It wasn’t my first time out hunting the wild boars that wander seemingly aimlessly through the East Texas forests in search of food, but I hadn’t been out in a while either. I had my bow in one hand and a camera in the other, ready to catch the elusive Tiger Boar that everyone had been talking about.
The camera helped me remember my own timeline – I am a modern hunter, in the 21st century, just miles from a bustling city with lights and cars and TV screens, not a primeval Indian stalking his prey to bring it back to my teepee as necessary food for my tribe. You’d be surprised how easy that is to forget, even when you’re wearing snakeskin cowboy boots, modern Wranglers and a T-shirt with a Dickies logo splattered across the chest (my more modern camis were in the laundry). Not even the high technology of my Guardian bow could shake the feeling that I had stepped back in time to an earlier, purer form of procuring a living.
Because I didn’t have any of the important sprays or treatments to get rid of my human scent, I took some time to try to block my scent with more natural odors before I got too far away from the house. Not the most pleasant experience in the world, rubbing mud and whatever other kind of natural goo I could find in various strategic spots on my body, but I did the best I could and then set off, by a roundabout route, for the tripod I knew was waiting for me.
After tramping through the woods for an hour and getting lost twice, I finally found the tripod just barely visible to someone who knew what they were looking for. It was in a good location, overlooking the crossing points of two paths and on the way down to a nearby watering hole. It had been a relatively wet summer by Texas standards, so the watering hole was nice and full and enticingly cool to someone who’d just spent an hour tramping through the woods, but I resisted the temptation and climbed up onto the tripod to settle in and wait for some action.
My previous experiences with hunting had taught me that it was mostly a long day of waiting with a short spurt, maybe two, of some action, so I was prepared to just sit and watch the day go by. That was not to be the case today, though.
Almost before I got settled, I heard the first of them. There were soft grunts coming from just in front of me. When I looked down into the brush to my right, I could see several animals jogging along the trail toward the river. Their position prevented me from taking a shot as I realized, a little too late, that the tree must have grown since the tripod had been erected. Several branches blocked my line of fire at several angles. Instead of the wide range I had expected, I was left with only a small window almost exactly where the trails met. I would either have to wait for the hogs to reach the junction or I would have to move my position – and the hogs were moving away from the junction.
I could take pictures through the leaves, though, so I reached out for my camera, which I had hung on a small branch nearby. The motion produced a reaction I hadn’t expected.
From directly below me, I heard a sudden crashing in the brush, the tripod rocked and I was suddenly grabbing for balance. A deep-throated grunt sounded directly beneath me and the other hogs began squealing and crashing through the brush on the other side of the trail, heading directly away from the watering hole and scattering into the dense undergrowth. Meanwhile, my arms were still pinwheeling, trying to keep myself from falling off the still rocking tripod.
If I fell, I knew I’d be easy prey for the male hog directly under my feet. He must have gotten himself tangled in the vines underneath because he kept squealing and thrashing around down there, continuing to hit the leg of the tripod and giving me a glimpse of a large black hide every time I wobbled over the edge. My bow dropped from my hand to land right next to the boar, who immediately began stamping on it, attempting to gore it and generally destroying it as completely as he could. If I fell, I knew I’d be dead.
The animal kept getting angrier by the second. Somehow I had to get him to leave but I wasn’t sure what would interrupt an enraged boar in the throes of his passion except an arrow to the heart. But all my arrows were useless without the bow he was systematically tearing to pieces on the ground. The only tool I had left at my disposal was the camera I still somehow held in my hand and I didn’t see how that was going to be of any significant use.
On my hands and knees for better balance on the rocking tripod, I looked down at the camera and saw the lens and flash bulb looking back at me. Something kept me drawn to that image and then I finally realized. About the only thing that would frighten an enraged boar was fire. Since I didn’t have any fire, perhaps the flash of the camera’s light bulb would be enough strangeness to encourage the boar to leave.
I made the necessary adjustments on the camera with a shaking hand that I couldn’t be sure was the result of the tripod’s movement, carefully flattened myself on the top of the tripod to distribute my weight and hopefully not send it toppling over and began snapping pictures as quickly as I could. With each flash, the camera made a high pitched winding noise as the electronic devices inside prepared for another flash. Sure enough, this proved too much strangeness for the hog and, with a final snort and a last jump on the thoroughly broken bow, he trotted off into the woods.
It took me a while to get down off the tripod. Even after I stopped shaking, I still counted to 100 slowly to be sure he was gone and then made my way to the ground. Still rattled, I picked up the pieces of my bow and started the long walk back to the house. It was strange, this was the shortest and most expensive hunting trip I’d made in my life (the cost of replacing that bow was going to take me all summer to make up) and I was returning with nothing (even the pictures I’d snapped turned out to be nothing more than a confusing blur of green bush and black shadow which may or may not have been the boar), but it was the most exciting trip I’d ever had.