It started the night before, we're all around the campfire as usual, Miss Betty brings out peach cobbler and the table loaded up faster than Dale Earnhart on the last lap of the Daytona 500. Me, Earl and Red are talking about where we'll be huntin' the next morning. Earl said he's headed to the white oak ridge, Red, headed back to his old faithful spot, the funnel as he calls it and me, Im going to the spot the oak hammock leans up against the river swamp.
Then Bubba leans back in his chair...laughs a little and says: "y'all know what you got?" Earl never even looked up and said, "Smarter" Bubba laughs. "No..."Old and Scared. "Me and the boys, We're got a better plan." Earl look at him over his coffee and mumbles uh-huh Bubba, of course is not detoured he pulls out his phone and proclaims "I found a place nobody hunts." That's right"! Dusty says... "right back behind Buzzard Slough." Red immediately quits smiling.
"Not a good plan" he said. Tommy looked a bit puzzled, what do you mean he said. Brandon smirked and said "looks like we found their honey hole boys!." Bubba grins. "How do you know where we're talking about?" I never even looked up and said, no boys, that ain't it, trust me. Earl chuckles. "Every five or six years another group of young fellas finds it." Red adds..."And every one of 'em thinks they're the first."
The boys laugh. Bubba shakes his head. "Y'all are just trying to keep us away from your secret honey hole." Red laughed and said, "yea, that's it". "Son...if there was a Boone and Crockett buck standing back there wearing a sign around his neck that said, 'Shoot Me,' I still wouldn't go."
That just pours gasoline on the fire. Brandon points at Earl. "See! I told y'all!" "They're protecting it." Dusty grins. "They don't want us killing their deer." Tommy isn't quite as convinced. He looks over at Earl. "You've really been back there?" Earl slowly nods. "Yep." "What happened?" Earl smiles. "I came back."
The boys all laugh. I didn't. I stared into the fire for a few seconds before finally saying... "Boys...there's a reason that place ain't wore out." Bubba pops up with, "Because nobody's willing to walk." I said, "No...""...because everybody that HAS walked it only done it once."
Silence. For about five seconds. Then all four boys bust out laughing. Red just leans back in his chair watching them. "You boys think we're trying to scare ya." Bubba smiles."yea you are." Earl shakes his head. "No...""I'm trying to save ya." Brandon laughs. "From what, bringin' in that monster buck ya'll been seein' but can't kill?" Earl took another bite of cobbler. "You'll see."
Nobody says another word. Miss Betty walks over to gather the empty bowls. She looks at Earl. "They still going?" Earl nods. "Yep." She looks over at the boys. Then back at Earl. "I'll make extra biscuits in the morning." Bubba laughs. "What for?" Earl answers before Miss Betty can. "Ya'll gonna be hungry."
And again...Nobody explains why, Nobody argues. The old men simply change the subject and start talking about baseball. Now Tommy's getting curious. He keeps looking from Bubba to Earl. Back to Bubba. Back to Earl Something wasn't adding up. If the old guys were bluffing... Why'd they quit trying to talk them out of it?
...
Opening morning finally gets there. The coffee's hot. The bacon's frying. Everybody's excited. Waylon, Earl and Red are moving around like they've done this a thousand times. Because they have.
The boys, on the other hand... Look like they're leaving for a week-long camping trip. Dusty's carrying enough gear to outfit the Marine Corps. Brandon's got two backpacks. Tommy's carrying climbing sticks he ain't gonna need. Bubba has enough snacks to survive a hurricane.
Red leans over to Earl. "If they pack one more thing, they're gonna have to leave one of 'em behind." Earl just smiles and nods. "They'll lighten the load soon enough." Bubba slaps the tailgate. "Boys.....today's the day, that monster buck is going down" Dusty pumps his fist. "We're gonna kill the biggest buck in this county." Brandon says... "And we'll be back before lunch dragging him." I just smiled and said, "you betcha".
Bubba points. "Y'all enjoy your little easy walk." "We're going where the real bucks live." Earl tips his coffee cup, "Hope they let you visit." He says before the boys disappear into the darkness laughing. Nobody tries to stop them. Nobody follows. I watched until the last flashlight disappears.
Earl finally asks... "What time you got?" Red says... "I'll give 'em till eleven." I shook my head. "Nah..." "They'll make it farther than that." Miss Betty walks out on the porch. "You think they're alright?" Earl smiled and said ."They ain't in trouble yet, They're still having fun." "They ain't reached the part we're trying to warn 'em about."
And that's all anybody says. The woods will do the rest.
The four of them disappeared into the darkness, still laughing. Bubba was in front with his phone held out like Lewis and Clark discovering America. Every fifty yards he'd stop, look at his screen, grin, and say, "See? I told y'all."
