Author’s introduction
The gun in this story was far and away, my father’s greatest material love. The night before he passed on, while lying in an intensive care unit of a San Diego hospital, trying so hard not to slip away, he asked my stepmother just before she left his bedside, “Honey, is my Colt still in the safe deposit box at the bank?” And it was, though Pap would never again fondle it, twirl it or just sit and gaze at it like a kid might gaze at a moon rock.
Without a doubt, this single-six is one of the most breathtaking guns I’ve ever held or seen. Pap always said, “When I die, Joey, this’ll be yours to give to Justin.” And as the story tells, he did and I did and Justin, my 22-year old son is now the very proud owner of his grandfather’s most prized possession. Although we rarely take it out to look at it any more, we know it’s there and in a strange but warm sense, it’s like knowing a part of my father is still with us, Justin’s grandfather; the only “hero” Justin’s ever had in his young life.
Believe it or not, this Peacemaker traveled home with us after we’d buried Pap. I suppose the look in my eyes as I explained the circumstances to the airline clerk convinced him to give it special care in the baggage compartment of the 757? I would have piled in down under the passenger cabin to be with it but special arrangements were made for the Colt, thank goodness.
And Pap, if you’re reading this, I know you’ll know it’s in possession of someone who will love it even more than you did. And Pap? Thanks.
“A Requiem By Peacemaker”
After more than fifty years of living, I’ve never been able to make any sense of death or come to any certain terms with it. It is too large, too harsh in its nakedness. And understanding it has forever been, at best, elusive to my mind’s ability to put it into some sort of simple perspective. Death has always caused my thoughts to run rampant, eventually taking me right back to where I started in my attempts to get it squared away in my aging mind.
Death to me is pretty much the same whether on the home front and personal level or in the autumn hunting fields. Though death in the hunting fields is less painful for the most part, it is still confusing. But at least there it’s bittersweet. As hunters, we all know the feeling I speak of; remorse with a dash of “sugar” to remove most of the bitter “taste.” Most of us know that the best way for an animal to die is by the well-placed hunter’s bullet, far more merciful than time and heartless Mother Nature. However, at least there in the fields or woodlands there’s some privacy for the emotion we may experience at the moment of death-our kill. However, at the death of a loved one, there is seldom any privacy when the realization of the tragedy hits us. And yes, it always hurts, for indeed death is terribly abrupt and clearly final. Because of these facts of life on Earth, abstract and perplexing and repulsive as they certainly are, at each ethereal sunrise I rediscover the very precious nature of Life; even with all of its complexities and strangeness. Living, in a sense, is Man’s natural, God-given wealth, a wondrous value for the paltry price we sometimes have to pay for it, if indeed we take the time and always evaluate the true worth of it all, long or short in time. And, again, there’s no privacy, or precious little, with regard to our moments at the death of a loved one; it’s carved-out emotional agony well-etched onto our faces, a place where it cannot be concealed. And, so it goes. We try to do what we can to make death seem okay, or within our hearts, justify it?
And is it not a curious oar that so vigorously stirs a man’s ardent desire to somehow honor the deceased after the hurtful fact? Is this, perhaps, the way the living function in an effort to feel at least a tad better about their loss? By doing something special in their honor? Certainly, the best we can do for the dead is to “let them go.” Still, it’s somehow acceptable to perhaps cling to their dreams, nurture them and ultimately try to fulfill them, again, in their honor. Then try to be satisfied that you’ve done your very best to find peace in the seemingly meaningless and confusing finality of it all. It’s a contentment, however small, and consoling comes from doing so. I know.
When my father, whom we referred to as “Pap,” died, I experienced a relentless need to fill at least one of his small, lifelong dreams. For so, so long I harbored this burning propensity to sort of immortalize him with something I knew he wanted while living but never got. But ‘how’ was the toughest part of that desire. And setting things in motion caused me to constantly daydream, wondering just what it might be? The best I could come up with was to bestow the full honor and dignity to his most prized possession. A fully engraved Colt single action Army revolver in .32-20 Winchester caliber. A masterpiece of craftsmanship and beauty that has left many calloused hunter acquaintances I have breathless and visibly starry-eyed. This gun was the second love in his life and he called it his Peacemaker. Now, even though I wish he were still here to call it his, it’s mine-or was.
My feelings were that to do honor to something he loved literally to his dying day would be paying tribute to him, thus honoring his ever-present memory. In a sense, keeping Pap alive in spirit at least? But, other than this, I tried to console myself with thinking as the Shoshone tribe of the Wind River Reservation had taught me long ago. That is, there is no death but rather a change of worlds.
