Dammit, Heavey!
Field & Stream|Volume 125, Issue 1 - 2020
HOW A FOULMOUTHED, CHAINSMOKING CRAZY LADY BECAME ONE OF THE AUTHOR’S CLOSEST FRIENDS
BILL HEAVEY
Dammit, Heavey!

MY FRIEND PAULA SMITH is helping me look for the mate of a shed antler that I found two days ago on a hillside in these thick woods that back up to a fence and the four lanes of Cabin John Parkway inside the D.C. Beltway. I’d found the left side, a beige 5-point antler with pretty good tines and decent mass. It was big enough to set the hook and get Paula out here to search with me. Now, of course, she’s irritated. Paula and irritation go together like pie and coffee.

“Dammit, Heavey, slow down!” she gripes. “No wonder you can’t find it. You’ve got the attention span of a housefly.” She starts making slow sweeps across the hillside, pointedly traversing ground that I’ve already covered.

How a woman I once thought might be homeless and crazy became one of my closest friends is something I’ve never fully understood, but that’s what happened. She’s not homeless, it turns out. Crazy? Maybe, but it’s a crazy I understand. For her part, Paula definitely thinks I’m nuts. “Heavey?” I once overheard her say into a phone. “Oh, yeah, he’s six kinds of strange.” Maybe that strangeness is what we recognize in each other. We’re both outsiders, never in the center lane. Like deer, we’re drawn to the edges of things.

I first knew Paula as the foul-mouthed woman who dressed like a man and ran the dock at Fletchers Boathouse just off the Potomac. She always wore an M65 field jacket, jeans, and heavy boots, her hair tucked beneath a battered Tilley hat. Mothers with kids would ask her to watch her language, and Paula would apologize and promise to do better. Two minutes later, she’d be cussing again. She doesn’t mean to be rude. She doesn’t have full control over the circuitry between her brain and mouth. It’s the same with her emotions, which toggle unpredictably.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة Volume 125, Issue 1 - 2020 من Field & Stream.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة Volume 125, Issue 1 - 2020 من Field & Stream.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

المزيد من القصص من FIELD & STREAM مشاهدة الكل
Field & Stream

LIVING THE DREAM

After the author arrives in Maine’s fabled North Woods with a moose tag in his pocket, an adventure he’s been wanting to take his entire hunting life, reality sets in, and he learns a valuable lesson: Be careful what you wish for

time-read
10+ mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 4, 2020
Field & Stream

Get the Drift

How to make an accurate windage call under pressure

time-read
4 mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 4, 2020
First Sit
Field & Stream

First Sit

An icebreaker outing in a pristine spot produces the rut hunt of a lifetime

time-read
4 mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 4, 2020
Field & Stream

A Local Haunt

The author finds a sense of place in an overlooked creek, close to home

time-read
4 mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 4, 2020
A Hop and a Pump
Field & Stream

A Hop and a Pump

Jump-shooting rabbits with classic upland guns is about as good a time as you can have in the outdoors

time-read
4 mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 4, 2020
Welcome TO camp
Field & Stream

Welcome TO camp

Is there any place better than a good hunting camp? It has everything: great food, games and pranks, and of course, hunting. Shoot, we don’t even mind going to camp for grueling work days in the summer. Here, our contributors share their favorite stories, traditions, and lessons learned from camps they’ve shared. So come on in and join us. The door’s open.

time-read
10+ mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 3, 2020
Field & Stream

THE DEERSLAYERS

Before you even claim a bunk, you need to eyeball the hardware your buddies have brought. In the process, you’ll see that the guns at deer camp are changing. What was walnut and blued steel may now be Kevlar and carbon fiber. The 10 rifles featured here aren’t your father’s deer guns. They’re today’s new camp classics

time-read
8 mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 3, 2020
Field & Stream

THE JOURNEY TO PIKE'S PEAK

Last summer, the author and three friends ventured off the grid to a remote fish camp in Canada. They hoped for great fishing, but what they experienced was truly something else

time-read
10 mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 3, 2020
Stage Directions
Field & Stream

Stage Directions

When early-season whitetails vanish from open feeding areas, follow this woods-edge ambush plan

time-read
5 mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 3, 2020
Field & Stream

Rookie Season

A pup’s first year, from preseason training to fall’s big show

time-read
5 mins  |
Volume 125 - Issue 3, 2020