Right of Passage

      The report of a modern rifle when fired is usually a loud crack with little echo or aftershock. However, when a Tradition’s fifty-caliber inline muzzle loading rifle is set off… imagine a small cannon. Many who have fired a shotgun in the past; especially a twelve gauge, will testify about the bruises and pain that is left marking their shoulder. Rightly so, the kick of the rifle according to the laws of Sir Isaac Newton is directly in response and in the opposite direction of the heavy projectile being fired. While the noise takes you back to the Middle Ages and the smoke is blinding, a muzzleloader does not leave bruises or even any real pain resonating in the shooter.
      The specific firearm (yes firearm, it only becomes a weapon in the hands of a person) I am referring to has a stock that is a composite plastic with a painted camouflage pattern. The barrel is silver however; the shine has been dulled through factory treatment. Mounted above the bolt of the rifle is a silver Nikon Bushmaster scope. This rifle is not hanging on a rack, or standing in a display case, it is slightly scratched and splotched with dirt and mud, resting against the shoulder of a shaking teenager. He is shaking not in fear, hesitation, or even from some rare medical condition… he is shaking from laughter.
      There is a pain growing in his side, he is trying to hold his composure, his target is off in the distance. The cause of his laughter is at his side: a grown man. The man is covered head to toe in camouflage sitting, leaning more like, back against a log, a rather aged looking black powder rifle sprawled across his knees. The boy’s rifle is aimed into the distance out of the small patch of woods they are using as cover; through his scope he sees a truck. “Shoot the thing.” More laughing. “That guy’s an ass, shoot his freaking truck.”  Giggling, and more laughter. Silence.
      Rustling leaves and cracking branches cause the pair to freeze as the target moves. On the right roughly at three or four o’clock, five of them approach the edge of the woods coming from the cornfield. They step cautiously then three split off running, never to be seen again. The remaining two slowly make their way into the woods. The larger of the two paces up the slight incline almost directly at the pair of gunmen. The shaking is returning to the boy, not from laughter, this time he is sweating and breathing heavy. He knows what is coming and he is determined not to let his nerves get the best of him.
      Raising his rifle to his shoulder slowly, he tries to adjust his leg to use as a shooting rest. Snap! A twig. He freezes. So does his target, and she knows she’s not alone. The boy slowly leans back against the log and rests his rifle on his knee. His right index finger begins to creep down to the black polished trigger. “Not yet, wait for her, she’ll come to you.” In his excitement and fear the boy is just now remembering his elder next to him. The young gunman is preparing for his first kill, his target is closing on his position slowly and he is ready.
      Roughly forty yards from the shooter’s position the target stops she is nervous, something isn’t right and she knows it. What she does not realize is that the setting sun is providing a lovely silhouette of her muscular body. Her reaction time is so short that he almost missed her all together, his aiming point was just behind her left shoulder, and he had hoped to knock her down on impact. Whether it was his shaking or her quick reaction will forever be in question, but he missed where he was aiming and she ran like hell.
      There was no blood trail to follow, no tracks to use as a guide, only the quick flash of her running that played over in his head. Reload. Calm down. He tried hard to seem relaxed and passive about the whole thing, but his combination of frustration, sadness and embarrassment could not be hidden by any camouflage he would ever dawn. Kneeling, roughly in the spot where she had been he searched desperately for a sign of a hit: blood, hair, flesh, anything… nothing. When he rose to his feet he saw his mentor trekking up the hill in a clearing: the direction he thought his target had run. He scampered after attempting to catch up. Just as the two turned into another patch of woods the elder of the pair (who was leading) stopped. “Kyle.” As the boy stepped forward, almost as is if he were receiving a medal, his stomach churned in knots with anticipation. One step forward and one to the left and he saw her, she was lying in a patch of tall grass, still as she’d ever been. Dead. A sigh of relief blew from his lungs like hurricane winds.
      This rather graphic and at times vulgar depiction will go no further. The details that follow would make many turn away in disgust. The boy in this tale is in fact the writer of this piece, and the target is a middle-aged doe from farmland Ohio. While many have probably made these conclusions at this point it is necessary to divulge such information for the story to continue.
      The “Rights of Passage” that boys must endure to become men have been defined in hundreds and thousands of capacities through out history by almost every culture and civilization. While many in my family live in the Ohio countryside splotched with dairy farms and Amish buggies, my childhood was spent in the suburbs of Indianapolis. Where I grew up guns were used to kill people, while most of my extended family used them to kill rabbits, deer and an assorted lot of game during regular hunting seasons. This has always and continues to fascinate me.
        The event described in the previous pages is the account of killing my first deer. Going into it my fantasies of sniper tactics and the “perfect shot” overwhelmed my common sense. The assumption was that if I killed a deer, especially a buck, then somehow I would be more of a man. Whether it be through some deep connection with the Neanderthals of past millennia, or proving to my older cousins that I could do what they could just as well, I was whole heartedly convinced that by committing this act I would leave my boyhood behind. What I found was that no single event can break the bonds of childhood, and many of those ties to yesteryears will never be broken; that a man is not measured by what he has conquered. I have been on other hunts since my first and whether or not I leave the woods dragging something is really of no concern to me now. My ability to appreciate and respect the creatures I stalk has made me a better man than any kill. A man is measured by his heart and by his conscience. My conscience is clear and my heart pure, life is precious, and like that deer I put down on an early winter evening, our lives can come to an end in an instant. I am now ready to face that truth.