Let’s get one thing straight right up front. I didn’t buy a 30-06, high powered rifle for my deer hunting trip to the beautiful and lonely sage covered hills around Casper, Wyoming. Why? Two reasons:

• First, because I didn’t need to. I still have my Dad’s old Remington Model 721 that he bought for big game hunting in the Idaho woods back in the late ’40’s. To my knowledge, he never got a deer or elk with it. And it still shoots true and straight.

But I know for a fact Dad shot the head off a blue grouse–out of season-with it during one of his Idaho big game hunts. (Don’t sneer. Until you’ve done it, you don’t know how frustrating it is to tramp over hill and dale all day. And see nothing.) So, he tossed that headless grouse in the trunk of his car. Which was fine. Until he got to the checkpoint the wildlife rangers had set up and they searched the trunk. How big was the fine for that poached bird? No idea. But you can be sure that blue grouse, per ounce, is still one of the most expensive morsels of fowl ever not eaten. What? You think they let a poacher keep the spoils of his illegal kill?

• And, second, because I couldn’t buy a new gun even if I wanted to. Why? Because I was involuntarily committed to Denver’s Mount Airy Psychiatric Hospital about 45 years ago. What? You think they’re gonna let a certified nut job buy a new gun? No way. Learn about that little visit to the hospital here.

Bright Lights. And Black Eyes.

Fred Clarke was our next door neighbor when Marleen and I lived in Denver’s Jefferson Park neighborhood, around the corner from where we attended New Life In Christ Church.

Jefferson Park was rough back in the late ’70’s. Really rough. Richie’s Bar and Grill was a few blocks away, at 26th and Federal. Fred, to put it mildly, has a dry sense of humor. “I wouldn’t go into Richie’s,” he told me not long after we met, “without first rolling in a hand grenade.” While we lived there, it wasn’t out of the question to hear gunshots ring out at night somewhere in the neighborhood.

Jefferson Park is now thoroughly gentrified; Richie’s is long gone. As is Fred and his wife, Beth; they relocated to a charming Lakewood neighborhood where Fred helps maintain the old irrigation ditch that waters Beth’s hobby of growing exotic orchids in their mini-hothouse. We hightailed it to the ‘burbs when babies started popping out.

Fred is a member of the Golden Gun Club; but the club moved off the flanks of Golden’s Table Mountain decades ago when the “crack” of high powered rifles made encroaching neighbors in johnny-come-lately suburban developments queasy. Club members stubbornly kept the name, but relocated tens of miles east to the wide open environs of Watkins.

Some might describe Fred as a gun nut. But they’d be wrong. He’s actually a gun safety nut. Nothing escapes his knowledgeable and meticulous preparation to shoot a firearm safely. And, he’s a do-it-yourselfer, to boot. Loads his own ammo. Owns a high powered spotting scope to see where bullets leave dime sized holes in paper plate sized targets 400 yards downrange. Serves as the club’s “range safety officer” when called on.

In short, Fred has probably forgotten more about firearms than I ever knew. And his elephant like memory has forgotten very little.

So, when I told Fred about my big deer hunt not long ago, he never missed a beat: “Well,” he said, “that means I need to take you out to the Golden Gun Club and get you ready.” And, since that was at least part of my secret reason for telling him my plans, who was I to say, “No”?

Within a week, there we were, east of E-470. East of the Arapahoe County Fairgrounds. So far east, in fact, that while we might not have been in the middle of nowhere, we could see it from there. At the expansive and sophisticated facilities of the Golden Gun Club.

But let’s cut to the chase. Before the day was out, Fred had me thinking so much about the esoterica of shooting that I forgot about the basic stuff I’d learned as a kid. Like keeping the butt of the gun firmly against my shoulder when I fired. So, when I pulled the trigger, the powerful rifle’s telescopic sight kicked straight back and hit me squarely between the eyes. Which left me seeing stars. And with a weeping, bloody circle over the bridge of my nose. And the beginnings of a couple of very impressive black eyes.

Needless to say, I was done shooting for that day. But more importantly, I was discouraged. A few days later I broached the subject with Marleen. “You know,” I began, “this getting whacked between the eyes by my gun didn’t feel very special. I wonder if I should just cancel this hunting trip to Casper?”

“Oh, don’t do that,” she replied. “You’ve already paid for the trip. Just pay attention to what your guide says. You’ll be fine.”

Her answer took me back a bit. Perhaps above all else, Marleen is the voice of cautious reason in our house. So, with the blessing of the woman who usually sees the dark cloud around every silver lining, I was headed north on I-25 a few days later.

The Big Empty

Basically, I-25 between Denver and Cheyenne is a mess. Relentless construction and traffic jams; you should avoid it like the plague. Trust me, the boosters who’ve made Colorado’s Front Range the “hot” place to live have succeeded in spades. Yuck!

