Nice deer Packrat! ANd a dear granddaughter too! In that picture, she looks exactly like my own daughter, fifteen now.
Well, here is the opening scene of the story. I'll not post more here because it is quite long. Maybe it is something Clint would want to rewrite and illustrate though.
"Yea, Po Po, I see him, but why him?"
"Cause he be good eatin' son."
"But the old buck there is bigger. Won't that be more meat?
"Old buck is poor doins boy. Now, if we needed some tough hide, sinew for a bowstring or sewin a pair of mocs, then that buck woud do fine. But he'd be mighty poor eatin."
"Sure do like those horns on him."
"They purty to look at son, but make mighty thin soup. Ain't big enough for a powder horn an' we don't need 'em for buttons or knife handles."
"But Ham and Beth would like them and I'd be big in their way of thinkin'."
"Titus, you pull the trigger on that buck and bring home horns, that make you a better man than bringing your brother and sister sweet meat?
"No, Po Po, I guess it don't.Well, then what about that big doe. Po Po?"
"Same thing boy. Old cow ain't much better than poor bull. Ain't fit for nothin' but making more fawns with that there ol' buck, less'n you need a new shirt or pair of breaches, an' you don't."
"And the doe yearling?"
"We'll leave her for another year or so. Give her a chance to make more deer. That little buck is the one we want. Enough tender meat in him to feed us a week and make a bag of pemmican for tough times besides."
BOOM!
"Good shot boy. Let's go dress that deer out and be gone from here 'fore some varmint comes to see what we're shootin' at."
"Titus, did you reload like I taught you too?"
"Not yet Po Po, but you said..."
"Reload Titus. Now. And just the way you was taught. Not a grain of powder more or less, and you center that galina pill in the patch like I showed you. Do any of it wrong, and the best that comes of it is you miss. The worse is you loose your life. Man ain't got a chance in this place without a proper loaded rifle. Chancy enough with one that is loaded proper."
"I understand. Just like you showed me Po Po."
"Good. Now get the deer butchered. Here's my knife. It's a mite big for you, but come summer trading, we'll get you one your size. Next to a man's rifle and the fixins for it, a good iron knife is his most important tool. That's a good first cut...now a bit more there....good. Now pull that out. Good. Now help be get it up on my back and let's git"
"Po Po, why you leave all that other stuff in there. It's a ways back to the cabin, and that deer's awful heavy."
Yore Ma would skin us both if we threw away good meat boy. She's got ways of makin' use of all of that."
"Even the gut?"
"Even the gut. Remember that spiced pemmican sausage you and your sister gobble down?"
"And the lungs?"
"Yep, them too. You know that special sweetbread she makes?"
"Well, I know why you kept the heart and liver. I'm getting hungry thinking about it!"
"Me too, son. Me too. Mind our backtrail. Don't need no hungry critter, red or furred, slipping up on us. Snatch some of that sage there by your foot."
Codger