Dusty was right behind him carrying enough gear to survive a nuclear war. Tommy had already started sweating. Brandon was talking about the giant buck he was going to shoot before daylight.
For the first half mile...Everything was perfect. The woods were quiet. The air was cool. They crossed an old logging road and found the little trail Bubba had seen on his satellite map. Dusty grinned. "Told y'all." Tommy finally relaxed. "I ain't gonna lie...""...this does look pretty good."
Bubba looked back over his shoulder wearing that grin. " Told ya, don't always listen to old people." Brandon laughed. "They quit taking chances twenty years ago."
Back on the other side of the property I was climbed up into his stand. Earl was already watching squirrels chase each other around an old white oak. Red hadn't even loaded his rifle yet. He was eating a sausage biscuit, SHOCKER!
Back in Buzzard Slough...the boys still trekking down the trail, which turned out to be a bit longer than Bubba anticipated until, all of a sudden, their little trail suddenly disappeared. Not ended, disappeared, nothin' but palmettos, gallberries, briars and an unknown and unseen swamp that was not on Bubba's secret map.
Everything looked exactly the same, Bubba stopped, Looked at his phone, then looked around. "Huh." He muttered Tommy said,"What?" "Nothing."Bubba said confidently Brandon let out a nervous little laugh and said, "are we lost ?" Bubba immediately responded, "I ain't lost."
He spun around in a slow circle. "I'm...""...recalculating." Dusty snorted. "That's what my wife says when she misses the exit." They all laughed, Nobody was worried……Yet.
Bubba pointed, "This way." They shoved through another wall of palmettos. Ten minutes later...They came to the exact same dead pine tree. Tommy stopped. "Ain't we already seen this?" Bubba answered too quick. "No." Brandon looked up. "I'm pretty sure we have."
Dusty walked over to the tree. He rubbed something with his thumb. "Boys......I carved my initials in this tree five minutes ago." Nobody said anything. Finally, Bubba cleared his throat. "Alright...maybe we made one little circle." Tommy folded his arms. "One?"
At camp...Miss Betty poured another cup of coffee. As luck would have it, I was blessed to shoot me a nice buck about 7:45, tracked it down with my HuntIQ app real quick and got back to camp. I was cleanin' my deer when Miss Betty walked out and said, you know it's about 8:30 now "You think they're alright?"
I just smiled. "Ya think they found the pine tree yet?." Red busted out laughing. "You reckon they're fightin' about whose fault it is?" "I'd bet money on it."
Back in the swamp... The fightin' had officially begun. "I told you to turn left." "You never said left." "I pointed." "You pointed everywhere." Dusty shook his head. "I knew we should've listened." Bubba spun around. "No you didn't." "I do now."
Then... Without warning... Dusty disappeared. Just... Gone. One second he was standing there. The next... WHOOOMP!
Chest deep. He'd stepped into an old hidden beaver run. Only his hat stayed on top. Brandon laughed so hard he couldn't breathe. Tommy bent over grabbing his knees. Even Bubba laughed.
Until... He reached down to help. The ground gave way. WHOOOMP! Now Bubba disappeared too. That made Brandon laugh even harder. Then Brandon took one step backward. WHOOOMP!
Three of them. Chest deep. Tommy stood there trying not to laugh. "I ain't helping none of y'all." He turned to walk around them... ...and disappeared too.
Silence. Four grown men... Standing chest deep in black swamp water. Looking at each other. Nobody saying a word.
Finally Bubba looked around and said... "Well..." "...I still think this is shorter."
That broke everybody. Even Tommy couldn't stay mad. The four of them laughed so hard they could barely climb out. They didn't know... The worst part of the trip hadn't even started.
After ten solid minutes of laughing, the reality of the situation started to sink in. Every one of them was soaked from the chest down. Mud had found places mud wasn't supposed to find. Their boots weighed about twenty pounds apiece. Dusty's backpack had taken on enough water to float a jon boat.
Brandon reached into his pocket for his phone. Nothing. Just a black screen. "Well..." "There went my phone." Tommy checked his. Same thing. Bubba pulled his out. He hit the power button six or seven times like somehow being stubborn would make electronics work again. Nothing.
Dusty smiled. "Looks like your million-dollar shortcut just got a whole lot more expensive." Nobody laughed. Not this time.
They climbed out of the beaver run looking like four swamp monsters and started walking again. Or at least they thought they were. Everything looked exactly the same. Every pine tree looked like the last one. Every palmetto looked like its twin brother. Every little opening in the woods led to another wall of brush.
About twenty minutes later Brandon stopped. "Boys..." "I ain't trying to start nothing..." "...but I think we've walked by this same buzzard three times."
Sure enough... An old buzzard was sitting on a dead limb looking down at them. He never moved. Just watched. Tommy looked up at him. "He looks familiar." Dusty pointed. "I think he's laughing." The buzzard stretched one wing. Bubba glared at him. "Don't you start."
