Extra Sensory Perception

A True Tale Of The Woods

I don’t generally pay much attention to folks who claim extra sensory talents, however, this being turkey hunting season, hunting is on my mind, and that brings about a true tale of the woods.

You’ve heard me talk about this before, what it takes, the moments of focus after months of stalking the woods. I don’t remember exactly how cold the day was, but it was a day in December, and, when I visualize back to that day, I see myself in a goose down jump suit, which means it must’ve been plenty cold. I see snow as well. I see my own tracks kicking snow aside as I approach a wild apple tree. It sits at the base of a hill that borders a neighbor’s property. Now, a word about this neighbor: excuse my French, but he was a royal prick. When we adopted our children from Colombia he made it a point to tell us that kind weren’t welcome here. Yeah. A real prick.

Back to the hunt. It’s a small hill and not too bad to climb, so climb I did to the base of an old ash tree near the top, a few yards down from a rusty barbed wire fence, the boundary between our two properties. I sit down and settle back against the trunk of the ash tree, eyes glued to the apple tree below, and hope for a hungry young buck to get careless. I don’t know how long I sat there - it takes a lot of patience - I sat and I sat. No deer but a strange gnawing, a subtle point of annoyance, between my shoulder blades. I actually felt a pressure, a heat, a sense of discomfort maybe even danger. I don’t know exactly what it was that caused me to look behind me, but, finally, I did, and there he was, that son-of-a-bitch, on the other side of that barbed wire fence - my neighbor, standing there, rifle in hand, staring at me. Staring at me, for God’s sake! Staring with such hatred that given the distance, the trees, the snow, the rocks I actually felt it, actually physically felt him boring into me like a death ray. Yet, there was no physical contact. There didn’t need to be. The hatred bored between my blades as surely as a bullet. I stared back until he turned away. I backed out of the woods that day, wondering every step if he were lurking somewhere behind me. It felt like a retreat.