I guess you could say that the hunt started taking shape in a salon — as in hair salon — in Corpus Christi.
My 30-year-old daughter Amy was down there visiting her brother and took some time to get her hair done before she was to drive up to Pleasanton to go deer hunting with me.
Amy had hunted before, but it had been a while.
When she was in high school, we went through all the obligatory target practice and tutorials before heading out to a deer blind on the home place and hunting a few times.
The two opportunities she had to shoot didn’t go well.
The first was at a real nice deer that was cooperative enough to stand broadside in one spot about 75 yards away long enough for her to miss wildly three times.
It was back to the drawing board.
The next shot she attempted on a buck was a little more difficult — probably 120 yards away. After some considerable hyperventilating, she pulled the trigger.
Through binoculars, I watched the deer spring straight up in the air before hitting the ground at a run and hopping over the fence into heavy brush on the neighbor’s place.
All that was left where the deer had been, was a clump of belly-hair but not a drop of blood.
After the belly-hair buck, Amy decided that deer hunting wasn’t for her … that is until last Saturday at the hair salon. While in the salon chair, she discussed the upcoming hunt with her stylist.
The stylist one chair over, an Alabama transplant to Corpus, overheard the conversation and interjected, “Girl — I just know you’re gonna get you a deer this time, cuz I got a girlfriend, and she makes cakes that look just like a javelina or a deer or what-not, and she used to get her hair done before every hunt — so she’d look good for the picture afterwards, of course — and she’d take her 30-ought-seven out, or whatever, and she always got her a deer.”
With her new do and the passel of positive prognostications from the hair salon folks, Amy headed on up to Pleasanton.
When we got in the blind the next day, Amy told the whole salon story.
We laughed and watched and waited until a nice eight-point buck came out. It was one I’d seen before and one I’d hoped she’d shoot if she was so inclined.
After some counseling on shot placement, she picked up the rifle and got her sights set. I was watching through binoculars and waiting for the boom.
There was no hyperventilating this time. She took a slow, deep breath, and then another, all the while I’m telling her, “It’s your decision. We can wait, or whatever,” blah, blah, blah, but in my mind, I’m saying, “Shoot that danged deer!”
Finally, BOOM! The deer jumped straight up, and flashbacks of the belly-hair buck played through my head.
But there was no “hitting the ground running” this time; it was a perfect shot, and the deer dropped dead in its tracks.
Congratulations and high fives followed.
We got out of the blind, and after the photo ops and field dressing, we took the deer down to the processor.
Amy was vested in the entire process, and I could tell, proud of herself. It had been 15 years in the making, but in the end, she did it for all the right reasons and went about it in all the right ways.
And although she lives in Austin and has always been partial to the big city lights, it makes me proud that, deep down, there’s a country girl inside, and a country girl can survive.
