<TITLE>10. Par 40-43</TITLE>L-40 And it was along about noon, why, Burt set down at a little opening about the size--half the size of this tent, and he was setting there. I thought he was going to get his coffee jug out, or his--wasn't coffee we drink, it was hot chocolate. And I thought he was going to get his--his--his jug of chocolate, and we'd have some sandwiches, then we'd separate and hunt back, because we hadn't even seen one track all morning. The deers were scared. They stayed under brush piles in daytime and in the thickets, so you couldn't find them.

L-41 And I noticed him, as he set down there, when he was getting into his pocket, and I was standing up. And he pulled out this little whistle.
I thought, "Surely, Burt, you won't do that." And he looked up at me with them lizard-looking eyes, and he said--laughed, and he started to blow it. I said, "Don't do that, Burt."
But when he blew it, just across, about twenty yards from me, a great big mother doe stood up. Now, a doe is the female deer. Why, she was so close I could see her big brown eyes, and those veins in her face, beautiful looking animal, her ears standing up. What was it? It was a baby crying.
And I looked down to Burt, and he looked up at me again; I thought, "Burt, you won't do that. Surely, you won't."

L-42 And he blew it real easy again. And usually, that's very unusual for a deer to stand up like that at that time of day. And she walked right out in the opening. Oh, they never do that. And she walked out so you--she could be seen.
And I heard that rifle, as he pulled back the--the lever, on that .30-06, a hundred and eighty grain mushroom bullet in there. And he was a dead shot. And as he leveled down that rifle, I thought, "Oh, God, surely he won't do it. That loyal mother, she wasn't playing church; there was something real in her. She's a mother. A baby was in trouble. She wasn't just acting that way. She had something in her that was real, genuine. She was a mother. She wasn't just acting that way. There's something making her do that. It was because she was a mother."

L-43 And she walked a few feet farther. I thought, "Oh, Burt, could you blow her heart out of her like that?" I knew if that rifle fired, he'd blow that loyal heart plumb through both sides of her. Why, he'd turn her flip flops, at that close to her. I thought, "That precious mother, hunting for her baby."
And the deer looked around and saw the hunter. She quivered, but, no, she didn't run away. She was a mother. She stood there. The baby was in trouble. Oh, how real it was.
I turned my head; I just couldn't look at it no more. I thought, "God, I can't see him do that, kill that poor precious mother, and her there with that--with something in her that was driving her, a mother." And I listened for the gun to fire. I turned my back. I thought, "God, don't let him do it." I waited a minute; I didn't hear the gun. I looked around, and the gun was going like this. He couldn't do it.
He looked around, the big tears running down his cheeks. He threw the gun on the ground and grabbed me by the trouser leg; he said, "Billy, I've had enough of it. Lead me to that Jesus that you're talking about. Let me know that Christ that brings love."


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