Author’s Note
There is no intention whatsoever in this story, to degrade or in any way make fun of Andy’s intellect. Quite the contrary, for Andy Dee was not only intelligent, but his heart was formed of pure gold. No, his English was far, far less than perfect but that’s it. Other than that, old Andy, who will forever be a friend to our family, especially my son, is among the greatest people I’ve ever had the joy of befriending and there are darn few on the list…
Somehow, I have the feeling readers will grow, just from the relating of the story, to love Andy Dee as we do, even today and no doubt, many will wish they too, could have shared a time hunting with him… You’d not forget it either.
The Flatlanders
If you relocate anywhere west of the Rockies, “proving” yourself to a cowboy takes about the same amount of time as obtaining a bachelor’s degree — four years! At least with a rifle, for to them you’re just a misfit; a flatlander who probably shouldn’t own a rifle.
I moved my family to eastern Oregon where we spent four years in the scenic, Powder River Valley. Wherein I, and my son, learned the true meaning of: “Prove yourself to me, Mister,” from a cowboy, logger, sometimes guide, named Andy Dennis. And although I didn’t worry then or ever before about proving myself to anyone, it must have been written in our life’s script, for we did, however unintentionally…
The Powder River Valley. and the wilderness of the Eagle Caps are vast. Huge country that can eat a man up and never spit him out. Unforgiving at best should one make any error in navigation, but fine elk and mule deer country.
My career as an outdoor writer needed a facelift, more exotic game animals such as pronghorn, elk and the like. The allure of the west seemed to beckon, relentlessly. The 30-inch racked muley bucks, the bugling royal bulls of the Eagle Caps. All of it called to me, hauntingly, relentlessly, and so it goes…
My son, Justin, and I, knew lickety-split that this country would be tough to hunt, to conquer and become intimately familiar with. To even survive were we not very cautious where we wandered. We’d talked about all of this and concluded we’d better befriend someone who knew the country or settle on frustrating our predatory taste buds on a winter’s supply of boring beef. This is where Andy Dee came in…
We were sighting-in our rifles during late summer, our first in Oregon, at a rifle range just off the famed Oregon Trail, Flagstaff Hill specifically. Readying our rifles for the deer and elk seasons, not too far off. Justin had drawn a buck tag and I, an elk and a buck tag.
Although my son and I knew our rifles and deer hunting skills fared well in the deer woods of the east, this was a whole new “ballgame.” On the biggest “field” we’d ever seen! The vastness and seemingly never-ending expanses of mountains were overwhelming, and we felt as though we may forever remain “strangers” to the mountains, the high desert and the endless canyons that are eastern Oregon. We felt certain we would need someone to show us the hidden pockets, the high meadows of elk; the haunts of the 30-inch muley bucks.
A wiry, little cowboy type seemed to be watching as Justin shot. His Ruger 7 x 57mm was performing extremely well, as usual, and printing neat, nickel-size clusters of three holes each.
“What’s th’ youngun shootin’?”
I looked over at the stranger just as he spat a lengthy stream of tobacco juice into the crusted sand. “Ruger, model seventy-seven.” I said, looking back toward Justin.
“Caliber?”
Justin cut in to answer, smiled and said, “A Ruger seven by fifty seven mauser.”
My sensitive gut told me this guy could be dangerously abrasive as I watched him amble, bow-legged, toward us. My muscles went taut in their readiness for what might transpire.
“Mind?” he asked as he reached out for Justin’s Ruger. “Old mauser caliber, huh? Thing’s a bunchin’ ‘em up right nice out there onna target, hain’t it?”
“Yes!” Justin said, cutting me off again, “Pop here works pretty hard at getting all our rifles shooting that way!”
The grubby little cowboy squinted one eye, spat and drawled, “Ya fellers frum ’round here somewheres?”
I hesitated, looked down at Justin then back into his eyes and answered, no doubt sounding defensive, “No, why?”
“Where y’all frum then?” he asked, both eyes now open wide and staring.
