My father, having seen his share of death in WW2, was never much of a hunter. However, he was always willing to share his little slice of heaven in Bear Creek Valley with those that would only ask. This share and share alike mentality would sometimes backfire as it did one memorable fall of my youth in the late sixties.
In his quest for financing of a small family business, he had become friends with some bankers from Kansas City and one in particular, Bob Black, took a special interest in the possibility of a deer hunting weekend in the Ozark Mountains. Interest in my father quickly peaked when they learned that my family owned property in one of Missouri’s most beautiful and productive deer hunting counties in the whole state. All of a sudden, not only did he get the financing he sought but he was everyone’s favorite client around the rather large metropolitan bank. Word quickly spread and before the ink dried on the loan papers Dad was up to his eyeballs in requests to go hunting. Since he had no plans to hunt himself, he quickly calculated the amount of hunters that could safely hunt on the acreage he owned and granted as many requests as he could.
Throughout my youth we hosted many deer seasons. Every November our yard evolved into a small city of campers, tents and vans and our basement was full of even more excited and jubilant hunters each full of expectation for the upcoming season. Through it all my Dad did his best to maintained a safe and happy atmosphere, that is until the bankers arrived.
The sky was still dark when the bankers arrived. As the doors to their 1964 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham opened, multitudes of empty Cuttysark bottles fell out and clinked as they hit the gravel driveway. The 2 hour drive from Kansas City had obviously been a fun one, as the men climbed out of the car.
"J.W. you old son of a biscuit eater," Bob yelled out in the pre dawn darkness. A slight inebriated overtone could be detected in his voice as he announced at the top of his lungs, "Can you believe it, we made it in one piece!"
After the initial introductions, the men began unloading their equipment from the trunk. The mid 60’s model Fleetwood Brougham was one of the largest and most luxurious cars on the road. With room to seat six people comfortably, the Fleetwood also had a trunk the size of Grand Central Station and these men had the whole trunk packed to the gills with brand new deer riffles with the tags still on them, top of the line hunting equipment and cases of scotch.
As one of the hunters pulled out gear a full unopened bottle of Cuttysark fell out of the trunk and broke as it hit the ground. Bob saw this and immediately ran over to his friend and yelled, "Damn it man, don’t just stand there…hurry and get another bottle opened, I’m thirsty," at which time they all broke into loud boisterous laughter followed by passing the newly opened bottle around.
The first rays of sunlight began to peak over the Ozark Mountains as the intoxicated hunters began surveying their gear and attempting to load their weapons. "How do you load this damn thing," one of the men slurred as he weaved back and forth trying to put shells in his Remington 30-06. One of the men had his hunting vest on backwards and couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t zip it up. Another man had his hunting boots on the wrong feet and stumbled around wildly still chugging on his scotch bottle.
Realizing this was quickly becoming a recipe for disaster, Dad was just about to tell the men they would have to sober up before going out into the woods with loaded weapons when he realized the whole bunch had passed out cold in the driveway. Still clutching their guns in one hand and their scotch in the other, they were all snoring like a buzz saw.
Sitting at the dining room table clutching a cup of coffee, Dad had no idea what he was going to do with these drunken idiots sprawled out in his yard when all of a sudden a fiendishly clever idea came to him. Putting his coffee cup in the sink he quietly walked out into the group of men sleeping like babies, slowly pried one of the riffles from the clutches of the nearest hunter. He quietly shucked a shell into the chamber and pulled back the hammer. Walking over to the very center of the sleeping men, he bent down into a squat so as to be as close to the men as possible, pointed the gun harmlessly into the air and pulled the trigger.
"KA-BANG," the gun blasted out like a cannon shot, echoing off of the surrounding hillsides, violently shattering the early morning quiet.
"I got him…I got him," Dad yelled at the top of his voice at the slumbering hunters. "He went that-a-way," he screamed pointing down over the hillside toward the timber line.
"Where, where," they all shouted, running around like the Keystone Cops trying to shake out the drunken cobwebs. "That way," Dad once again pointed toward the timber.
The men started running down the side of the hill towards the timber, not even sober enough to wonder why they were running or even what they were running for. Elbows and shoe soles were all that could be seen as the men disappeared into the early morning fog. As the scampering gentlemen approached the timber line, the fiendish part of Dad’s plan became painfully aware to them as they hit the hidden barbed wire fence line tucked just inside the tree’s edge.
"S-K-E-E-R-O-N-C-H," the rusty old fence groaned for 25 feet in each direction as the men hit it full blast and flipped over tumbling into the trees. Silence once again filled the morning air as the birds once again began their morning ritual and all returned to normal.
Returning to the house with ripped clothes, bloody gashes and bruised egos, the men must have realized they were wrong for they quietly loaded up the car and drove off. Bob Black and other banker friends came back many times over the years to hunt, but we NEVER saw another Cuttysark bottle again.
