October 24, 2025 • 20 mins
It's said that the best things in life are free, but the best lessons learned come at a cost. Brent's story this week is a testament to that, putting gains and losses into perspective. This particular lesson cost Brent a buck, but you can learn it with just a bit of your time. Settle in, and listen up! It's a wise investment on this week's episode of This Country Life podcast.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to this Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from coon hunting to trotlining and just in general country living.
I want you to stay a while as I share
my experiences in life lessons. This Country Life is presented
by Case Knives from the store More Studio on Meat
Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast that
(00:27):
airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair
or drop that tailgate. I've got some stores to share
a valuable lesson that only costs a buck. Lessons can
be learned in every situation if you're paying attention. Today's
(00:49):
episode is one of those, and it revolves around the
annual pursuit of white tail deer. More folks chase deer
than any other creature in the woods, and I've seen
some some sketchy stuff go on when a person's judgment
gets clouded by these magnificent critters. The teacher and the
student were separated by only a handful of years, that
(01:12):
in that span person can become wise far beyond a
measured amount of time. We've got a lot to talk about,
so let's get to it. Forty one years is a
long time. Forty one years from the memory of a
(01:33):
specific hunt and forty one years in prison are both
a tad shy of fifteen thousand days. But one seems
like yesterday, and the other, I assume would be like
a literal lifetime. Time, as they say, is relative to
the subject matter. But I remember this hunt like it
(01:54):
was yesterday in the grandest detail, for what I lost
instead of what I got. But what I got would
eventually be bigger than what I was after I was
sitting within sight of our camp's eastern boundary, a surveyed
white painted landline adorning trees that separated the Timber company
(02:15):
land within our claim and the clearcut of a different
timber concern. The stand I was roosted in during the
first week of gunn deer season in Arkansas was built
by my brother Tim and his brother in law, Joe Bryant.
It consisted of short tubeerforees used as rungs that were
nailed between the gap of two young white oak trees
(02:36):
that stood a few feet apart fifteen feet above the
planet Earth. Up that series of steps was constructed a
small platform that was two feet wide and about three
feet long and floored with enough tube before is to
make a good seat you could comfortably sit and down
or your legs like you were sitting on the tailgate
(02:56):
of a truck, or use either tree as a backrest
and face either east or west. I bought on the
trail that went right past it, that was leading out
of or into the neighboring clearcut. It was all determined
by the direction the deer were walking. It was a
quarter of a mile walk east from the big army
tent that we were sleeping in to the stand, and
(03:19):
to get there you'd have to walk the very trail
you hoped the deer would be using. Once you got there.
A cold front had the wind coming out of the
north that morning that was perfect for getting deer up
on their feet, and that westward running trail for deer
coming out of their beds from that big thicket across
the property line would have me sitting in the perfect
(03:39):
spot to catch them coming toward me before they ever
had a chance to smell me. Breakfast that morning was coffee, lightbread,
bacon and eggs, and we cooked it in a vist
queen wrapped kitchen that was just big enough to hold
a cold and stove, a lantern and the ice chest
containing all the victials. If you try to do the
(04:00):
math on that light bread description, it's just untoasted white
bread from the loaf. I was in my fifties when
I learned not everyone calls it that. I've learned a
lot of things in my fifties. Sadly none of them
have been how to make myself invisible. That would come
in real handy during turkey season. It was cold that morning,
(04:21):
with a good frost, and I had climbed onto my
perch way before the appointed time for the sun to rise.
The two trees the stam was built in stood side beside,
laying the east and west. I sat down, and I
leaned against the tree to the west and faced the
opposite direction from which I came. With an unobstructed view
(04:41):
from that little oak flat, I was sitting in to
the edge of a thicket on the other side of
the property line, eighty yards away. As down creeped into Arkansas,
I could see to my left, which was north, and
to my right being south, and everything in between through
the open wood. An occasional glance would have to suffice
(05:03):
for covering the way I had walked in. But knowing
how much those deer like bedding in that thicket made
me direct my full attention in that direction. I had
gotten as cold as I was going to be all day,
which for me is right after the sun comes up.