“Pennsylvania. Northern mountains of Pennsylvania. I’m an outdoor writer. Moved here for the elk and deer hunting.”
He laughed as though something was hurting him, exposing dark morsels of snuff between the spaces of his lower teeth. “Flatlanders, huh? Well lemme tell ya fellers, yer gonna have a rough go a findin’ elk in ‘nis country. Hain’t like deer, ya know? Why the smelly bastards might spook and run five-hunert yard, or five mowl! Guy never knows fer sure jess how fer the herd’ll go fore they settle down.”
Confidentially, I said, “I’ve heard that numerous times but it doesn’t worry me. We’ll do okay. We’re used to the wise, old whitetailed bucks of the eastern big woods.”
“Mister, taint gonna do ya’s a bit o good up there in the timbers with’n the elk. Why y’all a be wishun ya had help, b’lieve you me! I hain’t never seen a flatlander yet done much good with elk in th’ timber, or anywheres else! Includin’ those dudes I took back inta the Blues that thought they was all so dadblamed hot with the huntin’ smarts!”
I could have tied up a perfect Muddler Minnow with the stiff hairs standing up on the back of my neck! I asked sharply, “You guide, do you?”
“Some. Not fer a livin’ though. I’mma faller, ya know, a logger? Why, I spend half’n ma life back in there where the elk spend better’n half theirs. Why? Thinkin’ bout hirin’ on a local ta takes ya’s in?”
His constant references to our being flatlanders had me hot under the collar. Justin obviously detected that, for he cut in. “Mister, Pop here needs little in the way of help when it comes to hunting. We’ll do alright.”
“Son,” he drawled after another gushing spat of snuff, “I hain’t tryin’ ta afend you two fellers, but elk’er tough critters ta hunt. An when ya does find ‘em, ya might havta shoot, fur, mebbe five hunert yard! Nen, chase the smelly birds five mowl if’n ya miss! A flatlander juss hain’t usta at there kinda shootin’, or a’chasin’! I know, I done taken ‘em in.”
“Mister!” I said sharply, “It’s that flatlander crappola that gets my goat with you cow punchers! The mountains we come from are just as steep as these here in the west! It’s just not as far to their tops, back home, that’s all! But the thick woods, the intelligence of the whitetails and the fairly common snap shooting makes it all balance evenly on this man’s scale!” My control was escaping me.
“What’s yer name?” he asked, offering me his calloused, knarled hand.
“Joe. Joe Parry. And this is my son, Justin.”
“Andy Dee’s ma name. Tellya what. I hain’t loggin n’more this season. Be a home listenin’ ta the old woman a bellern at me all winter long. How’s about if’n you gentamen get tired a chasin’ elk hither thither, y’all gimme a whistle and owl be obligin’ ta show ya both the ropes, a meanin’ elk ropes?”
I took the scrawled phone number he’d written on a piece of wrinkled paper towel reluctantly, not wanting to give the slightest hint we may need his help. “I’ll take your number, Andy, but I doubt we’ll be needing your help.”
“Call me anyways, would ya? You boys wouldn’t mind me taggin’ along, mebbe savin’ me from a bellern wife, bless’n her soul, would ya now? Fact, gimme a call jus afore deer an’ owl show ya ta a few good places. We’ll talk elk then, whaddya say?” He smiled, spat another load of snuff juice into the crusted sand with a “splat!,” and added, “Well, how’s about it?”
I smiled, trying as hard as I could to make it appear genuine, though it probably didn’t since I was still irked with his references to flatlanders…
Justin and I finished fine-tuning our Rugers, then left for home. Along the way we spoke of the grubby, little, snuff-rubbing, obnoxious, abrasive cowboy that drove the English language into the Hell of Disgrace. Justin looked over at me, smiling, and asked, “Did you like that guy, Pop?”
“Not a bit at the start, Justin! In fact, I had these bloody visions of my knuckles buried right in his snuff-locker! Somewhere behind his lower lip!
”
Justin broke into laughter. “I know, Pop! I could see it in your eyes you were about to lose it! I don’t think he really meant any harm though, do you? He was just a touch crude.”
