Hunting wasn’t as noble an experience as it’s portrayed by some folk. We weren’t out there in the wilderness set up in tents. We weren’t hiking up mountains in search of longhorn sheep and we damn sure didn’t use every part of the animals we killed. That noble savage shit never made sense to me. Seems as though my family took part in it because the older generation was poorer than we are now. Sort of a past relic.

We were archers, not because of our red skin, but because our uncles were convicted felons and could no longer use firearms. So they picked up the next best thing, compound bows. And that was all it took. We all became archers shortly after. Pulling back my uncle’s compound bow was a mark of strength because he made that bastard heavy as all hell. I didn’t like using it though. Mostly because of the trigger. I don’t like using a trigger on my bow. I prefer fingers on string.

I think it may be too easy to get a gun these days. Or at least it was about a decade ago when I did all of my hunting. We had a little stockpile of firearms. Nothing too out of the ordinary for rural America. Pops put his foot down on pistols. Always thought they were too dangerous. These days I don’t think I’d be able to trust myself with one, what with the sheer amount of suicidal ideation that I seem to do, especially on slower days.

We had rifles mostly. 30.06, 270, 22’s — automatic and single shot, SKS, 33 — bush rifle is what pops called it, shotguns, 12 gauge, couple of 410s, those were my favorite. Small caliber with no recoil. Throw a slug in that bad boy and you can hunt deer too. Ours had a choke on it. Did some grouse and pheasant hunting with it too. Dad bought me one with interchangeable barrels. You could choose between a .22 and a 410.

We didn’t keep ’em for long. Maybe five years before we had to get rid of ’em. Needed the money. That’s all it was. Man. Needed the money.

Got rid of the deep freeze too. Probably should’ve kept that thing around. Especially once the pandemic hit.

Not like we ate all the meat. We didn’t. We gave away a lot of it. Dad hung out with bums. Who I’m assuming weren’t always bums. Dad used to call one “Mankind” cause he looked like the professional wrestler. Bubba was his name. Big ol fella.

“Mankind.”

Bubba would respond with “Kind man”.

That guy’s still alive somehow. Lives in a literal shack at the edge of town. I hear he was an electrician or some sort of handyman way back when. Must be in his fifties or sixties now. Might even be dead at this point. Who the fuck knows man. Eccentric fella who rolls around town in a wheelchair. Don’t know when the hell that happened, maybe in the last five years.

I remember dropping deer off at his shack.

Went out to a place called Jensen’s. Tribal land out in the middle of nowhere. Rabbits scattered everywhere. Lot of whitetail, mule deer, and even porcupine. Shot a lot of shit out that way. Me, pops, and my uncle. His nickname was Wink when he was younger. Pops used to tell us the story of how uncle Wink took on a whole gang that went by the name “The Savage Seven”. Apparently they bitched out my dad someway or another so Wink went in there and cleaned house. Beat up all of ’em. Maybe it was true, maybe it was a lie told so much that they started to believe it.

Hard to believe it.

Wink was not the uncle with the compound bow, just to be clear. That was another guy. That was my mother’s brother. Wink was my father’s brother.

I could believe the archer uncle doing something like that cause he was a little on the mean side. Which makes sense. I didn’t meet him until I was… ten or twelve. He was in prison for most of my young-young years.

Wink on the other hand, he was a bum for about as long as I could remember. Though when he was younger he was a ranch hand. Where at? Don’t know. Never asked. Used to talk weird. Not weird I guess, just different. He talked like he worked with ranchers his whole life. Very rural voice. Always walked around bull legged.

“Tigger said, that ah-taye said, that tigger said that ah-taye said…”

Tigger was the son of a rancher, “ah-taye” means father. I can’t spell it the way they spell it in the books though. Never figured out how to use the umlauts.

My pops may have started a podcast before podcasts were a thing. It was a white cassette tape simply titled “The Boys”. It was him, my uncle, my cousin, and a few other folk just laughing. Laughing and laughing. I don’t even think they were telling jokes or stories. They would just say a name and laugh. Guess you don’t need to write a “tight 5” to make your dumbass friends laugh.

They’re all dead.

The cousin drank himself to death a year before my uncle passed, and my uncle passed a year before my dad died.

And I think back to that summer where we all sat outside grandpas yard. Gramps was the only real foundation that side of the family ever had and when he was gone it all crumbled. My gramps was a barber and always had a fat stack of cash on him. How much of that came from cutting hair, I’m not really sure. Lot of native people inherit land. I don’t think I own too much at the moment. My uncle Wink was supposed to leave me a housing plot just outside of my aunt’s place but he never finalized it before he passed.

