The Story of Butch(2 new Installments p.4)

[Curtiss Cardinal]

thanks keith

[Curtiss Cardinal]

TTT for a new year and new readers

[SouthMDShooter]

Thanks for bringing this back up. I enjoyed reading it. Your a great writer

[Shaky]

Curtiss,
As I was reading your first installment, I thought "what a good story for young people". I'm thoroughly enjoying the stories. I like the way you put it when you decided to hunt with just the bow. "inside the deer's area of influence", or something like that. I couldn't put my finger on it before, but those are the words I needed to describe why I bowhunt. Thanks.

Kids need your stories.

[Curtiss Cardinal]

thank you

[Curtiss Cardinal]

It was January 1973. Butch had just turned 12 and was ice fishing with some friends. We were having fun drinking hot chocolate from Stanley thermoses and catching panfish left and right on my secret bait(maggots dipped into melted bacon grease kept in a can over a small sterno stove).
Well we had our limited at about 2:00pm and were ready for some hot soup and being inside for a time.
Butch finished gathering up all my things and packing them away on my sled as did my friends. They started across the ice toward home. There were cars on the frozen lake so they were carefree as we trotted across the lake, their pack boots crunching in the crusted over snow from the night before.
Well As luck would have it Butch stepped onto a place in the ice where until the night before a shanty had been. The 4X6 feet hole the shanty had set over had only a thin sheet of ice covered by fallen and wind blown snow so that appeared to be the same thickness as all that was around it. It was like stepping onto lightening sand. Butch was very suddenly totally immersed in icey water. The rope from his sled that was heavily ladden with gear(and steel rails) was wrapped tightly around his wrist and mittened hand and was now pulling me to the bottom of the 30 foot deep lake.Butch was just 12 and he did the thing almost anyone would do, he panicked. However he was a smarter more stubburn than average kids and his mind pushed the panic aside and calmly decided what must be done. Butch was ambidexterous and kept a pocketknife in both his front pockets. He pulled his mitten off with his teeth and reached into his pocket took out his knife opened it with his teeth and cut the rope to the sled in one swipe. Butch thanked God for his clear head and his Father for teaching me how to get a razor edge on his knives. That is when Butch realized he had just touched bottom. He could barely see it was so dark. He almost panicked again, but instead with all the strength he could muster pushed off the bottom and kicked and paddled and battled his way up to a solid ceiling of ice. His lungs were burning and screaming for air.He couldn't find the hole he had fallen through. He discovered something then that saved his life. There are pockets of air trapped under the ice that are held between the water and the ice. He could get enough air clawing his way under the ice to keep going. He finally found a place where there was a chunk jutting down that he could hold onto and it looked to him as if the ice beside that chunk was thinner and he started punching that thinner ice for all he was worth. The fifth time he punched it he heard a crack. He redoubled his efforts even though his knuckles were broken and bleeding. As his strength ebbed he prayed a two word prayer,"God Please" and hit the ice one last time and it erupted into the sky and he clawed up onto the ice. His friends were 50 or 60 yards away looking into the place he had gone through and were crying. Not one had gone for help. Soaking wet and shivering like a chihauhau passing a peach pit he walked up behind them and just repeatedly asked them to help him to a fire barrel on shore.
At the shore a park ranger saw him soaking wet and ran to his truck for a wool blanket and to call it in. The ambulance took him to the hospital and his friends ran to his house with a note from the ranger. Aside from his knuckles he wasn't injured. His hand was washed and treated and bandaged. He was given hot liquids to the bursting point and a warm water enema to raise his core temp as quickly and safely as possible. Believe it or not he only started into the stages of hypothermia after he got out of the water. This was also the first time he ever drank coffee. Butch was wired until midnight. When his grandad heard about it he said, "I told you Butch don't have no quit in him.Most boys would have give up and drowned. Butch beat Hell out of the ice and saved hisself." It was at once one of the most horrifying and life affirming events of Butch's life. Butch looked death in the eye since then on more than one occassion and the only reason he believed he was still here to write this little tale is. "Butch dont have no quit in him."

[wollelybugger]

Butch has no quit in him but he has some great stories. It would be a enjoyable night to share some spirits and a good cigar with you Curtis. Im Irish and we love to hear and tell stories.

[Curtiss Cardinal]

I have Irish blood in my veins too.Thanks for the invitations and compliments.

[Dave Bulla]

Curtis, you my friend are one interesting fella!  Some awsome stories you have there.

[Curtiss Cardinal]

Thanks for the kind words Dave.

[Apex Predator]

One of the best reads I've had in a while.

Please tell me the book is in progress!

[rastaman]

Thank you for sharing this Curtis...

[JoeM]

Curtiss, Great story thanks for bringing it back up so new guys could enjoy it.  Sounds like your father was a hell of a MAN!!  Joe

[SouthMDShooter]

Love these stories    

[Curtiss Cardinal]

WOW you guys are too generous with your praise. I'll try to fill this out to make it a full book. Maybe I'll serialize it in a magazine. That might be easier.

[Joel Darnell]

Great stories thanks for sharing. Hope things are still going well for you.