The Peacemaker idea seemed fitting but I, not all that proficient with a handgun at the time, wondered just how I would do it. I’m a rifleman to the very marrow of my bones, a lover of the long guns and, at best, fair with the pistols we own. Indeed, the thought of the ballistics charted for the .32-20 gripped me by the throat, knowing I’d have to get an uncommonly close shot, say 35-yards or less for the instant kill. But I knew old Pap would only “settle” for and accept a whitetailed buck to bring honor to his beloved Peacemaker. I found myself smiling as I wondered and pictured him sitting on some celestial perch, a front row seat, laughing at all of this nonsense I’d come up with. I could almost hear him reminding me as he always did in my younger days as a hunter: “If there’s a trace of doubt about the shot, Joey, don’t pull the trigger. One shot, one kill, or nothing…”
I asked my son, Justin, who answered me without a second’s hesitation or speculation, “How do you think I could honor Pap’s Peacemaker, Partner?”
Justin looked at me with that “You ought to know glare” in his big, hazel eyes and said, “Simple, Pop. Ya gotta kill with it. It’s the only way, you know that! And you also know the only thing that will make it just right is a whitetailed buck!” Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh, he not only thinks as his father, he is able to read his father’s mind? But, sure, he was right. Drawing blood with any gun is, was and forever shall be the ultimate honor to the gun. Long barrel, short barrel or two-barrel, it must be the most intimate part of the hunting ritual with regard to the culmination if indeed a kill is intended.
The Second World War from Bastogne, to the Rhine crossing, to the landing on Normandy on that bloodiest of June days had, I know, well-removed Pap’s desire to kill-anything. He simply loved the hunt and all the mystery and romance that went with being in the big woods. His “need” to draw blood, perhaps even his emotional tolerance for it, long ago died in his veteran heart.
How well, though, I can recall those days after the war when he’d talk of how his dreams used to be centered around his taking a whitetailed buck with his .300 Savage. “Used to fire my favorite dreams, Joey, takin’ a buck with my model 99, but now? Hell, son, I don’t know…” And no. He never brought himself to make his dream come true. So, I, his eldest son, chose to live it for him. Crazy? I suppose, but nevertheless, this idea and his dream now fired my dreams.
I sat there kneading the oiled, walnut grips of the Peacemaker. Staring off into the prospective Killing Wood like a daydreaming child. It is just a few hundred yards from the house, this whitetail-ridden hollow, and certainly I “know” the deer well, but still. I wished at the time I could have, by some sort of bizarre form of telepathy, placed the Peacemaker into a state of metamorphosis, perhaps into a walking staff which I might use to walk away from all this “Filler-Of-Dreams” insanity. But I couldn’t and all the while, knew it. The relentless, primordial chanting going on inside of me, and singing, “Go, go, go…”
That ancestral atavistic savage who inwardly haunts my unpretentious way of life and lifts me to the hunts of autumn is now, and was then, one merciless and convincing power. On those days just prior to the hunting seasons, “he” seems to emerge from a state of suspended animation and begin his omniscient, ravenous pleading, as if to plead with me, or taunt me, in a sort of beckoning manner just to satisfy “his” needs? Perhaps “his” coming to “life” is triggered by the passing of the sun over the equator which causes autumn, a changing of the worldly guard? His incessant pleading, so convincing, is like precision clockwork; and “he’s” been that way for over four decades now. I’ve yet been unable to stave off the percolating, predatory urges that simmer way down deep and this time, anticipating the hunt with Pap’s Peacemaker, emotions were no different except for my confidence level; with the idea of using a handgun, it was in serious decline.
I pondered and pondered the idea, wanting to chuck it all. But my ears nearly rang with the deep desire and finally, after a long time of fondling Pap’s greatest material love, I answered the pesky little savage spirit in the affirmative. Not so much for “his” satisfaction this time, but for mine, for Pap’s. And so, I became submissive once again, to the relentless, spiritual champion and decided I should, “Go, go, go…”
An ebony Crayola and a paper plate of about 8-inches along with a quarter have always served me well for making targets. To my mind, store-bought targets are an ignorant extravagance. I use the quarter to outline the bullseye circle, just larger than an inch, then color it in and slide the two-bits back into my jeans-where it belongs. My thinking? A thrifty shooter will always be the best shooter. For example, he’ll pick his one best shot at an animal and kill it. With the target idea, it becomes prudent in that he’ll still have a pocketful of quarters for coffee money and maybe even enough for a cinnamon donut?
My daughter, Erika, is the family Picasso, though a far better “artist.” She’s also the “producer” of targets. “Erika! Please make me up a few targets, honey! And use your own quarter!” She’s become a well-learned student of her mother’s, rarely returning my quarters and after several times, I got wise. I’m not tight, mind you, just thrifty!
