The snow’s top crust crumbled with each step, letting my boots’ rubber soles squeak against the powdery white below. The air was cold beyond cold for Mississippi, but was mercifully still. It was the coldest day of the year, one of the coldest in several years, and it seemed no critters were moving, Earth or sky, save me.
I had read in Outdoor Life how a snowfall made tracking deer a breeze but, where I lived, there was almost never snow. Also, there were no deer. No matter, I thought, something’s bound to be moving. I checked the safety on the rifle and ambled on.
In the crook of my arm rode a Ruger .44 magnum carbine, a curious little gun my Old Man had bought for no reason he ever disclosed. He may have taken it in payment for some work he’d done, or he may have just decided he liked it. He’d put a nice scope on it, complete with bases that let you still use the iron sights if you wanted, then added a good leather sling, then put it in his gun cabinet and, to the best of my knowledge, never used it.
The first time I saw it, I thought he’d gotten it for me, but that notion was quickly put to rest. The carbine was typically off limits. I only had it today through a lapse in someone’s oversight.
“When are you going to take your rifle hunting?” I’d ask him from time to time, and he’d say he didn’t have any definite plans. The nearest place to use it was at least a 90-minute drive away, and he hadn’t set foot there in years.
“I might go, though,” he’d say. “I’d need a good rifle, if I went, and now I have one, and so I could go if I wanted to and, sometime, I might.”
At the time, I assumed that meant he probably would, but now Iknow it didn’t, really.
Sometimes our stories are obvious and clear. These stories come from familiar places.
Sometimes our stories are more obscure and require careful consideration and a good bit of explaining.
Then other times, finally, our stories only reveal themselves after years and can’t really be told at all, at least, not by those who are part of them. Those stories have to be figured out. They are stories born of old events and new perspective.
The Old Man never intended to take the rifle hunting, but he knew he could. He had everything he’d need, after all, which was all he really needed, after all.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 24 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
