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The Ice Buck
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Jake heard a twig snap and looked up. He spotted a big buck in the brush just 30 yards out, its huge rack of antlers glistened in the first few rays of early morning sun. The 17 year old woodsman caught his breath and blinked as he brought his 50 caliber Hawken rifle up slow and easy. The breeze blew in his face and whispered in the pines over head.The rifle butt settled comfortably against his shoulder and the hammer came back with a click. He knew he had to be careful but he had to hurry too. He aimed down through his iron sights, breathed in, and squeezed back on the trigger. The rifle exploded and kicked back. The buck flinched and bolted away from the fire and smoke. It all happened so fast. But when it was over Jake shook his head and kicked at the snow in front of him. He didn’t like that shot. He heard the lead crash through the brush and feared he missed the buck altogether.
“That’s one smart Twelver now,” Jake said out loud about the wide, heavy rack. “But he ain’t seen the last of me.”
It all started hours before when Jake woke with a hankering for some adventure, and a powerful craving for fresh venison. Tenderloins. He’d grown tired of the smoked meat and jerky he’d eaten the last couple of weeks while he was resting a sprained ankle. Winter was just settling in and he figured he’d have need for another deer or two to last him and his dogs until spring. So far this year all the deer he’d harvested went to the mess hall at the nearby logging camp and trading post. But now, the situation changed, this was no longer a hunt for meat and he knew it the instant he shot. He was awed with the big rack and he would pass up other deer to stay on its trail. If he had to wait a little longer for fresh meat to get this buck so be it.
Jake hadn’t yet begun the search for blood but already that sinking feeling that goes with a ‘miss’ washed over him. He knew the feeling, for he’d missed before, though not very often and never a magnificent buck with the 12 point rack like this one. It was just the kind of rack he would hang on the side of his cabin. He concentrated hardest on the big bucks and was rarely out smarted. In fact his adopted family, the local Ojibwa Indians called him Ayaabe Giiwosewinini, the Buck Hunter. This friendly woodland tribe who lived along the Namekagon River in this early 1800s era helped to raise the 17 year old woodsman after Jake’s parents died in a forest fire ten years earlier.
This hunt started before dawn when Jake hunkered down in the woods. The moon was still on the horizon and full, the Wolf Moon he thought, and then, by coincidence or not, a wolf began to howl from a nearby ridge. Jake stopped to listen, to catch his breath, and to watch the shadows melt into the milky gray light of dawn. The shrubs and trees, the limbs and branches, began to slowly take shape. That’s when he first saw the big buck, but only for an instant before it jumped from its bed and melted into the woods.
Spooked, but not scared, the buck didn’t run far. Jake was sure it hadn’t seen him or scented him, for he was down wind in the cool morning air. He didn’t panic or try to stalk the buck and knew to stay put in his place in a stand of young jackpines and wait for the buck to make another move. He knew the deer wasn’t too far away and in dark brown buckskin leggings and a gray blanket coat the lad blended well with the leafless forest.
Jake figured the buck would probably circle back from the down wind side of its bed to see what had spooked it. Jake would be ready, he’d taken more than one big buck by playing the wind and sticking with his hunches.
But the buck crossed him up completely. It was quick and quiet, and it didn’t circle around and come from down wind where Jake was looking. It came back from the brush to Jake’s left and almost made it passed him, but Jake saw the antlers and made that quick shot.
“Blood!” He said as he snapped out of his reverie.
Jake was stooped in the brush where the buck had been standing. The discovery took his breath away. The lead may have hit a stick or a branch or brush but it hit the buck, too. There were a few brown hairs along with several drops of red showing brilliantly against a blanket of snow.
“I guess I hit him better than I thought,” Jake said as he stood up and looked off into the woods where the buck left a trail of tracks and blood drops. “Looks like I got a buck to trail.”
Jake knew he should wait a while, let the buck lay down and bleed out. But he was anxious and didn’t wait. He hitched up his backpack, grabbed up his Hawken rifle, and started off on the buck’s trail. He rationalized he would walk slow and quiet and hide in the wind. The buck would not know he was coming. Though, the lad knew better.
After a long stretch of tracking Jake’s enthusiasm had waned. This buck wasn’t slowing down, wasn’t dieing. He’d seen spooky bucks like this one, not many, but a few. They were smart, cautious, and resilient. They were survivors and became ... legends.
