A hunting story

It’s an antique, this .22 caliber pump-action rifle, patented and manufactured by Febiger in New Orleans, 1909. For a decade it leaned shrouded by shadows against a corner of my closet, unloaded. I’ve heard the argument that an unloaded firearm is useless, but for over a century the spring has relaxed so much I didn’t want to introduce any unnecessary tension into its peaceful life.  

When I first came to possess the rifle I held it, warmed the cold steel with my body heat, and cherished some fond memories. I even went so far as to post a photo on an internet forum, hoping to find a little more information about its history. A knowledgeable collector who lived on the East Coast sent me some links, even offered to buy it, but like those pleasantly surprised participants on the Antiques Roadshow, I refused to part with it for any price. It had, after all, belonged to my father. 

He had been manufactured 9 months prior to the spring equinox of 1908 and had owned the rifle for 80 years, a boyhood trophy, a bottle plinker, a squirrel and rabbit rouser. It might have even inspired him during the Second War-to-End-All-Wars to enlist as a sharpshooter. When he first let me hold it, the .22 action still worked and he took me to the woods for firearm instruction. Never a patient teacher, his lessons never hit the mark but the pungent fragrance of powder and oil remains to this day.

The only hunting trip I ever took was with my father, an autumn pheasant expedition through Minnesota cornfields, he with his new Sears 12 gauge shotgun and me armed with that Febiger .22. At the time, I felt like a genuine woodsman, stalking the illusive pheasant. I’d knocked a few tin cans off a stump and naturally, I thought I was ready. I remember my father, prior to heading down the narrow corn rows, allowing me to fire his shotgun. He’d made sure I was securely propped against a stump before I pulled the trigger, but even then the shotgun knocked me flat. 

As I grew up, I realized how ridiculous my expectations were for that trip, as if I’d ever have been able to hit a bird – much less a flying one – with a .22 bullet. Clearly, I was along for the ride, and as I think about the experience now, I recall how my father kept as wide a berth as possible through the dry corn stalks as we hiked to flush out the game.

Somewhere along the way, I heard my father launch a few shots into the sky, though he never hit a pheasant, and to tell the truth, I’m not sure I knew what one looked like, aside from the encyclopedia picture I was shown before we left the house, a mug shot from the day’s most wanted list. 

After several fruitless hours, we faced each other across an open field and shrugged our shoulders. My father had decided to call it a day. I lowered my rifle to an “at ease” position, the barrel pointing toward the sky and tipped away from me like I’d been shown, the rifle’s stock coming to rest beside my boot. A pheasant camouflaged in the tall grass barely 5 feet from where I stood flushed unexpectedly from hiding. I swore my heart had exploded. My father only laughed.  

I tucked that memory away with the gun and for over a decade it remained forgotten. 

Then one day in a flurry of house cleaning, they both came to light and I held them before me without embarrassment, regret or any maudlin sense of nostalgia.

I wrote to the collector and asked if he still wanted to buy the rifle. He replied that he did, even offered me more cash than he’d proposed in his first missive. His excitement in hearing that I had changed my mind only deepened my determination to let the past go, for I never wanted to be a hunter, and my father’s past had been relegated to merely collecting dust.   

About the time I left for college my father had bought himself a cheaply manufactured working single-shot .22, but he never let the Febiger go. It meant something to him. His initials – A.F. – crudely carved into the stock’s butt were irrefutable proof. The Febiger would never truly belong to me, but I could sell it now and it would again become something treasured. 

That’s the legacy I wanted for my father, and for me, to have what he held on to so tightly finally sent back into the world to shape the kind of memories that depend on more than just the two of us.

– David Feela