The occasional rigor would rattle me as I sat quartered
away from the wind when I heard the old familiar
(05:26):
sound of leaves crunching under deer feet louder and louder.
It became getting closer and closer, and I had no
reason in my mind for not being able to see it.
As plain as the day that was dawned before me.
I could see the well beaten trail leading out of
that thicket that could have doubled as a cattle trail
(05:47):
across a pasture. Where was this dad gum deer? And then,
from somewhere in the recesses of my misfiring synapses, the
thought occurred to me to look back the way I
came there, thirty yards away and getting closer. Was a
little spike walking toward the thicket, stepping in the tracks
(06:08):
I just made thirty minutes ago, his nose dipping down
almost to the dirt every few steps. I immediately began
to warm up as I followed the young buck as
He traced my path to the stand, stopping right beside
me where I was sitting and where I stepped off
the trail and climbed the tree. The wind was blowing
(06:28):
straight to him, but since he hadn't run off, I
assumed it was blowing over the top of him. Why
he hadn't boogered over smelling where I had walked was
the math problem I was currently working on in my head.
He stuck his nose down and got another whiff and
jerked his head up, looking in the direction of the thicket.
I swiveled, watching between him and the trail that lay
(06:50):
before him. When I saw a dough in a yearly
and pop out of that big brier patch and head
toward where he stood and I sat. She wasn't running,
but she she wasn't just strolling either. Her yearling was big,
but he still had a few spots that you could see,
and alternated between picking up acrons and trying to nurse.
(07:11):
She ignored the tempts of him trying to nurse, except
for the occasional kick to Junior's head. They spoke the
universal mom language of I'm busy. You got to find
your own self. Some deed she stopped twenty yards away,
and that little buck hadn't twitched from his location until
she did. Being the opportunitist he apparently was, old, Spike
(07:32):
ignored the tax deduction that though had tagging along with her,
and took it upon himself to let Romance bloom. It
was quite rude. The Spike was bobbing and weaving like
a cutting horse, trying to keep her in one spot
for a slow dance, and wound up having this behind
to the thicket she and Junior just came out of.
(07:54):
She'd already taken a couple of poly time jabs that
Spike went from. Out of that same thicket, Spike was
no longer looking toward a big nine points shot out
of there like he was late for work. He carvered
the sixty yards like a missile and was Spike's full
attention directed toward Mama. The big buck gave Spike nine
(08:15):
reasons to get out of dodge right in his back pockets, Yauza,
The world being round is the only way Spike could
ever make it back to those woods. He left there
so fast that if it's flat, he'd drawn off the
edge before he could have slowed down the stop but
that wasn't the end of the action by any meanings. Well,
(08:39):
it was playing to see for everyone that these two
had a history there mutually agreed upon amorous field. Congress
used the whole dah floor from the ticket table to
the band. Junior and I just passed the time focused
on other things like ian akerons and trying not to stare,
(09:00):
And all of a sudden I remembered I was there
to shoot a deer. The band must have taken a break,
because when the dancing stopped, Mama and Junior used on
down the trail, and the nine point just stood there
catching his wind. When I decided to let it all
out of him, he was more than a quartering to
me when I settled the crosshairs on where I wanted,
(09:20):
and while he watched his mane squeeze disappear down the road,
I gave the trigger a squeeze and send him one
hundred and fifty grains of getting my freezer, all of
which he told it with him at a slightly more
timid rate than the spike had left with He was
heading north and was swallowed up by the thickness of
the overseas of pine woods between the oak flat where
(09:43):
I was sitting in the State highway before the echo
of that rifle had stopped bouncing around in the woods.
