Gone Hunting

Sage Memoirs

-1- I was around 13 and we were going goose hunting with dad and Charlie Bedderige. Charlie and Ethel had a farm outside of Newhill where dad used to park his peanut trailer, the 14 footer, the one they used to have out at Poplar Bay. Well, we had the trailer parked out there for hunting and we were out there for one week, in fall. They had chickens and of course, the chickens had eggs on their farm. Ethel was very protective of her chickens and her eggs. That woman, she had a single shot 22 and could take off a skunk at about 80 yards with that sucker. And they had a lot of skunks out there. They didn’t have a lot of money so she made sure every shell counted. So the skunks, they were not an endangered species until they got to her place and then they were in entire jeopardy. She would shoot them all and so would Charlie.

At that time Charlie must have been 75 or 80 years old, he was ancient and skinny as a rail, I don’t think he weighed any more than 120 pounds, soaking wet. He had this Russian 10-gauge 42-inch double barrel - you could take ducks out of the frickin' stratosphere with this gun. His wife had made him a special little tab to put under his shirt so when he fired it; it wouldn’t rip his shoulder off. And he always had to make sure he was braced up against a tree or something because it was that powerful and he was just a little guy. Anyway, we were out shooting ducks and geese and we were on a little strip of land between two potholes. It was afternoon and nothing much was happening. There were no ducks and we were waiting. It was towards the evening, so were having a sandwich and Charlie was sleeping in the sun. He was just snoring away. And suddenly we heard the geese honking. Charlie heard them and jumps up and puts the gun to his shoulder. There’s about four of them that came in and they’re landing in the pothole over by Charlie, and he’s up with the gun, hammers back, ka-pow! We can hear this blast and the force threw Charlie right over on his back with the gun up in air. You could tell he got the goose because of the big puff of the feathers. The thing was like 50 yards away when he hit him with the 10-gauge. There was hardly anything left, not even the meat. The goose hit the ground and Charlie was “Oh, man”.

Afterwards we drove back to Bedderige's place in dad’s car going along this backcountry trail. The sun was down by then and we had to get our decoys out of the water and pick up our geese and ducks whatever we had. Well, we’re going back and there’s this skunk waddling around right in front of us. And soon as Charlie sees this thing, the skunk is dead. He dragged his big 10-gauge out of the backseat of the car and he said, “Ron, keep your lights on! Keep your lights on!” Of course, I’m 13 years old and all I know is I ain’t missing this. So, I got my Winchester out of the back and I’m out there running along with Charlie. So, Charlie gets up and he’s got this big 10-gauge pointed at this skunk. “Baarrruuum!” The thing goes off. The night air is illuminated instantly. There’s a big puff of smoke, but he didn’t kill the skunk. He shot half his ass off. And you could see it in the headlights of the car, it was like a fog, but under pressure, cuz he just blew his ass half off. Charlie’s glasses fogged up from the spray and all I felt was this burning in my nose, way back into my sinuses. My eyes were dripping, I was crying and the smell, it just permeated, you have no idea. I mean, skunks stink on the side of the road after you hit them and you smell them, right? But there ain’t nothing compared to being at ground zero.

I was just burning, oh! I could not believe that it would smell so bad, and the old man would not even let us back into the car. So, both me and Charlie had to put our asses in the truck and put our feet on the bumper and that’s how we went back to Bedderige’s farm. Six miles in the back of the trunk, sniffing the exhaust fumes. I didn’t even know if I could smell the exhaust fumes, I think all of my olfactory lobes were just totally fried. Anyway, we got back to the house and old Ethel goes to work. She got the tomato juice and all of our clothes were history. She put them in the burn barrel and burned them right there. I tell you for months after that, I smelt it. We scrubbed ourselves until we were frickin' red, but that smell never left me for months after that. I could still smell it; it must have been in my nose hair. I just couldn’t get rid of it.

-2- We moved out to St. Norbert when Erick was a baby, around ‘74. It was a side by side by side by side and we lived in the middle. You had to go through the house to get in the backyard. They called it the rabbit patch because you had to have at least one kid to buy, and you couldn’t be making over, I think it was 8 grand a year or something. If you made over that, then you didn’t qualify because the government subsidized the mortgage at 8 percent. I remember that the house was 15,500 dollars to buy. A three-bedroom townhouse, and the mortgage payment was 104 dollars and 50 cents a month. I remember that, that was PIT Payments, Principal, Interest, and Taxes. Our gas bill was 16 dollars a month on the budget, and we couldn’t even afford to buy a lawnmower. Nobody in the block could afford to buy a lawnmower, because we’re all in the same position.

