<TITLE>14. Par 143-151</TITLE>L-143   So we started up the hill, and along about eleven o'clock, he... There was an opening about the size of this room, maybe a little larger. And we hadn't even seen a track. It was moon light, and they was feeding at night. And they were just... And it's hard to find them. They just stayed hid, laid down, and so under the brush and back in the deep timber. And they'd paw down and eat moss, and forget it. So then we would...

L-144   I come to this little opening there, and he sit down. I thought he was... bank of snow there, a drift. And I thought he was going in his pocket, like this, to get out this little thermos bottle and take a drink of his--his chocolate, and we'd eat our--our dinner and then separate, and we'd go back across the ranges; he go one way, and me the other. But when he did, I started to reach and get my sandwich, 'cause I was getting a little hungry. And I set my gun down against the tree, and reached back in my sack, and I looked at him. He looked up at me. And he had eyes just like a lizard, anyhow, you know; like women paint their eyes, today, you know, that funny-looking dog-like look on them, and then had all painted up like that. Well, that's the way his eyes looked, kind of like a lizard, kind of slanting like. He looked up at me. And I thought, "What's he got on his mind?" He reached down and brought out this little whistle. And I thought...
I said, "Bert, aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

L-145   And he blew it, and, when he did, just about thirty yards, or hardly so far, a big doe stood up. Now, the doe is the mama deer. That was her baby calling. She... He blew the whistle. She jumped up. Now she wouldn't have done that, by no means. She knew we were there. But her baby was in trouble. And he looked at me, them lizard eyes again. I seen him move the safety down, on a thirty-o-six rifle. He was a dead shot. Oh, he was a good one.

L-146 And he blew the whistle again. And that old mother deer walked right straight out in that opening. Now, brother, that's unusual. They wouldn't do that. First thing, she wouldn't have got up. If she would, she'd went the other way. And here she was, walked right out in the opening. And she knew we were there. And as soon as the safety clicked on that gun, she turned and looked right at the hunter. Instead of running, she just stood there. Her big ears, her eyes wide open, her ears sticking up, and she was looking around.

L-147   What was it? She was a mother. That was her baby. Her baby was in trouble. The little lamb... the little fellow was crying, like a little fawn. She wasn't a hyprocrite. She wasn't putting on something. She was genuine. She was borned a mother. That's what she was, a mother.

L-148 And he leveled that gun down. I thought, "How can you do it, Bert? How can you?"

L-149   I, I couldn't look at it. I turned my back. I thought, "Lord God, how can the man be that cruel-hearted, to blow that faithful heart of that mother, looking for her baby?" And coax her out there, deceive her and bring her out there. And then, I knowed he was such a dead shot--shot, he would blow that sacred heart of hers plumb through the other side of her. And her, a mother, she would actually come 'cause that was her baby. And talk about a sign, that was one of it, of loyalty, because something was on the inside. She was a mother. And I turned my back. I said, "Lord God, how can a--a human being be that cruel, to do a thing like that?"

L-150 And I waited and I waited, and the gun never fired. I thought any minute I'd hear the gun go off. And it was, he'd a... A hundred-and-eighty-grain bullet, mushroomed, and blowed her heart plumb through her. And I thought, "Why didn't it go off?" And I was standing this way, with my eyes closed, praying.

L-151 And when I turned my head, to look, the gun barrel was going like this. And I looked at it, a few minutes, him wiggling the gun barrel.


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