Deep Within: Stories of a Faded Heritage

By Tyler A.C Mason

Avariety of short fiction stories taking place in the rural U.S., particularly Vermont, between the colonial days and early 2000's. Fighting hunger, clearing the land to make suitable for the plow, log drives, collecting maple sap, and harvesting crops for livestock, and being sustainable through all this and hunting game to provide a necessary supplement to everyday life was the focus of those who came before us and a staple which has held on in modern life for some. Ian Ogden, Phil Frazier, Harland Grigsby, Sherman Walters, Quinn Dexter, Hawk Labrie, Glenn True, the Baker's, the Gibson's, and many other of these characters bring out this way of life through many generations. Stealing and back-stabbing, love and caring, a river rescue, an attack on a hunter, wars and natural disasters, and the everyday challenges of country life on its people are present in these pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781469141251

Tyler A.C Mason

Tyler Mason is a sixth generation native Vermonter on the French side alone and has lived in the town of Albany, (Vermont), since birth. He started to write, (scribble), before even learning how to read. Teachers at school in his younger years used to say that he would never be able to read well. What a pleasant surprise. By the time he was eleven, he was putting together fictional stories and when he was fifteen he wrote a book that turned out to be 117 pages. That work has not yet been published. Also, at the age of eleven, Mason became a deer hunter. He took some criticism that he would never shoot a deer, (mostly from children at school). At the age of fifteen, a month after completing his 117 page book, he shot a 118 pound deer. Before completing his schooling, Mason became involved in the FFA. He went as far as becoming Vermont state FFA secretary for two years and achieving his American degree, which is the highest honor you can receive in the National FFA Organization. Mason now still lives in Albany. Aside from that, he tries to get a little logging done and help out farmers and landowners who need tasks completed on their land. He also takes college courses and tries to do some writing on the side. Below, Tyler Mason is pictured at the age of seventeen, when he began writing Deep Within.

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Copyright © 2012 by Tyler A.C Mason.

Library of Congress Control Number:       Pending

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4691-4124-4

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4691-4123-7

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-4125-1

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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I dedicate this book to the world, because, God knows, especially these days, somebody has to dedicate to it.

Farmers and loggers all over America today and yesterday need to be thanked because they are too often forgotten in today’s selfish society. Maybe for some, they have never been given the message clearly, so how about if I put it this way. ‘If it wasn’t for that hillbilly, red neck, cowboy, whatever you want to call him, you’d be dead!’ Is that plain enough English for everybody?

I always have to thank my family and the Vermont state and National FFA organizations. Without them, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I would also like to take this time to remember the Native Americans of long ago. They are too often forgotten, yet are the least deserved to be. Don’t ever forget our fighting men of the current war or even as far back as the American Revolution. We wouldn’t be where we are now without any of them. Thank them when you see them.

I’d be a hypocrite not to dedicate these pages to hunters as well. My generation should always make sure that generations of youngster’s to come will be able to catch the same taste of that way of life as our fathers and grandfathers did. Speaking of grandfather’s, I’d also like to mention my grandfather, Chelsia E. Mason, (Papa Bear), who I do not remember well, but have heard so many good stories about.

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Chelsia Mason, (Papa Bear),

Feb. 10, 1916-Nov. 2, 1986

*Authors note—All names used in these stories are fictional. Any that are or may sound real happen to be pure coincidence. No real names were meaningfully used on any of the fictional stories in this book.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Sole Provider

Spotted Buck

Honorable Words

Hidden Paths

Faded Reflection

After the Ashes

Hawk’s Storm

Deep Within

Soul and Spirit

Cold Trigger

Solid Line

No Bet

Epilogue

Prologue

Mr. Gaveau, asked the pretty blond-haired woman from somewhere down-country.

Mr. Gaveau took a look at her in response. He was selling his house and this young woman along with her husband was looking at it to buy. So far, he had them sold with his porch which had a scenic view of a mountain range, his living room, dining and kitchen area with hardwood floors and long, narrow, old single-pane windows that showed only bare sticks, giving exception to the full branches of one pine tree in front of the window. The plaster walls and ceilings and barn beams in the living room gave the rustic look many ‘flatlanders’ seek.

She proceeded to ask Mr. Gaveau, Why is so much taxidermy covering this beautiful, authentic living room wall?

Why would my mounts not be authentic, Mr. Gaveau asked defensively.

