July 2023 - 47
on display in a hardware store in the mountain
town. It is a good rifle, clean and functional
as Winchesters have always been, from the
famed lever guns in saddle scabbard of the
frontier to the bolt guns of big game ridges.
Gift this rifle to the little boy or the little girl
someday, teach them to work the pump action,
to be aware of the muzzle most of all, to be
wide open to everything and always vigilant,
mindful of the finality, sometimes brutal and
stark, of trigger pull.
As the simple life grows, provide other tools.
Evolve. A larger rifle, suitable for the incantation
that brings the sacred hunt, a .270, a big
game caliber made famous by a famed writer in
the last century, a bolt-action rifle. The father,
like his own, and his own, a country boy once
with dreams of the hunt and the life. As his
quarry evolved from grasshopper to ground
squirrel to grand wapiti, so did the hardware
of the hunt from BB to bullet, this the rifle
bought new in a general store in a mountain
town with money saved a dollar at a time.
Bequeath this rifle on to son or daughter from
the father as one may pass on a ranch, a house,
a saddle, a bedroom dresser brought over on
the boat.
Gift, too, this realization: Automation and
technology need only enhance the simple
life. Sometimes these things are much the
opposite. Detractors. They buzz and hum
and squeak and ring and push up a constant
river of want. Help with the task of eddying
out, finding a calm pool, a place to pull over
and stop and just watch. To be in, not on.
Ask questions, hard ones. What is needed in
this simple life? What is enough tool? When
is enough just right?
- Tom Reed is the author of several books and one of the
primary editors of the recently-released upland hunting
anthology, " Mouthful of Feathers, Upland in America, "
Cornmill Press, 2023. He and his wife raise wild kids and
fox-trotting horses on a small mountain ranch.
- Lori Eslick is an illustrator, artist, presenter, children's
picture book illustrator and workshop leader. She
regularly creates illustrations for Wyoming Wildlife
magazine's Wild Country Dispatch column. More of
her work can be seen at eslickart.com.
Wyoming Wildlife | 47
http://www.eslickart.com
July 2023
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of July 2023
July 2023 - 1
July 2023 - 2
July 2023 - 3
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