Brothers Rice - The Last Hunt

Brothers Rice

The Last Hunt

Sacaton

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            The outdoor networks have done a good job of reacquainting the public with wholesome outdoor activity, and, as a result, it must be considered good for generational recreation. I just happen to be a proponent of an ethic that is generally more silent in respect to a similar outcome. It is expressed differently. A hunt should be much more than the emphasis of high tech gadgetry that seems to dominate today’s experience.

My mentors were by no means perfect, but their perspective was driven as much from a matter of sustenance than anything. When they killed, their actions were never promulgated by high fives and belly bumps. As a consequence, the life of the animal was never relegated to a corollary of the adventure. It was a central focus, and, as such, it emerges as a great chasm between that ethic and the one too often displayed on television.

The Brothers Rice

Fayette, Blue, and Carl Rice were the three sons of Lee and May (Shelley) Rice. They were born, raised, and got their mail on the Gila River at Cliff, New Mexico until the days they died. Theirs was a world of immense change from the Wright Brothers to walking on the moon, and from the inventions of John Browning to the luxury of electricity and indoor plumbing.

The two I knew best, my great uncle, Blue, and my maternal grandfather, Carl, were hunters their entire lives. New and fancy gear wasn’t part of the allure of their interest in the sport. Sure, they would look at a new firearm just like anybody, but obtaining something they didn’t need was never confused with their love of a hunt.

In fact, their insistence on relying on their preferred and familiar open sighted rifles now looms infinitely more interesting to me. Those heirloom weapons were as much a part of the image of them as the hats they wore. As for any compared success to the camouflaged, scent masked techno ghillies of today, smart money wouldn’t bet against them.

Their love of a hunt had little to do with trophy quest. Yes, there were big deer as noted even today with various remaining antlers, but, when it came to preference of choice selection for favored family recipes, a young animal was preferred.

If they shot at a target, I am completely unaware, but they always shot much like their pocket knives cut … sharp enough to cut anything that needed cutting!

Actually, their knives were as interesting as their rifles. Blue never carried anything but his pocketknife when I was around him. As kids, we could cut down through a pelvis with a pocket knife nearly as easy as a heavier knife because we watched and mimicked him and other older fellows do it many times.

My grandfather had a beautiful stag handled larger Case folding knife that I would see only during hunting season. The rest of the time he would carry a smaller knife. The blade of the Case was eroded from years of honing that rendered it razor sharp. You could cut up through the rib cage of a deer with it by using two hands and lifting as you cut. I hope that whoever has that knife today keeps it like it was.

Neither of them cared the least thing about a knife sheath. Their Levi’s pockets were just fine.

They would also have two or three cartridges stuffed in there as well. That would be all the accoutrements they would carry.

All of us still marvel at their ability to spot game. Surely, a rancher on the ground who is familiar with game patterns and the country has an inherent advantage, but their ability was still amazing. The first ‘field glasses’ came along in the late ‘50s or early ‘60s and they were a novelty that created real interest. Blue got a pair that caused quite a sensation. I remember first looking through them wondering how there was a single large field of view rather than a separate, distinct field of view for each eye!

Invariably, though, they’d spot deer before they’d pick up a glass to look at it. I don’t remember them ‘glassing’ as hunters do it today. We would always see more deer when we were with them. That was just a given, and … what glorious days they gave us.

The last hunt

The last hunt with Blue and Carl for me was during the last fall semester I was in graduate school at NMSU. I had driven to Cliff and spent the night with my grandparents, Carl and Leona, as I had done so many times before. By that time, ‘Boppy’ had lost one of his legs to the debilitating effects of diabetes. He was so happy and upbeat, though, because we were going on another hunt together.

I heard him bumping around at 3:00 AM and got up and drank coffee with him as Nana made breakfast. By 4:30 we were on the low mesa on our way to the ranch. Sometime after five, we were drinking coffee with Blue and Minnie in Sacaton Creek.

By then, Blue’s health was waning as well. He had suffered at least one heart attack and he no longer rode. We had laughed at his story about the lion he had killed in the creek below the house. Rolland had gone to the mountains to hunt, and, for the first time, Blue was not able to go. That had bothered him, but the outcome of ‘his’ hunt made it better.

He and Minnie had heard their dog barking down the creek. Finally, Blue decided he’d had enough and was on his way to shut the dog up when he discovered Rip was barking treed with a lion in a tree! The day’s outcome was that Rolland came in tired with horses and dogs dragging and Blue had slain the lion!

By 6:45, we were out in the pickup at the head of Big Pat and it was almost light enough to shoot. As we had always done, we would drop a hunter off to work a canyon with a plan where to he would meet the pickup miles away. Our plan was set and I stood in the sunrise and watched them bounce off across the flat in the pickup.  I knew they would both be smoking before they had gone a hundred yards. Sure enough, I could see lit cigarettes. I shook my head and started hunting.

What a special morning that was.

On private ground that has become the only real wilderness experience in New Mexico, the deer numbers were as all hunts should be. I saw deer with bucks in every canyon, but nothing that was interesting enough to prompt a stalk or shot. Finally, I saw the truck parked on a point at our prearranged pickup point. As I neared it and heard them talking, my expectation of seeing more deer diminished immediately.

 I was smiling again listening to them talking and laughing when I heard rocks roll and the familiar sound of a mule deer leaving. If you have hunted mule deer enough, you immediately know when you are hearing a big deer by the way they leave. It is not just rocks rolling. Their departure is a controlled explosion.

I heard their elevated jabber immediately. They had seen the deer leave the junipers at the same time I heard the rocks rolling.

I stepped to a rest on another tree and took the deer running straight away and in their line of sight across the canyon. They hooted and hollered not knowing I was anywhere yet in hailing distance before the shot.

I watched the deer long enough to know it was down, and walked toward the truck. I hadn’t gone 25 yards and heard rocks rolling again. Immediately, I saw horns and the flash of a second deer through the brush. I could also hear the two old brothers talking back and forth as they unlimbered those old rifles.

Moments later that buck, too, was down.

The second buck, almost a mirror image of the first, had been lying just up the canyon and under the point where they had parked. The deer had come in there together and bedded. Both deer had attempted to wait out the presence of those brothers who had driven to that point an hour before. Only my arrival had forced them to make a move.

Both deer were missing a brow tine on one side which made them nine pointers from our perspective. They were beautiful deer. They could even be considered trophies in a modern quest sense, but they are immensely special to me for other reasons. Both are in my possession today … just like my precious memories of the brothers Rice.  

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Good ethics are taught by good men.”