a surgeon’s scalpel.”
Grandpa died the winter after that deer season. Since then the knife had sat in the same spot in the white painted dresser. It was my dad’s homage to his dad. We all knew it was there; and that meant Grandpa was still with us, no matter what.
Picking the antique up, another voice sounded in my head.
“Don’t touch that.” It was Dad. I looked around the room, expecting him to be standing there. “That’s Grandpa’s knife. It belongs right where he left it. You’ll just lose it somewhere. Grandpa deserves more respect than that from you.”
I pulled the blade from its sheath. What I expected to find was a shiny steel knife with an edge that could slice on sight. However, I discovered something else.
A layer of rust covered the tool. And I mean the whole thing. Only the cracked leather handle wasn’t covered by the orange coating.
“You two are such morons,” I replied to the ghosts of my father and brother.
I needed to clean this thing up so I could gut that deer, hopefully sometime today.
I used a generous coating of cooking oil and a dirty rag to work on the rust. Happy with the results I searched for something to tackle the last problem.
This knife was duller than my first find. While I was excited to get back to my kill and clean it, I knew I needed an edge that would cut something other than water.
Fortunately, someone had left a sharpening steel here at the cabin. At home, I did a lot of cooking, well actually more like the prep work. Steely did most of the actual cooking. But I knew how to slice and dice. And that began with a sharp knife.
Drawing the metal against metal, I felt the dull edge give up some of its coating. This wasn’t going to be a quick job, but with each pass I knew the knife was getting closer to being useful. And how sharp did it need to be?
My dad always claimed that a hunter’s knife needed to be so sharp that he was scared of it. Well, this wasn’t going to be that sharp. This would eventually end up somewhere between scared and concerned. Probably more on the concerned end of the spectrum.
The entire time I ran the blade down the steel I tried to recall the process of cleaning a deer. I knew the guts needed to come out, that much was common knowledge. Even if I messed it up, which I would undoubtedly do, I couldn’t make that much of a mess, could I?
After poking a hole just below the sternum, the next slice went up the rib cage. And I had to be careful to stick to the cartilage. Slicing through ribs would take the edge off the blade.
I as a little fuzzy on how to cut around the hindquarters. That was going to be an issue. But I shrugged it away, testing the blade on a piece of scratch paper I’d found. Perfect; I was ready.
The pelvic bone ran across my mind. I did a quick scan of the room. An ax would come in handy. Seeing none I decided to play it by feel. I’d figure out a way once I was inside the bloody mess.
Day 50 - continued - WOP
I stood over the gut pile winded. Sprinting back to my kill, I’d almost tripped twice. I guess I was anxious to get at this…the process.
But staring down at where my deer had been, the only thing left was a mess of blood and entrails. The deer itself, the one I knew I had killed a half hour ago, was gone.
My eyes squeezed tightly shut before I let out a low guttural moan. Someone had swiped my deer.
Hustling back to the road, I first looked left then right. Left — south — was nothing but a gloomy empty road. To my right, I spied a single soul, trotting down the middle of the blacktop. And if I was seeing things correctly, he had something slung over his shoulders and around his neck. Something large. Something that looked similar to a small deer.
It took a few minutes of running, something I wasn’t really good at, to catch up to the man. Well, I assumed it was a man. Twice he had looked back and picked up his pace. Each time I saw his face and swore he had a beard.
“Where you
Grandpa died the winter after that deer season. Since then the knife had sat in the same spot in the white painted dresser. It was my dad’s homage to his dad. We all knew it was there; and that meant Grandpa was still with us, no matter what.
Picking the antique up, another voice sounded in my head.
“Don’t touch that.” It was Dad. I looked around the room, expecting him to be standing there. “That’s Grandpa’s knife. It belongs right where he left it. You’ll just lose it somewhere. Grandpa deserves more respect than that from you.”
I pulled the blade from its sheath. What I expected to find was a shiny steel knife with an edge that could slice on sight. However, I discovered something else.
A layer of rust covered the tool. And I mean the whole thing. Only the cracked leather handle wasn’t covered by the orange coating.
“You two are such morons,” I replied to the ghosts of my father and brother.
I needed to clean this thing up so I could gut that deer, hopefully sometime today.
I used a generous coating of cooking oil and a dirty rag to work on the rust. Happy with the results I searched for something to tackle the last problem.
This knife was duller than my first find. While I was excited to get back to my kill and clean it, I knew I needed an edge that would cut something other than water.
Fortunately, someone had left a sharpening steel here at the cabin. At home, I did a lot of cooking, well actually more like the prep work. Steely did most of the actual cooking. But I knew how to slice and dice. And that began with a sharp knife.
Drawing the metal against metal, I felt the dull edge give up some of its coating. This wasn’t going to be a quick job, but with each pass I knew the knife was getting closer to being useful. And how sharp did it need to be?
My dad always claimed that a hunter’s knife needed to be so sharp that he was scared of it. Well, this wasn’t going to be that sharp. This would eventually end up somewhere between scared and concerned. Probably more on the concerned end of the spectrum.
The entire time I ran the blade down the steel I tried to recall the process of cleaning a deer. I knew the guts needed to come out, that much was common knowledge. Even if I messed it up, which I would undoubtedly do, I couldn’t make that much of a mess, could I?
After poking a hole just below the sternum, the next slice went up the rib cage. And I had to be careful to stick to the cartilage. Slicing through ribs would take the edge off the blade.
I as a little fuzzy on how to cut around the hindquarters. That was going to be an issue. But I shrugged it away, testing the blade on a piece of scratch paper I’d found. Perfect; I was ready.
The pelvic bone ran across my mind. I did a quick scan of the room. An ax would come in handy. Seeing none I decided to play it by feel. I’d figure out a way once I was inside the bloody mess.
Day 50 - continued - WOP
I stood over the gut pile winded. Sprinting back to my kill, I’d almost tripped twice. I guess I was anxious to get at this…the process.
But staring down at where my deer had been, the only thing left was a mess of blood and entrails. The deer itself, the one I knew I had killed a half hour ago, was gone.
My eyes squeezed tightly shut before I let out a low guttural moan. Someone had swiped my deer.
Hustling back to the road, I first looked left then right. Left — south — was nothing but a gloomy empty road. To my right, I spied a single soul, trotting down the middle of the blacktop. And if I was seeing things correctly, he had something slung over his shoulders and around his neck. Something large. Something that looked similar to a small deer.
It took a few minutes of running, something I wasn’t really good at, to catch up to the man. Well, I assumed it was a man. Twice he had looked back and picked up his pace. Each time I saw his face and swore he had a beard.
“Where you
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