Season 3 – Episode 34 (Kiss A Quillback Carpsucker)

Ellie fell to her knees and embraced Hazel with the strength of ten thousand men. There is no amount of training in the espionage world that prepares you for your first kill—and Hazel had done it twice within minutes. 

Short of big game hunting…. Ellie herself had never been pushed to the extreme of combat in which you take another being’s life. And she continued to hold Hazel. And she wanted this new, raw emotion to loosen its grip on her Eagle Three partner.

The river bottoms of Tannis Falls were overflowing with whitetail deer and at age sixteen Ellie had joined the family tradition of making big game drives in heavily wooded, rolling bluff country. On opening day you would set up alone in a tree stand for the morning hunt—climb down a half hour prior to noon dinner—be back in the woods by early afternoon for the group PUSH.

Sitting alone in the woods was both eerie and enchanting at the same time for her. Hearing a twig snap or thinking you heard the BIG BUCK trouncing your way—only to be astonished that it was twin moose cows busting their way over leaf and limb in your direction, none the wiser of your existence. Captivating… That’s how she would pen the experience in her journal.

But the group PUSH, or deer drive as her uncles would declare it, was much different. This was daredevil—bullets flying from slug barrels—grown men tripping and falling over logs—shooting, hollering, marching non uniformly as they push anything and everything in the direction of their wide-eyed hunting-party members on post duty.

To be on post duty (blocker) required courage, utter blind faith that no one would shoot you through a dense patch of forest, and let’s face it—a bit of recklessness that a deer hide was more valuable than your own skin. And the game (animals)? Yes, they would come in your direction, charging out in hoards! From raccoons to coyotes to rabbits to EVEN a huge boar of a black bear—everything including the deer stampeded the woods as if being chased by a blazing fire ball.

At one point…. Ten minutes into the drive…. Ellie watched Uncle Clark, who was posting fifty yards down the line from her, shoulder his gun and shoot at what she identified as a stump. “It must have been looking at him funny,” she thought without hesitation.

On the first afternoon of opening deer season, the big PUSH, was strictly a brown it’s down meat hunt. With doe tags to fill this was when the family put venison first and foremost. Long winters required full freezers, and these guys would fire at anything that wasn’t wearing a blaze orange vest or carrying a bright and shiny Stanley stainless steel thermos.

Three legs…. That was the first deer that Ellie shot. She didn’t realize it until after the fact. Until after she had unloaded five rounds from her Browning semi-auto rifled slug gun. Until she watched it attempt to hurdle a barbed wire fence and fail hopelessly, kicking and flailing, entangled in the barbs until giving up the ghost.

Rabbits and squirrels and grouse she had bagged in previous hunting adventures were less emotional—a mere warm up to greater game. The size of this doe with its strength and agility made killing seem more like—well—killing.

Too Tall and Shorty Short were lifeless. Like the doe. Ellie pulled Hazel to her feet and away from the deer caught in the barbed wire fence.

“You’re going to get through this Haze,” was the best she could offer—short of yelling welcome to the espionage club!, which seemed enthusiastically inappropriate—and they gradually made their way toward the rescue attempt taking place below the floating dock.

Once, twice, three times now, Rusty kicked and pulled his way toward the bottom searching for Sally. The stained water allowed little for visualization. He would go under—come up below the billets of the dock—feel his hands under the plastic forms of the floats—resurface for air—nothing.

“Keep going!” was Cosmoid Scales encouragement. Even if Sally was unconscious below the surface, he knew of a case where a near-drowning victim had survived approximately sixty-six minutes in cold water. It gave him hope. At least enough to keep yelling.

On his fourth attempt…. Rusty did not resurface…. But instead chose to remain below the docks with his beloved. This time he had found his path between the billets. This time he had found air to suck barely above water level. And this time he screamed for all of NW Ontario to hear, “I’VE FOUND HER!!”

Sally was pinned between two sets of floats, non-responsive, and lifeless in his arms. Either from exhaustion or hypothermia she had been unable to keep her head above water.

“Hang onto her Rusty!” shouted Tawny as she joined the rescue and plunged below the surface—coming up for air only after she had identified Rusty’s location and an area in which she too could squeeze between the billets.

“We have to pull her below, and then to the surface!” she screamed into Rusty’s water filled ears.

“It’s our best chance! Take a deep breath on three!”

          “One,” Rusty counted, “Two, Three!”

With the duo pulling in unison, they freed Sally on their first attempt and brought her to the surface away from the danger of the docks. Now it was toward shore where Hazel and Ellie waited to hoist her from ice-cold water.

The fire in the stone pit raged. Sally sat three inches from the blaze, wrapped in wool blankets and sipping a scolding hot cut of coffee.

“Tastes pretty good,” she commented, “After being submerged for what, forty-three minutes?”

          “Yes, approximately,” agreed Cos. “And we have the mammalian diving reflex to thank for your still being with us! Along with the fact that you…. Ms. Squatsnfishes…. Never lose a fight!”

The cold water had been a blessing for Sally. In this case the drowning allowed her body to take over a slowing metabolic process that protected the brain from anoxic damage. It had also stopped the blood letting from her wounded shoulder. Two negatives (drowning / wounded) became a positive.

Giving Sally mouth to mouth resuscitation was less than appealing to Rusty. Necessary, but unattractive. Later he would tell her it reminded him of losing a bet to cousins Skip and Scoop, in which the loser (Rusty) had to French “Kiss a Quillback Carpsucker” for a period of one minute. It tasted like a combo of aged green algae and sandy river loam. But that’s a story for later.

“So, while I was away drowning like a champ, did you guys find the Kraken eggs?” Sally asked, her voice unmistakably back to its usual tough-ass sass.

          “Yes,” Ellie answered, “and—”

–To Be Continued–