But north of Cheyenne, the deer and the antelope still have plenty of room to play between the few, small bergs scattered along the 179 miles of I-25 between the Wyoming capital and Casper. Chugwater. Wheatland. Glenrock. Douglas. Heard of any of those towns? Neither had I. But they’re up there; I drove through them. Or past’em. At 80 mph. And I got passed by plenty of big Silverado and Ram pickups with Wyoming plates while doing so. And, although at that speed I certainly didn’t have time to count ’em, I swear I drove by one herd of at least 100 antelope.

It wasn’t long before I eased off the ramp to Casper and began unloading my gear in front of the Ramkota Hotel. My only beef with the entire trip? My room’s shower: the hot was cold, and the cold hot. And no-one warned me at the front desk. Sure, the confusion was cleared up soon enough. But you haven’t lived ’til you’ve come in from a long day of hunting and think you have to take a cold shower. A really cold shower.

The All-A-rounder

My guide for the trip was a 21 year old stranger named Austin Seeley. But over dinner with him during that first night in Casper, the layers of the onion began to peel away.

With his parents and younger sister, Austin grew up on a ranch near Wright, Wyoming. Ever heard of it and its 1800 some odd residents? Probably not. But thanks to Austin, you might.

During his senior year of high school, he was selected to be president of the Wyoming chapter of the Future Farmers of America. In the this article, this high school kid is described as “putting Wright on the map.” During his tenure as FFA president, he criss-crossed the state in his “spare” time to visit all the state chapters, flew to DC to chit-chat with both of Wyoming’s U.S. senators, and jetted to Indianapolis to represent the state at the national convention.

Still not impressed? During the spring to fall season, Austin fights rangeland fires for the Bureau of Land Management. Including this one that scorched the hillside above our condo in Silverthorne, Colorado.

And when he’s not politicking and fighting fires? This 21 year old is a hunting guide. And a darn good one. And BTW. Don’t think that Austin was tooting his own horn by volunteering all this information. I just started pumping him with questions. Which led to another. And another. And so on.

“The Air Bites Shrewdly. It Is Very Cold.”

Know where that little snippet comes from? Hamlet. But I doubt it was much colder in the predawn darkness of Denmark than it was where Austin and I parked ourselves on a windswept rise overlooking a sage brush choked gully and the still green alfalfa field beyond as the sun peeked over the eastern horizon to our right. Through the windshield of Austin’s pickup, we scanned the terrain to the north with our binoculars. Until, that is, Austin climbed into the bed of the truck with his powerful spotting scope.

I was still getting the hang of things and probably wasn’t much help. The correct focus. Keeping track of the draws I’d scoured and those I hadn’t. Picking out a deer’s antler in the brush. Or the flick of an ear. In all that vastness. But neither of us laid eyes on a buck that morning.

As afternoon rolled around, we drove a wide loop around Casper and came to a draw where the bright sun had melted the snow on a dirt road and turned it into a greasy gumbo. When we parked, I could see the wind whip the snow on the slope above into a tormented frenzy. But no deer make an appearance in our “binos”.

A Bird In Hand

So, as the sun dipped toward the west, we made the long loop back to our morning’s starting point. Where, as we slowly drove over a narrow, rickety ranch bridge that crossed a small creek, Austin suddenly braked, saying, “There! Did you see that buck?”

Of course not. Yeah, the guide might have all the latest and greatest gear. But that’s not what counts. Austin’s most important “gear” is his knowledge and experience. Including the hard won knowledge of seeing things where there’s seemingly nothing to see.

He pulled the truck to the side of the narrow track and looked over to the left. “Well,” he asked, “should we go get that one?”

I looked left, following his gaze. And, of course, saw nothing. “Well,” I answered, “this is only the first day of a five day hunt. I sort of hate to have it all be over so quickly. Why don’t we pull ahead and see what we can see in this big pasture to our right.”

“Fine,” he said, as our truck began slowly thumpity-thumping over the bridge. Before coming to where the track ended at a closed barbed wire gate overlooking an alfalfa field so large that even through my binoculars I usually couldn’t distinguish between grazing deer and antelope. Or even cattle.

And where, for the next two and a half hours, we glassed back and forth to the south. Me with my outclassed binoculars through the open passenger window. And, at an even greater disadvantage, with my outclassed knowledge. And Austin perched behind me on the cooler in the pickup bed, with his monster, tripod mounted spotting scope.

But all to no avail. When he finally climbed back into the seat next to me, out of the biting wind, I turned to him and said, “I guess a bird in hand’s probably worth two in the bush. We know there might be a buck a few hundred yards behind us. And, as far as I know, we haven’t seen another one all day. Let’s go back and see what we can do.”

“That’s fine,” he said, pulling ahead to begin a five point u-turn.

