Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/433799
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 1 5 8 T "Jack, suppose you put down the gun and pick up your pencil, unless you want me to call your father again," his teacher had warned. "Yessir." "So much for staying out of trouble," Perry had whispered across the aisle. Later Jack replayed the conversation in his mind with his friend. A twinge of remorse clouded his mood, and he wished he hadn't mentioned the deer. Perry had a mouth like a magpie, and Jack's father had warned him to keep quiet about the big deer. Word traveled quickly in a small town, Jack knew, and once the other boys heard what he'd said, they'd tell their relatives. With deer season this close, more hunters than ever might decide to pile onto the public land that crowded his grandpa's property for a crack at Bullwinkle and a chance to win the 94. Then again, he wouldn't be in the woods at all if his father found out he was loafing in school. It wasn't the first time Jack had been chastised for daydreaming during classes. A young, confident Jack Troutwine shivers in a stick blind awaiting dawn's early light, shotgun resting on his lap. His steely eyes scan the forest. Overhead a canopy of stars glitters like gems strewn over a jeweler's black cloth. Somewhere in the graying light a cock pheasant crows and owls trade questions. When Jack calls back, they answer. Jack's gaze searches the far side of a trout stream where moonlight splinters on rapids gossiping over stones, ribboning his grandpa's property like a present wrapped for him. Rich with expectation, he knows today is his day. Mirage then miracle, the monster buck eases from the treeline, silent as whisper and slow as sunrise, a shadow of subtle movement. When the deer dips its head to drink, Jack grins at the immensity of its antlers. "Bullwinkle," he mouths. Crouched in ambush, calm as a cucumber, Jack slides a slug into the Stevens single-shot, a relic forced on him by his father, and muffles the closing of the breech with his mitten. Sensing danger, the deer noses the wind, tail flicking nervously for the flight to come. Jack freezes and cocks the hammer with confidence. Click. Whirling, the big buck bounds up the streambank T he rifle was all they talked about. A slick new Winchester Model 94 resting in the glass showcase at Harden's Hardware. Jack coveted it. All the boys did. An inveterate hunter all of his long life, Mr. Harden smiled at the boys' enthusiasm. Recalling his excitement at their age, he allowed them to gather near the gun so long as they didn't interfere with his regular customers. The boys liked him and spoke openly around him. "I wonder who's gonna win it." Perry pressed his forehead against the glass for a closer look at this year's prize for bagging the biggest buck in the county. "Me." Jack pantomimed the kill, mock-shooting a glassy-eyed, dusty deer mount nailed to the wall and rocked back from imagined recoil. "Boom! Mr. Buck down on the ground." Perry guffawed. "You? Yeah, right. You couldn't hit the ground with your hat even if your dad does let you hunt this year." "Laugh all you want, Perry, but I've been keeping my nose clean. Dad and I already got a good spot picked out for me . . . lots of big tracks and rubs plus we've seen Bullwinkle twice this fall down by the creek. The neighbor saw him too. Said he's got more points than you can count." He raised his arms and framed a finger rack over his head with both hands. "Don't matter if he's got more points than Wilt Chamberlain, with that mule- kicking pumpkin-thrower of yours, you'd have to tie him to a tree to get close enough to hit him." "We'll see," Jack countered, catching Mr. Harden's amusement at Perry's comment. "I figure I got as good a chance as anybody else, and I plan to win that gun if it's the last thing I do." "You said that last year too," Perry quipped, "and that was the last thing you didn't do because you were grounded as usual before the season even started!" "This year is going to be different. I plan to stay out of trouble." Then Jack mimicked shouldering the Model 94. Racking a shell into the chamber and squinting down the iron sights, he squeezed off another mental round at the mount. He visualized the deer dropping stone dead at 100 yards, a shot he practiced once too often during English class when he was supposed to be diagramming sentences.