The young woman sat back with a look as though she almost wished she hadn’t asked. Well, she responded, her eyes veering to view the many deer heads and one large moose above a window in the middle of the wall to her right. Must one think that this gorgeous room plastered with so much death would be rather distasteful.

Underneath his silver mustache and the old, tattered, well-worn white and blue striped railroad cap he was wearing, Mr. Gaveau gave the girl an aggravated, but thoughtful look. Let me tell ya something, Mr. Gaveau began. I know all about where you come from. It’s different. But, up around here what you see around ya is the way of life. This is the way it’s always been. From the time I was a little boy, hunting wasn’t all about fun, but it was a way of adding a little meat to the freezer for the winter. Christ, my first year of deer hunting, he pointed at the wall behind him at a six-point buck with not only the head and neck mount, but the front hooves pointing straight up, holding a rifle, we all went out, me, my father and my four brothers, and we shot five deer that year. That was my first one. Shot it while my brothers were all out driving a buck to me and my father on the first morning. Weighed 198 pounds. Five deer gave us prit’ near four-hundred pounds of meat that we didn’t even have to buy. Sometimes more. We’ve never bought meat here. We’ve always hunted and butchered our own beef and chickens and what not. That was in a family of eight. It was all about relying on ourselves, but also spending time with family and being out there with the birds and the squirrels, but mostly to look for deer. We all had a good time doing it. Many times, in the end, we came back with some venison. We didn’t often do as good as we did that year when I shot that one, but we always did well. Don’t tell me about distasteful, young lady. Everything you see on this wall tasted fine. There tends to be a lot of folks that think of cruelty and what you said right here when they think of hunting, but that’s because many today have never lived the way we did. Most folks don’t know this way of life. They were never brought up into it, so they don’t understand it.

The young city couple kept glancing around the room, their heads turning one way to the next, staring at the walls, thoughtfully. Finally, the man asked, Sir, if we buy your home, would you like to leave some of this taxidermy behind. We’ll even pay for some of them to stay behind. I like that one in the center, he pointed at the eight-pointer hanging above the woodstove on the back wall.

I’ll give ya some of them with the house if you’d like, Mr. Gaveau said with delight in his eye, as though it was what he wanted to hear. The only ones I care to keep is my first one and the moose, he assured them.

The girl moved her eyes once more around the room and said with some thought, We will appreciate them.

*     *     *

Hunting is hunting and nothing else. I have hunted for nearly ten years and have found nothing to compare it to. We who hunt have always done it for many reasons. One of the reasons is that it’s nice to have that extra meat in the freezer. Serious hunters do all they can to make sure that freezer gets something in it. When I see a hunter I want to see a serious hunter, not some fella who hops in the truck at daybreak, eats donuts, drinks beer all day inside the truck with a high-powered rifle to his side until dusk and then does the same thing over again the next day.

A serious hunter will head out, either sit in stand or wander the woods as much as they can, using time wisely. They use their head to figure out where the deer are bedded and where they’ll feed, unlike the road hunter who sits in the truck and thinks maybe an eight-point buck will run out to the field offering a clear shot, becoming a road hazard at the same time. If serious hunters come back empty-handed, I like to know that at least they participated in a yearly tradition as old as man on earth, and staying fit while they’re at it. Unlike the road hunter, the serious hunter probably learned something more. Some of what they learned or thought out could possibly turn into a book, as you see here. It’s amazing what you can dream up while sitting on a tree-stump on a cool November day.

Hunting has its ups and downs. Hunters get excited and they get frustrated. Hunters are filled with patience, yet become impatient. Hunters feel a need to bring down their quarry for their own reasons, yet they may not regret it if they don’t.

I sat next to the wood stove in one veteran hunter’s home, looking at the walls filled with deer heads from years past. They were reflections and memories to him, but to me they were objects that brought my own curiosity. I had to know the story behind most of those deer. Out of all those deer heads, from antlerless to twelve or fourteen-pointers, this one spikehorn with his head jerked forward and level with his neck caught my eye. I said, I like how you mounted that spikehorn there.

He took a moment to stop scraping his beaver pelt, looked back and said, Yeah, I regret shooting him.

Why, I asked.