Everything Except Squeeze The Trigger

When Austin braked at the edge of the bridge, he brought his binos up to his eyes and looked right through the scrub willow and the higher sage brush beyond. Almost immediately he said, “Yep, there he is.” Pointing, he added, “He’s bedded down in that scrub willow straight down from the fork of that sage brush limb. Not bad. A four point.”

Baffled, even through my binoculars, I asked, “Where? I don’t see a thing.”

“Just keep looking. You can see one of his antlers. And one of his ears. He flicks it back and forth once in a while.”

And, sure enough, the grey ghost eventually materialized in my binos. As they say, even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while.

From there, it was largely a waiting game. With Austin’s, help I fumbled through a carpet of dense, knee high willows, narrowly avoiding filling my mid-calf high rubber hunting boots with frigid stream water when a misstep sent my foot to the bottom of a tiny tributary.

A few paces further on, Austin turned and whispered, “There,” he said, gesturing, “he’s bedded down.” He looked through his range finder: “Forty-one yards. You can see one antler and his eyes beneath that forked sage brush branch.”

I brought my gun to my shoulder and, through my scope, I eventually picked out the buck’s eyes and an antler while Austin set up my tripod that he’d been carrying.

When I finally found the animal again with the rifle on the tripod, his big eyes were looking straight at me through the scope. “Should I shoot him in the head?” I whispered to Austin out of the corner of my mouth.

“No,” he whispered back, “wait ’til he gets up.” So that’s what we did. Stock still. And the buck blinked first.

The Sound Of Silence

When he finally got up, the animal paused and looked squarely at us. And then began sauntering to our left. “Wait,” Austin whispered in my ear. Then, from deep in his chest, he let out classic deer “gruuuuuuunt” that stopped the animal dead in his tracks. “Shoot!” Austin whispered in my ear.

“Boom!” Now, until you’ve heard it, you can’t really understand how loud the report of a high powered rifle is. Even with ear protection, as I was practicing with Fred at the Golden Gun Club, when the guy in the next shooting lane fired, I invariably flinched. I just haven’t been around it all that much.

But, even with no ear protection at all, ask me what I heard when I fired at that animal’s left front shoulder, I’d probably screw up my face and answer, “It’s weird, but I don’t remember hearing anything.” Except Austin promptly crying, “Great shot! He’s down a little to our left, maybe 30 yards.” And, sure enough, there he was, heaped up in the snow and sear grass, next to a desiccated sage brush rattling in the wind.

Spilling His Guts

Austin made short work of gutting the animal out, leaving the hide intact. And then tugging and dragging him back to the truck. With only my now empty rifle slung over my shoulder, and even with the assistance of the collapsed tripod as a walking stick, I couldn’t keep up.

When we pulled back into Casper, full night had settled over town. We got to Pat’s Processing and walked in on a scene right out of Hironomous Bosch. Under stark klieg lights, men with rubber aprons, gloves, and boots pushed gleaming, half-shell 50 gallon drums on dollies bearing splayed out deer carcasses. Streams of water played on the animals as they moved along before plashing to the concrete floor beneath and from thence to the drains. My deer’s carcass was turned into the roasts, breakfast sausage, hamburger and salami that I’d ordered out of sight, farther back in the small plant.

Don’t like that image? Trust me. Those deer had a much better chance of making it through their day intact than the cow you ate last night did of getting out of the slaughterhouse in one piece.

“Hon.” And “Dear.”

Now, I’m an early riser. Does that make me wise? As in “early to bed, early to rise“? Not hardly. Just old. You try sleeping in when you’re staring down your 71st birthday. So, next morning my feet hit the floor and I was checked out of the hotel not long after the sun poked into the eastern sky.

But old as I am, my appetite seems undiminished. So, I was on Yelp bright and early and found Eggingtons. And despite the lengthy Sunday morning wait-and a menu that was anything but exotic-I’m glad I did. Yeah, my usual-eggs, bacon, salad, and a heaping side of coffee-were great. But as nothing compared to my small town waitress: “Sure, hon,” and “More coffee, dear?” She was priceless.

Spoiling The Grandkids.

I looked left when I got out of the restaurant and saw a sign that was as tall and lean as any Rider of the Purple Sage: Lou Taubert Ranch Outfitters.

Curious, I walked a block and a half down the street, turned in, and immediately knew what I was after. On descending to the bottom of the store’s nine stories, I was in the thick of the kids’ department. When a pleasant young lady approached and asked, “Can I help you, sir?” I immediately replied, “Yes, I’m here to spoil my grandkids.” I swear. You can imagine the grin that spread across her face. And to make it even more delicious? Turns out she’s also an FFAer. Who also knows Austin. There’s small town charm for you. And small state charm.

So, what did I do immediately after I got home? You guessed it. Booked next year’s hunt.