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High water washes away Hunting Club's hopes
By Reavis Z. Wortham
Contributor
Published November 5, 2009
Watching the soft rain fall steadily outside my office window here at the house, I recalled a similar wet weekend over ten years ago. The Hunting Club members and I gathered in the rain at the Brownwood Lease the opening week of deer season.
I was driving a Ford conversion van at the time. It was perfect for hauling the guys around whenever we all wanted to ride together. On the lease, I opted to sleep in the rear fold-down bed because I couldn’t hear the snores from other Club members, and unlike the trailer, it was rat free.
A light mist made it feel like we were driving through the clouds when I followed Wrong Willie’s pickup down the narrow ranch road. We wound past dripping mesquites, dripping live oaks, dripping fences, a dripping ragged barn, and dripping cattle.
The rocky low water crossing looked somewhat different on that gray morning. A sluggish current made it feel like we were in the hill country. After dodging (dripping) cedars and more (dripping) mesquite, the rocky road led us along a steep gully to the trailer. Doc was already unloading his gear when we crunched to a stop. The rain began to fall in earnest when I opened the van’s door.
“Top of the morning, Rev!” he called and hurried into the trailer. Before I could pull my own duffle from the van, Doc ran back outside just ahead of a small cloud of yellowjackets.
With practiced ease, I held up a can of wasp spray. Doc grabbed it like I’d passed a baton in a relay race and he fought his way back inside. He soon mopped up most of the resistance and stuck his head back through the door.
“Bring your first aid kit when you come in. They got me.”
Rain fell in earnest, later that night. We gathered around the dining table, eating canned beef stew and smiling at the rattle on the roof as Doc’s stings swelled with enthusiasm.
“This reminds me of when I was a kid,” I said. “We loved to hear the rain on the barn roof.”
“We listened to rain on the tin roof of our house,” Wrong Willie said.
“We didn’t have a roof,” Jerry Wayne said.
We stared him down.
“Well, it wasn’t much of a roof,” Jerry Wayne amended. “But we listened to rain drip into Mama’s wash tubs all night.”
I had to run to the van later that night to avoid drowning. The rain drumming on the van’s roof covered the snoring from the nearby trailer as I slipped into a peaceful night.
Unfortunately, the rain hadn’t subsided one little bit when we woke. I splashed back into the trailer for breakfast. By the time we should have been leaving for the stands, it began to rain even harder.
“This is ridiculous,” Doc said. “How can it rain harder than it did last night?”
I pointed out the window. “Like that.”
We could see nothing but a gray curtain. By noon it had slacked off to a monsoon. With a whole day of not hunting behind us, we settled in for another night.
“Uh, oh,” Wrong Willie said, looking out the back window at the nearby creek.
I joined him. “I’ve never seen the water this high.”
“How high is it?” Doc asked from the sofa.
“It’s to the deck,” I answered.
“That’s pretty far,” Doc said. “Has it reached the first step?”
“It washed away the first step,” Wrong Willie said. “There it goes, and the water is up to the deck itself.”
“That’s over seven feet,” Jerry Wayne argued.
“Really, it’s over the deck.”
“We’re outa here,” I told them.
We quickly packed our gear. Just in case the trailer went the way of the steps, Jerry Wayne took the Felix the Cat clock off the wall. “I like it,” he said in defense.
I pocketed a couple of arrowheads we’d found and cast a disappointed eye toward the eight foot rattlesnake skin tacked to the wall. I knew it would disintegrate if we tried to remove it.
Doc’s truck led our caravan up the dirt ranch road. It was gumbo, so we drove in the grass, bumping over rocks, dead mesquite limbs and cow skulls. At one point an incline was so steep and slick that Willie had to back uphill after his truck performed an admirable one-eighty.
The Low Water Crossing, wasn’t. Instead we glumly stared at the roaring current.
“I think we can make it,” Doc said through his open window and lost no time in gunning his truck. The water was up to his running boards, but he made it.
Willie followed easily. I knew my much lower-slung van would have trouble, so I backed uphill and gunned it. I figured gravity and velocity would get me across.
I was barely right.
Covered in mud, our vehicles looked as if they’d just been excavated from a mudslide when we finally pulled onto the highway and stopped on the shoulder.
The highway patrol car stopped as we danced and high-fived on the deserted road. The officer greeted us in true Texas fashion.
“Did y’all get your deer?”
“How’d you know we were hunting?” Doc asked.
“Because no one but insane deer hunters would be dancing in the rain on a highway beside two muddy trucks and a ... conversion van?”
“They snore,” I explained.
He understood, then left quickly, lest our mental illness rub off on his nice clean yellow slicker.
Reavis Z. Wortham is an award-winning outdoor writer with family ties to Lamar County.
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