“Yessiree, I’ll be ready in a minute!” I answered.
“Just you be sure the wood box is full. We don’t want your mama goin’ out in the cold for wood,” Daddy said.
“I’ll get ‘er done,” I said as I jumped from my chair at the breakfast table.
“Y’all be careful,” Mama said. Mama always worried about something.
I hurriedly checked the wood box and got my gun from over my bedroom door. It was a single shot Iver Johnson 16 gauge shotgun Daddy had given me last year when I was eight years old. I grabbed a box of shotgun shells, and I was ready. I got my coat and cap, and I was sitting on the running board of the pick-up when Daddy got there.
Daddy drove down the red dirt road until we came to the highway which would lead us to the town of Bradley, South Carolina. I guess there wasn’t much to Bradley as for as towns go. There were two stores, a post office, a school, and about a dozen houses. It didn’t even have a caution light. The railroad went down the middle of town. Mama said when she was younger there were more stores, and people would catch the train there to go to Greenwood to work. But the train didn’t stop there any more except to get a cold Pepsi at one of the stores.
A big crowd had gathered behind the concrete block store of Cecil Thompson’s. I recognized most of the trucks and cars. Most of them were rather old and some kind of banged up. But there was one big car. Daddy said it was Mr. Mack Johnson’s Cadillac. Mr. Mack had a lot of land and several tenant farmers like us. He was also a lawyer in Greenwood. I had not seen him many times before. I remember he was at Grandpa’s funeral. We parked the truck close by and walked over to the group behind the store.
There was a low table with a rifle laying on it, and about one hundred feet away was a target nailed to a pine tree. The target was just an “X” drawn on a piece of writing paper. Daddy said that the winner would the shooter who hit the target closest to the center of the “X”. We went inside the store to look at the turkey in the cooler, and we knew that it would look good on our table come Thanksgiving. We always had a big hen for Thanksgiving dinner, and it would be nice to have turkey.
Mr. Thompson was in charge of the turkey shoot. Mama always told me to call him “Mr.” although she referred to him as “old man Thompson”. I think it had something to do with his wooden leg, and Daddy told me I would understand why she called him that when I got older. He said everybody would shoot one shot at a time and that the cost would be ten cents per shot. I felt that big half dollar in my pocket and knew that I could shoot at least five times. Mr. Thompson had figured out a way to judge the accuracy of rifle and shotgun shots equally so that the type of gun used would not be a disadvantage. The morning erupted with gunfire, and everyone was having good spirited fun. Several of the boys from school were there, and we were having our own competition among ourselves. Mr. Mack had this beautiful imported rifle with a telescopic sight on it. I had only seen one of these in the Sears-Roebuck catalog. He could really shoot it, too. Every shot would be right in the center of the “X”. I had not noticed them until now, but the Miller boys, John and Nate, were there. I looked around and sure enough that old fenderless bicycle of theirs with the patched tire was leaning up against the side of the store. Nate was the oldest, my age, but smaller and thinner than me. He was right strong though; we had wrestled before at recess. His brother was a little bigger and wore thick eyeglasses that were taped together with adhesive tape. John was carrying an old .22 rifle. It was rusty and had the barrel fastened to the stock with black electrical tape. He gave the gun to Nate and dug into his patched overalls for a dime and a bullet. The boys were dressed in ill-fitting clothes, probably hand-me-downs from some of the folks at church. Mama said that their daddy, Jimbo Miller, wasn’t anything but a drunk that spent most of the time in jail. She said she didn’t see what a nice sweet girl like Wynona had ever seen in him. Daddy said that the Millers’ business was their own, and Mama shouldn’t be talking about ‘em. Anyhow, Nate had paid his money and was about to shoot that old rifle. Nate steadied his rifle with his elbow on the low table and took careful aim before squeezing the trigger. The sound of the rifle echoed off the side of the building, and the bullet hit the target at the intersection of the two lines on the target. Mr. Thompson sent one of the younger boys to bring the target back for all to see.
“I believe we have a winner,” announced Mr. Thompson.