I know I hit him. I couldn't have missed from
that distance. He was rolling low and hugging the ground
when I last saw him, and I walked over. I
found some blood after a short dish. Now it wasn't
poor now, but it wasn't dripping neither. He was headed
(10:05):
toward the highway with me in hot pursuit when I
hit a seemingly impenetrable thicket a double back and headed
to the camp to get my truck and some help.
Tim and Joe had heard me shooting were waiting for
me when I got there. I was telling them the story.
(10:28):
I told him where I had lost him in the
thicket near the highway and that we needed to go
get him from there. As I was explaining to them
where he was, we heard a rifle shot exactly where
I was pointing. We all paused and looked at one another,
and Joe said, somebody just shot your deer. From that point,
(10:49):
the fictationous band that was playing Belly Rubbie music for
the Star Crossed Ungerlet's cueued up the traveling music, and
I jumped in my truck and Tim and Joe foun
I pulled out of the highway half a mile down
the road, and I could see three folks standing on
the side of the road exactly where I figured my
deer would have crossed. A sigh of relief at that
(11:10):
particular point of my life. The deer that only moments
ago I had shot and tracted that thicket is the
biggest buck I had ever shot in my life. I
had already picked a spot out for him on my wall.
I don't know why those folks shot. I assumed they
must have give them the old coup de grass. But
whatever reason could there have been, I pulled up and
(11:34):
there stood what could only be described as an amalgamation
of bens. Now, this eclectic crew of misfits gathered together
could have only been the result of some monumental egregiousness
of human mouth feastings. They could have rented themselves out
to haunt a house. First impression showed that they were
missing teeth, a limb, and personal hygiene, and what theycked
(11:58):
in cleanliness and tasteful of appearance they made up for
with tier one trashiness. And they were all standing over
my buck. One was holding the lever action rifle. Was
he still kicking when y'all shot him? I said that
to no one in particular, but aimed at it to
whomever was going to be the spokesman for the group kicking.
(12:22):
He wasn't kicking. He was standing there on the edge
of the woods when I shot him. That's Timber Company land.
Anybody can hunt there. Hmm. Well, now he was right
about that, even though it was counted as ours by
gentlemen's agreements from the camps all around us. This was
still before releasing land started. We had no legal right
(12:44):
to tell anyone that they couldn't hunt there. But I
said it don't matter. I shot him fifteen minutes before
you did. That's my deer now. I fitting loaded him
in my truck. The greasiest of the lot slowly looked
up at me and said that, dear is ours. I
could see this playing out in a couple different ways,
(13:05):
both of which would have me celebrating my nineteenth birthday
in the state penitentiary or Reeves cemetery. What a terrible
way to spend a birthday, and yet that's exactly where
I was intending on going at that moment in my
life over a deer, as they say in the dramatic
movie scripts, the plot thickened. I am not a coward,
(13:29):
but I have been scared before, seeing the totality of
a situation. But as I stood there looking at my buck,
me on one side, and the mangiest trio of ne'er
do wells I've ever seen, including up to right now,
I didn't have sense enough to even be cautious. Words
were exchanged, and in a matter of moments things began
(13:51):
to get a little sporty, and my brother walked up
with Joe Wright beside it. All right, that's three on three,
somebody ring the bell and let's get this Donny Brook started.
I got a deer to skin. Tim asked me what happened,
and I told him and Joe about the conversation the
three amigos and I had just finished. Tim introduced himself
(14:13):
to these vagabonds, and I looked at him sideways when
he did. Now, Joe referenced the story that that fellow
had told me, and he said, you shot this deer
when he was standing over there and pointed to the
edge of the woods. Yeah, shot him. Right behind the shoulder.
That's where it went in, and he pointed right where
I had shot him. Joe rolled the deer over. On
(14:36):
the opposite side was an exit woe filled with dirt.
