Attention Kent Fullarton - Story Telling and Story Tellers Are Alive and Well @ Fable's Fireside -Chats

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Comment by Kent Fullarton on December 7, 2009 at 3:23pm

Little Conejos Hunt
“It happened a long time ago on a morning much like this one. The dew had fallen early and the temperature kept going colder. We sat on our heels and watched as the ice crystals grew out of the ground. Not much else to do because the fog was still drifting. So our little hunting party watched the ice grow”. Mr. Banagas seldom told a story from front to back. A piece here and there until it is more or less told. I don't think this is a local Indian thing. I think it is just Mr. Banagas.
“Now I was born and grew up mostly on the Little Conejos. It was a little place then and a little place now. It was pretty much just right for the times we lived in. Not good enough for anybody to want to fight for it. But it was good enough to scratch out a living of sorts. It is just above Oak Creek and below Eagle Peak. And just off Eagle Peak Road. Mostly still on the Capitan Grande Indian Reservation. We still had some of the old ways of making a living. We would go higher up and harvest acorns. We tended wild grasses that gave us grain. We dug roots. Trapped wood rats, but not the ones that lived near town. They were thought to be unclean. And of course hunting. Who wouldn’t want to pick up a rifle and walk around God’s creation? I know I did.”
“I was younger than Pat Curo or Kent the white boy. In those times Indian kids grew up sooner because they needed to. And this was not my first hunt or my first kill. So I don’t have a minder looking out for buck fever.” Buck fever is when you see a buck and get excited. This is when things happen and mistakes are made. Mr. Banagas still is often my hunt buddy. My first kill he put a hand on my shoulder for a moment and said “See the heart”. And I did. It was a small forked horn. A clean kill, all quarters intact. It is bad to waste meat because the bullet destroyed it. Anyway, Mr. Banagas always looked out for me. Whether it was hunting, working horses, or working ground at round-up. I think partly he liked me. And the other part was that he didn’t expect me to keep up with the Indian kids.
“Now Wallis Curo was the hunt leader that morning. He was Pat here’s grandfather. And he already regretted this hunt. He found only a few tracks and they were the rounded toes of does. No pointed toes of a buck. And the Elders had decided only bucks this year. He told us to just hunker down and shut up. The deer couldn’t see us any more than we could see them. But they could sure as hell hear us in this heavy cold air. We wanted to stamp our feet and walk around, try and get warm. But we sucked it up and kept quiet. We could tell by the glow of the fog that sun-up was coming. And with morning sun the fog would melt away. Even now we could see small gaps in the fog as the cold sank into the canyon. Drifting down like a wide river of air. The fog settled so that we saw the top layer was flat as a table. We could see the currents of air bringing the fog into the gullies and sinking toward the canyon floor. Even if it took a while to burn off it would still open up before us and we could hunt. We all stood up, aching from the cold, weary before we start. We went a little closer to where the path was that would begin our hunt. Gaps in the fog began to open up now and then.”
“The gaps did open but they were hazy and still shrouded in mist. A longer gap appeared and a large buck was seen for just a second by the thick brush. And the fog closed in. Wallis signed Geetus to get ready and sure enough a gap came through. Geetus shouldered the thirty-odd-six and squeezed a round off. And the fog closed in. The buck was only a few yards from the first sighting. Only a hundred yards away. A couple of the guys said they herd the slap of the bullet hitting flesh. But after the loud report of the rifle, it is hard to tell. No one started down the trail. A few moments later another gap was forming and they saw the hazy outline of the buck in the same place. And the fog closed in. This is not normal behavior for a normal buck. Geetus got ready to do something he rarely did. He was going to shoot the same animal twice. And sure enough a gap came and fuzzy view appeared and he fired the second shot. And the fog closed in. Nobody said a word. Another gap was forming and the hazy figure of the buck appeared, everybody fired and kept firing. And the fog closed in. A cold current of air blew across the backs of their necks hair stood on end and goose bumps formed. Everyone was remembering the old stories told around cooking fires about ghosts and spirits. About the old knowledge of good and evil. None knew what they saw this morning. But each knew their world had changed and that they would have to find a way making peace with it. One man brushed his shirt as though removing dust to remove bad luck. Others signed a cross and prayed in silence. Geetus lowered the rifle and carried it in his off-side hand. He walked slowly down the path into the fog. Then Wallis followed, then the rest came along too. The blasts of the rifles was ringing in their ears. They walked in silence, and in dread of what was to come. Not five minutes later they herd Geetus groan. They all came forward and stood beside him and all knew why he groaned. There was the buck. And the head with Geetus’s trademark kill. An entry wound just behind the eye. The first round had killed him instantly and he was hung up in the brush. He did behave like a normal buck, who was dead. All the other shooting was all over the body and ruining the meat. Geetus sat down on his heels beside the buck and apologized for wasting his life.” So Dad Banagas, what does the story mean? “Wait for the fog to burn off.”