One Bullet

Photo: Dave Merwin

When my grandparents moved to New Hampshire, they bought 40 acres and an old saltbox house on a dirt road. It was beautiful, and the sense of freedom in that place was palpable.

My grandparents were true New Englanders. They were not hard people. They were always kind. But you saw it in their eyes; you didn't hear it in their words. Smiles came with a joke; laughs came when you figured out the joke was on you. But the eyes, they twinkled with mischief, they shined with joy.

My grandparents were resourceful. They could hunt, garden, fix a car and build a building. Whatever it took to get the job done. Both of my grandparents were excellent shots.

The property was rolling hills and granite outcroppings. Forests of Maple, Oak, and Ash. There was an acre of wild blueberries that the bears would lay down in, raking blueberries into their mouths. When we went to pick the blueberries in the summers, we had to talk loudly as we approached the bushes to scare any feasting black bear.

The old house was beautiful in a very rustic, sort of way. Old red paint and a massive central stone fireplace. The whole house was built around the fireplace. From the shop fireplace in the basement up into the cooking fireplace in the long room and the sitting room fireplaces on the north and south sides of the house. It was all connected to the same source of heat. 

For a thirteen-year-old kid, the property was all I could hope for. There was wildlife everywhere. Deer, bear, the occasional bobcat, coyote, and fox. Fisher cats, raccoons, and every manner of bird you could imagine. And the most strange of them all, the porcupine.

Porcupines are cute and worrying at the same time. An adult can weigh 20 pounds and has an impenetrable coat of needles that are tipped with barbs. They have this way that they eat that is adorable, but God help you, or your dog, if you tangle with one. A friend's dog once went after a porcupine on a backpacking trip and was quilled so badly that the dog had to be put down on the spot. I can't even imagine having to do that. So I have a healthy respect for these odd creatures.

My grandfather converted the old outhouse into a garden shed. Almost every house I lived in or visited as a child had an outhouse. Not still in use, but still standing. The outhouse converted to a garden shed was a prime target for porcupines, and one particularly large specimen was feasting on my grandfather's shed. Porcupines will chew old outhouses apart to get at the salt from our piss that saturates the wood.

My grandfather had just come back from a morning walk when he startled the porcupine in the shed. The porcupine bolted out of the shed, across the yard, and up that massive tree. It climbed to an impossible height and sat its fat ass on a branch, obviously hoping to wait out the human that disturbed his meal.

The grand-kids caught wind that something was up. We marched outside to find the porcupine high up in the tree. I don't recall my grandfather ever telling us that it was up there. Perhaps my grandmother said something, and we knew trouble was afoot. I remember my grandfather walking past me with a steely-eyed determination and then returning by the same path with the same look on his face but this time with a .22 caliber rifle in his hand.  I remember looking quizzically at my dad and asking, “Where is the box of bullets?” My dad responded, "He only needs one bullet."

My grandfather walked a safe distance from us and then looked over where he would shoot from. Even though he wouldn't miss, he didn't fool around and knew if by some twist of fate he did miss, he needed to miss into the tree. So he adjusted his position, raised the rifle, and took the shot.

The death of the porcupine was a forgone conclusion. Both my grandparents were incredible shots. My grandmother shot a bow competitively, and my grandfather could hit anything with a rifle. They both had sharp eyes and steady hands. Whenever we shot together, hitting the mark as he did would always be my goal.

Until that time, I don't ever remember hearing my grandfather swear. The only thing he said now was, "Shit." Not in fear or an excited voice, but just the word "shit" to express, "I didn't think this through." I've said it that way many times as an adult. Even as a kid, I knew that he knew something was wrong, even though I didn't know what it was yet.

I don't recall my grandfather purchasing a car as a kind until the green Toyota Tacoma. They always had cars, of course, but this was different in my mind. It was so beautiful, and it was clear, but in a self-deprecating kind of way, that my grandfather loved that truck. He always parked it away from the house, under the giant old tree, just off the dirt road. The parking space was an extension of the gravel road, and one blended into the other. The tree was massive. I remember just staring up at how tall it was. Not wide like an oak, but tall and full. His truck would be parked under that tree, away from clumsy grandkids running inside and out—a natural garage and the same tree that this porcupine had just been shot in.

As the dead porcupine's body began to fall, it careened off of branches like a ping pong ball bouncing off of pins in a carnival game. It seemed to take forever. About halfway down the tree, I finally saw what my grandfather knew the instant he pulled the trigger. The porcupine was sure to hit the truck.

As this slowly dawned on my cousins and me, our awe began to change to glee. We knew that this was going to be amazing, and we were captivated, considering where it would land based on what branch it hit. The last branch was 20 feet above my grandfather's brand new Tacoma. A 20 pound object free falling 20 feet will have 400 foot pounds of impact on the truck. We didn't know that at the time, but it was amazing to watch an accidental physics experiment happen in real-time.

In what felt like the last middle finger that the porcupine could give, his body landed dead square in the middle of the hood of the Tacoma. It cratered the hood. We watched the hood cave in and the shocks compress. A slight dust cloud kicked up. Then there was silence.

The first to laugh was my father. After a pause, he couldn't hold it in. It snuck out of him, and that gave all of us permission to laugh, and yell, and "Did you see that?" each other. My father laughed and went to my grandfather. They exchanged words, and my grandfather just shook his head, smiled, and walked inside to put the rifle away.

We ran up to examine the porcupine, and we saw that he had shot it through the eyes. The bullet went in one side and out the other. It was a grizzly spectacle. I asked my dad about that shot, and he replied, "He was aiming for the eyes".

I have spent most of my life trying to be that good at something. Being able to walk into a situation knowing that I need only this one bullet that I brought with me. But I have learned that being very good at something does not shield you from the things you didn't see. Shit goes sideways. You can't be good at everything.

It's best in those cases to laugh, shake your head, and put the rifle away.