“Aw, he seemed alright, I guess. It just got my blood running hot, why him putting us into a category like that! Especially his saying we might have trouble with the long shots because we’re flatlanders! We know better than that don’t we, Partner?”
We spent weeks preparing ourselves for buck season. We poured over maps, scouted miles of high desert and even more miles of alpine timber country. The vastness of the eastern Oregon country was overwhelming, at best, mind-boggling. Admittedly, we were confused about where to hunt more than we were about how to hunt…
One afternoon I asked Justin, “Figure we ought to call that Andy fellow?”
“Up to you, Pop, but it probably wouldn’t hurt.”
“I hate giving the little weasel the satisfaction,” I said, “but I’ll call him and see if he still wants to tag along.”
Andy agreed. “I’d love ta join your fellers. Tell ya what, owl pick y’all up in ma rig an’ do the drivin’. Be easier thataways, if’n it’s okay with you?”
“I’ll take care of your gas, Andy. That’s the only way it will be okay with us!”
“No matter Joe. I’ll be there Saturday, ’bout five in the A of M, okay?”
“Fine, Andy, and thank you.”
Our deer hunt was set and we may or may not have what would be an advantage, that being Andy’s knowledge of the territory. “Do you figure we did the right thing, Pop?”
“I think so, son. That Sumpter unit covers a lot of big country and with Andy’s help we can save a lot of time, a lot of trial and error hunting which could well turn out to be mostly errors. It’ll afford us an opportunity to learn some of the country, too, then we can go it alone after that.”
“I just hope he didn’t get the impression we need him to help us get our deer, Pop. Think he thinks that?”
“No, I don’t think so. I just hope he doesn’t pound our ears with that flatlander stuff! We ought to be fine, though. I just think Andy likes showing off the country and his hunting smarts?”
“I hope you’re right, Pop! I sure don’t want some snuff-snorting cowboy to ruin our first mule deer hunt!”
“Justin, you’re as fine a hunter as there is in any country and you’ve taken well to the years of hard-learned lessons. No man can ruin your hunt. No man, Partner!”
Opening morning seemed a long time arriving. You’d think a man, some forty-years a hunter, would’ve grown up some, but no. His nights before any hunt are always restless or without sleep at all.
4 A.M. Saturday morning: “Good morning, Pop! Up all night, again, I see?”
“Yes! Good morning to you. Hey, what are you doing with Pap’s old .300 Savage?” My father, his grandfather, had died that past June. Justin missed him terribly and continued trying to make Grandfather proud even after he was gone.
“I’m gonna use it today, Pop. In Pap’s honor! It’ll shoot as well as my Ruger mauser, just not as far. Besides, old Pap never shot a buck with this rifle and it would be nice to get it its first kill.”
“War did that to Pap, Justin. That thing sighted in?”
“Yep! Shoots like a dream. Wanna see the groups?”
I declined and said, “No time now. Go on into the kitchen, breakfast is on the table.”
Andy showed at 4:45 A.M.: “Come on in Andy, coffee?”
We sat drinking cup after cup of authoritative coffee and discussing Andy’s plans for our hunt.
“Gonna start the mornin’ up an’ on ol’ Dooley Mountain. Inna burn. Deer hain’t down low yet an’ airs aplenty a feed fer ‘em inna burn. If’n that don’t put venison onna ol’ pole, we’ll be a headin’ down ta th’ Burnt River area.
“Now it’sa still plenty warm down air, so’s we’ll havta be a watchin’ fer rattlers. Damn place’s thick with ‘em! Little bastards! But we’ll jus havta watch our steppin’ an’ be careful like.”
“Just one thing to get straight, Andy.”
“Shoot!”
“Justin nor I plan on hunting from the cab of your truck. We know that’s the way with a lot of you western hunters but we prefer going it on foot.”
