The Knife Vault

Boker Hunting Knife

More years ago than I want to admit, I was on a bow hunting trip with two co-workers, Charlie and (?), it has been so long his name is locked in one of the rusty boxes of my brain, I’ll call him Red.. We were three fourths of a survey crew working for the Soil Conservation Service in central Arizona.

We had been hunting Javalina in the Arizona Mountains when we came upon a trail looking much like something was being dragged. We followed the trail finding blood and bits of Javalina hair. Occasionally we would see large paw prints indicating a mountain lion was taking its dinner home.

After several hundred yards we came up short at a very large rock with two low entrances underneath. Charlie the “Mad Hunter” told me and Red to stand back from each entrance with our bows ready. “I’m going in and see what’s there”, Charlie said! Well, I had never hunted more than doves before and this didn’t seem to be very productive. But Red and I complied, nocked our arrows and stood back of each entrance. We each carried hunting knives. I carried an old Western, Red had his Buck hunting knife. Charlie pulled out his old Boker hunting knife, which previously looked a lot larger, and began crawling under the rock. After the longest time (probably two minutes), Charlie called out “I think I hear something breathing!” I don’t know about Red, but I suddenly needed to go to the bathroom. Another minute or so (half my lifetime) and we heard Charlie’s muted voice say “I found the pig.”

Now I wondered if the next noise would be Charlie fighting a mountain lion for its dinner. Another long pause and we heard movement coming from under the rock. Charlie shouted “don’t shoot it’s me!” There came Charlie, dirty and dusty, crawling out with a bloated Javalina in tow.

After a lot of nervous laughter and admonitions about how crazy a stunt it was to crawl in a lions den, we gathered ourselves and headed back to camp. I never again went hunting with Charlie. The End.