Lord…!
I’ve not often come to tears in my life (and that lack it is a flaw) but when I have teared it has often been over an heroic animal; the stretch run of a horse race, the “putting down” when I was thirty of the 31 year old mare that raised me, or reading of the “putting down” of the filly Ruffian; and it is reaction to some old dispossession. I just re-read “The Bear” and some of the other Big Woods stories of William Faulkner, and when I read the line “He died at sundown” it finished pulling me apart inside like the great dog rent Major de Spain’s colt. That story; of Old Ben, young Ike McCaslin and his old mentor Sam Fathers, Major de Spain, Boon Hogganbeck and Lion; became much more important to me at this age than it was at readings 30 and 50 years ago. I can now see the end through the eyes of “Old One” Sam Fathers, as well as understand how Ike McCaslin will see it for the remainder of his four score years.
And it reminded me of Thomasiz’ Buck.
The wall of our childhood was adorned by the mounted head of a handsome whitetail buck that Thomas killed when he was about 10. Thomas seemed to do everything when he was 9; read the Encyclopedia Britannica entire, travelled to Yellowstone National Park on the train with his mother, got his first pair of shoes, and so forth but those are other stories. Perhaps he was not invited on a deer hunt until he was about 10. Ike was not allowed to go on the hunt until his age was of two digits. Thomas became 10 in September 1919. He entered college when he was 15.
I don’t remember hearing who his mentor was on that day but I wish I knew. The most likely suspects would be Uncle Bubba, Cousin Wilmot, or Burton Ashe; his father had been dead for 8 years. Because Whitetail deer had not proliferated then as they are now, it was necessary to travel to the lower coastal plains river swamps to hunt successfully. By the late 1940s the local deer hunting was done in “The Corner” (the forks of the North and South Edisto) which was about 15 miles from the farm. His kill reportedly took place at The Ridge Hunt Club which was (and is) on Highway 61 about 5 miles east of the US 21 intersection on the Edisto River. He would have travelled from the farm (about 25 miles) by horse or buggy or Model T on roads and bridges of a hundred years ago.
Model T Ford produced 1908 - 1927 (Photo courtesy of Google)
The story is told that Thomas was put on a stand and he dozed off, and he awoke and the deer was there and he killed him. He was “blooded", got a trophy head, and never hunted deer again.
Ike McCaslin had not dozed off because Sam Fathers’ hand was on his shoulder:
“At first there was nothing. … Then the buck was there. He did not come into sight: he was just there, …seen first as you always see the deer, in that split second after he has already seen you, …”.
Ike got his buck “…quick, and slow” and Thomas got his; and I believe the circumstances were similar - as if the woods “exhaled”, and the buck was there.
That 95 year old buck head still adorns a wall near Cope.
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If you would like to see my collection of Carolina Lowcountry memories—"Magnolia Elegy: Place In the Edisto Fork," you can view the book trailer here, and see the book page here on the publisher's website. The book is also available from Amazon, B&N, and your independent local bookseller.