At nearly $20 per box for 100-grain cartridges, I knew this sighting-in exercise would be considerably short. Right? Wrong! After the gorgeous (looks aren’t everything, remember?) Colt belched out the first half-dozen rounds, I could have poured mother’s beef broth into the belly of the paper plate and not worried about a drop of leakage! “Good grief!” I thought, looking at the plate. I then examined the Peacemaker as though it were at fault. “How long are you going to continue this nonsense?” Tighter bead this time, 6-o’clock hold and bingo! Six more rounds fired. Two in the plate but absolutely no understanding as to why the other 4 flew elsewhere. Next six. Little tighter bead this time, steady two-hand hold, breathe-exhale a whiff and squeeze. Better; four in the center and two wherever it is little spheres of lead go when they’re not imbedded in the wood behind one’s target? After a number of rounds, which I herein refuse to disclose for reputation’s sake, I had the Peacemaker printing well enough to make Orion the Hunter’s eyes water. Give or take a “flyer,” the groups were consistently under the three inches I wanted. Pleased? Yes, but still quite apprehensive about the task that lay before me.
The nagging indweller would soon be at peace? My targets certainly enhanced my confidence level and his ardent need, which in naked reality was my own, would soon be satisfied.
I was in the shed tinkering and wishing the hunt could be the usual, with my old Ruger ’06, but knew in my hunting heart, that the requiem by his Peacemaker had to transpire; my desire now too deep, too strong, to dispel.
Justin walked into the shed and picked up an unused target, then casually questioned me, “So, this is it, huh Pop?” I looked at him threateningly over the top of my glasses then pointed to the punched target pinned to a rafter above his head.
“No! That’s it above your ligneous head!”
“How far?” He asked.
“Twenty-five well-stretched steps!”
“Well, Pop, that ought to do ‘er. But, you know? You ought to give some serious thought to hunting from a treestand. It’d be to your advantage and maybe get ya a closer shot than you really need? What’s ligneous, by the way?”
“Never mind ligneous,” I said, trying to act at though his furtive idea meant little to me. “You just may be right though, about the stand idea. I’ll give it some thought.”
Near the edge of the hardwoods stood an ancient treestand. Weather-beaten yet inviting because of its location and sturdy looking construction. It looked as though it might work just fine for the hunt, the strategy I planned to employ?
There had to have been some incredible history behind this old structure and the old Colt and I just might add some “color” to it? Lingering elements had taken their toll, and heavily, on the old platform section but the steps were still alive with spring and strength. I decided I’d climb them and make the needed repairs before buck season, which is what I ultimately did. I went so far as to build a windbreak around its perimeter.
Little Orphan Creek was trilling innocently as I sat on the perch after I’d finished, nursing a bowlful of China Black whiskey blend pipe tobacco. Squirrels scurried about the mossy forest floor below, through the duff and tapestry, Nature’s very own carpeting, like the shadows of miniature clouds; so quiet, it was hard to believe they were actually moving. A pileated woodpecker flitted from tree to tree and I couldn’t help but marvel at the quiet speed he was able to gain with just a gentle urging of a wingbeat. I envied so, his freedom, his ability to fly. Some of Man’s most pleasurable dreams are of flying-if only once.
A widowed dove mourning from a nearby, lone hemlock, seemed to fix her stare upon my position. “Coo-ah, coo-ah, coo, coo, coo,” she sand. I wondered if this was her subtle way of scolding me for the intrusion or was her dulcet, little, melancholy song carrying a message for me? Crazy, what runs through a man’s mind during times like these. But there was such a brokenheartedness to her wild tongue and the plangent, rhythmic song was haunting. “I guess she could be trying to tell me something?” I thought aloud. Her mourning was so incessant it had to mean something other than just everyday sentiments, so, I answered here as though, yes, I understood. As I climbed down from the tree, I said to her, “A man’s gotta do, Sweetheart, what a man’s gotta do.” Her song stopped just about the time my feet hit the ground. As though it was her way of saying, “Okay, why listen to me?”
Who knows, save for our Creator? Still, I left the area feeling less predatory than ever before in my life which is akin to Robert Ruark saying, “I hate African safaris.” Wild places are magical though, and we who hunt know that stranger things happen out there than anywhere else on earth. And if it felt to me as though this little dove was trying to tell me something, so be it. And if I was feeling a little less predatory than usual, that’s okay too. And indeed I was.