“Well, I’ll be snake bit! Ya two eastern boys’re out ta win ol’ Andrew’s heart, now hain’t ya? I was a hopin’ ya two liked th’ ol’ waysa deer huntin’. You betchya bagolly we’ll walk ‘er, you betchya!”
The stench of Andy’s truck was about all Justin and I could bear. It reeked of long-forgotten, rotting lunches, mixed with nostril-burning, sinus-destroying fumes of chain saw fuel with, perhaps, a generous splash of snuff juice aka snoose juice?
When Andy switched on the ignition, the blast from the truck radio, was nearly homicidal! “Just sit tight air fellers an’ leave the drivin’ to ol’ Andrew!” He laughed and stuck his foot into the carburetor, sending us tight against the back of the seat!
I felt something stabbing me in the small of my back and pulled a plastic “bottle” from between the seat and the back. The dashboard lights revealed it contents to be a very dark liquid. Andy, upon seeing me with the “bottle” said, “Here! Gimme at air jug. That’s me spittin’ bottle. Boy, the wife hates when agits it all overn the winda!”
I handed it to Andy as though it contained toxic waste or Black Plague juice and said, “All yours, Andy!”
“Thanks. Wife says at air bottle makes her sick ta see it!” He laughed, opened the “bottle” and poured it out the window, probably forever staining the roadway over Dooley Mountain?
As we followed a God-forsaken logging road atop Dooley Mountain, I noticed Andy rarely watched where he was driving. Justin and I were painfully nervous and couldn’t wait to hunt on foot…
“Hain’t a gonna be a hair a movin’ up here, today!” Andy said. “Too damned dry! Coyotes mebbe, nuttin’ else! Why speakin’ a th’ devils, airs one a’runnin’ roun’ down air now!” He jumped from the truck and it continued along several yards without a driver behind the wheel! Justin tramped on the brake as I watched Andy stuff a round into his 7mm magnum. The rifle belched a round down into the dry canyon. “Why a missed that little S.O.B.!”
Justin jumped from the truck, stuffed two rounds into the old Savage and hurriedly asked Andy, “May I?”
“Go!” Andy yelled, “he’s a high tail’n ‘er now!”
Justin knew how to take a bead on steep angle shots, up or down. And I had all the confidence in the world with what he was about to do. He mounted the Savage to his shoulder, followed the trotting coyote smoothly with both eyes open and in no time, the Savage barked.
A cloud of dust on the off-side of the coyote told the story as the coyote rolled, almost to the canyon floor. “Well I’ll be hot damned! Deader’n a makerelli!” He spat snoose into the dusty ground without further comment about the outstanding shot and said, “Let’s be a’headin’ for the Burnt. Hain’t nuttin’ up thisaways..” I smiled and winked at Justin…. And those were the only words from Andy for quite a while.
Justin was silent for the longest time. “Something bothering you, Partner?”
“Aw, I don’t know, Pop. I’ve never killed something I didn’t intend to eat. That’s a first. Guess my trigger finger just got too itchy…”
Andy cut in, “Donchya ya be a frettin’ over at air coyote, son! This country’s got too dang blasted many of ‘em anyways an’ they’s a playing hell on th’ game animals in ease here parts. Lots more than they’s suppose ta. Why nobody shoots ‘em any more. Ya dun good. Dun the game hereabouts a favor a plunkin’ that mangy critter! Figure yersef a do gooder an’ forgits it!”
Andy’s kindness, his consoling didn’t help. Justin felt terrible. The guilt weighed heavy on his young heart of killing something inedible. A part of his lessons past had finally become a harsh reality, painful to him…
The only road through the canyon was by far the worst I’d ever suffered over. An oversized washboard with ribs ever so deep and the dust was suffocating! Andy, swerving left and right, right and left didn’t help. He would say, “Looky there, then looky here and there’s a’northern!” Each time swerving to squash a rattler!
Justin and I hate rattlers. He looked over toward me and said, “Brother! I wish we had leather boots on clean up to our eyeballs, Pop!”
“Yeah, me too!” I said, rubbing the goosebumps from the scruff of my neck. “Why I’m allergic to bees for crying out loud. I get nailed by one of those things I’d blow up as big as the Hindenburg blimp!”
