When I was a boy, we did a lot of squirrel hunting. As teenagers, my friends and I kept a running tally of how many squirrels we killed and competed fiercely with each other to see who could rack up the most kills. Oftentimes, the first thing I would do when I got home from school was to grab a snack and head to the woods to go squirrel hunting.
No one was better at getting his limit of squirrels than my oldest brother, Don. I can't remember all the times he came home with his hunting pouch literally running over with squirrels. When I was still too young to go hunting, Don would get me to help him clean squirrels, and I learned pretty quickly that he didn't tolerate any mistakes such as dropping the squirrel or losing my grip or turning the wrong end toward him at the wrong time. And when I was shining a flashlight for him to see where to cut when skinning a squirrel, I never seemed to be able to get the beam pointed at the exact spot where it needed to be.
So all of us younger brothers had to listen to a lot of instructions and numerous corrections to our squirrel-cleaning technique. The worst verbal abuse was saved for anyone who got a hair on the freshly skinned squirrel. That was probably the biggest sin we could possibly commit. And Don was right there to chew us out and make us feel about an inch tall. But then, that's what big brothers do, right?
But like all great hunters my brother Don finally met his match when it came to squirrel hunting. And I'm proud to report that he was man enough to admit it. In fact, it was Don himself who came home one day and told the story of meeting the man who, as it happened, turned out to be the world's best squirrel hunter. And the interesting thing is that he didn't even use a gun to hunt. Here's the story as Don told it to us one evening many years ago.
"I was out behind Antioch Cemetery," he said, "down one of those little draws where the white oaks are thick. I usually have pretty good luck back there."
"Well, I was sitting under a big old hicker-nut tree when out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving up on the ridge to my right. I turned my head to see what it was and I saw a man walking along, slow like. He was looking up in the trees and turning his head here and there, and pretty soon a gray cat squirrel ran out on a branch and sat there chattering at this guy; and the stranger, for his part, just stood there and stared at that squirrel. Well boys, I couldn't hardly believe what happened next. One minute the squirrel was sitting there looking at the man while the man stared back at the squirrel. Then, all of a sudden, the squirrel fell out of the tree just as dead as a doornail. The stranger calmly walked over and picked it up."
"Well, as you can imagine, my curiosity was aroused," Don said, "so I quietly began to follow this stranger through the woods and, sure enough, every now and then he would spot a squirrel in a tree and, when he did, he would stare at it for a little while and, pretty soon, without fail, that squirrel would fall out of the tree dead. All the stranger had to do was to put it in his pouch."
Don paused here to gather his thoughts as we younger ones tried to figure out how the man was able to perform this amazing feat.
"How could he do that?" I finally asked. I just couldn't get a grip on it. None of us could, for that matter.
"I'm coming to that," Don said. "Well, for about an hour I kept on following him and watching him take squirrel after squirrel without ever firing a shot. After a while I couldn't resist it anymore. I had to talk to this guy and find out how he could kill squirrels just by looking at them."
"I headed towards him," Don said, "and made a little noise so he would hear me coming. The man saw me as I made my way up the ridge. He stopped and waited for me to catch up to him. As he looked at me, I noticed that he was amazingly ugly."
"In spite of his looks, I walked up to him and straight out asked him how he could kill squirrels just by looking at them."
The stranger smiled at me and looked kindly shy. He blushed as he said, "As you can see, I'm a homely guy. I never have been much for looks, but each one of us has to play with the hand he has been dealt. The truth is, I am the world's ugliest man. In fact, I am so ugly all I have to do is look at a squirrel and my looks scare the poor creature to death."
"I will say that, if I hadn't seen it for myself," Don said, "I might have some trouble believing his story, but I couldn't argue with the plain truth. And I will tell you right now that he was really ugly. I mean scary ugly. It made me uneasy just to look at him."
"He seemed nice enough though, kind of gentle and good natured with a quietness about him that I had to admire in spite of his looks. He came across real humble, too. I liked him immediately."
The stranger asked me where I lived and who my folks were and so forth. Then he told me something that caused me to shake my head in disbelief.
"I'm the world's ugliest man, you know, and I happen to be married to the world's ugliest woman." The stranger paused here, then continued, "She used to hunt too, but she had to give it up."
"Oh, really?" I asked him, "Why did she have to give up hunting?"
"Well," the stranger said, "I'm ugly enough to kill squirrels on sight, you see, and I can accept that, but the problem with my wife was she was so ugly that she tore up the meat too bad."
We all sat there as Don was telling this story, trying our best to imagine someone so ugly that just by looking at a squirrel she tore up the meat too bad.
I think the best analogy would be to say that the man was akin to a .410 while his wife was more like a 12 gauge. Maybe she brought just a little too much firepower to the situation, but I can imagine she was a dang good shot.
Sam Byrnes is a Gentry-area resident and weekly contributor to the Eagle Observer. He may be contacted by email at [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 11/23/2016