<TITLE>32. Par 98-100</TITLE>L-98 So one day I was up there, and he said, "Well, Billy, you're a little late coming up this time." And he had a little whistle he'd made, and he took that little whistle, and he'd blow it, and it sounded like a little baby fawn (that's a little baby deer) calling for its mammy.
And I thought, "Burt, you wouldn't do that."
He said, "Aw, go on, Billy."
So we always took a thermos jug full of hot chocolate, 'cause it warms you up, if you happen to get turned around or something. (I'm sorry to be late, but I'll close right now.) Said, "I'm..." Said, "I'm..." We started out, and those white tail deer, oh, my, you talk about Houdini a being an escape artist; he was an amateur. You ought to see them after they're shot at once. Oh, they can get away like... You just see where they were. And so, then, they--they were so fast. And they'd been... Hunting season had been in two weeks. and, why, we walked all morning, didn't even see a track. Along about noontime we usually set down, eat our lunch.

L-99 So it was about noon. We come into a little clearing, about three or four times the size of this church here, like that. And so Burt set down. And we hadn't seen a track or nothing. And we'd usually separate along about noon, and he goes one way and I go another, and get back in some time that night to our spike camp, where our horses and things were.
So then when Burt sat down, he went to reaching back like this in his bosom. I thought he was going to get his--his--his thermos, you know, to get his chocolate. So when he started to pull something out, and it was that little whistle. And I said, "Burt, you wouldn't blow that."
He said. "Aw, preacher, get next to yourself," looked up to me with them lizard eyes, you know. He took this little whistle, and he blowed it. It sounded like a little fawn crying.
Well, to my surprise, right across that place a big mother doe (that's the mother deer) stood up. She was hid (You see?) under the brush. She stood up. That's--that's irregular. Not... In this country it might not be, but that country it is. Very irregular for a doe to raise up, or any deer, that time of day, about eleven o'clock.

L-100 She raised up. She looked around. What was the matter? She was a mother, a baby was in trouble. She looked around. I can just see those great big ears and them brown eyes looking around.
And old Burt looked up to me with them lizard eyes. I said, "Burt, you wouldn't do that." So he blowed it again, and the mother deer walked right out of the brush into the open. Now, she wasn't putting nothing on. She was a mother. That was something born in her, a mother. Her baby was in trouble. She was looking for it. She looked around, walked out in the opening. I seen him... We never carry shells in the chamber, when we're hunting together like that. So he had a .30-06. He pulled it back, real easy and throwed that shell up there, hundred and eighty grain mushroom. And he was a dead shot. My. See him raise up like this and lay that cross hair across that loyal heart of that mother.
I thought, "Oh, my. How can you do it, Burt? How can you do it? How can you be so cruel? In a moment that poor deer, that loyal heart in that mother, she won't have any heart. You'll blow it plumb through her. See? How can you do it? And her looking for her baby, you deceiving her like that?"


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