The kids needed new shoes. Michelle passed that on to me from Matilda; no I don’t know how, but I was tasked with going out and getting us some leather. I had a sneaking suspiscion that this wasn’t going to be difficult, without a doubt the deer had already found our corn field and keeping them out of it was going to be my bigger problem.

First step was to build a small bridge across the creek, this we could do in a day. So down to the creek us four guys went; myself, Holder, Amos, and Brin with logging tools in hand to harvest some lengths of birch logs. We figured we could get the basic job done with a dozen or so logs of about twenty foot in length, as long as we could get the dog cart across it would do the job.

With two grown men chopping and one teenager trimming it went pretty fast, the logs were all down and trimmed before dinner. It didn’t take more than about ten minutes to drop a suitable birch once you got used to doing it. We decided to wait until after dinner to bring the tractor down and lay the logs across the creek gully. We then planned to bind them together with some rope and we’d have a basic bridge for horses and people.

Dinner routine and then next thing you know we’re laying down clay on top of our bridge to keep people and animals from turning their ankles. We’d add planks later on but splitting logs into planks was time consuming and would have to wait. Amos and Brin raced back and forth over it a few times showing off their youthful exuberance, I merely stood back and smiled. The London Bridge it was not but it was my first bridge and I felt pretty damned good about it.

By the time we’d cleaned and put away all the tools supper was being prepared. We did our chores, cleaned ourselves up and sat down to partake.

After supper was time for indoor work, we resharpened out axes and knives, discussed plans for the next day and generally unwound. We had a reading every night, usually a fable or fairy tale. I ran my nightly scan and did some research on the area. All of that data I had pulled when I was contemplating investing in Oscar’s farm was coming in very handy these days.

I cleaned and oiled my 30.06, I had some hunting to do early the next morning.

**** ****

Up before the dawn, that was me. The air was chilly and moist and the coffee seemed to take forever to get going. Surprisingly Holder was up with me, I welcomed the company and he saddled our horses and pack mule while I ran a quick IR pass over our area. Just as I’d hoped there was a herd of deer at the back edge of the cornfield destroying our tasty young corn.

I zoomed in until I could identify a good young buck and we rode out quietly just as the eastern edge of the sky began to lighten. Brin came with us and heel’d up as commanded, he was like a black ghost keeping watch over us.

The buck was still there eating away at my future whiskey when we got in range, the corn was still short enough that I had a clear shot from the kneeling at 300 yards. The morning air was still and the sky had grown light enough that I could clearly make him out. There were five or six does nearby and I didn’t want to injure any over them with a missed shot so I waited, thirty seconds later the shot was clear and I released the round.

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When I tried out for the division rifle team back in my Marine Corps days, I had a very good coach and one of the things he taught me was to “release” the round rather than “shoot” the round. The passive term seemed to improve accuracy over the aggressiveness of shooting; I wasn’t good enough to make the team but I learned a lot from that coach.

My round took the buck directly in the spine at the base of his neck and he simply stopped for a moment and then collapsed; the retort of the big gun echoed through the early morning air and the rest of the herd was instantly gone. Holder slapped me on the back and had a big smile on his face. Three hundred yards was an extreme range in the days of black powder rifles but it was practically point-blank for a modern hunting rifle; it was still a pretty good shot by my personal standards. I ran the bolt and chambered a new round, re-engaging the safety.

I returned his smile and said, “It’s a really good rifle.”

I grabbed my expended brass then we mounted up and rode over to fetch our dinner and the new shoes for the kids. I let Holder take over and he loaded the buck onto the pack mule in far less time than it would have taken me, this was obviously something he had experience at.

The good news was that we’d be back in time for breakfast. We rode back silently enjoying the spring morning air, I was still wary of this guy but he was starting to grow on me. As we crossed our makeshift bridge I asked Holder if he would be willing to share his story at supper tonight, he agreed to do so and didn’t seem to feel pressured by the request.

We hung the buck, put up our horses and sat down for more coffee; the camp was bustling with morning life but the two mighty hunters got to sit back, drink coffee and relax. Our talk turned to butchering the deer and preserving the hide, Holder knew exactly what we needed to do so I resolved to take the back seat and learn. This was something I’d done occasionally in life as a hobby, he’d obviously done it to survive most of his life.

Matilda fed us fresh deer liver for breakfast, it was extraordinarily good.

**** ****

The entire deer went into the game freezer, everything but it’s skin and the contents of it’s digestive tract. I showed Holder how to hang the deer in the game freezer, he was suitably impressed by the freezer with its overhead rack.

Holder and Matilda then moved onto tanning the deer skin. They cut several small saplings, stripped the bark from them and formed them into a frame. They used the bark strips to tie frame solid and mounted the deer pelt on it using twine, with the pelt hung they started to stretch it and work it. I walked away at that point, other things needed to be done and those two had the task well in hand. They had Esther for an audience if they felt the need for a fan club, I went and found Michelle.

Michelle was busy working with Amos on the horses so I simply saddled up Lunch and went to check and see exactly how much damage the deer had done to our corn. I feared that it was going to be a battle to the death with those damn deer.

I spent an hour down in the small orchard checking on our fruit. It wasn’t much of an orchard with just 6 apple trees and a couple of pear, plums and cherry’s added in but it would be enough for us. I also had to keep in mind that each fully grown apply tree could deliver up to 45 bushels of apples, hard cider anyone?

The day wound down and I went to do chores, Holder was supposed to tell us his life story tonight and I was looking forward to that.