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For the past six years, ever
since I’ve been certified to hunt, Tom and I would drive up to
the cabin on the day after Thanksgiving and stay on until the following
Tuesday. Sometimes we’d get ourselves a deer, sometimes we wouldn’t
but that weren’t hardly the point. As much as we both liked hunting,
I think it was mostly just time for us to be together as brothers that
was important. When Tom told me that his new wife Kate was coming along
this year, it set me back a bit. Our cabin ain’t exactly what you’d
call spacious or even close to modern. It’s just a ramshackle thing
thrown together on a patch of woods. It wasn’t really built with
womenfolk in mind. Heck, it didn’t even have indoor plumbing. We
had to haul water in and haul ourselves out to the outhouse for relief.
I figured a city girl would head back home after the first night, if
not before. Looking back, I’m sure glad she didn’t.
We got up to the cabin at about one in the afternoon. I set up my stuff
in the small storage room Tom and I built a few years ago. Well, actually
we just put up a frame and nailed some mismatched boards on it just
so we’d have a place to put our stuff without cluttering up the
main room. This trip we’d just have to live with the clutter. It
just didn’t feel right to sleep in the same room with Kate. Brought
me some extra blankets knowing that I was sacrificing the warmth of
the fire. Fortunately you can get some mild stretches of weather in
the Carolinas in late November and we were in one but, better safe than
sorry.
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