The old man moved quietly along with our small group as we trudged through the short pasture grass toward a line of trees. The cold, overcast winter day was all but windless; a good day for deer hunting. We walked very slowly so he could keep up, and we stopped about every hundred yards to let him catch his breath. As we paused, he would drop the butt of his old shotgun to the ground and hold onto its barrel for a prop. He would straighten up, square his shoulders and breathe deeply, his exhalations, like our own, puffing clouds of vapor into the cold air. He never spoke. Mostly he looked ahead to the distant fields and woods, almost longingly, as if anticipating a good hunt. Mr. McNeal didn’t know, as none of us could, that he would not make this hunt. For the old man had only a few more minutes to live.

    Actually this is a narrative about deer stands of the Deep South in the middle years of last century, where hunters waited for hounds to push deer into view. More accurately, it’s about the names of deer stands and how the names originated.

    In and around the woods and fields mentioned above, which lay in northern Kemper County, we had many named deer stands. The Looking Glass stand got its name from a piece of mirror found in the woods at the stand site, left there perhaps a hundred years before as a bit of refuse from some early homestead. That the name and its origin have aesthetic value is evidenced by the fact that I, and perhaps others, spent time speculating on whose faces had been reflected by the old mirror and what kind of folks they were and what they did with their lives.

    Near the Looking Glass stand was the old Slop Jar stand which got its name from an old vessel with a hole in the bottom, left there too by some family of long ago. We ruminated less about its uses than about its users.

Roll call

    Then there was the Sawdust Pile stand and Shorty’s Box and the Buck Flat stands and those on the Six Mile Road and the Dump. All of these deer stands brought certain revered mental images to hunters’ minds.

    That cold day in Kemper County was to become the day that another deer stand would be named. It would have special meaning to me because I considered the spot to be the best I ever saw for a chance at a big buck. I still do. And it became special to me for what happened there that cold day when our little group hiked in.

    We stopped for Mr. McNeal to rest several times before we reached the point of trees, which formed a funnel between two large pastures. When we got to the best spot in the thin tree line, we stopped, and Mr. McNeal unfolded a small stool and sat down on it. As he sat, he fell sideways from the stool in slow motion, as if he had gone to sleep. His thin frame seemed to fall lightly to the ground, like someone lowering themselves onto a bed. We stretched him out and loosened his collar. He breathed several deep breaths and died while we held his arms. He didn’t struggle.

    Many thoughts went through my young mind in those moments as I watched a very long life come to an end. I wondered about his family, about his vocation. In the hours following I wondered if he had been happy and if he had accomplished his goals. I knew him not nearly as well as I wish I had. But he somehow looked content, at home even, lying there in the leaves and frost-bitten grass. Perhaps he had come to die in a place where he belonged.

    Of course we began to call the stand “the stand where Mr. McNeal died.” Later it would become just “Mr. McNeal’s Stand.” In the ensuing years, this stand proved to be the best deer stand in those woods. Its reputation started with a giant nine pointer taken there by a minister, his first deer. When I was fortunate enough to hunt that stand, a special feeling always came over me and it was easy to stay always alert, for it seemed almost a requirement to do so.

Hidden past

    The pasture we crossed on that fateful day is now shaded by giant pine trees. The little branch is lost beneath a canopy of oaks and sweet gum. I would be hard pressed to find the spot where the old man died; where if those of us remaining positioned ourselves, we often saw big bucks. That special place has all changed now, but not in my memory.

    In my mind, the little strip of woods still follows the stream and forms a point, like an arrowhead, aimed north. Broom sage waves slightly in the field to the west, the rusty fence on its north boundary showing its age, but marking well the edge of thick cover. The elevated railroad on the prairie land to the east, completely bisects the scene from north to south.

    Running across the sage field in comfortable, long strides is a doe deer headed east toward the stream. Twenty yards behind her is a big eight pointer, matching her strides, seemingly floating through the air without touching the ground. Another twenty yards back comes the biggest whitetail buck I have ever seen, he too floating along at the same smooth gallop as the others. His antlers are tall and wide, their tips leading his nose by six or more inches as he runs. He has the body of a fattened steer, deep and flat on the sides. The water of the little stream splashes up from his hooves as he flies to safety.

    The scene is still there, just like I saw it 52 years ago.

    Yes, with every named deer stand, there is a story. Sometimes one of these stands becomes a shrine, where other stories are born. Mr. McNeal gave this deer stand its name. His stand gave me the grandest sight of my deer hunting life.