Walking home, I wondered whether biologists actually believe what they are taught, that animals are incapable of displaying emotion or demonstrating logic? I believe they can and do and I’m an avid biologist though self-taught. Think about the robins that stoop from the tree near the house trying to frighten those who come too close to their nesting site? That’s a defensive instinct, yes, but certainly done for the protection of their young, out of an emotion called love. And how about their constant trips back and forth from the nest as they labor by carrying food for their brood. My feeling is they’re thinking something similar to, “Hey, the kids must eat and I must provide.” Precisely what must run through their BB-sized brains? Then there’s the pride of lions in Africa I once saw which convinced me, almost completely. The entire pride actually bawled when one of their “loved” ones perished after being gored by a Cape Buffalo. That’s grief no matter how one slices it and that, too, is an emotion. Closer to home, let us look at the precious, little killdeer bird, a shore bird to be sure, but one who frequents the inland bottomlands of farms. Go anywhere near their ground nests and they’ll feign a broken wing and attempt to lead you from the nesting site. What might we call that? Not dramatic acting to be sure, but sheer intelligence, a protective diversionary measure much closer to something called logic?
So, if we watch and listen carefully, wildlife may very well “speak” to us on occasion, through body language or by some other means, and, if we are fortunate, we may even understand it from time to time. To my mind and heart, the little dove had spoken to me, personally, and somehow, just somehow mind you, I felt I understood her. Titillating sounds pour not from the vocal chords of a dove and I knew it. And this one’s melancholy “coo-ah, coo-ah, coo, coo, coo” was somehow special, somehow telling me something special. Little did I know, I would heed her rather sad melodious “request” and as I walked toward home, it was pretty clear just what I had to do-if and when.
Not 25-yards from the stand’s ladder base was a buck rub, a fairly good one and certainly not that of an immature, sapling buck. I recall whispering to myself, “There’s the sign. Everything seems to be falling into place…” Mainly due to the fact that there were several other rubs not far from the one near the stand-site. “The Red Gods are smiling…”
My son, Justin, was shooting hoops in the yard as I walked up on him. “Heck of a buck runnin’ the hollow this year, Justin!”
“Yep!” he said, “And he’s an eight-pointer, too! I saw him in that stand of birches yesterday.”
“Why didn’t you say something then?”
“A to Z, Pop, it’s your hunt. I knew you’d find him on your own and besides, remember when I was a kid you always said that the more personal effort a guy puts into a hunt, the more gratification he gets from it?” And yes, he was right. This hunt was created by the desire to bring honor to Pap’s Colt, to pay tribute to him and it was my hunt, and my choice.
“Yeah, reckon you’re right partner. Thanks for gettin’ me back on track. Heck of a nice buck though, huh?”
“I also recall your telling me God makes ‘em all nice, Pop!” My son well-remembered his earlier lessons from a guy many referred to as “The Preacher.”
A few hours of stakeout in the stand, two one day, one the next and several another and I’d seen the buck twice. Only once within comfortable .32-30 range, about 35 yards. “Saw the buck this mornin’, Justin!”
“Good, did he come in close?”
“Close enough the one time, ’bout thirty-five yards. We shouldn’t have too much trouble, though. He’s gotta make one mistake in two weeks of hunting season?”
Justin cocked his head, squinted one eye and, looking me square in the eyes, said, “What’s this ‘we’ stuff, Pop? You got a mouse in your pocket?”
“No! But I’d sure like you to share this hunt with me, partner. Be nice, wouldn’t it, to witness this hunt with your grandfather’s Peacemaker? You know, something to tell your children when ol’ Pop changes worlds. What do ya say?”
“What can I say, Pop? I’d feel like a cowpie if I didn’t go along now!”
For days, I found myself seriously appraising that which was about to transpire. This hunt with Pap’s Peacemaker wasn’t about killing. It wasn’t about bragging rights or challenge or glory, either. To my mind and heart, it was about honor. A tribute that should be paid to a fine man, and a fine gun. No. This hunt was about Life itself, and dignity. And the fulfilling of a dead father’s dream that, somehow, still lived within me. But even though I’d built up my confidence by getting the Colt to print well, something deep inside of me was changing, baring the very pellicles of a predatory mind and an aging and mellowing heart. A hunter’s heart?
I thought of Jose Ortega y Gassett’s words in his book, “Meditations On Hunting.” (circa 1942.) “Every good hunter is uneasy in the depths of his conscience when faced with the death he is about to inflict on the enchanting animal. He does not have the final and firm conviction that his conduct is correct. But neither, it should be understood, is he certain of the opposite.” At this point, I wasn’t certain of anything other than the fact I had to try my sentimental but crazy idea.
