Loaded
Pulling the trigger in the Treasure State by Jamie Rogers • photos by Chad Harder
I
n November 2007, I visited a friend whom I’d met in Missoula, at his family’s home in Mississippi. Clayton asked me if I wanted to try hunting, and I, after two years in Montana, was more than curious. I said yes. In an old house with sloping floors, on a soybean farm owned by his grandfather, Clayton held up a picture of a deer and pointed behind its front shoulder: “This is where you should aim.” Then he showed me the 30-.06 rifle. In a tree stand overlooking a field surrounded by dense hardwood, we waited for the light to fail. Clayton explained that deer entered the field before dark to feed. We sat
in the tree for an hour, silent in the deepening blues of the Mississippi evening. Then Clayton leaned over slowly and said, “There’s a deer over there.” Through the gloaming, a deer grazed on the edge of the field. It appeared small, the size of a big golden retriever. Clayton gave me a look that said “go for it.” The shot was awkward because I had to lean across Clayton’s chest to look through the scope, but also because I’d never shot a gun. “Once he’s in your sights,” he whispered, “slowly squeeze the trigger.” The shot vibrated through my cheekbone. The deer was on the ground, and
Clayton was giggling. “You got him, you got him,” he said. “Nice, nice, nice!” I climbed down from the tree on shaky legs. The deer was on the ground, still, with no sign of injury. Clayton explained that the exit wound would be more visible, and when we turned it over the hair of the front quarter was soaked in blood and speckled with fragments of bone and flesh. Clayton wanted to take a picture, and told me to hold the deer’s head up so we were both looking at the camera. After panicky consideration, I smiled for the photo. The next day, I called my mom and told
her I would be coming home for Thanksgiving with fresh venison. I was proud. I experienced something so many of my peers had experienced, something vital and essential to the lives of so many in Montana. It was profound. Not fun necessarily, but powerful, and with the meat on dry ice in a Walmart cooler, hunting even felt good. “You what?” she said. “I killed a deer with Clayton. I have the meat.” “You what? …I…” she trailed off. She began crying. “I just didn’t think you were the kind of person who would do that.”