“We’ll cross the crick here.” Andy said. “Go on up ol’ Cave Crick an’ scout some. Hain’t no one ever goes up air! Priddy rough goin’ it is, Cave Crick.” We forded the river (crick!) in the four-wheel drive pick-up and navigated the mountain two-tracker (two land trail) which hadn’t seen any form of traffic for what looked like years.
“How about lunch, Andy?”
“Shur, I brung us some apples and trail mixins. Reckon I could eat some. How’s ’bout you, air Justin, hungry are ya?”
Andy leaned forward smiling, showing his snuff rather proud like. Which just about stamped “Cancel” on our lunch idea!
Justin, a bit pale in the cheeks, said, “Yes, I could eat, but I’d rather hunt first!”
By dern,” Andy exclaimed, “ya fellers ‘er after ol’ Andrew’s heart again. Danged if youse fellers ‘er like mosta the flatlanders I ever knowed. Why most of ‘em jus wanna ride, stop ta pee ever haf ‘n hour, eat some in betwix and have me a doin’ ever thin but shootin’ their game fer ‘em. Umma likin’ yer style more ‘n more!”
Andy’s references to flatlander were bothering me less and less. Our mutual respect and admiration, however little at this point, was deepening, helping to mold something, it seemed? And I felt it all began with Justin’s shot on the coyote? One our grubby, little guide missed cleanly…
Andy sat against an apple tree of an ancient western homestead orchard, mixing bites of crispy apple with snoose morsels. I gathered several bunches of fire makings then fried thick slabs of hickory smoked, baked ham and placed them between an entire loaf of my wife’s homemade sourdough bread – after melting half-inch thick wedges of malodorous Swiss cheese over the partially burned ham slabs. Andy was noticeably impressed when I handed him what had to have been three-plus pounds of sandwich! “Don’t mind if’n a do!” He said. Not thanks, just “don’t mind if’n a do…” Then he said, “Y’all shur ya wants to give all’n this here ta a cowboy?” The three of us laughed and lunch well matched our developing moods; it was good…
“Let’s be gittin’” Andy said, standing. “Nother ten minutes ta th’ top! Might soon we’ll be a seein’ jus how good yer long ways shootin’ is. Deer’ll be a movin’ up air, probly ta water ’bout now.”
At the top, we walked the ridges of a dozen small hills. Andy covering far more ground than his flatlander companions, and faster! He waved us over to a rock ledge he was sitting on. “Um gonna head inta attair bottom, jus mebbe owl move sumpthin’ yer way. Ya two splits up, one on each side a attair hill?” He pointed to a roll, about three-hundred yards to the west. Our field of view would be good from there. Nothing to obstruct our shooting and the sunset was putting on a gorgeous show…
Andy held out his snoose tin. “Wanna pinch?” He made the stuff look succulent, so much so, I took a bunch between thumb and forefinger and tucked it away. “Why yer gittin better atis her cowboy stuff there, flatlander!” I sneered a friendly, grimacing sort of smile and made a white-knuckled fist in front of his nose. Andy smiled, and we went our separate ways…
Andy whistled just seconds after walking away. Justin and I turned to look his way and watched as he waved his fist with his thumb upward. Justin returned the “thumbs up.” I waved a hand…
The sun gave into fatigue and slid slowly behind a very far away, purplish mountain. The seemingly endless expanse of mountains looked pastel-like as the tangerine sun bade us “farewell for now.” All that came to my awestruck mind was the song, America the Beautiful. “…for purple mountains’ majesty above the fruited plain…” Fittingly, coyotes beckoned evening lovers in all directions, while magpies helter-skeltered for God knows where…
I thought of how very small this country makes a man feel. The boundless expanses of western, high desert, its incalculable size. A giant land that seems to hammer “stay” into the minds and hearts of men. There’s an almost overwhelming sense of insignificance a man feels out there and I found myself yearning for the smaller woods of home, that are Pennsylvania’s. Woods that made my son and I feel larger than life, bigger than we really were. Man needs that feeling from time to time, of feeling a tad more important than he may in reality, be. I was hypnotized by the departing sun, as I felt our day was dying far too young…
Watching Justin sitting there ever so still, I glassed the draw for signs of deer movement. After just a few moments, all hell broke loose! Andy appeared as a mere speck on my binocular lends and I focused in on ten deer bouncing up the canyon. Not sure whether there were bucks in the group, I chambered a 165-grain boattail into the throat of my ’06, then took a glance at Justin. “Good boy!” I thought, as I saw he was down on one knee and ready. He was a joy to be with in any hunting country and already a well-polished hunter on the finest kind. And that comes not from just a father’s prejudiced eye…
Andy’s shot echoed repeatedly through the canyon, bouncing off the countless mountainsides. The deer just pogo-sticked their way through the thick, sagey bottom, then disappeared over a knoll some 400-yards away. Nearly swallowed up by the dense sage, as they topped the last ridge, I could see well. I was able to determine that at least three were well-antlered bucks.
