Here’s one from the teen years. It was one of those mornings that felt like the my fingertips were about to fall off. Cold, wet, and gray January in Newberry, South Carolina.
The kind of day where the rain doesn’t fall in drops so much as it hangs in the air, clinging to my clothes, my hat, my rifle.
The woods were still, except for the faint hiss of drizzle hitting the leaves. The smell of wet dirt and pine needles was heavy enough to taste. My breath fogged out in short, nervous bursts as I lay prone behind the rifle, cheek welded to my 30-06 looking through the old weaver scope prowling away. That’s when I saw him.
A tall, heavy eight-point, ghosting out from behind a tangle of sweetgum and pine at the far edge of the clearing—350 yards if it was an inch. He wasn’t in a hurry, but he wasn’t hanging around either. The kind of buck you tell yourself is too far, too risky, and yet your finger still finds its way toward the trigger.
What stupid decision to go for. My mind was all over the place with this shot.
I’d checked my zero two days before, but the memory hit me then. How I’d done it in fair weather, no wind, no rain. Today the breeze was quartering hard from the left, steady but with a lazy, unpredictable gust every so often. I adjusted for it, but maybe not enough. Or maybe too much.
I slowed my breathing, felt the familiar tug of the sling biting into my arm, and let the crosshairs settle just off his shoulder. My hands were damp, fingertips numb, the trigger colder than the air. One last inhale. A half exhale. I creeped that trigger and boom. The rifle barked, the recoil rolled through my shoulder, and through the scope I caught just a flash of movement—his head snapping up, muscles bunching. He bolted, white tail bouncing, running into the creek and up the back property.
I stayed there a while, scanning the back field and creek. Nothing. I knew I F’d up and never should’ve chanced that distance.
That was the one that got away. The buck whose rack I measured a hundred times in my mind. The zero had drifted, and so had he. And every so often, on a quiet night, I close my eyes and I’m back there—finger curled, breath held, crosshairs steady—and for just a heartbeat, I swear I still have him.