Joe looked at the dirt, and the woman then looked
at the misgrant that was holding the rifle and said,
now you didn't you shot that deer laying right there
on the ground. That's how all the dirt got in there. Well,
that was it for me. It's time to rumble. I've
already picked out who I was gonna punch first. The
(14:58):
man with the rifle was fixing the get one on
his go to sleep button. It'd be hard to see
who to shoe with both his eyes shut and his
nose mashed flat, But my plan was to continue waiting
on him while Tim and Joe settled on the other two,
one of which was sporting a freshly bandaged nub above
his right wrist where his boxing gloves should have been. Now,
(15:19):
which everyone got him was gonna have an incredible reach advantage.
Then my brother said, Brent, shut your mouth and go
back to the truck. Y'all get this deer and get
out of here. Don't let me catch you back here again.
(15:43):
He said that with a sternless unlike I'd ever heard
him use. They didn't say a word, and I didn't
care what he said. I find to knock this dude out.
And Tim looked over me and said now, and I
knew he meant for me to do what he said,
not what I was intended. I turned around and I
(16:06):
walked back to that truck, mad as a mashed cat,
and I turned to see Lefty. I'm just guessing they
called him Lefty. I asked what I'd have called him, but
he was now holding the rifle while the other two
drunk the deer to their rattle trap of a car.
There went my deer. Now here came my brother. I
didn't want to talk to him. But as I started
(16:28):
to pull off the shoulder and go back to camp,
my right front wheel dropped into a hole and I
got stuck. I had to stop him now and ask
him to pull me out. I wanted to punch him,
and now he was laughing at me for being stuck,
on top of just giving my deer away. I felt
like Tom Cheney in the classic Questern True Grit when
(16:51):
little Maddie Ross shot him with her late father's big
forty four caliber Coult Dragoon revolver. He said, everything happened
to me and now I'm shot by a child. Well
I feel you, Tom, but you only got shot your
brother didn't give your biggest deer away. Tim and Joe
(17:12):
pulled me out and we all went back to the camp.
I was steaming, but it started to cool off a
degree or two by the time we all found our
spots at the fire. We talked about the right and
the wrong things to do, and how the right thing
is hardly ever the easiest to do or to see.
(17:35):
My feeling of loss was over those horns, and for
years afterwards I felt somewhat ashamed of being willing to
fight someone over something that's insignificant as a set of
deer antlers. Now, had I been trying to feed my
family with that deer, Tim would have been the first
one to get out and start swinging. Maybe that's what
(17:56):
those folks motivation was. I don't know. If I had
to say, I'd guess their interest was the same as mine.
A trophy that only they and the Good Lord know
that And in the grand scheme of things, what does
it matter? It didn't then and it doesn't now now.
What does matter is being magnanimous and display an integrity,
(18:18):
And my brother gave me a lesson in both that day,
one that I haven't forgotten. Anytime we tell that story,
we always find the humor and poking fund at that
crusty tree over by foods. But in my mind, I
remember the day that my brother made me stop think
about the situation you find yourself in, realizing that what's
(18:41):
really a stink. Actions have repercussions that can affect your
life forever. Like like a rock dropped in a steel pond,
the ripples go in every direction and touch everything within
the banks, each of them in one way or another.
Be hard to look back now, over forty years later,
(19:02):
knowing I could have walked away from a potentially bad
situation and didn't. Thanks Tim, But sometimes I still want
to punch you. Thank you so much for listening to
this country life of mine. Bear grease in a backwoods university.
Drop us a review if you have a chance, and
send those stories into my tcl story at the meat
(19:24):
Eater dot com. If it's a hunting story, try to
make it as relevant to the time we're in I've
got some good Turkey stories waiting, but it'll be a
few months before we tell them my signature case. Many
trappers back in stock and they tell me they're starting
to make a run out the door once again. I
want one. You might want to check in on them
before they're gone again. Christmas ain't that far away. The
(19:46):
same thing with the tickets for the Meat Eater Dip
down here in the Motherland this December. That's going to
be a fun time and I'm really looking forward to it. Hey,
if you like crime stories, check out the new Blood
trails Pot podcast with my partner Jordan Sellers. That's dropping
on October the thirtieth. Man, it's gonna be good. That's
(20:06):
it for me, And until next week. This is Brent
Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful
Welcome to this Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from coon hunting to trotlining and just in general country living.