Andy got back to us some ten-minutes later. “Damned things’r spookier than sage hens at a skeet shoot!” he said as I reached to help him up over the rock ledge.
“They cut up over that far knoll, Andy! What do you think?” He surveyed the sky, then tucked away a wad of snoose.
“There’s time!” he said, “Let’s be gittin’ to ‘er!” We motioned for Justin to come down from his perch. “Winged one at ‘em a’did, but they’s like ‘em air whitetails you bragged up, they was. Spooky buggers…”
Andy continued, “Damn things’r in air, an’ I knows it. You two jus sit here, tight like, an’ um gonna work on at air bottom. Mebbe shove him yer ways…” Justin and I sat and Andy was gone, swallowed by the thick bottom vegetation. “Guy is like a ghost!” Justin whispered.
Moments later, Andy returned. Just about the time we were settled in and ready. “C’mon!” he said, “Let’s go! Umma figurin’ ‘em ta be over a ways. Um gonna poosh out that other bottom!”
We walked several hundred yards. Andy left us, sliding down a hillside of shale-like rock and as he did he yelled back, “You two jus sit tight. Be a watchin’ that hillside yonder. Should be jus enough time yet, but ’bout nother half’n hour, we’re done!” His voice became muffled, difficult to hear as the distance grew and the noise from the falling rocks drowned him out. He soon disappeared again, ghost-like… Justin whispered, “Where in the heck is he?”
“Don’t know. Just watch.”
Soon thereafter, there they came! The same ten deer we’d spotted before, this time, hightailing it across a sidehill about 300-yards to our front. “Ready, Justin?”
“Ready, Pop!”
I whispered, “You take the lead buck, I’ll take the next one back, okay?”
“Gotchya, Pop!” He was even beginning to sound like old Andy.
I could now see Andy, far off to our left, proving he indeed moved that herd toward our position. We swung our rifles in time with the loping mulies, Justin’s belching just a half-second before mine. I watched as his buck tumbled a good twenty-yards down the sidehill. Mine anchored right where it was hit, hung up in the sage. “Nice shooting, Partner!”
“You too, Pop! Old Pap’s rifle isn’t virgin any longer!”
I placed my arm around his shoulder and said, “That old Savage is in good hands, that’s for sure! Pap would be very proud!”
“Thanks, Pop.” There was a sort of sparkling in his eyes, part happy, part sad. He so loves his Grandfather and especially at that moment, missed him terribly…
Andy soon bounced up over the hill waving arms. “Fer piece overt’em deer y’all shot! Yours ’bout three hunert Joe, Justin’s a hefty 250, mebbe better’n at! C’mon now, let’s go spruce ‘em up fer th’ ride home. We’ll take ‘em ta th’ crick.” It was getting dark and there was little time for the field dressing chores.