One evening I spotted the buck at the edge of our woods. He appeared to be staring right into my eyes from the 300-plus yards distance. We’d eyed each other for what seemed like several moments and, afterwards, I could only come to one accurate description of this animal-gorgeous. Calling this whitetail a “buck” was akin to calling Pope John Paul your “pastor.” Or your Leonard cane flyrod your “fishin’ pole.” And I’m going to kill this buck? Maybe, maybe not.
The Sunday prior to the hunt, I came to the earth-shaking realization that I’d merely grown old and not up. I was as nervous and apprehensive as a child waiting in the lobby of a dentist and knew the night would allow me precious little sleep. And I was right.
Justin nudged my leg with his and whispered, “Don’t you worry, Pop. You’ll do just fine if that ol’ buck shows. The Peacemaker was never in better hands.”
Pulling him in close and hugging him, I said, “Yeah, never in shakier hands either partner but thanks. Thanks a lot.”
A few minutes after 8 a.m., Justin tapped my boot. Whispering, “Somethin’ comin’ in, Pop. ‘Bout twelve o’clock.” My pulse pounded furiously in my forearms but, as it turned out, it was four browsing does. They walked just beneath our stand and we noticed they were watching their backtrail. We looked in the direction of their attention and like a fog rising from a swamp bottom, he “materialized.” Just as I always told Justin. “They’re like mushrooms, they just seem to burp up through the soil.” Suddenly and quietly.
When we first spotted him, he was out about 40-yards but he was strolling in closer, completely unaware of us, but still with the customary cautious advancement. When he finally stopped at what I determined to be about 25-yards, I drew back the hammer of the Peacemaker, the sound reminiscent of tiny branches snapping, although fine and precision-like. His ears twitched, cupping like miniature radar units and he ever so gently stomped the ground. He seemed uncommonly bewildered, as though something wasn’t quite right in his sylvan world, with his unparalleled instincts. He seemed, somehow, to know he was in trouble?
I raised the Colt to a tight bead just behind his head at the juncture of his muscular neck, held my breath, released a little air quietly and thought to myself, “Without a doubt, you’re mine.” I then stood quickly, thrust my arms out to their full extension and shouted as loud as possible, “Bang!” Immediately, or perhaps sooner than that, the big buck bolted, kicking up forest ground litter and spreading it well behind him, hell-bent for safer ground. I smiled as his vertical white flag bade us, “Farewell!”
“Pop! What in the heck did ya do that for, you had him dead to rights! Ain’t no way you would have missed!” I looked at Justin, then in the direction the gorgeous buck had gone and smiled. Then Justin continued, “Pop, you know you could have killed him, right?”
“Yes, Partner, I sure do and without question. And that perhaps is the best we’ll remember about this day, at least as far as I’m concerned. Knowing I could have but didn’t, Justin. It was the way your grandfather hunted since he came home from the war and if it was good enough for Pap, then it’s sure good enough for me. Come on, son, let’s head home.”
All through the alfalfa field we cross on our way home, Justin said, over and over, “I cannot believe you did that, Pop!” At the house I would explain but right then, I was still tasting the sweetness of the moments past.
At home, Justin and I sat to finish the thermosed tea. “Justin, what I did out there today in our treestand was about honor and life. I allowed a life to go on when all I had to do was touch the trigger. That’s what the old Peacemaker is all about isn’t it? What better honor could I, a mortal being, a simple man, bestow on it than to allow a magnificent life like that buck’s to continue when certainly I had the opposite choice? By golly, old Pap should be happy with that, don’t you think?”
“You are one crazy father, Pop! I suppose that’s why I love ya so doggone much.”
“And I love you too, Son. Now, how’s about you wiping down that Peacemaker while the old man here gets some shuteye? It’s yours now, by the way. And always remember, Justin, there’s a lot of love within that Colt. A lot. It’s kinda like the wind. Ya can’t see it but you sure can feel it.”
And with that, I was almost gone. Dozing and content with my choice. I drifted into that magical hollow where dreams are realized and life goes on just as Pap may have liked it? I thought as I drifted off, “I’ll call that little hollow Requiem Hollow, by God.”
Besides, giving away a gun as priceless as Pap’s Peacemaker makes a man mighty doggone tired…
As I dozed off, I could hear Justin mumbling to himself at the dining room table just after I’d heard the loading gate of the Colt open and Justin turning the cylinder. “Jeez! Ol’ Pop never even loaded the darn thing…”
With one eye cocked open, I watched a proud young man, a fine son, wiping down his grandfather’s beloved Peacemaker and finally felt I understood death? Death is a thing from which the living draw their inspiration to carry on, to live, and celebrate life as though there may be no tomorrow. And on this day of The Requiem, Justin and I had indeed done it all…