Take Us Home

Behind the pool house is a maze of logging roads. Turning and weaving through hundreds of acres of forest. Every turn is either a dug-out mud hole or a freshly fallen tree. In the summer, you can’t go twenty feet without face-planting into a Banana spider web. They ain’t poisonous, but they do leave a quarter size red pump if they bite ya. When I get bitten, I make a point to show it off and tell people it was from a Black Widow.

If there was ever a dog built for running all day, it’s the Cow Dog. If there was ever a human who disliked all aspects of running, it’s Dirt’s Dad. Enter, the greatest invention since fried chicken, the four-wheeler. Twenty-four inches of ground clearance, sitting on a steel frame with four earth-gripping tires, an engine with fifty horses, and a top speed of sixty miles an hour…whoo wee!

Dirt turns the maze of loggin’ roads into his personal gym. Weaving through vines and fallen trees like a contestant on Cow Dog Ninja Warrior. In the summer months when the humidity is at 100% and the mosquitoes are as big as small birds, he makes a point to totally submerge himself in every stagnant mosquito-infested, mud-filled watering pool. With his aggressively panting, fully extended, pink cow-dog tongue, he always looks back at me with a look of complete content. Suddenly, I’m reminded not to take life too seriously. It’s amazing how getting a little dirty brings us back to our youth. Of course, all I can do is laugh. I mean, I did name him “Dirt”—not “Clean”—so at least he is living up to his name.

When we first started learning all the logging roads, we got lost all the time. Occasionally, we’d have to turn off the four-wheeler

to hear the rattling hum of the broken bearing on the fan of the corn silo, just to get our sense of direction back in order to make our way home.

Dirt loves to run in front. It makes him feel like he’s in charge. Matter fact, he gets so caught up with making sure he is in front, he doesn’t even realize he has no clue where we’re headed. He won’t admit it, but the fact is, this makes him super anxious. He’s always running fifty yards, then doing a quick head turn back to make sure I’m still behind him. Sometimes we just get so distracted with being in front, we forget the reason we were headed there in the first place.

It was early November in the heart of the South Carolina deer season. The shot was perfect. The swamp giant of a deer was likely only thirty yards from where he was standing when I pulled the trigger. Making a perfect shot is my job, finding the sucker after I shoot him—that’s Dirt's job. Not to mention, if I even make an attempt to find the deer before I go back and get Dirt, he will smell my scent and get frustrated with me. And just like a disgruntled postal employee, Dirt holds grudges. He’ll make my life hell. Whining and nipping any chance he can, until he feels like he’s gotten retribution.

I waited to climb down from my stand until just after dark. Threw my rifle around my chest like Jerimiah Johnson, slipped down the ladder, and made my way to the house to get my eagerly awaiting recovery team, consisting of one cow-dog.

As soon as I turned the door knob, Dirt used his nose to fling the door open and rush out to get his job started.

His nose hit the ground as soon as his paws hit the grass, tracing the scent of my boots like a bloodhound on a fugitive.

“Wait Dirt! Let me grab the flashlights,” I hollered. He heard the shot minutes before. So he was primed up and ready to work.

I rushed to the back window, “Dirt! No sir! What did I just say?!” I yelled to him…“Don’t you go back there until I get these lights!”

It’s hard to deprive him of wanting to start his job. But we need flashlights to see and toilet paper to leave along the trail so we don’t get lost. His excitement gets me more excited and I typically can’t wait longer than thirty seconds before we start in on the blood trail.

I hop on the four-wheeler, rifle slung on my back, turn on the headlights and head back to the place the ole swamp donkey was standing when I shot him.

The problem wasn't the shot, the problem was where we found the deer. The blood trail was in the thickest jungle woods on the farm. Might as well have been the Amazon. Long tree vines, huge thorn thickets, and soggy pluff mud swamp bottoms. In all the excitement, I also forgot to grab toilet paper from the house. Quick to disintegrate, and easy to spot, toilet paper happens to be a fantastic trail-marking tool. And if you happen to have had Ronalds Famous Chicken for lunch, you might need it for its intended purpose.

Still in a belly crawl position and soaking wet from sweat, I finally looked up, shined the light, and ten feet in front of me layed a massive swamp giant of a deer. Dirt had led us right to it.

I collapsed in exhaustion…for about two seconds. Then the next round of adrenaline hit us both like a freight train! We hollered and howled like we’d discovered a chest full of gold! We even fired up the pack of coyotes who roam those parts during the fall.

After our much needed celebration, Dirt rolled around in some deer poop to cover his scent cause he’s weird like that, and I grabbed the deer by the antlers to start dragging him to the four-wheeler. But as soon as I made my first few steps, it quickly dawned on me—I had no clue how to get back. It may sound strange to think you can get turned around on your own place, but when every tree, vine, and thorn thicket looks the same and it’s so dark you can’t see your hand in front of your face, it's easier than you think.

Before ya go thinking of all the potential ways to avoid getting lost, and assuming I’m some kind of aloof human, let's take a little inventory. Imagine for a moment, you have no phone, no GPS, no map, no distant light to walk toward, and no corn silo fan making noise. You have zero references. All of this is compiled with a level of darkness as being blindfolded, if not for having a flashlight. You might know the area or the block of woods you’re in, sure. But I can’t tell you how many times I have started walking in one direction, only to pop out in an entirely different area than I anticipated. You can just get lost. Plain and simple.