This story is about one Buck Budd and myself, Buck being one of this world’s greatest human beings, ever. The event happened a long time before his passing and he never got to read this story. Cancer took him far too soon, as he was but 52-years old when he left me. Never could I express accurately, how greatly he’s missed…
I only enjoy hunting when alone or with someone, and one afternoon a bundle of summers ago, found me bloated with strong, iced-tea and bored to death. Moping around the house about as happy as the cruise director of the infamous Titanic’s short-lived voyage. Until someone reached out and touched me vial Al Bell’s ingenious invention…
My wife, who was lying outside, very reminiscent of an oil slick and wishing for some sun from the overcast sky, hollered, trying hard to get about the noise of a neighbor’s muffler-less lawn mower: “Honey! Answer the phone! I’m oil-soaked here!”
How she heard it, I’ll never know. I answered it in a less than enthusiastic manner: “Yeah!”
The voice on the other end said, “Joe, this is Buck. What’s the matter with you?”
“Oh, about three-hundred and two things, that’s all! What’s up?”
“How would you like to go chuck hunting tomorrow afternoon? I know a farm that has more porkers than a sheepdog has fleas. Whaddya say, nephew?”
“Buck, you know I don’t have a varmint rifle and Linda has a list of summer chores with my name on them, longer than the China Wall!”
“No problem, you may use my Swift if you promise not to sweat all over it.”
“Buck, I’m telling you, she has this list with three-hundred and two things on it! Chores I have to finish before I do anything that has any connection to hunting. I have to caulk the conditioner, paint the window frames, prune the trees, clean the furnace, sweep the chimney, paint the cellar floor and three outside porches… Why I’ll need two summers of back to back slaving to get half of what she has listed finished! What time can you pick me up?”
“I’ll be in your driveway at noon sharp. It’ll take about an hour to get where we’re going and by the time we chew the fat with the guy who owns the farm, then walk to the area I want to hunt, the time will be just about right.”
Needing advice as to how to convince my wife and get out of doing the 302 things she had on my chore list, I asked, “What’ll I tell Linda?”
Bless Buck’s Irish soul, he said, “Just tell here you’re starting from the bottom of the list and working it upwards.”
“You’re a genius, Buck! See ya at noon tomorrow!”
Number 303 on the list was “Bass fishing at water company dam.” I scratched that and made the new entry: “Debut in the clover.”
Linda came into the house smelling of hot coconut and asked, “What’s this on the chore list? You butt in the clover, stuff? And who was that on the telephone?”
Witty as I am, I came back with “Me! And that’s debut not me butt!”
She carried on for a while about my trying to be funny and inserted some random fact about there being two-million comedians out of work, hit me with her third nosey question again, all without time out for air! I told her it was Buck Budd and she said, “You’re either going fishing or hunting, now which is it, and when do you expect to get that chore list knocked down to a respectable size?” Windy lady, my Linda!
“Hey Punkin, I’m working on it! Just looky here, I’m starting with number three-0-three!”
“Yes, I see and you’d better get your butt out of de clover real quick and get back home here and finish up these chores…”
The next day dawned warm and muggy with humidity, and by the time the noon chimes sounded, the heat was close to unbearable. Buck was pulling into the drive on about the sixth gong of the grandfather clock and I was thinking about talking him into a buck-fifty matinee. I wasn’t at all excited about my first chuck hunt but a promise is just that. Buck hit the doorbell and yelled, “Let’s get rollin’, Hotshot, we’re runnin’ late!” He was just in the house a few seconds when he said, “You’re gonna wear a sweatband if you plan on using my Swift!”
He should have whispered for my wife has hearing ability like a junkyard watchdog. She yelled from upstairs, “He wouldn’t be sweating if our air-conditioner was caulked and not cooling the area outside the window!”
“Let’s get out of here Buck, before The Warden has us scrubbing floors! How’s about we take in an air-conditioned afternoon matinee?”
“We’re hunting Big Boy, get the sweatband!”
I yelled upstairs asking the wife to toss me down a red bandanna and she yelled back, “Why not just wear my gray, fur hat this afternoon?” I never was certain what her motive was, but it sounded as though it had homicidal tones?
Buck always talked a lingo that may well puzzle a munitions or FBI ballistic expert. He reached into his pocket and handed me a 25-06 cartridge and said it was all he had as a choice since I was going to be using his pet “tack-driver,” the Swift.
“Why not just use a grenade launcher, Buck?”
“Looky here, Nephew, if you weren’t so tight and would spring for your own twenty-two centerfire, I wouldn’t have to use my pronghorn rifle for chucks!” He then got more revenge by throwing out a bunch of recipes and other numbers that I, at the time, knew nothing about. I think he enjoyed the frustration in my facial expressions as he rambled on about statistics that were totally beyond me: “Got that baby packed down with an 87-grain Sierra spitzer and behind that, for proper propulsion, a shovelful of IMR powder, ’bout fifty-nine grains, I think, of 4831 and comes outta the hole doin’ about thirty-five-hundred plus or, about twenty-four-hundred miles per hour outta the chute! Got a Federal primer sparkin’ it all and even though it won’t cut a group like the two-twenty Swift, I can trim a chuck’s eyelashes at two-hundred. Nooo sweat!”
