Recently Jim Casada, who writes a column in the Herald Online mentioned my book "The Hunt" as one to check out this hot summer. Thanks Jim, I appreciate that. Here is a piece of Summer from The Hunt:
Chapter 20:
The summers were filled with picnics, American flags, vegetables from
the garden, and long, hot evenings on the back porch
drinking lemonade and watching the fireflies sputter
about in the night against the backdrop of the moon and
stars. And while Rose, the oldest daughter, dreamily set
her eyes to the stars from her bedroom window, thinking
of the boy of her dreams, the one she not yet met,
Danny, the oldest boy, sought the moon with dreams
of becoming a great general like Washington or even
Pershing, the great American hero he had read about that
day in the newspaper. And so during the summers when
the younger children slept, and the older ones dreamed,
and their parents thought of days gone by, the deer of the
woods grew big and ran the hills with passion and played
in the yard under the blanket of night.
THE BUCK WAS a rogue creature that had wandered
off its stomping grounds, a square two-mile territory
deep in the heart of the third ledge of Jenkins Mountain.
There were no other bucks that were massive enough to
challenge his kingdom, and he ruled it quite effectively
with brute force and psychological torture. He was now
entering his fourth rutting season and the third as the
most dominant buck on the mountain and ruler of deer
and all small creatures. His strength was proven in battle
not just with those of his own kind, and there were many,
but also in self-defense against the wolf, the coyote, and
the bobcat, all of which suffered for their meager attempts
at sustenance.
..... This buck moved with a frenzy of the possessed. Shrouded in sweat and feces, its
face pasted in a foamy saliva from its mouth its ears
and dribbling urine and semen down its hindquarters,
this buck became to the hills, the standard bearer of
the rugged and untamed, with the bloodline of royalty
swelling between its legs and the crown of a king atop its
head in the form of fourteen glorious points.
"The Daughters were singing 'God Bless America'
and Mayor Tom was doing his best impersonation of an
honest, upstanding citizen of the community, just one of
the people. He stood to the right of the old ladies on the
podium, and with his wife still hand-locked at his side,
sung the words as best he could remember them. His
voice, loud and out of sync, echoed through the crowd,
burying the voices of the women, who appeared to be
more than a little irritated. Many in the crowd sung
along as they filed past the viewing area where the biggest
bucks were being weighed and measured. Each deer was
tagged with the hunter’s name and the territory where
the deer was taken. The old man counted fifteen bucks
tagged and registered. The bucks were nice sized, but
one stood out amongst the others. It was a ten-pointer
with a massive spread, each side a mirror image of the
other, sweeping up and outward high off the head before
bending toward each other at the tips."
THEY WOULD ALL be out in front of the Main Street
movie theater by now. When dusk came over the
town, the townsfolk would all come out
to see the spectacle. Every November, after the opening day of deer
season was complete, the town held one of the biggest,
most exciting events of the year, The Harvest Moon
Festival. Mothers brought their children into town and
retired folks with nothing better to do but gossip, get
haircuts, and go to church, would be there too. Half the
town parked curbside up and down Main Street to see
them come strolling up to the Main Street movie theater
in their jalopies and pickup trucks, some in fancy ragtops
and metallic Thunderbirds and Buicks. They’d all be
there with one thing in common, to show off their deer
out in front of the Main Street Movie theater.
Late summer several years ago, I was taking an early evening walk on an old farm country trail on the outskirts of Morristown, New Jersey, when I saw in a field the most impressive White-tailed Buck. He was big, majestic, and full of arrogance. It was the biggest buck I had ever seen right in front of me.
I had already tossed the idea around of writing about a hunter who is lured into the woods on the trail of a monster buck. And now with this one right in front of me staring me down, and with deer season still a couple of months away, I decided that it was time to begin writing.
There is no story that I know of, or that has captured my interest, that is about a hunter and the North American White-tailed deer. I wanted to capture the enthusiasm for the Hunt as it may have existed years ago and what better way then through the eyes of Elmer, an old deer hunter. Hunting is as much about reflection of years gone by as it is about the present time. I wanted to experience this in writing about it and wanted the reader to feel that when reading this book. I was introduced to hunting and fishing when I was a boy and even now when I enter the woods or walk through a field I think of those days when I was a boy. There is a haunting quality to it all and I wanted to capture that in the book.