I want you to stay a while as I share
my experiences in life lessons. This Country Life is presented
by Case Knives from the store More Studio on Meat
Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast that
(00:27):
airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair
or drop that tailgate. I've got some stores to share
a valuable lesson that only costs a buck. Lessons can
be learned in every situation if you're paying attention. Today's
(00:49):
episode is one of those, and it revolves around the
annual pursuit of white tail deer. More folks chase deer
than any other creature in the woods, and I've seen
some some sketchy stuff go on when a person's judgment
gets clouded by these magnificent critters. The teacher and the
student were separated by only a handful of years, that
(01:12):
in that span person can become wise far beyond a
measured amount of time. We've got a lot to talk about,
so let's get to it. Forty one years is a
long time. Forty one years from the memory of a
(01:33):
specific hunt and forty one years in prison are both
a tad shy of fifteen thousand days. But one seems
like yesterday, and the other, I assume would be like
a literal lifetime. Time, as they say, is relative to
the subject matter. But I remember this hunt like it
(01:54):
was yesterday in the grandest detail, for what I lost
instead of what I got. But what I got would
eventually be bigger than what I was after I was
sitting within sight of our camp's eastern boundary, a surveyed
white painted landline adorning trees that separated the Timber company
(02:15):
land within our claim and the clearcut of a different
timber concern. The stand I was roosted in during the
first week of gunn deer season in Arkansas was built
by my brother Tim and his brother in law, Joe Bryant.
It consisted of short tubeerforees used as rungs that were
nailed between the gap of two young white oak trees
(02:36):
that stood a few feet apart fifteen feet above the
planet Earth. Up that series of steps was constructed a
small platform that was two feet wide and about three
feet long and floored with enough tube before is to
make a good seat you could comfortably sit and down
or your legs like you were sitting on the tailgate
(02:56):
of a truck, or use either tree as a backrest
and face either east or west. I bought on the
trail that went right past it, that was leading out
of or into the neighboring clearcut. It was all determined
by the direction the deer were walking. It was a
quarter of a mile walk east from the big army
tent that we were sleeping in to the stand, and
(03:19):
to get there you'd have to walk the very trail
you hoped the deer would be using. Once you got there.
A cold front had the wind coming out of the
north that morning that was perfect for getting deer up
on their feet, and that westward running trail for deer
coming out of their beds from that big thicket across
the property line would have me sitting in the perfect
(03:39):
spot to catch them coming toward me before they ever
had a chance to smell me. Breakfast that morning was coffee, lightbread,
bacon and eggs, and we cooked it in a vist
queen wrapped kitchen that was just big enough to hold
a cold and stove, a lantern and the ice chest
containing all the victials. If you try to do the
(04:00):
math on that light bread description, it's just untoasted white
bread from the loaf. I was in my fifties when
I learned not everyone calls it that. I've learned a
lot of things in my fifties. Sadly none of them
have been how to make myself invisible. That would come
in real handy during turkey season. It was cold that morning,
(04:21):
with a good frost, and I had climbed onto my
perch way before the appointed time for the sun to rise.
The two trees the stam was built in stood side beside,
laying the east and west. I sat down, and I
leaned against the tree to the west and faced the
opposite direction from which I came. With an unobstructed view
(04:41):
from that little oak flat, I was sitting in to
the edge of a thicket on the other side of
the property line, eighty yards away. As down creeped into Arkansas,
I could see to my left, which was north, and
to my right being south, and everything in between through
the open wood. An occasional glance would have to suffice
(05:03):
for covering the way I had walked in. But knowing
how much those deer like bedding in that thicket made
me direct my full attention in that direction. I had
gotten as cold as I was going to be all day,
which for me is right after the sun comes up.