It’s mostly worthless if you don’t have cattle. But it was good for us for those five years. Because we could hunt it whenever we want. Used to call it “Wolf Creek Pass”. It was about twenty minutes out of town. Between my grandpas’ houses. Grandpa Bush lived on top across a field of god knows what, then there was a long, long road down. That’s where Cracker Dan lived. Don’t know how they got their names but we still have a photo of all three of ’em standing up next to a pickup truck. All in their older years. Cracker Dan, Grandpa Andrew, and Grandpa Bush.

Dan was a war vet, grandpa was a barber — he may have gotten started cutting hair in the army, and I have no goddamn clue what Grandpa Bush did. All I know is his house was more of a small farm. My brother and one of our cousins used to camp out there when they were kids and I always felt a little envious about that.

I never really got to know them like Grandpa Andrew.

Grandpa Bush though, hung out with him a lot towards the end of his life. He was a drinker. Used to drive his pickup with his head bent to one side. You could always tell it was him by the silhouette. We had a lot of people living in our house so I stayed in the living room. And dad and Bush would show up late as all hell. Shit faced.

My grandpas were always too old to be rowdy. No clue what they were like when they were young. And now that everyone’s dead I lost contact with most of my family. I don’t know their sons and daughters, I don’t know my uncles and aunts, I don’t know my nieces and nephews and I’m not particularly interested in meeting ’em now. We share something in common but it ain’t common enough for a phone call and I’m all too-ready for our last name to die out.

We’ve raised nothing but troublemakers. Troublemakers and black sheep. And most of us are dead and dying. Won’t be long before we’re all gone. And I think that’s the way it’s supposed to be. I think it’s why me and my brothers never had kids. This name is evil and it should die with us. Let our sisters have the kids and let them live free of our sins. I’m tired and want to sleep for good.

Mel died in a laundry mat of an aneurysm, Dennis drank himself to death, My uncle Aubrey died way before I was born — drank himself to death, Larry died of a heart attack, the three grandpas died within seven years of each other, my uncle died of cancer, and then my pops drank himself to death.

There’s a few stray cousins here and there but most of ’em had daughters. Our name won’t be so common moving onward. Can’t say that I’m at all sad about it.

Grandpas yard was nice a long time ago. Fresh cut grass. Always green. There was a garden out back that always had something growing. It was a nice sized property. You could walk barefoot back then. Had a mean fuckin’ dog named Bolter. Massive, massive guard dog. It was all upper body, all muscle. Had his own shed area. Don’t know when he died but it’s been a long, long time since his barks were heard around these parts.

Uncle Wink used to live in the backyard. In a little trailer camper. Next to that was a fire pit. And the summer before grandpa died we’d go down there every evening. Every night for three months. And I’d listen to their stories. Grandpa had that old, deep Johnny Cash voice. He gifted me a big ol’ box of paper. 11'’ x 17'’. I still have a stack left. Had ’em now since 06 or so. A little plan I had was to draw on all of ’em. Burn through all of ’em and by the time I finished my drawing skills would be leveled up enough to make some real money. But those sort of plans always get hampered by lack-of-discipline.

They’re all dead, man. They’re all dead.

I heard a good goal to strive for is to be the man that people look to for reassurance at a funeral. And none of us became that person. None of us ventured into the world, none of us brought back anything. Our aunts hate each other. Our family’s fractured by a million little fuck ups and there’s always some sort of gossip or drama happening.

One of my cousins called a cousin the N word at the last funeral and tried to stab him with a knife.

All the stability is put on the shoulders of the women and when they’re gone our families will shatter even more.

I’m gonna be thirty soon and I feel old. I feel like I reached my midpoint. And statistically that’s not untrue. Most of the men in my family died before 60. A lot of ’em died way before that, man. That’s what those stories were like when we were young, when it was my pops and me, up late in the living room, watching old tv shows, Bonanza, Gun Smoke, The Jeffersons, The Twilight Zone, watched a lot of old school shit back then. Before we had enough money for an air conditioner. When the summers were hot as hell and the locusts roamed freely.

“You would’ve loved your uncle, son…”

“You would’ve loved you grandpa…”

Everyone my dad talked about had died a long time ago.

My uncle Wink, I think he could’ve made it out alright. But there’s always something there. Some long hurt hiding under the booze. I think with him it was the death of his step son. Guy’s name was “Cheppa”. “Cheppa” means husky in Lakota. He grew out of that phase eventually but it didn’t matter. Cheppa got stabbed. Got stabbed and died before eighteen. And my uncle broke up with the mother around then.

And after that all he did was drink and wander around the reservation.