I lay back on the headrest, shut my eyes and never responded. He knew he blew me away when he hit the IMR part…
The freedom of being away from the house, aka, Chore City, was delicious although I did feel a bit apprehensive. Buck had this torturous way of relentless ribbing when I’d err in the field. I didn’t want to muff my first shot at a chuck or he’d make life miserable for me – to where I’d be shinnying the nearest tree.
“Nervous, huh nephew?”
I didn’t bother to answer since I knew he knew I was. When we got to the area he wanted to set up, he stuck a tripod into the ground and I began glassing the hillsides. “We’ll be shooting this way!” He turned me around by my shoulders to face the opposite direction. Already I was feeling the weight of being inferior, though Buck never intended it…
“Say a chuck shows up at about two-hundred, Buck, where would I hold?” He touched my forehead between my eyes and tapped a few times.
“Right there, little buddy, right there! Now watch this.” He dug into his pocket, pulling out a dog whistle and after stuffing it between his lips, his cheeks puffed to a point of obesity and turned crimson – or whatever color blood is. I couldn’t hold back, and I snickered aloud.
“Funny, huh? Take a look out there just below that old oak tree!” Sure enough, two chucks were standing to see what the whistle was. “Want the first shot?” He asked, whispering.
I exhaled to relax and said, “I suppose. Hold right on, ya think?”
“Yep, I’d say. And if you’re afraid you’re gonna miss and have me razz ya all the way to the barn if you do, you’re absolutely keerect! Do it…”
Just what I needed, words to ensure confidence. Nevertheless, I went to prone position behind the Ruger model 77, Swift. I inhaled most of the pollen-filled air on the farm, wrapped my finger snuggly around the trigger using just the tip, and let out some of my breath, then asked Buck in a voice that sounded as though I were choking, “Right on, huh?”
“Yep. And your chuck just waddled into the high stuff!”
Wanting the smaller one, I jerked around to look. Sure enough it was gone. “Now what?” I asked.
“Take ‘er easy, I’m looking, I’m looking!” Methodically, glassing the hillsides, he soon said, “There’s a tender little chomper, see him right there by the little pile of rocks? Just to the right of the oak tree?”
“Yeah, I see him now. ‘Bout how far, Buck?”
“Oh, about two-fifty, give or take an inch.”
“You sure?”
“Yep, just hold right on ‘im, not high not low.”
I touched the sensitive trigger, the Swift barked, and I didn’t see whether I’d hit the chuck or not. Thinking perhaps I’d flinched at the muzzle blast, I asked Buck, “Well, did I or didn’t I?”
“Buck says greenhorn make lucky shot. Yeah, you got him alright. Nice shooting, Pilgrim.” He said in his John Wayne impersonation…
I was stammering better than Mel Tillis ever could, and said, “You’re kidding? That had to be closer to three-hundred, don’t you think, Buck?”
He gave me credit for trying to stretch the yardage, “That might work on a stranger nephew, but not on your ol’ Uncle Buckle…”
During that hunt, Buck made shots that brought my eyes to the tearing point. We’d decided early on, to take only those we would eat at a planned barbeque.
He was right about how easily a guy can become addicted to the challenge attached to hitting woodchucks at 200-yards or better. Ever more than that, he was right about how a man can blend with the surroundings of a quiet pasture to sort things out: “This kind of hunting allows a guy to clear the cobwebs in his head,” is the way he put it. I lay there daydreaming as Buck carved away on an apple and after almost ten-minutes of silence, he said, “One more Buddy and we head home. Me or you?”
“I’ll take the next one, Buck. Give ya a lesson in how the pros do ‘er.”
“Best get with the program then, Hotshot. There’s a youngun out there right now at about three-hundred!”
“I see him. Piece of cake.” I settled back down behind the Swift, turned the bill of my hat toward the back of my head and said, “Watch this!”
Buck chuckled, “I’m watching Sargeant York. Get to it before he dies of old age…”
I pressed the trigger and the chuck was mine. Looking back at Buck, I smiled and said, “Pretty good when student outshoots teacher, huh Buck?”
“Tell ya what, nephew, you’re everything but humble and don’t deserve this, but that was a mighty pretty shot. Ya like this chuckin’ don’t you?”
“Yeah, it’s okay I suppose. Good for the shooting practice and a summer barbeque or two, but it ain’t all that tough, either.”
“Then you won’t be going with me anymore since you ain’t all that fire up about it, right?”
“I’ll think about it. C’mon let’s head home before Linda has the locks on our doors changed.” We walked lazily through the field retrieving our chucks, talking little along the way. We were tired from the hot sun but as always, when I hunted with Buck, each of us was full of that which we came for; inner-peace…
In the car, I again lay back on the headrest. My eyelids heavy with fatigue, I was dozing in minutes until Buck pulled on my ear and said, “What’s on the agenda tomorrow?”
“Bunch of stuff. Guess I’ll start by scraping off the price sticker on Linda’s Cutlass.”
“The Cutlass!” Buck squealed, “Why you’ve had that car for nearly two years! You mean to tell me you haven’t done that yet?”
“It’s one of the chores on the list, I’ll get ‘er done.”
Buck asked, “What about one more hunt, say, tomorrow? We’ll clean and freeze the chucks for a late-season barbeque?”
“Buck, I told you before. Linda has this huge list with three-hundred and two things on it! I have to caulk the air-conditioner, paint window frames, cellar floors, and porches, why two summers of slaving, back to back wouldn’t get it all done! What time did you say you could pick me up?” Buck laughed and pulled my ear again…