The occasional rigor would rattle me as I sat quartered
away from the wind when I heard the old familiar
(05:26):
sound of leaves crunching under deer feet louder and louder.
It became getting closer and closer, and I had no
reason in my mind for not being able to see it.
As plain as the day that was dawned before me.
I could see the well beaten trail leading out of
that thicket that could have doubled as a cattle trail
(05:47):
across a pasture. Where was this dad gum deer? And then,
from somewhere in the recesses of my misfiring synapses, the
thought occurred to me to look back the way I
came there, thirty yards away and getting closer. Was a
little spike walking toward the thicket, stepping in the tracks
(06:08):
I just made thirty minutes ago, his nose dipping down
almost to the dirt every few steps. I immediately began
to warm up as I followed the young buck as
He traced my path to the stand, stopping right beside
me where I was sitting and where I stepped off
the trail and climbed the tree. The wind was blowing
(06:28):
straight to him, but since he hadn't run off, I
assumed it was blowing over the top of him. Why
he hadn't boogered over smelling where I had walked was
the math problem I was currently working on in my head.
He stuck his nose down and got another whiff and
jerked his head up, looking in the direction of the thicket.
I swiveled, watching between him and the trail that lay
(06:50):
before him. When I saw a dough in a yearly
and pop out of that big brier patch and head
toward where he stood and I sat. She wasn't running,
but she she wasn't just strolling either. Her yearling was big,
but he still had a few spots that you could see,
and alternated between picking up acrons and trying to nurse.
(07:11):
She ignored the tempts of him trying to nurse, except
for the occasional kick to Junior's head. They spoke the
universal mom language of I'm busy. You got to find
your own self. Some deed she stopped twenty yards away,
and that little buck hadn't twitched from his location until
she did. Being the opportunitist he apparently was, old, Spike
(07:32):
ignored the tax deduction that though had tagging along with her,
and took it upon himself to let Romance bloom. It
was quite rude. The Spike was bobbing and weaving like
a cutting horse, trying to keep her in one spot
for a slow dance, and wound up having this behind
to the thicket she and Junior just came out of.
(07:54):
She'd already taken a couple of poly time jabs that
Spike went from. Out of that same thicket, Spike was
no longer looking toward a big nine points shot out
of there like he was late for work. He carvered
the sixty yards like a missile and was Spike's full
attention directed toward Mama. The big buck gave Spike nine
(08:15):
reasons to get out of dodge right in his back pockets, Yauza,
The world being round is the only way Spike could
ever make it back to those woods. He left there
so fast that if it's flat, he'd drawn off the
edge before he could have slowed down the stop but
that wasn't the end of the action by any meanings. Well,
(08:39):
it was playing to see for everyone that these two
had a history there mutually agreed upon amorous field. Congress
used the whole dah floor from the ticket table to
the band. Junior and I just passed the time focused
on other things like ian akerons and trying not to stare,
(09:00):
And all of a sudden I remembered I was there
to shoot a deer. The band must have taken a break,
because when the dancing stopped, Mama and Junior used on
down the trail, and the nine point just stood there
catching his wind. When I decided to let it all
out of him, he was more than a quartering to
me when I settled the crosshairs on where I wanted,
(09:20):
and while he watched his mane squeeze disappear down the road,
I gave the trigger a squeeze and send him one
hundred and fifty grains of getting my freezer, all of
which he told it with him at a slightly more
timid rate than the spike had left with He was
heading north and was swallowed up by the thickness of
the overseas of pine woods between the oak flat where
(09:43):
I was sitting in the State highway before the echo
of that rifle had stopped bouncing around in the woods.
I know I hit him. I couldn't have missed from
that distance. He was rolling low and hugging the ground
when I last saw him, and I walked over. I
found some blood after a short dish. Now it wasn't
poor now, but it wasn't dripping neither. He was headed
(10:05):
toward the highway with me in hot pursuit when I
hit a seemingly impenetrable thicket a double back and headed
to the camp to get my truck and some help.