One time a rancher gave my grandpa a dead cow. Lot of ranchers would get their hair cut at grandpa’s. Old rich dudes in Cadillacs. Old rich dudes who were essentially bald, coming down just to bullshit with the old man.

So they called down all the street people. And the street people weren’t always street people. They were something before the booze fucked ’em up. And they were all old back then. Back in the 90’s. So they must’ve come up in the 60’s and 70’s if not the 50’s. That generation was a different kind of poor than the one I came up in. You can tell by the stories that my ma used to tell. They would hunt and fish all kinds of weird shit. It’s wild that they never caught the black plague. I remember her saying that her grandparents used to hunt and eat prairie dogs.

They’d scorch the hair off with a torch and cook ’em up.

Used to hear stories of turtle soup too.

But most of that was gone by the time I was born. Though you’d always see them gutting fish. And there’d always be a deer hanging from some posts come autumn.

For all the hunting I did I never field dressed them. That’s what my uncle was for. He’d field dress them, my pops and I would get to shoot whatever it was, and they’d get to drink.

I remember one time the game warden pulled up to us. Dad and my uncle were openly drinking forty ounces. He says to the guy, “Look. A.T.F. Alcohol, tobacco, and firearms”. Dad was chewing some chew, drinking Hurricanes, and we had guns up in the car.

They weren’t nearly as brazen as I make them sound.

They grew up with the game warden’s family. They came from the same neighborhood. Apparently did a lot of drinking back in the day.

Was it unprofessional? Yeah. Yeah it was. But what the fuck can anyone do about it now?

Used to hunt in small car named “White Lightning”. It was a Chevy Cavalier. Don’t remember the year but I know it was small as hell. We used to drive these old dirt paths out in the middle of nowhere. That’s why hunting wasn’t as noble as you hear from the rich people. We weren’t set up in blinds out in the middle of nowhere. We weren’t whispering to one another while slamming deer antlers together.

We’d drive these old dirt paths, we’d drive along creek bottoms, we’d drop some people off up on a ridge, have them walk back towards us, then we’d hope to get lucky.

The loophole was this — it was illegal to hunt from a highway, and illegal to hunt from the road.

So we’d jump out of the car and run up, I don’t know, fifty feet. Fifty feet and do what you had to do.

Sometimes we got the jump on ’em and walked down to the river long before the sun came up, and watch as the deer walked down the hill at dawn.

But we didn’t do it the way they do on the T.V.

My buddy said his rancher friends would go out into their land with 22’s and unload on herds of deer. With no intention of eatin’ ’em. I know of some poachers that’d go out in the middle of the night and shoot at deer too. I remember one story, guy said he got chased down by a game warden. So he took those old dirt roads at 80 miles an hour, if not more. Crazy shit. Man. Crazy shit.

My cousin just got himself a bison not long ago. Wasn’t noble either. They buffalo ranch had a culling. He heard about it, they drove him out to the field, he picked the one he wanted and the rancher put the thing down.

Lot of blood lust, man. Lot of real, authentic blood lust. That’s what’s hiding behind the noble savage image. Savagery. Catharsis. I still remember the rush of killing things. I still remember it. And I remember the sloppy kills too. Those stick with me. Labored breaths of a wounded animal. Hell my first doe was taken with a wonky shot. 12 gauge with 3 and a half inch slugs. Thing hurt like hell to shoot. Lined that pin sight up on the fucker broadside like you’re supposed and pulled the trigger.

Got it. But it didn’t put it down. It ran away with it’s innards falling out. Unloaded however may slugs at it but missed a lot. Didn’t recover the body until the next morning. We found it in a creek. Huddled like it was cold.

Ain’t nothin’ noble about that.

That was the first, but I got better in no time. I still remember takin’ down a running coyote from however many yards out. One shot and it tumbled. Never liked the way their blood smelled.

One day me and pops both shot ourselves some nice mule bucks. Both were one shot, one kill type of things. Their bodies went limp instantaneously.

I remember once we were rabbit hunting. I let an aluminum arrow fly. Thought I missed the fucker. We walked closer to the thing and it wasn’t running. So we got even closer to find that the arrow made a clean pass through it’s head.

I don’t feel too good about hunting now that I’m older.

But I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot again. I ain’t gonna turn into a vegan because of it. Seems some people get a taste for the devouring aspect of this life and renounce it. I don’t think I could ever be that person. I’ve come to accept the cruelty that underlies modern living. I don’t think it’s cognitive dissonance either. It’s just the way it is.

That’s what Mckenna said about television. He said that war was supposed to be read about in a newspaper or in a book. That we aren’t supposed to see the maggots and flies atop the corpse of some dead middle eastern villager.

