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A second encounter with a strange fellow
idsman75
Member Posts: 13,398 ✭✭✭
A friend of mine from Nebraska knows pretty much every single landowner in eastern NE and is an excellent connection for private hunting grounds. Well, he and I went and did some shooting with a couple of .22's the other evening by the light of a very large light. Low light conditions make for some interesting shooting. He and I have a fair bit of military experience with live-fire exercises but we took turns shooting just to make things safe (due to low light conditions). After checking in with his wife and 3-month-old baby girl we headed out into the country to make tracks down all of those gravel roads that we hadn't travelled since the opener of last year's pheasant season. My buddy was doing the driving and pulled up into the gravel driveway (way out in the middle of nowhere) of a gentleman (and I use the word loosely) who let us hunt his property last year. He's an old biker and a former member of a biker gang down in Louisiana with so many interesting tales--the kind that make you say "wow" and then wonder about the company you are keeping. He's the type that drinks excessively on the weekend and then goes out blasting crows in his intoxicated state. He's not a friend but a very interesting fellow when life gets a little boring. I have no idea why my buddy decided to knock on the door of his unlit home at 11pm so I carefully stayed out of the view of any large windows or doorways just in case this character was in "that way" again. Sure enough. Ol' Crazy Carl opens the door in his boxer shorts and practically hugs us with his big burly arms even though he hadn't seen us in almost a year. We sat up and listened to his tall tales until about 2am and, surprisingly, there was no Budweiser consumed in that span of four hours. His beard had grown thicker and his locks had grown longer and he was looking more and more like a close relative of Grizzly Adams. I had never been inside of his home before. It was a double-wide planted in the middle of prime farmland next to a deep rivine marked heavily by bedding areas and corn cobs stripped of their golden kernels. The inside of his home looked quite a bit like the stereotypical hunting cabin and there were loaded firearms strewn throughout the house in various configurations (both legal and illegal). If there is a folding stock available for a rifle, it's wearing one. If there's a hi-capacity magazine available for it, it's loaded with one. He never mentions work so I assume he's retired and just lives a very simple life. His warm hospitality and booming hearty laugh warmed the soul but there was something about him that led me to believe he would be a ruthless enemy. After exchanging stories and catching up on things that have passed since last year's pheasant season he presented my buddy with an absolutely beautiful customized Mauser complete with laminate stock and schnabel fore-end in .30-06 for the price of a mere $250. Hey said he was getting on in years and he just had too many guns that he doesn't shoot anymore. We talked about the day and age where friends would no longer be allowed to swap and sell their own firearms amongst themselves. If he hadn't made such a point about being very careful not to buy or trade in stolen firearms (made me think there was a story behind THAT too) I would have warned my buddy against buying it from him. He was a very kind fellow but his tales alluded to a very checkered past. I don't suspect he will be going anywhere. It seems that he has found his final home so I am sure it would be easy to locate him if the gun itself had a checkered past that would threated to bite my buddy in the rear.
If the price was right and the gun was something that you had been desiring for a long long time, would you have purchased it from such a strange fellow?
If the price was right and the gun was something that you had been desiring for a long long time, would you have purchased it from such a strange fellow?
Comments
If your gonna be stupid you better be tough !!
A great rifle with a junk scope,....is junk.
Small world, I think I know this fella, no joke. Give me a call and we can swap information.
Trinity +++
"Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it."(Proverbs 22:6)
This guy didn't have a gun in hand when he answered the door at 11:00 pm? I would have had one in my hand hidden behind my back if someone knocked on my door late at night with the house dark.
I rush in where others flee.
Actually, his wife was grabbing for her gun and then went back to sleep after he answered the door. I was telling my buddy that we shouldn't be approaching his house so late at night. Gunshots are common and don't get reported out there.