AN ARKANSAS HUNTER'S TALE


Big Daddy

"Durn dogs, chasing deer again. Wish I could catch um." He didn't like the idea of hunters using dogs for hunting. He said most of the time they just run the deer out of the area and then no one can hunt them.

He went back to fixing the pump. The dogs were getting closer. Again he looked out of the pump house door. There they were, just below the tree line of the ridge. He couldn't see a deer but by the way they were barking, they had one on the chase.

Once again he went back to work on the pump. Something hard hit the side of the pump house.

"What the..." This time he left his job for a closer inspection of where or what made that noise. A deer had run into a thicket of vines and brush at the back of the pump house and was fighting for his life. He was tangled so tight that the dogs would surely have a kill if something weren't done.

Daddy began to yell and throw rocks at the dogs. Caught off guard by the strange human suddenly appearing, the dogs halted in their tracks. With a ferocious yell from Daddy, the dogs turned and ran back in the direction they had come. Without thinking, Daddy ran over to the deer and grabbed his antlers. The deer was so hot and tired, he didn't put up much of a fight. Daddy knew it would be a matter of time before he got his second wind, until then, what was he going to do? He had heard of deers attacking and seriously wounding people. Here he was, below the hill, where no one could hear or see him holding on to a live deer's antlers.

"Well, shucks, I got to take you home." He knew once at the house, Mama would hear him and come to help.

The poor deer had other plans. He decided at that instant he wanted to go the other way. Now the fight was on.

Daddy is an average-size man. To us kids, he is a giant of a man. His shoulders are huge; how else could he carry two one-hundred-pound sacks of feed from the truck to the feed barn. He is stronger than Hercules. We would swear to that. We saw him wrestle a full-grown cow to the ground when she went after our baby sister, who

The copyright of the article AN ARKANSAS HUNTER'S TALE in Arkansas is owned by Bertha Sutliff. Permission to republish AN ARKANSAS HUNTER'S TALE in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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