THE TIME I SHOT MY BROTHER TO MAKE HIM PAY ATTENTION

My story for today is from my early years, say in the early ’60’s. It is about something that still makes me shudder as I think about it and makes me understand, just how close I was to being seriously harmed or worse. It involves my brother. He was five years older than me, bigger, smarter and far far meaner. We’ll call him “L”. This was a strange kid. He never forgot ANYTHING that he had ever laid his eyes on, even if for one fleeting moment.

L could recite entire baseball cards, the ones that came in pink bubblegum packages. He could, basically, read back, from his memory, every stat from the most obscure players. You can imagine how he faired in school. If he read a textbook he basically remembered it all and could regurgitate it at will and especially during exams. I don’t remember a time when he didn’t have the highest grades in the school, city and the province. At that time, they used to record these stats in the high school years. You might ask “was this a tough act to follow?” You think?

Very early on I learned never to bet against him on anything that was fact based. I lost a lot of my meagre allowance, and a handful of my best marbles. Up to the point where I learned this lesson. Not only was he smart, but in his teens he was also big. He was a lineman on the High School football team and a defence-man on the hockey team. He was also somewhat of a bully to me. It was hard to understand, me being such a loveable little guy, who “hardly ever” got him in trouble.

The story I am about to unfold took place, during the summer holidays, just prior to him leaving for university at McGill in Montreal. He had won a “full boat” scholarship and may have been the first kid to attend there, from our city. Of course he was now the hero of the family and could do no wrong. One day my Dad decided that we would have a “men’s only” campout in the mountains to end the summer.

At that time we lived in Red Deer, Alberta and the closest mountains to us, were just west of Rocky Mountain House. I was allowed to bring my neighbour and best friend “Jackie” along. He was a rough and tumble kid and every bit “up” for camping and fishing in the Mountains. As always Dad packed everything we needed onto the top of his homemade “car-top” carrier (the one he had made for the Seattle World’s Fair earlier in the summer).

Off we went, past Rocky Mountain House and almost to Nordegg (a mining ghost town). It was a trip of about 2 hours from home. It seemed short, because I had a friend with me. So, this one particular time I was not bugging Dad about the length of the trip. Nor was I trying to get my brother in trouble. Just shy of the park gates at Nordegg, and basically at the base of Sugarloaf mountain, we arrived at the Tay River. We were travelling along the David Thompson Highway and it just so happened that the Tay River crossed right under the highway, and at this point there was a campground on both sides of the river. We had arrived.

My buddy Jackie and I are out of the car and clamouring to go fishing. Dad and L are bombing stuff off the roof of the car into a pile on the ground. We are jumping up and down, so Dad decides that he will take us fishing while he sets up the camp and prepares dinner. What happens is this. We get in the car and he drives us up, along the Tay, for a further two miles and dumps us off with our fishing gear.

He appoints my brother, the leader of the group and says ok you guys walk back to camp and fish on the way. It’s only a couple of miles and you can’t miss it; you have to walk through the campground, it’s blocking both sides of the river right where the river flows under the highway. We pile out and with my brother leading we plunge into the bush. We are full of enthusiasm as we start down the river looking for a good spot to fish.

Everything is fine, L and Jackie are getting along fine. My brother still considered me a sissy and liked all of my friends far better than me. We walk for a while, drop in the lines, lounge around a bit, hike a bit and are generally having a great start to our adventure. We spent a couple of hours in this idyllic setting, and found no fish, dumb enough, to bite anything we offered. Especially, having heard us crashing thru the bush, yelling and laughing from a mile away.

We started to realize that 2 miles on the highway did not have any relationship to how far it was, following this twisting snake-back river, through the bush. It’s not like there was a path to follow, and anywhere that the river was too fast or deep to wade along the shore, meant that we had to fight for every yard gained, through the forest. By this time we had consumed all of our snacks and drank all of our soft drinks, as my brother put it, to lighten the load we were carrying.

Another hour passes and still no campground in sight. I’m starting to get worried and, maybe, whining a wee bit about L’s ability to lead us. Jackie is having a great time and thoroughly enjoying the bickering between my brother and I. Finally L gives in and makes a leadership decision. We will now stop fishing and head straight downstream for the campground. At this point we are about 3 hours into a two mile walk, and have probably covered 5 miles of river course through the brush, and about one mile of highway. Off we go, at what seemed like a reasonable pace. Another hour goes by and still no sight of the campsite. It is then that my brother makes his final leadership decision.

His reasoning being, that we had probably missed the campground and he now wants to cross over the river and walk back up the other side in the direction that we had just come from. I am stunned, what can he possibly be thinking? This guy is supposed to be some kinda genius or something. He may have been great at “book learnin’ ” but he sure sucked at reasoning 101. I now am speaking in a high pitched whine and trying to explain to him that we couldn’t possibly miss the campground as we would have tripped over Dad and his car and crossed under the David Thompson Highway. He’s not listening, his mind has analyzed it and he is now sure we missed the tent, car, Dad, the other campers, the whole campground and the highway.

I’m about to lose it. Jackie thinks it is hilarious and can’t stop laughing. I’m trying to get him to be serious and help me plead my case, but he is just loving it. Being lost in the Mountains did not scare him a bit. My brother turns and crosses over the river. Sure enough he starts walking back up the other side in the direction that we had just come from. I’m behind him and can’t get him to stop. I only have one choice left to make him listen to me.

Here I have to admit that I left out one small piece of the story, so as not to give it away to early. On this trip I had been allowed to bring my BB gun and a brand new box of pellets. We were to use it for target practise or for bagging a moose or bear if we encountered either.

So, out of desperation, I throw my gun up and shoot him in his left butt cheek. My god, he was wearing his trendy, skin tight jeans, and when this pellet hit him, it sounded like someone had snapped a bullwhip across his ass. CCCCRRRRAAAACCCCKKKK! Wow, he did a 4′ standing high jump, straight up. And let out a yell of pure pain, mixed with animal rage. I gave the gun to Jackie and took off running for my life.

I’m crashing thru the bush and I can hear him coming behind me. Sounds like I have a bull elephant on my trail. I know he intends to do some real harm to me. In the distance I can hear Jackie’s shrieks of laughter. I cut back across that river and head in the direction that the campsite must be in. Now, I am terrified and now in mortal fear for my life. I know if he catches me the very least I’m gonna get is a serious maiming, but more likely it will be sudden death. Now for a big guy, he could still move pretty good, he would gain on me, slow a bit to gather up his rage and come at me again. One thing I did prove that day was that; I could run faster, terrified, than he could, angry!

Thru the bush we ran for what seemed like hours, but was probably no more that 15 or 20 minutes, when suddenly we end up right in the middle of the campground. As I fly past Dad I yell out, “help Dad he’s gonna kill me”. Dad reaches out and corrals him in full charge, much like roping a wild bull. Dad gets things settled down and after a good half hour, I sidle back towards the campsite, but still have my feet ready to break for freedom, if he makes the slightest move. He is pissed. Dad, I know, could see the humour in this but was obligated to punish me. He took my BB gun and locked it in his car “until I prove I was responsible enough to be trusted with it“.

I can tell you today, I slept with one eye open for a long time. My brother, I might add, slept on one butt cheek, only, for a long time. The truth as I recall it, pecking away on my computer at 4:00am.