You Will Shoot Your Eye Out

Ben McIntyre, 71, had guided hunters in the Adirondacks for 50 years. He could read a track in leaf litter and call a buck with a birch bark tube.

In the fall of 1927, his eyesight was failing from cataracts. His son, Will, 28, took him out for one last hunt. Will did the walking. Ben did the listening. They sat on a ridge all morning. Ben could not see the deer Will pointed to. He could hear it move.

Will whispered, “Take the shot, Pa.”

Ben raised his old .32 Special, held it a long time, then lowered it. He said, “I don’t need to kill it to know it’s there.”

They sat until dusk. Ben told stories about hunts from the 1880s, about a time he got lost for three days and lived on partridge berries. On the hike out, Ben stumbled. Will carried his rifle.

Ben died that winter in his sleep. Will never hunted that ridge again. He told his own son, “Your grandpa taught me that the best part of hunting is coming home with the same number of shells you left with.” Will kept Ben’s birch bark call on his mantel. It cracked with age, but he never threw it away.