something, I only had one shot: it was muzzle loader season. It was about 7:15...
Finally I saw something. From the color and the slow, ambering motions I was almost positive it was a deer. I had my rifle ready. It came closer.
I tried to concentrate: I wanted it as close as possible, but I didn't want to spook it or let it catch my scent.
It was 50, maybe 60, yards away in the leafless underbrush. It was still moving, but it had changed its direction and was moving away at an angle.
"Well," I thought, "My wife makes the best deer jerky in the world and if I'm gonna get anymore this year, this is my last chance..."
I pulled the trigger. The hammer came down and powder sparked. I coughed on the smoke and tried to focus my now-watering eyes on the animal.
"ARE YOU NUTS?!?"
The "deer" was moving toward my tree-stand at a fair pace.
"You should have the skin flailed offa you," he said. "If I had my Bowie knife with me I'd amputate your trigger finger. They shouldn't let near-sighted, half-witted imbeciles like you roam free in the woods with a firearm."
The unhappy individual was now standing at the foot of my tree, questioning my intellectual ability and my parentage in a volume that I was sure had ended my slim chance of taking a deer and had possibly awakened the residents of the general vicinity. I climbed down to face him... He looked a little familiar, but I couldn't place him. He had on an old brownish, quilted flannel shirt, boots that came up to just below his knees and seemed to be made of buckskin and tan-colored, cotton pants with the legs tucked down into his boots.
