There's one thing you'll learn if you spend enough years hanging around deer camp. Every camp's got that one fella who could get himself into trouble standing in the middle of an empty field. Ours is Bubba. Lord love him, he means well, but if bad luck was worth money, he'd own over half of Georgia.
Now if you've never hunted Florida in September, you probably think I'm exaggeratin' about the mosquitoes. I ain't. I've seen mosquitoes down here thick enough to cast a shadow. They'll bite right through a pair of blue jeans, and if you stand still long enough, they'll have you wondering if donating blood ought to count as a charitable contribution.
This happened one September evening when the mosquitoes were so thick you couldn't hardly tell if the buzzing was coming from bugs or the power lines. We'd all sprayed ourselves down before heading to our stands except Bubba. He just waved us off and grinned. "Skeeters don't mess with me," he said. The rest of us just looked at each other and climbed into our trucks. There ain't much sense arguing with a man who's already made up his mind. The woods'll usually do the arguing for you.
About an hour after sunset I heard something crashing through the palmettos that sounded like a black bear rolling a washing machine downhill. Limbs snapping, brush flying, and somebody mumbling words that definitely weren't in the Bible. I eased my flashlight that direction figuring somebody had either shot the buck of a lifetime or gotten himself into a mess.
Turned out it was Bubba. That poor rascal had wrapped his hunting shirt around his face like an outlaw, had one glove on, one glove off, and was swatting at mosquitoes with his hat so hard I thought he was directing airplanes. Every time he'd smack one on his neck, three more would land on his ears. He looked like a man trying to fight smoke.
I asked him if he'd seen any deer. He said, "I ain't seen nothin' but skeeters big enough to carry off a hound dog."
I said, "Didn't you spray yourself?"
He just looked at me for a second and said, "Open the dang truck."
By the time we got back to camp, Bubba had bites in places I didn't even know mosquitoes could find. He was scratching his neck, his ears, and one spot on his arm so hard I thought he was fixing to rub the hide clean off. Earl never said a word. He just sat there in his old rocking chair on the porch looking at Bubba for what felt like fifteen seconds. Finally he reached over to the porch rail, picked up a can of bug spray, tossed it to Bubba, spit a little tobacco juice off the porch and said, "Well... one thing's fer sure, buddy. If you're gonna be dumb... you gotta be tough."
That was all it took.
Tommy snorted first. Ol' Red nearly fell out of his chair laughing. I about spit my coffee across the porch. Before long every man in camp was doubled over, and all that commotion brought Miss Betty stomping out the front door wanting to know if somebody had fallen in the fire. Poor Bubba just stood there holding that can of bug spray. Truth be told, there wasn't much left to say.
The funny part was the next morning. We were loading up before daylight when Bubba walked out of the cabin smelling like he'd taken a bath in bug spray. I mean that boy had enough on him to fog half the county. Tommy looked over at him with that grin that always means somebody's fixing to get picked on and said, "Well, Bubba... skeeters won't mess with you now fer sure." He let Bubba smile for just a second before finishing with, "...and I don't reckon the deer will mess with you neither."
Lord have mercy, we all lost it again.
Even Bubba laughed that time.
He still carries bug spray every time he hunts. He just don't advertise it anymore.
That's the thing about deer camp. We all like to think we're the smartest hunter around until the woods remind us otherwise. Sometimes the lesson comes from a missed buck. Sometimes it comes from falling out of a tree stand. And sometimes it comes from a gang of mosquitoes who ain't got one ounce of quit in 'em.
If you hunt long enough, sooner or later...
You're gonna be Bubba.