Wood, Steel, and Tradition

Learning from heritage

Venison tourtiere au’ Nana

Wood, Steel, and Tradition

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            When I get in a rut, I will invariably think about cleaning a gun. The feel of the wood and steel, the smell of Hoppe’s No. 9, and an odd memory or two of the weapon are reassuring and therapeutic. Many things are set right and order is restored.

            Bigger issues can be addressed and life goes on …

            There was never a time in my life that guns were not present. My maternal grandfather was my early influence and his interests became my own. I have several of his guns, and, if I didn’t have another, those guns would be all I ever needed … well, that’s a bit rhetorical.

            The point is made, though, that the beginning of the relationship with guns came in another era when a hunt was not predicated on a new gun or piece of equipment. The anticipation was the renewal of the hunt itself.

            Open sights, familiar and keepsake weapons, a sharp pocket knife, and mentors were the basis of framing the tradition of those hunts. Without exception, venison was the outcome. It was our winter meat source.

            Last Thanksgiving, I looked on the now enclosed porch of my parents to see if the hooks where we hung quartered meat remain. They do. We would hang the quarters at night and each morning we would take them down and wrap them in a sheet lined tarp. We would cut venison for weeks until it was gone.

            I love the smell of venison as I love the taste and … the memories.

To the beginning

The first memory of a deer came when my folks were building the house on Bell Canyon. I was not yet three, but I can remember the scare. I was out by the well near the slope of the hill, and, through the fence, came a doe. The deer was between me and the house and she scared the stuffing out of me. It seems the conclusion was the deer had to be a Shelley pet because it surely wasn’t a wild deer. She was as interested in me as I was terrified of her.

The next encounters are blurred, but I suspect the biggest influence came more from my grandmother’s kitchen than anything else. Nana’s venison gravy was so important in our lives that we preferred it to everything else. Other than a few breakfast fillets, we would cut every tender piece of meat into gravy meat. She would salt and pepper it heavily, brown it in a hot skillet in butter, and then stir it into a cream gravy. With her buttermilk biscuits, chile rellenos and pear preserves added, world peace could be negotiated around that table.

The neck meat would be saved for mincemeat. She would make a year’s supply immediately after deer were harvested and can it in jars. Even as little kids we would look cross-eyed at people who announced they didn’t like mincemeat. They were usually city people who had unfulfilled lives anyway. It remains interesting to me that they typically had similarly incongruous ideas of other things that separated them from our existence.

The combination set the tone to anticipate and celebrate deer season at par or only second removed from Christmas … it was a most sacred of times.

Application of steel and wood

The rifle was placed across my knees as I sat next to my grandfather on his porch bed. It was cold out there and the weapon was colder yet. He snapped at me when I touched the steel with my hands.

“That is what the wood is for!” he said.

He told me about that little carbine, a Winchester Model 94 .30-.30. He didn’t have it the day they killed the last grizzly, but he had once shot a duck’s head off at the sloughs. I was convinced it was the most accurate weapon ever. It was to be mine when I grew up enough to be trusted with it.

He kept his word.

A number of licenses were filled with him. I was perfecting skills. The first deer I actually killed alone was harvested several years later with another rifle. It was a .243 built on an old Mauser action by our local gunsmith, Ed Samuels. With the scope mounted, it cost me $100 … big money at the time.

Ed was good to a number of Grant County boys. By that time, we were being hooked by the intrigue of what the hunting magazines were touting.  We knew the names of the gun editors.

I was hunting with Doyle Eakins and Billy Arnspiger up the Mangus. We had driven to the mouth of a canyon just above where Bill Evans Lake is now constructed. From there we spread out and worked up the drainage. Billy and Doyle jumped some bucks across from me and were shooting at them. Another deer came out on the wooded slope below me and was looking across the canyon toward the commotion. I eased into position and shot the deer. It dropped immediately.

Doyle yelled across the canyon and asked me if I had killed something. Yes, I had. He instructed me to go ahead and field dress the deer because he and Billy had each killed a deer. I hurried off the slope to claim mine.

I couldn’t find it!

I became frantic. I had seen the deer drop. I had watched dutifully to make sure the deer was dead before I went to it. I had not seen the deer, however, after it dropped in the brush, but I had not seen a deer leave nor had I heard anything. The deer had to be there!

Doyle called to me again asking how I was doing. I told him I couldn’t find the deer. He asked me if I was sure I had hit the deer.

Yes, I had!

Finally, I found the deer. I actually tripped over it where it dropped and rolled into the oak brush. I had started walking a grid when I found him. I was redeemed!

I field dressed my buck, and I savored the ride home in the Jeep with my partners. I was a hunter … just like them.

Many years have now passed since those days. All of the characters herein except the writer are gone. They were part of the process, and, to this day, each contributed to the views I have of hunting. I think they are important. In fact, I believe the views of those who have actually taken life for sustenance are more grounded than those who haven’t and make character assessments by criticizing those who have. Worse yet, too many feel compelled to force their views through a mob cause.

I want the human who accepts responsibility as an individual standing next to me.

The ethics

Meanwhile, the little .30-.30 carbine resides in a safe behind a combination only I know. From time to time I take it out and hold it … on the wood.

My grandson will be the next steward of the rifle if he shows inclination to accept the responsibility. It is my hope, too, that he will be interested in the ranch and the responsibilities that go with it. If the ranch is in him, he will have the opportunity to observe stewardship foundation but he won’t understand its full implications until he does it himself. He’ll get to shoot the rifle, and, if we are both lucky, it will result in some fresh venison.

It has occurred to me that it would be interesting to convince the Game Department to hold a special hunt with only one caliber, the ‘trenta y’ trenta’. Make it a heritage hunt, and the license would be limited to one tag per team. All other accoutrements would be legal allowances and left to the preference to the adult hunter and a youngster at his side. The pairing requirement would be a grandfather and his grandson, a father and his son, a father and his daughter, or an ethical hunter and an interested youngster. It would be a team effort that would include a quality setting with an introductory process that stressed the ethics and heritage of the hunt.

There would be a concluding program and discussion. If a deer was harvested, a meal would be prepared from the venison.

Of course, my suggestion would be ‘venison tourtiere au’ Nana’, but I am prejudiced. On second thought, measuring the responses of the participants eating her mincemeat pie recipe would offer some real world insight. It would define what we should expect from those folks in the future … those who smile should offer us a degree of hope.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Ruark’s The Old Man and the Boy was memories fashioned into words from his heart. Yet without words, mine is no different.”