Stuff About Things
After about eight months of preaching, every night and many, many days, someone suggested I go out to the barn and cuss awhile — just to level things out. Instead, a fellow — preacher (Dan Shipley) and I drove a pickup into the south Texas brush country, made camp, and hunted quail.
Birds were plentiful, but wild, wild. We bucked tassajilla, catclaw, prickly-pear and divers chaparral to flush them out and collect our limits of birds, scratches and ticks. And in sheer exuberance, when we found an old bottle, I asked Dan to toss it up so I could break it with my pistol. Dan tossed, and I missed
Early one morning while studying a coyote playground, ( they serenaded us early and late) we came upon huge cougar tracks. A shotgun butt would fit into the depression. either way; and with allowance for the spread in soft earth. that is some cat. Then we found another bottle which Dan tossed — and I missed.
On the second day out I was crawling through a tangle of cactus, half hung-up, when a number of fleeting, scurrying black objects began tearing up the brush around me, and I heard a familiar Humph! ! — the danger signal of javelina (wild pig). I untangled fast enough to pour two shots into a young boar. Then Dan helped me field-dress and skin it, and we hung the meat in the shade to be retrieved later. And we found another brown bottle — which I missed.
We didnt hunt deer, but I wanted to limber up my 7 Magnum, so spent some time walking an open meadow looking for jack rabbits. Hit two — both running — one at 70 yards, and one at 160. Would like to brag a little more about my shooting — except — I missed another bottle, three times straight.
All in all, what with the stink of javelina, cleaning two days limits of quail, no shaving, no bathing, sorry cooking, etc., — it was a wonderful, wonderful trip. No telephone, no problems with brethren, no schedules, no nothing but wide Marlboro country without the cough and cancer. I am resigned to the fact that a few (?) readers will see absolutely nothing in this to get excited about.
But maybe all will enjoy my point. Ready?? One may have a great time without hitting the bottle!!