Sporting Classics Digital

S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 4 0 officer on the battleship New Jersey, shelling hell out of the Syrians, the first two true, the third not quite. One day I got an unusual little envelope from the RFD man. It was gold on white like a wedding invitation, but official Navy stationary, postmarked U. S. Naval Station, Mayport, Florida. "Your presence is respectfully requested at the change of command ceremony . . ." It was the Captain, captain at last. I suppose he would have been happy with a supply ship or a big oiler, but the Navy must have known about that Packard Clipper and the ragtop Mustang for they gave him command of Antrim, a guided missile frigate. She was 400-plus feet with 41,000 horsepower and so quick the bridge had hand-straps like a New York City subway car, so its nautical acrobatics would not throw men to the deck. I suppose I looked like Paul Bunion's bastard brother, full beard, LL Bean plaid wool jacket and a red stocking cap with a block pompom at the crown big as a cathead biscuit. There was predictable confusion in the receiving line. The departing officer did not recognize me and the arriving officer did not either, at least till I slipped him an old black- and-white photo of the two of us hanging off the front bumper of the Prichard's mule, transport to and from our favorite spot-tail slough so long before. Captains don't cry, do they? Of course not. "Smart ass," he said." Meet me at the officer's club bar in thirty minutes." I did. A bout the time I thought things were damn near perfect, the Captain drew the annual Great Lakes Cruise, up the St. Lawrence, all the way to Duluth, a show and tell at a dozen U.S. and Canadian ports, Antrim's keel finally my shooting?" "No, but I got that much confidence in my deer." There was a long, low chuckle. "Smart ass," he said. A six-point crossed the road when we were still a quarter- mile from the stand. He was a frying pan buck that would never make a trophy but he was so fat he jiggled and his coat shone in the slant of the afternoon light. It was the last week in October, early in the rut and he did not have good sense. The buck dropped his head, laid his rack back along his shoulders, ghosted into a patch of dog fennel, brown now from the first early frost. The Captain reached for his shotgun, an auto stuffed full of double-ought. "Captain," I said, "you ain't shootin' that buck from the road. You ain't even shooting him from the ditch." First look, I was some insubordinate junior officer. Second look, I was the boy he knew and trusted long ago. "He ain't gonna let me get out of the truck." "He might," I said. "Just don't slam the door." "Smart ass." The Captain swished off into the dog fennel can't see. One shot. I hollered from the road, "Hit him again Cap!" He did. We backed the truck up to the kill, slid the deer over the tailgate. "Where we gonna butcher this thing?" he asked. "In the front yard." "You got the knives sharp like you said?" "Hell no." "Why not?" "You never gave me the chance to sharpen them," I said. "Smart ass!" We cut up the buck with dull knives and we were happy, 50 years from when we did it the first time. 600 feet above sea level, only 200 miles from my dead end farm. I rode the ship four days. "And sir," one of his junior officers inquired, "just what is your position on this ship?" We had a Junior Grade German aboard, NATO liaison and he hardly knew his butt from a GPS fix. Figured I could do no further harm. "I am an observer for the Confederate Navy," I said. There were no further questions. The Captain followed me home. I took him grouse hunting but Antrim was beating his knees to jelly and though he hung his lip over a plate or two, he allowed it was too much walking for the meat. I took him duck hunting. That suited him better, and he came back each October for the northern flight for the next dozen years. You never seen such shooting, much of it in the driving sleet and he didn't complain too much. Then he retired and farming got in the way of my writing and pretty soon we were right back where we started. But they stole our county while we were gone. Population up ten- fold, to nearly 200,000; six-lane highways plugged tight with traffic and three murders some weeks. Stolen tools? A gunfight on Gum Tree Road? Forget it. When it got to four murders, you dasn't turn in a police report for anything less than a fifth. But there were scraps here and there they forgot to ruin, the inaccessible island, the lonesome stretch of beach, the big hardwood bottom subject to springtime floods. In time I got hold of a sizeable chunk of ground, managed it hard two years, then I gave the Captain a call. "Come on down, Captain, I'll put you on my favorite deer stand." "Your favorite stand? Where you gonna sit?" "Oh hell, Cap, I'll just stay home and sharpen the knives." "You got that much confidence in

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