Tim and Joe had heard me shooting were waiting for
me when I got there. I was telling them the story.
(10:28):
I told him where I had lost him in the
thicket near the highway and that we needed to go
get him from there. As I was explaining to them
where he was, we heard a rifle shot exactly where
I was pointing. We all paused and looked at one another,
and Joe said, somebody just shot your deer. From that point,
(10:49):
the fictationous band that was playing Belly Rubbie music for
the Star Crossed Ungerlet's cueued up the traveling music, and
I jumped in my truck and Tim and Joe foun
I pulled out of the highway half a mile down
the road, and I could see three folks standing on
the side of the road exactly where I figured my
deer would have crossed. A sigh of relief at that
(11:10):
particular point of my life. The deer that only moments
ago I had shot and tracted that thicket is the
biggest buck I had ever shot in my life. I
had already picked a spot out for him on my wall.
I don't know why those folks shot. I assumed they
must have give them the old coup de grass. But
whatever reason could there have been, I pulled up and
(11:34):
there stood what could only be described as an amalgamation
of bens. Now, this eclectic crew of misfits gathered together
could have only been the result of some monumental egregiousness
of human mouth feastings. They could have rented themselves out
to haunt a house. First impression showed that they were
missing teeth, a limb, and personal hygiene, and what theycked
(11:58):
in cleanliness and tasteful of appearance they made up for
with tier one trashiness. And they were all standing over
my buck. One was holding the lever action rifle. Was
he still kicking when y'all shot him? I said that
to no one in particular, but aimed at it to
whomever was going to be the spokesman for the group kicking.
(12:22):
He wasn't kicking. He was standing there on the edge
of the woods when I shot him. That's Timber Company land.
Anybody can hunt there. Hmm. Well, now he was right
about that, even though it was counted as ours by
gentlemen's agreements from the camps all around us. This was
still before releasing land started. We had no legal right
(12:44):
to tell anyone that they couldn't hunt there. But I
said it don't matter. I shot him fifteen minutes before
you did. That's my deer now. I fitting loaded him
in my truck. The greasiest of the lot slowly looked
up at me and said that, dear is ours. I
could see this playing out in a couple different ways,
(13:05):
both of which would have me celebrating my nineteenth birthday
in the state penitentiary or Reeves cemetery. What a terrible
way to spend a birthday, and yet that's exactly where
I was intending on going at that moment in my
life over a deer, as they say in the dramatic
movie scripts, the plot thickened. I am not a coward,
(13:29):
but I have been scared before, seeing the totality of
a situation. But as I stood there looking at my buck,
me on one side, and the mangiest trio of ne'er
do wells I've ever seen, including up to right now,
I didn't have sense enough to even be cautious. Words
were exchanged, and in a matter of moments things began
(13:51):
to get a little sporty, and my brother walked up
with Joe Wright beside it. All right, that's three on three,
somebody ring the bell and let's get this Donny Brook started.
I got a deer to skin. Tim asked me what happened,
and I told him and Joe about the conversation the
three amigos and I had just finished. Tim introduced himself
(14:13):
to these vagabonds, and I looked at him sideways when
he did. Now, Joe referenced the story that that fellow
had told me, and he said, you shot this deer
when he was standing over there and pointed to the
edge of the woods. Yeah, shot him. Right behind the shoulder.
That's where it went in, and he pointed right where
I had shot him. Joe rolled the deer over. On
(14:36):
the opposite side was an exit woe filled with dirt.
Joe looked at the dirt, and the woman then looked
at the misgrant that was holding the rifle and said,
now you didn't you shot that deer laying right there
on the ground. That's how all the dirt got in there. Well,
that was it for me. It's time to rumble. I've
already picked out who I was gonna punch first. The
(14:58):
man with the rifle was fixing the get one on
his go to sleep button. It'd be hard to see
who to shoe with both his eyes shut and his
nose mashed flat, But my plan was to continue waiting
on him while Tim and Joe settled on the other two,
one of which was sporting a freshly bandaged nub above
his right wrist where his boxing gloves should have been. Now,
(15:19):
which everyone got him was gonna have an incredible reach advantage.
