the droplets of blood are becoming less noticeable. by now, Mr. Bill has left the party and ventured out ahead on his own. the state lands employee that works the ranch has gone to search a creek. the group now consists of me, Sydney, and Michael. i'm watching the clock - i didn't book the hotel room for two nights. i thought this hunt would play out one of two ways 1). Sydney would get her deer on the morning hunt. we would take the deer to Richey's Processing and have them clean and quarter the deer. we would check out of the hotel. 2). Sydney would not get a deer on the morning hunt and we would take a break before the afternoon hunt and check out of the hotel. well, those two thoughts didn't come to fruition. i called the hotel and asked for an extended check out. they granted me one hour. dang it!

we pushed on and finally found the last of the blood that we were going to find. no deer. i asked Mr. Bill to call in a tracker. it was a nice deer; he deserved our best effort. the call went to Tommy Dale Strickland out of Meridian. he was on another track but would head our way when finished. good deal. Sydney and i would head to town (Demopolis), check out of the room (the hotel staff had packed our room for us and our gear was at the front desk), and grab lunch.

after lunch, we returned to the check station at the cattle ranch. Mr. Bill informed us that the tracker had taken another call and it would be 1600 or so before he would get to us. no problem; about an hour and a half wait. this was a great time to unpack and repack the bags, stretch our legs, and give us girls a nice restroom break. Michael came outside and informed us that we needed to go mark both sites where blood was found. we hop in the side by side and off we go. it's a long ride to the v.i.p. north 40 area. we find the blood across from the stand. easy peasy. we could not locate the original site at the wood line. we spent at least thirty to forty minutes looking. it was warm and the sun had dried the leaves. everything looked different to Sydney. back to the side by side to return to the check station.

view of the stand from one of the grass patches


Michael and Sydney at the initial shot site. it is now windy as all get out and the sedge grass is blowing. took a minute or three to find the spray.


behind this picture is the grass patch where Luigi was hit


rolling out of the bottom of the field, Michael is driving and i'm the passenger in the front seat. Sydney is in the back directly behind me. we are not flying. speed is what i would call normal. the giant azz hole we hit was not normal. it looked to have been where a tree had once stood and the stump had rotted away. i hit the windshield with my head. my left knee hit the dash. i asked Sydney if she was okay and she didn't answer. i turned around and she was crying giant crocodile tears. i jumped out and undid the mesh door and right then i saw a huge goose egg on her head. i did a quick assessment and said we needed to get some ice on her immediately. back at the check station, Michael found a bag and got ice from my ice chest. with Mr. Bill, Sydney's dad, and myself all in agreement, Sydney and i left for the nearest dock in a box - this was saturday. it was now close to 1630 hours. as i left the property, Michael texted me the address and phone number to the clinic. i called. no answer. crap that. i wasn't taking the time to ride to Demopolis if i had to chance nothing being open. i opted for Hale County Hospital and made hay while the sun was shining. lots of crying and asking why it happened made the trip rather quick. i'm sure i obeyed the posted speed limits!


mom's not getting any smile right now. the promise of ice cream later did help ease the tension in the room. the swelling has gone down a little with the ice packs. time 1702


questions, questions, and more questions from Sydney. i found them easy to answer. what was she most concerned with? not being there when Luigi was found! i called to let Mr. Mason and Michael know that Sydney was going to be okay and to ask if the tracker had arrived. he had not. new arrival time would be 1800 hours. we would make it back from the emergency room around that time, i hoped. as it turned out, we followed the tracker into the property.

after answering some questions from the tracker (actually a bunch of questions - to include what cartridge was in the gun when the deer was shot!), we loaded up in our vehicles and it was back to the general area of the stand - as close as we could get with our trucks. i wasn't able to get a good picture of the dogs, this was the best i had 1823 hours:


the tracker's instructions on what to do and what not to do were clear and concise. Sydney did have a tendency to want to be up front with him. i couldn't blame her. it had been a long day. it was going to be a long night - for Sydney, for me, for Michael, for Mr. Bill (who remained at the check station all day and into the night), for Tommy Strickland, and his dogs, Adalia and Hobo - this was their third track of the day, and they had traveled all over.