The one you love the most (Gun) : Terry Lamb wrote:Most nostalgia-inducing:...

 

On my very first hunt with it that fall, a very foggy and crisp October morning in the forests of NE Washington State, a large whitetail buck was jumped by my Dad and crashed its way through the dark enshrouded woods towards me.

 

It appeared surreally from the fog at a trot onto the little ridge cap opening in which I stood, it's antlers high and forward. There was no color, only whiteness of the fog and the darkness of the trotting buck at whom I was for a second transfixed with a sort of disbelief.

 

Bringing that '94 to my shoulder I fired and was startled by the large sheet of brilliant white/orange flame which exploded forward from the little carbine barrel.....and another......and another, a total of four at my first buck as he was again enveloped by the fog.

 

Heart pounding, and running toward his tracks, emotions began to crash as I could find not a drop of blood. My Dad soon joined, but despite being able to follow the tracks a great distance, it soon became evident the buck was untouched.

 

And then my Dad asked the question that has haunted me to this day: "Where did you hold on him, kid?" There had been, of course, so many things to think of, and such powerful adrenalin surging, and the hypnosis of that ghost-like gray buck trotting across my view, that I had given no real consideration to such detail. I had of course confirmed that J.M. Brownings lever-action design was fast and smooth and a thing of beauty to behold.

 

And it still is, with a special position in the rack, and a magical ability to transport me through six decades, viewed by me with reverence.