Then my brother said, Brent, shut your mouth and go
back to the truck. Y'all get this deer and get
out of here. Don't let me catch you back here again.
(15:43):
He said that with a sternless unlike I'd ever heard
him use. They didn't say a word, and I didn't
care what he said. I find to knock this dude out.
And Tim looked over me and said now, and I
knew he meant for me to do what he said,
not what I was intended. I turned around and I
(16:06):
walked back to that truck, mad as a mashed cat,
and I turned to see Lefty. I'm just guessing they
called him Lefty. I asked what I'd have called him, but
he was now holding the rifle while the other two
drunk the deer to their rattle trap of a car.
There went my deer. Now here came my brother. I
didn't want to talk to him. But as I started
(16:28):
to pull off the shoulder and go back to camp,
my right front wheel dropped into a hole and I
got stuck. I had to stop him now and ask
him to pull me out. I wanted to punch him,
and now he was laughing at me for being stuck,
on top of just giving my deer away. I felt
like Tom Cheney in the classic Questern True Grit when
(16:51):
little Maddie Ross shot him with her late father's big
forty four caliber Coult Dragoon revolver. He said, everything happened
to me and now I'm shot by a child. Well
I feel you, Tom, but you only got shot your
brother didn't give your biggest deer away. Tim and Joe
(17:12):
pulled me out and we all went back to the camp.
I was steaming, but it started to cool off a
degree or two by the time we all found our
spots at the fire. We talked about the right and
the wrong things to do, and how the right thing
is hardly ever the easiest to do or to see.
(17:35):
My feeling of loss was over those horns, and for
years afterwards I felt somewhat ashamed of being willing to
fight someone over something that's insignificant as a set of
deer antlers. Now, had I been trying to feed my
family with that deer, Tim would have been the first
one to get out and start swinging. Maybe that's what
(17:56):
those folks motivation was. I don't know. If I had
to say, I'd guess their interest was the same as mine.
A trophy that only they and the Good Lord know
that And in the grand scheme of things, what does
it matter? It didn't then and it doesn't now now.
What does matter is being magnanimous and display an integrity,
(18:18):
And my brother gave me a lesson in both that day,
one that I haven't forgotten. Anytime we tell that story,
we always find the humor and poking fund at that
crusty tree over by foods. But in my mind, I
remember the day that my brother made me stop think
about the situation you find yourself in, realizing that what's
(18:41):
really a stink. Actions have repercussions that can affect your
life forever. Like like a rock dropped in a steel pond,
the ripples go in every direction and touch everything within
the banks, each of them in one way or another.
Be hard to look back now, over forty years later,
(19:02):
knowing I could have walked away from a potentially bad
situation and didn't. Thanks Tim, But sometimes I still want
to punch you. Thank you so much for listening to
this country life of mine. Bear grease in a backwoods university.
Drop us a review if you have a chance, and
send those stories into my tcl story at the meat
(19:24):
Eater dot com. If it's a hunting story, try to
make it as relevant to the time we're in I've
got some good Turkey stories waiting, but it'll be a
few months before we tell them my signature case. Many
trappers back in stock and they tell me they're starting
to make a run out the door once again. I
want one. You might want to check in on them
before they're gone again. Christmas ain't that far away. The
(19:46):
same thing with the tickets for the Meat Eater Dip
down here in the Motherland this December. That's going to
be a fun time and I'm really looking forward to it. Hey,
if you like crime stories, check out the new Blood
trails Pot podcast with my partner Jordan Sellers. That's dropping
on October the thirtieth. Man, it's gonna be good. That's
(20:06):
it for me, And until next week. This is Brent
Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful
Host
Clay Newcomb
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