Oh, he paused to find the best answer he could give me. He wanted to live. After I shot him he looked at me as if to say, ‘What did you wanna shoot me for’

The most important rule in hunting second to safety is respect. In hunting, respect means everything from picking up trash laying around on the land you hunt to passing up a young deer for a chance at a larger one. Becoming respectful in hunting takes time as it does in any other lifetime endeavor. That is one of the many reasons hunting is so beneficial to the youth. They grasp an early sense of respect in some way.

I approached the same long-time hunter who had written a letter-to-the-editor in our local newspaper about coyote pools. Some folks in the area complained about the pool, in which hunters put money down beforehand and whoever brought in the heaviest coyote wins the prize money. This individual wrote to the editor and had a point. He simply stated that coyotes weren’t his favorite animal because they do a number on the deer herd, but also that he wouldn’t enter a contest to shoot one either, showing that he was on no side of the issue. He added that he fails to see the difference between the coyote pools and the fishing derbies. Some of the folks who complained about someone else entering a coyote in a pool probably enters fish in a derby. What’s the difference? Good point, isn’t it?

This older hunter went on further to tell me that he hadn’t in all his years of hunting entered a deer in a buck pool either. Again, he simply stated, When I shoot a deer, it’s between me and the deer; not between me and money.

There has never been and probably never will be an easy way to describe the endurance and expectations a hunter feels. As far as I see it, there is no way. You have to be a hunter yourself and walk the same footsteps of other hunters to know what it is like.

I have found that the serious hunter sees the good times with the bad. Maybe he’ll kill a deer one year, which will excite him after all the patience and hard hunting trying to find one. The next year, however, he may be disappointed by a buck he misses. One year, maybe a deer will be stolen from that hunter by another ‘hunter.’ A hunter may be hot on the trail of a huge buck only to bump him on to someone else who happens to be standing at the edge of a field—or maybe even to a road hunter. Someone else tags out while the one who was on his or her feet tracking all day goes home empty-handed and filled with frustration.

At one time I was asked by a man who had hunted all his life if my younger brother was into hunting. I told him he wasn’t, (at the time), and his unexpected answer made me laugh. He told me my brother was lucky. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I understood what he meant.

Anyone who doesn’t hunt doesn’t see the point of being up by five in the morning simply to head for the woods. A hunter will be out all day, many times without success only to go home and be hollered at for doing so. The hunter may have to call in sick from work for having to track a deer he or she shot the previous morning, or skip a family get-together because they had to butcher the deer or bear they shot a few days earlier.

My uncle had some frustrating deer seasons, many hunters referring to them as dry spells. He told me that for eight years, he had been shooting deer in the deep woods at the start of cold, snow—covered seasons, unfortunately missing, wounding or losing them to other hunters. Those eight frustrating years without his own venison paid off in ’02, however. It was that year, he shot a six—point buck that weighed 195 pounds. I’ll bet he could’ve won a buck pool with that somewhere. He was excited when he showed me that deer and I was excited to see it.

Every time you leave the woods you have learned something. Maybe your mind has woken up to some form of common sense or maybe you have been dosed with a little more wisdom. In some way you may walk out of the woods a better man or woman than you were before you walked in. You may find something within yourself that no one else could see or maybe that you didn’t even think you had yourself.

So many more important factors are involved in hunting that can even help you out in real life. The best hunters in the world couldn’t tell you all of them, but by hunting, you capture all the meaning. That is why I compiled these stories. You may find something new in hunting. Maybe you have hunted longer than I have and I’ll mention something that reminds you of a hunt from years earlier. My main purpose through these stories, however, is to be sure that I have written something that you are glad to be reading.

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Monte Mason, November 22, 2002

6 points, 195 lbs. Buck

Sole Provider

Now, mind to your work, Lee Ogden told his son Ian, who stared off into the dark, yet to be cleared, New England backwoods. Three seasons had passed since Ogden made claim of this eighty acre piece of land in a town yet to be settled. The road in was rough, yet living in this new territory in the years shortly after the war against the French and Indians was also. He would farm this almost lonely claim at least until other settlers came, maybe longer. After much hard work of only the four of them, clearing the land to make suitable for the plow, they were now in the second spring pulling stumps that a year before held large, towering trees.

Ian, being a stubborn but disciplined young boy of fourteen, tended to the horses once again. His eyes would roll from the task he was supposed to be tending to, to the wooded area that stretched ahead all the way to the ocean bay off which they arrived to this new land. The oldest child, Keene, remembered the old country. Will, Molly, and Ian did not.

