Meat, Memory, and a Curved Stick That Still Wins

I have cooked a lot of animals in a lot of places and I have seen a parade of gear come and go like fashion on a city street. One tool keeps finding its way back into my hands when the leaves go copper and the acorns start to pop. The Bear Super Grizzly. A curved stick dressed in glass that does not care about trends. It asks one question. Did you do your part. If the answer is yes it gives you supper. If the answer is no it gives you a lesson. I have eaten both and learned to be grateful for each.

This story begins with a cool morning and a skillet wrapped in a towel inside my pack. I was hunting the same farm where I taught my kids to shoot at stumps and where their kids now try not to arrow my boot laces. The big field drops into a finger of maple that pinches down into a creek. Deer like to slip that pinch and crawl up the shadow side when folks with loud rifles are watching the open corners. Old men with quiet bows do their best work in such places.

I carried cedar shafts in a back quiver because I like the way they smell when the air is damp. I still glue on feathers myself. It keeps my hands honest and my mind unhurried. I keep the Super Grizzly strung if the walk is short and unstrung if the walk is long. That morning it rode strung because I planned to tuck into the maples only a few hundred yards from the truck and sit a spell on a stool made from a slice of ash and three dowels that fit into bored holes. I am not too proud to sit these days. Knees forgive a lot when you let them rest. Pride forgives nothing.

Before I settled I checked the wind with a pinch of wood ash kept in an old pill bottle. The ash drifted toward the creek. Perfect. The pinch would carry my scent into the water and away from the path I expected the deer to take. I set the stool, breathed slow, and let the woods settle around me. Squirrels started first. Blue jays scolded a hawk that did not care. A pair of turkeys ghosted through and left scribbles in the leaves. Nothing in a hurry. Nothing wasted.

People assume an old cook like me is here for meat alone. Meat is part of it. Memory is the rest. When you hold a bow that asks for presence you start to write memories that feed you even when the freezer is full. The Super Grizzly has its own collection of such pages in my life. The first deer I killed for my wife and me after our children left the house. The rabbit I missed clean while my grandson laughed and told me I was aiming at yesterday. The doe I let walk because she came in with a yearling that still looked at the world like it might be kind. All of it tied by a curve of wood that shoots as straight as your patience will let it.

I saw the buck before he saw me. Young head. Thick neck. He moved with that careless care you get in midseason when the days are cool and food still comes easy. He stopped at the edge of the pinch and turned his head away to worry a vine. That is the second best moment a bowhunter knows. The first is the tiny space of time after release when the world holds still for judgment.

I drew until the feather kissed my cheek. The bow felt like it had been made for my grip alone. The arrow left quiet. The broadhead slid through both lungs and buried in the leaf mold beyond. He ran a short hook and fell within sight. I went to him with gratitude and a hand on his shoulder. I sat there a while because rushing feels like disrespect and because old bones appreciate a rest at the right time.

Field dressing is a kitchen job done without a table. I am as careful with a deer on the ground as I am with a roast in a clean pan. I set the heart aside for lunch and cut the liver clean and neat. The rest I hung in a patch of shade between two maples and let the cool air do what cool air does best. I walked back for my pack and brought it to the deer like a butcher walking to his block.

Lunch is where the old man has his fun. I laid a ring of stones and built a patient fire that licked rather than roared. The skillet took its place on two flat rocks with a small gap for the coals to breathe. Heart sliced thin. Onions from my pocket. A spoon of bacon fat I keep in a jar wrapped in cloth. Salt from a tin. Pepper ground in a little brass mill I have carried since the Carter administration. When the heart hit the fat the air smelled like home. I cooked it no longer than the time it takes to tell a clean joke. Pink is not sin. Pink is mercy. The first bite went to the memory of the animal. The second went to the man who had walked these woods before me and showed me how to pull a string without shaking. The rest went to a hungry hunter who still knows joy.

After the pan was clean and the fire banked I worked the quarters into game bags and set them in the shade. The walk out took two trips and each step felt like a well earned ache. Back at the shed I hung the deer where air could move. The bow leaned in the corner. I wiped it down and let my hands pause on the grip. I thought about how many seasons a simple bow can hold. The Super Grizzly does not teach arrogance. It teaches consistency. It says keep your form. Keep your breath. Keep your word. I like tools that preach the same sermon every year.

At supper I made a pot of liver and onions with a splash of sherry and a dusting of thyme. Cornbread in a cast iron pan finished in the oven. The family ate and told their own stories. The grandkids asked if the old bow still worked. I told them it works as well as your patience and as poorly as your hurry. They nodded the way young folks nod when they are filing a thing away for later.

I cleaned the kitchen, put on coffee, and stepped out back to look at the stars. The night smelled like frost coming. I thought about the curve of the bow and the line of the arrow and how both meet in the place where a steady hand rests. The world changes faster than sense can keep up with sometimes. It is a comfort to carry a tool that refuses to change for the wrong reasons.

Meat matters. Memory matters more. When the years stack high you will remember the quiet under the maples and the feel of cedar fletch against your cheek and the taste of heart in a hot pan. You will remember how a plain bow gave you clean work to do and simple joy for doing it. That is why I keep the Bear Super Grizzly where I can reach it. It makes a meal out of patience and it serves second helpings of gratitude.

If you ever eat at my fire I will cut you a piece of meat and pass you a tin plate and ask you what you learned that day. If you say the bow taught you to slow down I will pour you coffee and tell you that you are halfway to wisdom. If you say the bow made you feel young I will laugh and tell you that is not youth. That is presence. Presence feels like youth because it removes the weight of noise. That is the oldest kitchen secret I know.

Tomorrow I will rub a little oil on the limbs and check the string. I will whisper a promise to the bow and to the woods. I will keep the promise. That is how old men stay honest.