Us three were hunting today, Abraham, David and me, and as ready as we’d ever be! More importantly, we were free as birds to enjoy the quiet companionship & freedom that only the company of men understood. We had practiced all of yesterday when Papa had agreed to let us sharpen our precision against the side of the shed. We scrounged around selecting perfect ammunition while he scratched a large circle into the logs, and then we let loose with volleys until we were physically spent and had almost consistently hit the center of our target. Well at least until David, the youngest, lost his focus, began shredding leaves wide of the shed and started laughing hilariously. He was most like Momma who could easily find the fun in any situation, but me and Abraham considered this serious business through and through. So we had a good talk with him to bring him back to our way of thinking of the importance of hunting.
It was early morning when we walked past the cornfield and grazing mules into the edge of the woods. Our pockets were fully loaded & dimpled with perfectly sized & shaped stones and our slingshots held ready. Abraham, being the eldest, naturally had the oldest slingshot which had a smoother & more weathered frame to it but David’s & mine were as sturdily built as his. We were in agreement to bring home a couple of rabbits or squirrels back for dinner and were confident in our ability. After all, we had dedicated quite of a bit of time in honing our skills. We walked quietly alert to detect a rustle or movement but, as time passed with little opportunity and the woods became denser & darker, we felt discouraged & were less careful.
It wasn’t until a loud ear-splitting squawk and a bright flash of yellow, red, and emerald green above made all three of us jump & bump into each other. I think that I actually screamed for this creature was far different from the quiet evasive & softly muted brown colors of the animals that we expected. But, either from horrid shock or sheer self-defense from imminent death, we simultaneously loaded & launched the first wave of ammo into the tree. This, however, immediately set off the combined response of a hundred other such creatures who were higher & hidden in the upper branches. The birds were as tall as my arm was long and the span of their wings even longer. And, with their combined screeching & threatening posturing, we knew without a doubt that we had fallen into true danger.
We instinctively shot every stone from our pockets in concentrated defense and even added others which had fallen back at our feet until the whole flock had lifted and disappeared deeper into the woods. We stood shoulder to shoulder, spent & exhausted with our slingshots dangling from our shaking hands, and finally fell to the ground in utter relief, awe and disbelief. David collapsed full length on his back and stared back up into the canopy of limbs while Abraham propped up on his hip and elbow in deep meditation. I sat with my head in my hands lost in the wonder of our experience. Whatever had we encountered in these mountains? David began to tremble and voiced low muddled sounds causing Abraham & me to sit up in alarm. It appeared that he had become so terrified that he was approaching being reduced to tears. The trembling increased & developed to the point of his shoulders shaking and his knees drawing up to his chest. And, then he began rolling back and forth from one side to the other. “Quick, Samuel!” Abraham shouted to me! “Help me to grab ahold of him!” But before we could grip him, little David erupted into a belly laugh that was almost as loud as the birds. We were stunned from our abject failure to bring down even one of the giant birds to the apparent hilarity that David now saw in it all. We were free as birds, all right, and in the end we all lost ourselves to rolling in the dirt and laughing uncontrollably.
Years later, while we were hunting together again as adults and after President Jackson had been elected, we talked about that day as we often did. Our Opa knew exactly what we had found when we described it to him, and he had a good laugh about our terrifying adventure because neither the birds nor us boys were in danger of each other that day. Our surprise appearance had lifted them straight up in alarm & out of the range of any rock that we could sling at them. But, oh how fun it was to remember the imaginary war we raged against them. The Carolina Parakeet, as we learned that they were, was the only natural North American parrot, and every bit as beautiful as Audubon had painted them several years ago. We were told that thousands once lived in these mountains in large social flocks. But, as the forests were cleared & settled, their nesting trees were destroyed. We rarely see them anymore because they are either captured as fashionable pets or killed by farmers who can’t abide them swarming the fields for food or to sell their feathers for millinery or jewelry decorations. But we do still enjoy the call of a whippoorwill or mourning dove and the brilliant blue flash of an indigo bunting on many occasions.
Our own little boys now hunt among the woods together as we once did and with their own slingshots ready. I wonder what they might encounter other than the possible Indian still quietly hiding.