UNCLE EARNESTS LAST HUNT

UNCLE EARNESTS LAST HUNT

Uncle Earnest got so that he couldn't hold out to hunt much.  He was into his late 70's and cold hurt him and he just gave out.  He finally quit going.  I parked at his house one morning and figured on deer hunting deep in the swamp.  It was dog season, where lots of folks ran deer with dogs and hunted with standers.  I never got into that, I'd rather still hunt.  Anyway the water was up in all the sloughs and when the dogs got after the deer they'd just hole up on the ridges with water all around.  They had plenty of big white oak acorns floating around to eat and they just stayed in there.  Sometimes we had to use a flat bottom boat to get one out but you could usually find deer on those ridges.  Thanks to Earnest I knew where the ridges were.  We could get around in there with knee boots when others couldn't do it with waders.

I walked in toward the Harper Fish Hole, there was a big slough that got up over the road during the rainy season, that was as far as anyone could get in a vehicle.  As I neared the slough I could hear Mallards quacking all over the place.  Uncle Earnest and his brother Casson used to hunt mallards there in years past.  For years the rice fields in Arkansas held the bigger ducks long past the hunting season.  All we had to hunt in the swamp at that time were Wood Ducks (Squealers).  But Earnest used to talk about the sky turning dark when the ducks rose up out of the water when he and Casson were hunting.  He'd talk about those mallards like they were Gods.  He loved them.  He always said he wished just once more he could hunt Greenheads. 

I almost ran the whole way back to his house.  When I got there he opened the door and I told him to get his warm clothes and his shotgun.  He said it's too cold.  I told him there were Greenheads in the big slough and that I was going to drive in there with him.  He lost 20 years, I swear.  He got dressed and took the old Model 12 Winchester out of the closet.  I didn't have a shotgun he loaned me his Browning.  I was determined to get my pickup as far in as I could, if we got stuck, I'd worry about that later.  We made it in to a hill just shy of the big slough.  When we got out of the truck he heard the ducks and almost called me Casson.  He was so excited.  I just hung back and let him and Casson have at 'em.  I don't remember how many ducks he killed, I don't remember if he killed any.  But I remember the look on his face when he saw them rise up out of the slough.  It was priceless.

A few years later his daughter called me and said Uncle Earnest was in bad shape, she didn't expect him to live long.  She said he was asking about me.  I was living in Texas then and drove home.  His kids were taking turns sitting up with him and his youngest daughter was there with him at her sisters home.  She said he probably wouldn't know me.  We walked in and he looked at me and said "I'm glad you're here, that mule over there in the corner won't leave and he needs to be in the barn, the kids can't get him out."  Like the good nephew I was, I removed the pesky mule and took him to the barn.  My cousin said that the mule had been about to worry him to death.  Of course there was no mule, but he was satisfied.  Then we could get on with more important business: Planning our next trip to the Harper Fish Hole.  We had a good visit.  A few days later Uncle Earnest went on without me.  I like to think he's waiting there on that old log.  I'll join him before too long.

Swamprat