One thing I did learn from hunting though — that was meditation. It was clearing the mind. Can’t say I ever did that before then. There was always an accusatory voice shouting in my head before then. Always some worry. Until I started hunting. I would zone out and go on autopilot. My feet breaking through waist high grass. My mind completely clear. All I had was an attentive ear towards woods, waiting on the rhythmic plop of deer hooves against the earth.

Yeah.

I could probably get that from a hike too. Maybe I will in the future. Whenever this terror goes away. If I ever grow out of being a hermit. Maybe I’ll go back out into the woods again.

Probably won’t.

Hunting gave me my first intimation of karma and reincarnation. It wasn’t until I had some sloppy kills under my belt that I started to get a bit paranoid about what comes after this life. And the natural conclusion would be that I’d be back as everything I ever killed, everything I ever hurt. And that spiraled out into this non-linear view of this life. That all that wandered out in front of my miserable path of destruction would one day be me, and I’d be they.

And the goal of this life would be to reach some sort of asceticism that could liberate me from this karmic cycle.

Yeah right.

I ain’t one to stick to any sort of asceticism. At least not yet. Maybe in time. Maybe I’ll retire to a monastery some day. Become a monk. Run away forever. Renounce this life.

Or maybe I’ll pull the trigger on myself and fuck up a motel housekeeper’s morning.

One time we got my uncle shit faced. Pops bought a big ol’ jug of everclear and a gallon of water. He poured the booze in it and gave it to my uncle to sip on. Guy was hammered within twenty minutes. Sloppy drunk. We went out anyway. Got a good handful of rabbits. Drove back in town with’em on top of the vehicle.

Dropped uncle off at the end of the neighborhood. Used to be a bum hangout. Street people man. Dad bullshitted with ’em and gave ’em the day’s kill. I remember looking at one of ’em in the mirror as we left.

My dad’s cousin. Yeah. That was the last time I saw him. He got murdered by his son not long after.

Think the son got off on a mental health plea within five or eight years.

Heard he sodomized the corpse too,

Maybe that’s the trick to a reduced sentence.

Tell me if you tried it successfully.

I want to start shooting a bow again but my eyesight’s gone to hell over the last decade. My right eye used to be my dominant eye but it’s degenerated a hell of a lot since then. Got me a big ol’ concussion one night while drinking. Fella beat my face to shit. I blacked out and came-to to him pounding my face in. Came-to again in the drunk tank. Sobered up the next day and got released. And everyone was staring at me.

When I signed my paper work I looked up at the camera and monitor. Fucker broke every blood vessel in my eye. Got me woozy as all hell. And I walked a solid mile and a half barefoot. Barefoot on burning asphalt before my ride came.

The eye doctor says there’s a lot of scarring on it.

And the glasses they make me are too damn thick on one side. So thick that they have to be beveled. Cuts the line of sight in half so it looks like you’re looking through a cracked windshield.

I want to start shooting arrows again. But I’m going to have to switch to my left side. Relearn everything.

Maybe do it right this time around. Maybe live up to that noble expectation.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Probably not.

It’s hard for me to get offended by that noble savage shit. I think it’s because I never lived up to that ideal. And I think it also comes from me being so distant from that image. How much of those stereotypes are bound to a certain era? The headdresses, the tipis, the savage-speak — those don’t seem familiar to me because that’s not what it’s like out here. I don’t feel like that’s making a mockery of who I am, but instead they speak to a time that’s long gone.

We aren’t that type of Injun anymore and the stereotypes need to be updated. Show me someone who accurately speaks like a drunk native, in all it’s slow, slurred glory, show me someone who’s always bumming money but never pays you back, show me someone who always drinks themselves into Delirium Tremons. Show me someone who spreads gossip for the fuck of it. Show me something new — cause I ain’t ever known the tipi types, or the types that hunted on horseback.

You’re not cowboys and we aren’t them type of Indians.

It’s all a grift and the academic types need that outrage to divide us. They need that outrage to sell their bullshit to gullible white people. It’s all a grift and the educated natives come off as dumbasses. Anyone who says we literally came from inside the earth and that science can’t be trusted is a goddamn loon.

My “peers” want outrage, want someone to put their blame on, and I ain’t ever felt comfortable doing that. Not when I seen my family destroy itself, over and over. I can’t blame anyone for what we have. It’s all here, it’s all waiting for us to use it to it’s full potential. The tribe gives us all we need to become productive and most of us ignore it to get fucked up.

And with this acceptance of blame we become autonomous once again. And now the future rests on us, and us alone.