The Ghost of Boone Mountain

[gophergunner]

It was the last day of Pennsylvania's deer season, and I was high up on the mountain above camp, trying desperately to fill my tag.  The Red Gods were not smiling on me this year, and ther were hungry mouths at home to feed. 

As I slowly still hunted my way up the hollow, poking around every patch of mountain laurel, hoping against hope that a buck would show it's self and I would fill my tag.  I'd done this hunt many times before.  The deer trails were worn 6" deep up the side of this hollow.  My dad had taught me to hunt this way many years ago.  I missed him a lot during deer season.  Him and the other members of the Olde Guard, as we affectionately called the orignal members of our camp.   All gone now, but never forgotten.

The higher I worked on the mountain, the harder it snowed.  By 10:30, I found my self nearing the top of the huge ravine I was hunting.  Hallowed ground indeed, this was where dad had shot so many deer.   A grizzled old oak tree had 37 slash marks on it, carved in with a hunter's knife.  4 of them were mine.  The rest were Dad's.  One for every deer we shot up there. The snow was really coming down.  It was a very overcast grey up there, and hard to see very far.  A single shot cracked in the distance, further up the hill.  My senses went on full alert, hoping it had been a miss, and a buck was heading my way. 

I posted behind a beech tree waiting for the deer that never came.  After half an hour or so, I resumed my slow climb up the mountain.  As I neared the top of the hollow, something moving caught my eye through the swirling snow.  I pulled out Dad's old binoculars- a fine pair of Ziess optics he had taken off a German officer in Italy.  A pillbox had blocked his unit's passing, and he lost two good men before they silenced the fire from the fortified position.  As he said, the Wermacht officer "had no further need for it."  There are still blood stains on the strap.

Straining to focus the lenses, I looked to where I'd seen the movement.  There was a hunter, hunched over leaning hard into a drag rope.  A forkhorn buck in tow, and a Savage lever gun slung on his shoulder. Were my eyes playing tricks on me? As the snowfall intensified, I focused hard on the man above me.  He had on an  old, tattered red and black plaid Woolrich hunting suit.  A faded Kroner hat on his head, and a pair of German binoculars slung around his neck.  I knew that gait, as he labored to bring the deer down off the mountain.   He was headed for our camp.  How could this be?  It was Dad for sure, but he'd been gone for well over 30 years now. 

Just as suddenly as I'd seen him, he was gone.  He'd have walked right by me if he'd stayed the course.  Now I just had to know what it was I'd just seen.  I hustled up to where I'd last seen him.  There wasn't a single track in the snow.  How could this be?  Further up the hill, I found the gut pile.  I could tell by the work done, that it was Dad.  He always took the whole windpipe out, and admonished me for not doing it one time.  The heart and liver were gone, and the scent glands from the hind legs were hanging on a nearby branch, a thing Dad always did.  There wasn't a track anywhere in the snow. 

Dad knew I was coming up that hill, and made sure he was there for me, as he always did when we hunted together.  A spiritual homecoming of sorts. 

I've had this dream many times.  It never changes, and I so look forward to the day Dad and I will hunt together again. 

Hang tough Dad, I'll be coming home soon.