Over the years Jake heard many a campfire tale about these great bucks. There was the Log Jam Buck the lumberjacks all talk about. A buck who escaped a hunter, in broad daylight by crossing the wilderness river over the top of a log jam that reached from one bank to the other. There were several scattered lumberjacks atop the jam who stood and watched the buck bound pass as the camp meat packer came out of the woods shouting and shooting. He shot and reloaded three times in all before the big ten pointer made it across the logs and disappeared into the woods unscathed and waving a white tail.
Then there was the buck the Indians called Zoogipan Ayaabe, the Snow Buck. The tall, thick 8 point rack stood high on a large, 200 pound body. But as large as he was his favorite escape tactic was to lay down and let falling snow cover him almost completely. He would lay so still that many a snowshoe hunter stepped within inches of the all but invisible buck. There was the time an unsuspecting hunter reached down and, thinking it was dry wood, grabbed hold of the antlers sticking out of the snow.
The buck leaped to its feet, swung its rack with all of the strength its muscular body could generate. The hunter went down hard and broke his neck when he hit the frozen ground. Witnesses wondered if he ever knew what happen. To this day there are those in the big woods who take great care when collecting fire wood in the snow.
Now Jake wondered if this buck was like those immortal bucks? What would his name come to be? The Hawken Buck? The Savage Buck? He supposed they were both possibilities. But first this buck would have to earn it. Jake would do his part.
The buck’s trail lead toward the river and heavy brush. He purposely lead Jake through a gauntlet of thrones, branches, stems, mud holes hidden beneath the snow, and thick brush in general. Jake followed for hours but couldn’t catch up and there was less blood sign the farther he went. This greatly concerned the young woodsman as the lack of blood was suggesting the buck might only have sustained a flesh wound. Jake finally decided to stop for a while even though the days are very short this time of year.
Jake waited until the sun began to move down toward the horizon before he took up the chase again. He was almost all the way to the river when the situation changed for the worst. Now he regretted his decision to stop for those few hours. Wolf tracks showed deep in the snow. The beast had come out of the swamp and followed atop the buck’s tracks. They weren’t huge wolf tracks, it was probably a young animal, though large enough to take down an injured buck. Jake picked up his pace.
The going was, indeed, tough in the thick woods. But Jake knew if you want big bucks you’re going to be in big brush. He moved easiest by bending at the waist and running stooped over beneath the underbrush canopy. He held an arm before his face and battled his way through hanging branches, certain he was walking on ground no other human had trod before him, at least no other white man.
He soon came to a place where the snow was stomped down and the brush torn up and broken off in a wide circle at least 12 feet across. There was lots of blood, too. The wolf must have opened up the buck’s wound. The trail lead off into the deep woods again. Jake knew it would now be just a matter of time. If he hurried he might get the buck and the wolf.
A woodsman had to be careful in a situation like this when a wolf was hunting the same quarry. The beast would protect the kill. Jake checked the load on his rifle, the blood trail was greater with every step. He would fight for the buck, too.
Jake could now feel the anxiety, the anticipation he’d missed earlier. He moved slow through the brush, and up a hill one careful, quiet step at a time. He scanned the woods ahead of him for sign of the wolf. For the buck might be his quarry, but the wolf might think the same thing about him.
Sweat rolled down the lad’s forehead in spite of the cold temperatures. His body was tense, his muscles coiled. He was a little nervous. Maybe, he thought, even a little scared, for the moment of truth was at hand.
Jake strained his neck to see over the underbrush, to see the dead deer or the live wolf laying in wait for him.
The first thing Jake saw was the blood spattered across the snow, then he snapped a twig himself and jumped in fright, which caused a grouse to flush from a nearby thicket; he jumped again.
Jake spun around looking for danger. His heart was racing. That’s when he saw the carcass. He caught his breath again and stepped forward. He couldn’t believe his eyes, for there laying dead in the snow was the ... wolf!
The buck was no where to be seen. Jake moved over to the young, fallen wolf. It had been gored and stomped. The buck’s trail in the snow moved off the hill top and down toward the river. It was no longer leaving blood drops. And though Jake wasn’t sure of it, when he looked down the hill along the buck’s trail he thought he spotted a white tail flick amongst the shadows in the pines below.
