Memories in Metal

I hopped out of the old rusty truck, the sun hadn’t raised leaving the sky a foggy dark gray. The
cold metal layed in my hand as I walked towards the small wooden box.

The wooden blind had walls with small cutouts on three of the sides. There was no floor, just the
old dirt that had sat there for years. Two metal chairs were set up for my dad and I. They had a chill to
them that could make you go numb. The cutouts in the walls were big enough for the cold December
morning breeze to blow through, sending me into a light sleep.

I remember a loud bang and drifting back to sleep. Then moments later my dad was shaking me
awake, and pointing to a blurry object about 100 yards away. The more my eyes started to wake up the
clearer the blurry object became. A white tail buck was standing, eating at the straws of hay that
surrounded the ground. My dad popped a gold bullet into the chamber of the metal and plastic gun. I lined
up my scope to the shoulder of the deer while my dad grabbed the tiny black professional camera he
always carries in his camo hunting pack. He pressed the record button and told me to shoot.

I switch the gun from safety to fire and put my hand near the trigger. I looked through my scope
to make sure I was still aligned on the small bucks tan shoulder. I took a deep breath and pulled the cold
trigger.

Bang! After the buck paused for a few seconds to register what had just happened he scattered
with the other white tail. Then a sudden pain between my nose and forehead began. I hadden realized till I
looked up from the gun that the scope had hit me in the head. My dad and I started to laugh because stuff
like this doesn’t happen often.

We rewatched the video of me killing the buck and my dad's face lit up in a way I never had
really seen. At that moment I felt as if he was really, truly proud of me. I have never really felt that feeling
before. Before that day my dad had told me he was proud of me but I never really felt it. He never really
had that look in his eyes that showed he was really proud.

We sat in the blind for another 10 minutes and decided we should look for the buck. We followed
the spots of the liquid red the animal had left behind, but the spots had lied and led us in the wrong
direction.

My dad’s friend and his daughter showed up pulling a white tail buck a little smaller than mine
behind them. The daughter had been the loud bang I had heard before. They sat her buck down on the side
of the gravel road and started to help my dad and I look for my buck.

My dad’s friend later found the buck far from the red spots. It was lying down between brown
and green bush that looked like they were on the verge of dying. The little neutral colored pebbles that
surrounded the earth's floor had been moved around in little clumps from when the buck had scampered
through.
 The smile started to fade off my face when I saw that the gold bullet had left a mark a little away
from the shoulder, leaving it bleeding from the gut. But the fact that the proud look came back to my dad's
face, made me feel proud of myself.

My dad and his friend dragged the buck around the old scratchy bushes, and found a nice little
opening for it to lay so we could take pictures.

That proud look stayed on my dad's face for the remainder of the pictures and again when I shot
my doe that next day.

I have only seen him look as proud as he was that day a few times, most for the same reason.

I remember how proud me and the daughter were about the fact that we shot our first bucks
around the same time. We bring up this day a lot, it sure was a day to remember.

Hunting holds so many memories for me, so I continue to hunt in Texas every December and
relive this memory. I long to relive the feeling of my dad being truly proud of me. Hoping that that
proudness will build a father daughter connection I have always wanted.