Life Sketches by Terry Berkson

A Buck Between Friends

I was a late starter at deer hunting because I moved back to Brooklyn just before I turned 16. It was while in the Army and reading Hemingway and Faulkner that I got the bug to hunt whitetails on Panther Mountain with my old friend Gerard in Richfield Springs. He took it upon himself to teach me everything he knew. “I’ll make a hunter out of you,” he’d say as a smile pulled a broken nose to the side of his face. But for five years I hunted 10 days each season without filling a tag.

I always went home with plenty of venison and hunting stories—but they were other men’s stories about other men’s deer. Even though I enjoyed the camaraderie of each fruitless year, I yearned to have my own tale to tell. So, again on opening day, I waited next to a fat beech, hoping my story would come along. A pair of does filtered through and then they were gone.

Hours later, I spotted a dark-coated deer far below, well out of shotgun range. I ducked behind the tree. When I looked again, the deer was gone. I scanned the woods without seeing anything. Then I spotted the deer a little closer to my stand. I thought there were antlers, but in the wet morning light they seemed to fade like thinning smoke. When I looked again it was about 200 yards below, and it was definitely a buck. He was coming toward me slowly, stopping along the way to browse, then raising his head and cocking his ears and smelling the air.

Now he was closer and still moving in my direction. I was too nervous to count the points and I almost wished I wasn’t there, for fear I would shoot and miss and never get over it. My hands felt so weak I could hardly push the safety off. He was less than 100 yards below, slowly feeling his way toward higher ground, but it was still a long shot for my 870.

Suddenly he was about 30 yards off, and already passing to my left. Gerard would have shot five times already! When I moved, the gun barrel snagged on a curl of bark and the buck whipped around and looked straight at me. I fired a shot and he was off and running in the direction from which he had come. I got off one more round before he was gone. A rush of nausea came over me. How could I have missed? Had I pulled instead of squeezed the trigger? I wanted to bury the gun and myself with it.

I ran to where the buck had been when I fired. There was no sign. Then, as foolishly as a guy who runs after a train he’s missed, I began to follow the deer. In the dry leaves there was only a faint trace of the buck’s passing. Disgusted, I meandered down the mountain, looking for a track. Then I saw antlers lying on toasted leaves like a fallen oak. The deer lay still, 50 yards ahead of me. I moved toward him, my finger on the trigger, but when near, I could see that he was already dead. A sense of possession came over me and I looked around to see if someone was about to leap from behind a tree and seize my prize. I counted the points: 10! Wait till Gerard sees this deer!

I took off my jacket and began to field dress my buck. I had done it all before, “For practice, so you’ll be ready for yours,” Gerard had said. When finished, I tied a drag line to the antlers and began the long haul out. It took an hour to get to the logging road where I met up with Gerard. He checked out my deer and said, “Buddy, I’ve been looking for this buck all my life. It’ll win the contest for sure.” Maybe I was in shock, because my friend was more excited than I was. We headed for Termite’s Schuyler House, where Gerard always entered us in the big-buck contest. After five unsuccessful years, entering my name had just about become a joke, but Gerard continued to put a dollar down on me.

The deer weighed in at 186 pounds—the biggest entered so far that season. Then we drove back to camp and strung it up in the maple tree out front. Word spread fast, and by noon, cars were creeping down our normally lonely road to take a look. Gerard, who had shot dozens of deer but never a 10-pointer, kept looking out the camp window at the buck hanging in the tree.

We won the contest for weight and points that year. I don’t think any friend was ever happier about anything I did than Gerard. He made me tell my story to him many times. Scores of bucks fell under our sights in following seasons. Gerard never got his big one but, if he had, I don’t think he would’ve been any happier than when I got mine.

Terry Berkson’s articles have appeared in “New York” magazine, “Automobile” magazine and many others. His memoir, “Corvette Odyssey,” has received many good reviews: “highly recommended with broad appeal,” says “Library Journal.”