Andy never uttered a single word of praise that evening as we drove home. And, I supposed that he felt as Justin and I; that we’d done as hunters should, fully aware of our obligations to prey, and killed cleanly and swiftly. The truck radio seemed soothing on the way home, singing, “If Tomorrow Never Comes.” I sat there, tired as I’d ever been and silently prayed it would…
We hunted elk with Andy that season. We’d become oddly matched friends. Worlds apart in some respects, very close in others. I killed my first bull elk that year, from foggy ridge to foggy ridge, according to Andy, well over 400-yards. But he never once offered a word of praise. His only “approval” of us came by way of his calling us flatlanders far less often. And we began to understand that and fully enjoy the warm unfolding of it all…
We shared four fruitful years together as friends and hunting the high desert as well as the expanse of high alpine timber country, sharing countless good times and many very happy hours. From grouse hunts to deer and elk, and in spring we shared the rivers filled with trout.
Justin and I made numerous, what we felt were, remarkable shots, all of which Andy witnessed. But the little, snoose-snorting grub of a westerner never once said, “Nice shot.” Justin once shot doubles on ruffed grouse and all Andy said was, “Pick ‘em boogers up an’ lits git! Airs more huntin’ ta do!”
Circumstances demanded we return to Pennsylvania. And soon, we would say “goodbye” to the vastness, the beauty, of eastern Oregon; to that marvelous, yet insignificant feeling we always felt in that endless country. Some things we would miss, some we wouldn’t. But surely the feeling that the west is the only real wild America left. Untouched in most parts, by civilization, uncovered by asphalt and litter…
Andy drove over to help load the moving van we’d rented. We were to leave the following morning, detouring to the Rogue River at Grant’s Pass for a crack at the salmon run and to daydream over the old water angled by Zane Grey.
A puddle of snoose juice lay at the base of the truck-ramp, making Justin and I laugh. Andy just looked over his shoulder and smiled as he struggled with a large box on our porch. “Hey Andy!” I yelled, “How about a few more spats over here? I’ll stock it with trout before we head out in the morning!” Andy just shrugged his shoulders and continued wrestling with the big box, which we soon learned contained about 150-pounds of books. His mood seemed highly uncommon, and he just wasn’t his jovial self that morning? Justin laughed at the stocking idea, but then shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, “I don’t know what’s wrong, Pop. I thought it was funny…”
As strange as our relationship began, as far apart as we still were about many things, Andy had seemingly grown to love us. And indeed, we loved him. It was the sort of admiration and relationship unique to those who share times hunting, together. Strong bonds from quickly, settle in deeply and somehow live there forever with no conditions, no strings attached…
The truck finally loaded, Andy walked over to us, stuck out that heavily callused, knarled hard and said, “You fellers take ‘er easy, now, and good care of yerselfs.”
“You too, Andy.” Justin and I shook his hand while Andy stood there forcing a smile, showing that God-forsaken snuff we’d grown accustomed to seeing between his teeth, but indeed a smile of the million dollar variety.
He placed his hands on our shoulders, pressed down firmly and said, “Hell, ya two hain’t flatlanders. Know’d that the day I seen youse shootin’ at ta range, years back. Y’all take care now, hear? An’ keep ‘er in mind at yer as good a pair a boys as Andrew’s ever seen. Better’n any cowpoke I ever know’d. Why I might even miss youse some, buts I doubt it. S’long Joe. Justin.” We shook hands again. Andy turned and walked to his truck and the pain of his grip lingered…
He never once looked back, and after slamming the door of his “rig” he spun his wheels in the gravel and traveled some twenty-five yards down our alley before he backed up. He smiled, looking out the truck window, and gave us a thumbs up, at the same time exposing those snuffy teeth. Then he spun his wheels in the gravel again, and was gone. We knew then, we would miss that million-dollar, snuffy smile.
Justin looked at me, expressionless. I placed my arm around his shoulder as we walked into the emptiness of the house, once a home. We were feeling exactly as the house looked, and the empty snoose tin on the kitchen counter didn’t help…
As Justin walked over and fingered the tin’s silver top, I heard his whisper: “We’ll be back, Andy.”