The Rifle

“Easy, easy … ” I thought while watching the squirrel dig for some morsel buried under the forest duff. When his head came back up, there would be a steady pull on the trigger and with a tiny bit of luck, I would score.

The hunt

My prey didn’t cooperate. Instead, he sauntered along, shuffle-scampering with his head down for a few more feet. I watched intently as he moved about, unconcerned and unaware of the danger lying just a few yards and one bullet away. He continued the stop-move-stop pattern until my arms ached from holding the rifle and I was cross-eyed from staring. I could have thrown a hasty shot several times but I wanted to be sure of a good hit.

Today, there could be no misses or cripples, only a sudden crack and the slight poignancy at the harvest of game. Today, I would slowly stand and walk over to the fallen animal and feel ethical and honorable because I had hunted well.

Something stirred his interest and he stopped, head held high and watching. I could feel the smooth time-worn steel of the trigger on my finger as the pressure grew. Within seconds the sear would break, the bullet would fly true and the contest would end. However, the squirrel scampered away when it heard the external hammer of my rifle being manually lowered.

I had not fired because the animal had meandered too far, putting it past the self-imposed range I had already determined for this gun after the previous morning spent on the shooting range. Though it’s tough to pass on a shot, this defeat was not particularly tormenting because it was early and the hunt today was not about the animal itself, the scenery or bringing home a full game bag. It was about the gun.

The rifle

In my hands was an undistinguished slide-action .22 caliber rifle, a Winchester Model 1906. It looks like most other guns of a similar advanced age, the blued steel faded to a rich brown patina with silver-worn spots on the sharp corners. The wood is battered and a bit oil-soaked around the action but not unsightly.

The rifle isn’t in the best of shape nor the worst. It was a working man’s gun, cared for enough to stay functional but not babied. It had likely been purchased at a hardware store or ordered from the Sears Catalog and arrived via railroad and horse at its final destination.

By serial number the rifle was manufactured sometime in 1907, the first year of production. Giving it a more thorough once-over, I was surprised and intrigued to find the barrel almost-imperceptibly marked “J. Stevens Arms and Tool Co. Chicopee, Mass. U.S.A.” The likely reason was first-year rifles were only chambered in .22 Short, so some enterprising soul swapped out a Stevens barrel chambered for the .22 LR. From 1908 until 1936 when production ceased, the guns chambered all the .22 rimfire cartridges.

Though a centenarian, the rifle is still mechanically sound. It is a plain, utilitarian, inexpensive firearm from a simple time when dinner might have depended on bagging a rabbit or guarding the hen house from marauding raccoons. I thought the gun beautiful because I knew it had belonged to my great-grandfather.

After many years spent residing in the closet of my beloved grandfather, the rifle finally arrived in my hands. The day it came to my house, it was given a cursory wipe with an oily rag and a few speculative throws to the shoulder, then rather unceremoniously stowed in the gun safe. I knew there should have been more introspection, more time spent simply holding, peering down the sights, checking and re-checking it, but there wasn’t.

Dad had been gone a while, and now suddenly, grandpa. By family accord, I was next in the line of owners for the rifle and the thought caused both joy and ache I didn’t want to examine too closely at the moment.

The experience

First was the problem of cleaning a firearm that had seen store-bought gun solvent very few times in its life. The action scrubbed up nicely while the bore was rough. I was afraid to get too aggressive in cleaning lest it turn into a musket. Just a few minutes of range time verified accuracy was not great, minute-of-barn perhaps, but getting close to the typical squirrel would not prove a huge problem. The difficulty would be making a good clean shot to fulfill the legacy of this rifle because there would undoubtedly be spectators, even though I was technically alone in the woods.

A week later the rifle and I hunted in the hills of southern Indiana, chasing the few squirrels not napping on an unseasonably warm day. After passing up the shot earlier in the morning, I trudged back to the car in the still, crunchy, cicada-laden afternoon heat, bothered about my empty game pocket. I was perturbed because this day — for a writer of gun stories — was destined to become preserved in words and bagging a squirrel would have been the easy end.

Arriving at the truck hot, thirsty and sour, it was apparent I had forgotten the real point of the adventure. On an impeccable Technicolor day, I had been afield with my ancestors, using the same piece of steel and walnut they had carried in their hands across decades. I was simply another point along a great familial line — this should be a nourishing thought even for the unromantic soul.

The understanding

Ultimately, larger insight slowly arrived like an evening fog. Putting away the rifle in the scabbard I realized one solitary hunt, one animal taken does not close a chapter or even a whole story. We are truly mere guardians of guns, caretakers for the object and the ghosts riding along. In my case, the rifle will be carefully maintained and fired occasionally, then handed down to the next generation, and the next, to write their own stories.

I just hope they have better luck.

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