[Curtiss Cardinal]

Thanks Joel

[Curtiss Cardinal]

ttt

[KHALVERSON]

awesome writing curtis
you  have me hooked
THANK YOU
kevin

[Curtiss Cardinal]

In Butch's 15 year he discovered a wild thing he hated to the point of loathing. The incidence that caused this haunts his dreams to this day. You're probably jumping the gun and thinking it's a shunk; but you'd be wrong to do that. So sit back and read along as the story unfolds.
It was Autumn in Northern Michigan and for Butch and his Family that meant hunting season. His Father had taken Butch and his brothers up to Oscoda to hunt the elusive whitetailed deer. Their camp was in a clearing in an Oak grove. There was a large fire ring with a deadfall trunk and stumps around it to sit and talk. The tents were arranged in a semicircle around it. They had spent time in August and September building the camp and setting up ground blinds, pit blinds and for the first time legal in Michigan treestands. Thet had travel lanes, feeding and bedding areas figured out and it was just a matter of waiting for the season to open and being in place before sunrise on opening morning. Butch's family had come up 3 days early to gather blueberries and gather and cut firewood for the 2 week deer camp. Butch had 4 older and one younger brothers in camp so they did the lion's share of the work. On the first day picking wild blueberries Butch had a run in with a bear sow and her fairly large cubs. His head was down and he was intent on filling his bucket first because the one that did that could have a Coca Cola with supper. Butch did notice the bears greedily stripping bushes of fruit just 8 feet away until he heard a low woof. He had heard the sound before and looked up slowly and saw he had a cub on each side of him and one directly in front of him. He backed out just as quietly as he could and got out without incident because all the bears, Momma included, were more interested in blueberries than anything else.
Well opening day of Archery deer season finally came; and sun up found Butch in a pit blind he had dug himself between some sassafras trees and in front of a large boulder sticking out of the ground. He had put dead branches and ferns and other handy things in front to help conceal himself. He was off to one side of a trail from a feeding area to a bedding area and closer to the later. the wind was in his face, as his father had instructed him to be aware of and he had an arrow nocked with a razor sharp Bear Razorhead on the business end. Just as the sun hit the tree tops 5 deer came into veiw headed right down the trail he was 10 yards from. The last deer in line was a nice plump doe. Butch readied himself and as he past he came to full draw picked a spot behind her shoulder and then just before his fingers loosed the string he did something he had never done before, nor since, nor has he ever heard of anyone doing.......Butch sneezed, not just any sneeze but a genuine MONSTER of a sneeze. He had never felt a tickle or had any warning it would happen. It was a total suprize. When he could open his eyes he saw his arrow sticking out the exit wound of the doe who was running flatout towards the bedding area. He could tell even fron 70 yards away it was too far back. He waited where he was and watched other deer walk by. At noon he went back to camp to tell his Dad what had happened and get advice. The decision was made to give the doe over night to bleed out and at first light EVERYONE would help in the search. Butch's Dad was glad Butch hadn't taken up the bloodtrail and probably pushed the doe. He told Butch he had done the right thing.
Butch didn't sleep much that night. In fact he was out of bed, dressed and tending to the fire when his Dad came out of his tent at 04:00 as 4AM was called in his Dad's deer camp. "You get any sleep, Butch?"; his Father asked. ""Not much Dad,couldn't." "I understand. Well grab a latern and I'll get one too and we'll leave a note for the others to follow after the get up and situated."
They started at first blood as if the shot had happened an hour ago, not the over 20 it had been. An hour later they found the doe and Butch ran up to her body and knelt down beside her and laid his had on her side. Then Her side shook and wiggled and there was a wail of somekind, loud and horrifying and then from her belly erupted the biggest oppossum either Butch or his Father had ever seen. It was totally covered in semi congeled blood and it hissed and bared its needle sharp teeth, that glowed eerily in the moonlight, at Butch and charged at him. like something from the depths of Hades. Butch screamed and did an actual somersault backwards away from the hideous beast and picked up a dead branch on the ground that just happened to be there and from his kneeling position swung the branch like a baseball bat with all the strength he could muster and positively launched the possum end over end about 20 feet with a sickening crunch. It was then Butch realized that he was soaked with sweat and to his shame urine. His Father put a shaky hand on his shoulder and asked if he was alright. He was ; but he was embarrassed more than he had words for that he had peed himself. "Hey, when that nasty thing came up out of that deer I almost did it too and I was 15 feet away not inches. You've got nothing to be ashamed of. That was the most horrible suprize I have ever seen in MY life. I have worse news than wet pants for you though. That doe is ruined. Oppossums foul the carrcases they find to keep other scavengers off it." Just then they saw the oppossum limp away into cover.
Butch's Dad told the story many times around the campfire over thge years and never once mentioned how Butch had wet himself. From that day forward Butch found he absolutely loathed oppossums. He never killed one out of spite or any other reason but he always ran one off when they crossed paths and even sent a rubber blunt or two at one a time or two. That hedious, needle toothed, hissing grin has greeted him in many a bad dream over the years. He just calls them "Nasty Critters" and leaves it at that. So now you know the wild thing Butch learn to loath. See I told you it wasn't a shunk.