The boy could hear his father’s commands, knowing what they all meant. The work in front of him was not important to him, but the resentment toward his father for not allowing him to be out there with the other two boys most evenings ate at him furiously.

Before darkness fell, Lee sat on a large stump at the end of the eighty acre clearing. Now, look around you, Ian, he said.

Obeying his father, Ian turned his head in every direction.

Now, don’t simply turn your head. Take it all in. Open your eyes and read it like a book.

The boy then took more time, looking harder through the clearing. Standing on that slightly sloped ground he was on, he could now see all the way to the cabin at the other end—a far cry from a year earlier when the visibility was cut to about fifty yards at the most. The land below that they had worked so hard to clear rolled in front of them. What do I see, Pa?

With a slight grin, Lee said, You see what your own two hands created. If we had not pulled all these stumps and stones after we had cut the trees, then this would still be a hard wilderness. We have made it tame! Don’t you see?

The horses did much of the work, pa, the boy said with a grin.

Giving the boy a shallow look, Lee informed him, The horses would have done none of this if we had not taken their reins and yanked at their bits. You work Ian, for well-being—your own and your family’s. By fall, we will be gathering crops off our own claim of land and it will be as a result of our work.

Thinking for a moment, the next words out of Ian’s mouth were Pa! Why do Keene and Will get to go hunting, but not I?

With a grin, Lee answered, You, Ian, are a good worker. You work well with your hands and when you put your mind to a task you work hard until you have completed it. Hunting, Ian… He nodded his head. You are not a good hunter. You make too much noise in the woods—you scare game. You have burned much powder and still have come home with nothing. The other two boys provide meat well. You, Ian, make much more use here, doing good deeds with your own two hands. The other boys do their share, but someone needs to put food on the table in our present conditions.

But I can hunt, pa!

You have proven yourself better here, he pointed toward the clearing. As Ian sat silent, his father patted the top of his head, Come now, he said, let’s see what your mother has cooked for us.

It was then they heard a shot close by. Ian flinched as his father, who had fought in one war, having a scar that had cut his skin from the bottom of the right ear to the right side of his mouth simply stared into the woods, much as his son did earlier. He showed no reaction to the quick loud burst of the shot that had cut the air on that summer day. One of your brothers will soon be coming back in with game to feed us. They continued their walk back to the cabin.

Will came back to the cabin holding nothing but a musket. Where is Keene, Lee asked in curiosity as he stood in the candlelight at the wooden desk and chair he made with his own two hands.

Still hunting, Pa.

Hunting late, Lee said as he stared out the window, knowing it was dark. Perhaps what he shot was large—a deer most likely. He may be coming along shortly.

Will responded with a chill standing in front of the plank-board door, holding onto the iron doorhandle, I’m the one who shot, pa!

Oh! His father stared at him in fear of what he might say next.

I missed a rabbit.

Did you take your time, breathe correctly, and squeeze the trigger?

Yes, Pa.

Was the rabbit standing still at a reasonable distance?

Yes, Pa!

Lee, standing in wonder, the only noise heard for a moment being the crackling fire in the fireplace, asked, So, how did you miss, my son?

It happens, Pa!

Knowing there was nothing else his son could have done and that he had taken an unlucky shot more than a poor shot, Lee said nothing more.

By late September, the cleared land that had been dirt and weeds grew long, green grass. There soon came a time, however, when the other two boys were not shooting any game other than one squirrel, which drove a scarcity of food. The fear of hunger crept into their minds. Pa, eight—year-old Molly, exclaimed, What are we to do if we run out of fresh meat?

Fear none, Molly, Lee responded calmly. It will be taken care of. With his eyes piercing Ian’s, he said, We can all count on it.

Lee had it planned to put down the tools and reins for a day and pick up all the muskets. A couple days were spared for them to get more work done thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Gale, neighboring colonists, who gave them five containers of fresh meat.

Normally, the boys fed and milked the three cows in the morning along with feeding the chickens and one pig. This morning, that would be up to the boys’ mother and Molly. By this time the next year there would be a cornfield on the farm for these new settlers to harvest. Being too busy clearing the other land, a cornfield was not yet to exist. The morning was cool and the new hayfield was covered with frost.

The four of them gathered around outside the simply-built cabin of logs that came off the same land, each with a musket in hand. Where have you been hunting, Keene," Lee asked his oldest son. Being that Keene was the oldest, Lee always counted on him to be the most grown-up, the