Excuse the title double-negative in this nice little short story by Barney Wyatt.
I was out at my favourite block last week it was very hot and I was hoping that a deer would come into the dam for a drink in the middle of the day. My hide was a wash out in the dam bank about 4 ft deep and a bit wider so I was almost below ground level while I was sitting on my chair; I knew I was going to spend a fair bit of time waiting. The only movement that I saw was a big goanna that was having a swim and when he saw me move to have a look at what was causing the ripples in the water he decided to check it out. Standing tall with his head in the air and tasting the air he started to stalk in he came to within arms length away and I then decided that was too close, I could poke him with the .30 30 no worries, which made him back off but I had to throw a rock at him to make him go. Half an hour he was back in the dam having another swim, nothing more of interest for the day so I went up and set up my camp as I was staying the night.
The noise of the storm birds woke me at 4am; it was still dark the alarm was set for 4.30 am but I decided to get up anyway and have a coffee and an apple while watching the night disappear. This time I walked down to the da, which was only 100 metres away from the camp and wait in among some logs that had been pushed into a pile, ready to burn. After being there for an hour or so I heard a noise in the camp so I stood and watched for about 10 minutes. Now I could not see into the camp as it was set up in a saddle between two gullies. Nothing appeared so I sat back down and waited as another 30 minutes passed and then I saw movement coming down the track from the camp.
It was a big fox following the path that I had taken the day before and, where I had stopped and shifted a branch off the track, he stopped and lifted his leg to mark HIS territory before continuing to the dam for a drink. This put him at about 40 paces away, my turn to mark MY territory.
The .30 30 aint no fox gun but she gets the job done if you don’t want skins. This was the end of the hunt and after taking photos I headed back to camp and all I could smell was fox he certainly made himself at home.
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