Everybody was making shit wages and we all had one kid, mostly with one in the oven, or two, that’s why we call it the rabbit patch. Every spring, you got 20 more kids. Everbody got pregnant at the same time. But anyway, when we moved out there, they had a road in front of the house, but there was no back lane and when we had garbage pickup, they always picked up in the back lane. And we didn’t have a back lane, just mud. So, what they did was they dug this huge pit out in the back and that’s where people threw their garbage. It was supposed to be a temporary thing but it lasted for two summers. During the time we were putting the garbage in, there were lots of skunks and that was the year they were having all that skunk trouble in Norwood and St. Boniface. Anywhere along the river there were skunks. There were millions of them and there were lots of bad cases of rabies that year. And the skunks would come in to this garbage pit and, of course, I mean skunks did what skunks did. They eat garbage, right? And of course, us, as homeowners with kids and dogs did what we had to do and we were out there night after night, shooting the skunks. Night after night, there were guys out there with 22 shotguns, and we would shoot the skunks and leave them right in the garbage pit and once a week, they came in and burned it. That was their way of keeping the garbage problems down.

But even with the burns there was still lots of fresh garbage in there for the skunks. Anyway, one night, it was pouring – the backyard was just like a shit pile from front to back and the dogs started barking. This was like 10:30 or 11:00 o’clock at night and the dogs started barking. I looked out in the backyard carrying a light and there was a big, frickin' skunk. It was a Hercules of a skunk it was so huge. It was walking down the backyard and I said I’m going to nail that son of a bitch. The city had brought out one trap, caught one skunk and then took it away. That did nothing. We had another 585 skunks after that and they never brought the trap back. That’s when we took the law into our own hands. Anyway, I figured, this skunk is not getting out of this neighborhood. So, I got my cut offs on and a pair of runners and the whole backyard is mud. I got the 12 gauge. I had the Winchester type with three shells in there and number two shot and I’m out the back door and I’m right behind the skunk going down the backyard. I figured I’d wait until he got a little passed the last house before I let him have it. I’m walking along and I got the gun in my right hand, I’m thinking that if he made a move, I was going to shoot him. Then all of a sudden, he stopped and he turned around and came back right towards me, so now I’m backpedalling.

And I was like, “Who the hell is the hunter? Who the hell is the prey here! This is not going the way I wanted it to. I felt like Elmer Fudd there for a minute. Anyway, the skunk stops again and turns around and now he is booting a little faster and I figured, “Oh, shit, if he gets past the big pile of mud there at the end, I won’t be able to shoot him.” I thought I better let him have it, so as he was just going up the side of the pile Barummmm, I let one go and this great big flame shot out of the barrel, echoing off the walls and dogs were barking, lights were going on, kids are crying and I am like “holy shit,” you know. Well, I didn’t kill the skunk. It sprayed but I never really hit it because the wind was kind of like from the side. I could see the spray go off to the side, keeping in mind what happened when I was 13 and I knew I got lucky this time.” But I figured, I better kill it. I knew he wasn’t dead because he dragged his ass over the hill and out into the field. So I followed behind him and he didn’t go very far. I just took the gun, put shell number 2 in and boom! I had him down into the ground with that shot and thought, “Okay, you did it.” I walked back to the house. I got mud right from my ankles right up to my chest. I had been chasing this stupid skunk through slime. I put the gun up against the house and I got my hose and I’m hosing down my legs to get all the mud off before I go the house.

When I looked up, there’s a cop standing right at the back door of the house. He came through the front door, through the house and into the back yard. He came to the house, and Linda was upstairs in the bathroom having a shower and she was, “Who’s there, who’s there?” And the guy yells out there, “It’s the Winnipeg cops!” She thought it was Brian Chesky and says, “Oh, come on in”. So, the guy came in. He had walked into the kitchen right passed my lone marijuana plant growing on the table and was standing out at the back door. I look up and there he was, “What are you here for?” And he says, “Well, we just got a report that somebody was discharging a firearm.” By this time, he has got the back door open and was looking at the shotgun, sitting right there with a warm barrel I might add, and he picked it up and he said it felt a little warm. I said, “Well, I just shot a skunk. I shot him twice, but he is dead and if you need any evidence, it is out there in the field about 50 yards in the mud.”

He says, “Oh, I believe you shot a skunk. What the hell are you doing? It’s 11 o’clock at night. What are you doing discharging firearms within the city limits?” I said, “St. Norbert’s not really in city limits.” He says, “Well, it is city limits as far as I’m concerned.” He says “Sit down we got to talk.” So, we sit down and now, I’m trying to sit in front of the marijuana plant. And he sits down and he looks at me and says, “Greg Pay, Pay, Pay. You any relation to Ron?” I said, “Yeah Ron is my dad.” “Oh, yeah, he works on the other side of the river, downtown right?” “Well, yeah, north end, downtown.” “Oh, yeah, me and him go back long here, we used to play cards together.” “Oh,” I was feeling a little better. So we talked a little bit. I’m still trying to keep in front of this plant. After a while, I just gave up on it. He has seen it or he hasn’t seen it, I just can’t look like an idiot trying to keep between him and the plant so I forgot about it.

Anyway, he said to me, “What are you doing using a shotgun?” He said, “Why don’t you just use a 22?” I said, “A 22, it bounces off a rock, it can kill somebody a mile away. Shotgun blast 30 yards, that’s it.” He says, “Yeah, but it’s so loud. That’s why we’re here. I am not laying any charges.” He said, “There is no harm done here. Just a bit of a complaint.” And he said, “But next time, use a 22 and just make sure you hit them.”