They kept walking. Another thirty minutes. Nothing. No ridge. No giant oaks. No acorns. No deer. Just more swamp.
Then came the yellow flies. Not a handful. Not a dozen. A yellow and black cloud. They swarmed Bubba first. He started slapping at his neck. Then his ears. Then both arms. Brandon started dancing around. Dusty was waving his hat like he was directing airplanes. Tommy took off running.
That lasted about fifteen feet. WHOOOMP! Right back into another mud hole. The other three laughed so hard they couldn't breathe.
Until... Brandon stepped backwards. WHOOOMP! Dusty doubled over laughing. Then took one step sideways. WHOOOMP! Bubba stood there shaking his head. "You bunch of idiots." He turned to walk around them. WHOOOMP!
Silence. Again. Four grown men. Covered in mud, AGAIN! Covered in yellow flies. Standing in another hole.
Tommy looked over at Bubba. "I just got one question." "What?" "How's that shortcut working out?" Nobody heard Bubba answer.
Because right then... A cottonmouth eased across the water about ten feet in front of them. Nobody screamed. They all insist they didn't. I wasn't there. But according to Earl... If somebody had been listening from a mile away, they'd have sworn four little girls had just found a mouse in the bathtub.
Somehow they all ended up on the same little hump of dry ground. Four full-grown men. Standing shoulder to shoulder. Nobody wanting to be the first one off. The snake never even looked at them. Just kept swimming. When it disappeared, nobody moved for another five minutes.
Finally Bubba cleared his throat. "I think..." "...we oughta head back." Tommy stared at him. "Back?" "You know where back is?" Bubba looked around. "...No."
Back at camp... Miss Betty was frying bacon. Earl had already come out of the woods with a nice eight-point and had him hanging in the skinning rack. Red had killed a fat doe. It was getting close to lunchtime.
Red looked at his watch. " lost." I smiled and said, I reckon with a little smirk. The one thing those boys didn't know was that little piece of the property that they were at was only 2 acres but, when you're turned around 2 acres seems like 2 sq miles.
Miss Betty walked out wiping her hands on her apron. "They still ain't back?" Red shook his head. "Nope." "You worried?" "Nope." Red grinned. "I cant wait for them to get back, be even better if it gets close to dark and we gotta go get them. won't that be a hoot!?"
I looked at him Earl "You worried?" "No..." "I'm worried they're liable to find their way back before I finish laughing."
About thirty minutes later... The camp dog, Sarge, lifted his head. His ears perked up. He looked toward the woods.
Red smiled. "Here they come."
Nobody could see anything. Then they heard it. Branches snapping. Somebody cussing. Somebody else blaming Bubba.
A few seconds later the four of them stumbled out of the palmettos. If you'd have thrown them in a mud wrestling pit, they couldn't have looked any worse.
Dusty had one boot. Tommy had no hat. Brandon had spider webs hanging from both ears. Bubba... Well... Bubba had somehow gotten an old dead cabbage palm frond tangled behind his backpack. The dry fronds rattled and clacked every time he took a step.
Red looked up from skinning his doe. He squinted. "What in the world is that?"
Brandon dropped his backpack. "It's Bubba's Lewis and Clark crew."
That did it.
Red sat down on a five-gallon bucket because he couldn't stand up laughing. Earl took off his glasses and wiped tears out of his eyes. Miss Betty leaned against the porch post. Even Sarge looked confused.
Bubba finally turned around and saw the dead cabbage palm dragging behind him. He'd been pulling it for who knows how long. He cut the strap loose without saying a word.
No one said, "I told you so." we didn't have to.
Earl just simply walked over, handed Bubba a biscuit with a piece of bacon hanging out each side, and said, "Told Miss Betty this morning y'all was gonna be hungry."
Bubba took the biscuit. Still covered in mud. Still getting bit by yellow flies. Still missing a boot. He looked at all three old men. Then looked down at the biscuit. Took one bite.
And finally admitted it.
"...Well..."
"...I reckon there might've been a reason nobody hunts back there."
Red laughed so hard he nearly fell off the bucket again.
From that day on, every time Bubba came up with a "better idea," Earl would just smile and ask one question.
"You taking the shortcut again?"
Nobody in camp ever had to explain what he meant.
And if a new hunter ever showed up talking about a place called Buzzard Slough where nobody hunted...
The boys didn't wait for Red or Earl to answer anymore.
Bubba always beat them to it.
He'd grin, shake his head, and say,
"Trust me, boys...sometimes there's a mighty good reason nobody else is going where you're headed."
Then Red would usually add,
"Yep...and if Bubba volunteers to lead the way..."
"...you might want to let him go first."
The whole camp would bust out laughing.
Except Bubba.
He'd just smile, take another bite of Miss Betty's cobbler, and quietly change the subject.