Jake stood and stared. He shook his head in disbelief. That’s twice now, in the same day, this big buck had beaten death.
“The Wolf Buck?” Jake whispered. “Maybe that’s what they’ll call it when I tell the story. But then, will anyone believe me?”
Jake turned and looked back at the fallen wolf. It was getting late and he didn’t have time to stop and skin the animal. He’d spent the day chasing this buck and was now so close. The afternoon shadows were already growing long in the fading daylight. He would have to come back for the wolf pelt tomorrow. It could earn him two wool blankets in trade. That was his thought as he moved down the hill and after the buck with new respect and extra caution. He couldn’t help the fleeting thought of yet another name for this big buck ... the Man Killer.
“Yes Sir,” Jake said under his breath when he remembered an expression another of his mentors, Captain Jefferson Connors, who owned the nearby logging operation and trading post, always said ... “If it was easy, everyone would do it.”
Once down the hill and into the pines where the buck had disappeared Jake could see the river. It was covered with just a thin layer of ice and a few inches of snow. Certainly too thin for a man to cross, and too thin for the buck, too. That’s when Jake gasped. He saw the big buck standing on the thin ice near the bank. It was hidden in the forest shadows that now extended halfway across the river. The buck’s body was facing away from Jake, facing out across the river to the opposite bank, but its head was turned around and it looked down its back at the approaching hunter. The dark deer in the dark shadows made it invisible to all but the sharpest hunter’s eye.
Jake knew his only chance would be to keep moving slowly along the bank like he didn’t see the buck. If the deer thought it was fooling the hunter chances are it wouldn’t move. In the mean time Jake brought his rifle up in front of him and stopped. He turned his head slightly, but that was enough to spook the deer. The buck bolted away in a single bound and landed near midstream where it hit the ice surface and broke through into the river.
Jake watched in horror as water splashed up and the buck’s head with its huge antlers bobbed in the cold, dark water. The deer was panicked and too tried to get its front legs back up onto the ice. Jake could read the terror in the buck’s eyes. But the river was just too deep in this spot to get footing on the bottom, the current too strong, and the ice too thin as it kept breaking under the buck’s thrashing legs, and then, in an instant, the big buck stopped kicking and was swept away to disappear under the ice.
Jake was shocked. He felt helpless and sick to his stomach as he looked downstream to see if there was any open water where the river was shallow. But there was none. He couldn’t believe what he’d just witnessed. He looked back to the hole in the ice near midstream. There was no sign of the deer, the open patch of water swirled dark and gurgled up onto the ice surface as if daring Jake to cross. But he knew better, knew the big buck had pushed its luck. The deer beat the bullet and the beast, but not the river, never the river. It was a good lesson and Jake would never for ...
Jake jumped when he heard a loud crash come from downstream. He turned and caught his breath as the thin ice surface busted open from underneath. Something big was crashing up and through from beneath. Jake’s eyes widened in surprise, in shock, as he watched that big buck, with flashing antlers, smash up through the thin ice and out of the water near the opposite bank some hundred yards downstream. Tiny pieces of ice sparkled like diamonds in the last few streams of afternoon sun. The buck came almost all the way out of the water and hit the ice shelf again. It broke down through again. But here the water was shallower and the buck was able to get its footing on the gravel river bed. It took another strong, powerful lunge before it came out of the water again to land on the far bank. The forest monarch didn’t miss a step and bounded up the hill, a shower of water droplets following behind it like a flowing cape. It was a spiritual spectacle he thought as he watched the buck disappear into the forest atop the river ridge.
Jake breathed out. It was a story he couldn’t have possibly made up. Even though he could hardly believe it himself. But it was true, the Ice Buck, for that is the proper name, had earned the respect and reputation as a survivor. The tale would be told across countless campfires for years to come. And for now, Jake Savage would eat jerky.
[Author John A. Hallock lives in a log house in the back woods of northwest Wisconsin with his wife Lori, daughters Kate and Maggie, a pack of dogs, two cats, and never dull moment. He is a hunter, fisherman, and woodsman. You can find many more of his adventure and humor stories on his website www.woodsmanmagazine.com]
