I was sitting home for a week with back problems that subsided last Saturday and should have gone shooting the prior week. At 16:30 Sunday I decided to go shoot something and grabbed my CZ527 17 Hornet, a 453 in 17HMR and a pair of Swaro 15x56 and hit the road for my camper that is at Sunland, across the Columbia from Vantage.
I left the gas pumps at Tacoma Costco at 18:10 and since I was feeling pretty good kept driving east and crossed into free north Idaho at 22:00 headed east to areas north of Billings Montana. I got a bed at Motel 6 in Cour d'Alene, right on I-90, a half a block from Elmers and two blocks from the Costco fuel pumps that are close to a buck less/gallon than anything in Washington. I stopped in Pinehurst Idaho and Plains Montana to visit friends after waking up and hitting the road.
I keep my kit, shooting benches, lawn chairs and ammo in the truck during varmint season... just in case I get an itch. So, I had the minimum. The only thing really I really *censored*mixed was that I should have thrown in a 204, 22-250 or 243... or at least a 223 that could handle low drag bullets. The wind on the high desert was the worst I have ever not quit in.
I did see three dandy buck goats, one that was on my cousin's wife's deeded grass a bit north dwarfed the one in the photo. Their ranch HQ is in Augusta, but his wife inherited a few sections of decent summer range. Fantastic big game range though, right up again Slippery Ann. Seeing those nice goats was worth making the trip in itself.
The wind was horrendous. 20 mph steady in the background, shifting like a fishtail and gusting to high 30 mphs. It don't matter to me none, you get one in three or four at ~175 to 250 if you are a decent shot and we had hundreds of dogs in front of us. Nothing messes up a varmint shoot more than a dork that is keeping score. The 17HMR shooting was walking into the towns shooting prone from Harris Bi Pods and, of course, it went a lot better shooting at 50-125 yards. The dogs cut everything in the town to the root so cactus are not a problem shooting prone.
I saw the gol darndest thing on Friday. I was shooting my 17 Hornet from the benches and the truck was behind me. You know how when Indians attack a covered wagon in a western movie they are all whooping and hollering? Well, something like that was going on behind my truck.
I got up to take a look and there was my buddy on his back with his arms and legs flailing up at the sun with his pants down around his ankles a whooping and hollering, then he turned over and got up on his hands and feet and was crawling around in circles like a bear with his bare ass up at the sun while raising one arm, then another followed by a repeat performance from his right and left leg toward the sky making circling motions toward the four points of the compass while chanting before repeating that part three or four times.
That kind of thing is common enough in downtown Seattle and Portland that it's hardly worth a second glance, but by God, it isn't anything I have any familiarity with on the high desert in Montana. My buddy had been complaining about the wind all morning. I was thinking it was perhaps some sort of Indian ritual meant to appease the wind gods, and didn't feel familiar enough with the ins and outs of the Indian Wind Ceremony to join in. Not to mention so inclined had I, (there isn't a square foot of real estate in that country that isn't covered in prickly pear cactus) so I just scratched my head and went back to shooting.
When he showed back up I had to make sufficient enquiry to satisfy my curiosity.
I'm not saying this accurately reflects what went down, but I'll tell you what the claim being made is and you are going to have judge for yourself. Right when he was reaching back to spread his cheeks and everything was about to cut loose and he was in a seriously compromised position and most vulnerable. A sudden gust of wind came from behind and somersaulted him right onto his back and into a cactus patch. He claims that it was either that or he would have gone face first into the thorns.
OK now, I suppose that is a plausible explanation. I'm giving his side of the story and each of you can come to your own conclusion. Look, I was married and let's just say that there are times when in the interest of one's own sanity that you have to be generous in the extreme and use a most plastic and flexible interpretation of what is being offered as fact to get the narrative to fit what you seen with your own eyes.
The claim being made is that he didn't suddenly go native after 87 years of rational behavior. That a sudden call of nature had impressed upon him that there was no time available to grab the fold up toilet stool from the bed of the truck and set it up. That in lieu of us having to cut our shoot short and having to head back to town so he could shower and change...
Now, I don't have a dog in the fight, and it could go either way, but this man moved from the Puget Sound region to get away from the kind of folks that would be all in on peeling off their cloths and going whole hog on an Indian Wind Ceremony. I'm willing to concede the benefit of the doubt here. That being said, he is on strict probation for a couple years. Any more incidents and my conscience will not allow me to keep it from the locals that they might want to keep an eye out to make sure he isn't one of the type who move from the Seattle area to get away from that sort of thing and end up bringing it along when they move into their community.