“Let me see that!” Mr. Mack demanded, and after looking at the target said, “Yeah, it’s good, but not quite as good as my shot!”
Daddy spoke up and said, “Let’s see your target, Mr. Mack.”
“I’ve thrown it away, but I know it was better. Y’all doubtin’ my word?” Mr. Mack’s face started to turn red.
“No, we just want to see who’s the winner,” said one of the men.
“I know my rifle is better, and I’m a better shot than that. Cecil, put up another target.”Mr. Mack said as he took the custom rifle from its beautiful carved leather case.
Mr. Mack worked the action of the big rifle to load a cartridge into the chamber. He aimed carefully and fired. The rifle jumped in the big man’s hands and made a loud noise and the bullet made a large hole in the center of the target.
“See that, boys! That’s how a winner shoots!” Mr. Mack seemed to be bragging.
There were murmurs in the crowd about how great it was.
Mr. Mack looked down at little Nate and said, “Your turn boy!”
“We ain’t got another dime, Mr. Mack.”
“Cecil, here’s a dollar, let the boy shoot.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Mack.”
Nate went through the same routine, and the little rifle cracked once more. Mr. Thompson's boy brought the target back for all to see, and there was only the big hole in the center.
“See, he didn’t even hit the target! There’s just one hole in the target and that’s mine!” the big man said with a big grin on his face.
“Maybe the boy’s bullet went inside your bullet hole. After all, a .22 is much smaller that your .30 caliber,” Daddy said.
“Yea, that’s right,” someone else said.
“All right, all right, we’ll do it again,” Mr. Mack said in frustration.
Once again a target was put up on the old pine tree, but this time Nate shot first and then Mr. Mack shot.
“Look here,” somebody said as they crowded around the target, “Mr. Mack done got beat!”
“He shore did!” somebody else echoed.
“It can’t be!” said the lawyer in a loud voice.
“Look at the target. The boy’s bullet hit right in the center but this big bullet hole is off to the side!” Mr. Thompson said.
“You all felt that wind didn’t you? That’s why my shot was off a little. The wind moved the target. Any fool could have seen that!” said the big man as his face was getting red.
“I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. We’ll shoot one more time, and if I don’t beat the boy, I’ll give him this rifle.” A hush fell over the crowd ,and they heard Mr. Mack add, “No white trash boy’s going to show me up!”
You would have thought we were in church by how quiet the crowd of fellows was behind Thompson’s store that day. Hardly anyone breathed as the shooters got ready.
Nate shot first again. The little rifle cracked, and a bullet hole appeared exactly where the two lines crossed on the target. Then the big rifle roared, and a large bullet hole appeared about one half inch from the first bullet hole in the target secured by four nails.
The big man said not a word but threw the big rifle at the feet of the boy in ragged clothes. Then, he pushed his way through the crowd to his car, and we expected to hear it roar away. But, to our surprise, he came back and picked up the rifle.
“I’ll buy it back from you, boy!” he said as he pulled a roll of money from his hunting pants pocket. I watched him peel off twenty one-hundred dollar bills from a roll and throw them at Nate. Nobody spoke as we heard the big Cadillac roar off down the road.
Well, we didn’t win the turkey, but I knew there was a big fat hen in the barnyard for Thanksgiving. I had been to my first turkey shoot and would attend many more through the years, but I would never forget the first one. The next year the county consolidated all the country schools into the city schools and I lost touch with the Miller boys.
Some forty odd years later I was in Barnes and Noble looking at some books and drinking a decaf mocha when I found myself in the military book section. I had been reading some of W.E.B. Griffin’s military novels and decided to try some non-fiction. I picked up a paperback off the shelf by the title: The Corps' Greatest Rifleman and underneath was a photograph of a Marine in camouflage uniform. His was of slight build and his face was in shadow but I recognized the face as Nate’s.
Sounds like the kind of thing I saw when I was a kid. I think they still do it now in the south. Maybe the Ameerican ligeon of the fire department sponsers them.
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