A Night to Remember

Decided to go arrowhead hunting Sunday evening. We have to go in the evening now, because various hunting seasons are in and the river bottom fields are prime deer and turkey habitat, along with being the site of ancient villages and camps. There are shirts in webstores printed with “I am NOT a deer”, but I don’t know as some of those hunters would take the time to read before pulling the trigger. So it’s evening hunting for now, with the occasional midday during the work week hunt. The night was clear as a bell, with a ¾ moon and countless stars shinin. Jimmy Buffet described it perfectly in “God’s Own Drunk”—“ God's yellar moon was a' shinin' on the cool clear evenin', God's little lanterns just a' twinklin' on and off in the heavens”. As soon as we shut off the 4runner,we could hear the coyotes discussin our intrusion into the quiet evenin they had planned. They were callin to each other from all around us. I love listenin to em, and as long as you are hearing em, it’s ok. It’s when you suddenly don’t that they are prolly close up and lookin at you without your knowledge. All the night creatures started back up within a few minutes of our arrival. Barred owls were familiar calling back and forth. There was one bird that sounded like a kitten mewing. Ain’t figgered that one out yet. Anyways within 10 minutes of startin to hunt we found this:

It was laying right on top of the soil on a little pedestal where the surrounding soil had been washed away by recent rain. The right side is the side that was still in contact with the earth. We only hunted that field for about an hour and a half, and that is the only intact projectile point we found. It sucks hunting by flashlight. We turned around and started hunting our way back to the truck. I was up front about 20 yards ahead of my companion. I had been walkin the edge of the field and had just decided to angle uphill a bit to cross over the ruts a combine had made. The distance from me to the weeds at the edge was about 15 feet at this moment. I heard a rustling in the weeds and could tell something was headed my way kinda fast. Naturally I turned that direction, and what should appear??? Any guesses? Ok, I’ll tell ya. A full grown, not to happy to see me, skunk. Yep, he or she bounded right out in the field a few feet, hoppin on stiff front legs and tail straight up in the air! We were staring eye to eye and I raised my arms out from my sides slowly and began sidesteppin up through the field real easy-like. I spoke my companions name softly, and for once, he heard me the first time. He was a little ways back like I said, and still at the edge of the field lookin down. He stopped dead, and so did I. I always liked those pepe le-pew cartoons when I was a kid, and I’ll be damned if that isn’t what ran through my mind when our black and white buddy appeared. He had the stiff legged bounce, and raised tail down pat. After seeing that we got the message, our furry friend retreated back into the weeds, and we continued towards the truck, unmolested. I told my companion I was glad he heard me the first time I spoke. He said when he looked up and saw me side-steppin, he knew it had to be something. One thing I never have been, is afraid of the dark. In fact, I love the river bottoms at night. No other humans around for miles, just yourself and nature and the night creatures—nothin like it. Drop me on any street in a big city that late at night, and that would be a whole nother story.Humans get up to much more “no good” than nature anyday. Only found the one point, but I’ll always remember the time we found this one.