As we came up over the top I saw a buck jump up out the brush a couple hundred yards in front of me. I kicked the. horse into a gallop and raced after the deer. Coming up through the brush I spotted the buck making tracks over into another canyon and decided not to try and follow it. I turned the horse around and headed back down the ridge line in the direction of the first deer I had seen. The wind was at my back and I didn't like it but there wasn't much I could do about it. About a half mile down the ridge, I came to a rock out cropping and rode up to the ledge to look over. As I rode up, the horse looked over the ledge at something. I looked and there not 20 yards from me stood two bucks! I did not want to get off the horse and have to chase them so I pulled the Ruger .45 from it's shoulder holster and lined up on the nearest buck. The horse kept wanting to turn his head and look at them and I did not want to shoot right in his ear so I kept pulling the reins with my left hand while I held the gun in my right. It seemed like hours but really was just a couple of seconds. The horse would not turn his head so I figured, What the heck! and squeezed it off. At the shot, the deer jumped and ran into the brush. The horse just stood there as if nothing had happened.. I pulled him to the right and saw a deer running flat out through the bottom, and I thought, "Darn, I missed! How could that happen?" I started to go down to my left to see where the other deer ran when I "replayed" the whole thing back in my mind. The sight picture was good with the sights centered on the buck's right shoulder. The squeeze was good, the gun was not wobbling, the horse was standing still (for a change) and the shot FELT right! So I rode down in the direction the deer had run in. I went past where it had been standing and followed a trail through the brush. In about 30 yards I came upon the buck, laying dead in the trail. The shot had taken it through the right shoulder, gone through both lungs and taken the top off of the heart. He was bled out by the time I got to him. The exit wound was through the left shoulder, nearly a perfect crossways shot!

The gun I used was my old Ruger .45 that John Linebaugh rebuilt for me several years ago. I had him install a new 8" barrel with a slow twist, a new cylinder with minimum chambers and a few other goodies. I had shot the throat out of this barrel once since John built it, and had set the barrel back one thread and reamed a special throat of my Dad's design in the barrel. The gun is very accurate if you do your part. The load I used was the Freedom Arms #454629 300 gr. bullet cast of wheelweights and lubed with Paco's Apache Blue lube. The powder charge was 23 gr. of 296 fired by a Federal #150 primer. This load does around 1400 fps out of my gun and hits REAL hard. I had taken a good size Mule Deer the previous week with this load. It was running downhill away from me, so I waited until it broke out of the brush in the bottom to cross the wash. I held on it's neck and shot. With the shot, I heard a SMACK! and the deer went down. It tried to get up and I shot again and heard a SMACK! and the deer went down again. I got up to it and shot it in the forehead to finish it. The first shot was down through the top of the shoulder. The second shot broke the off side front leg. I didn't figure it was too bad a hit at near 100 yards and running at that!

Back to the Whitetail. After cleaning it I loaded it on the horse. The old Appaloosa was a little touchy. snorting and moving around some. I rubbed some blood on his nose and he settled down. I tied the deer on the best I could and then tried to get up to the top of the mountain. As we got near the top, the horse started getting a little balky. Something was upsetting him I guess. Then all of a sudden, he planted his front feet as if to say I ain't goin' no further! I coaxed him and talked to him and finally tried to get behind him to hit him with a switch. At that, he blew up and started running backwards, eyes big snorting and pawing as he went. Went right through a prickly pear cactus without slowing down! Drug me along as I wasn't about to let go! He went right on back through several trees, busting limbs and scattering brush until he backed into a big Mesquite tree that stopped him. By this time the saddle was sideways and the deer was hanging off the right side, dragging on the ground! I was fit to be tied!! My pants were ripped and I was scratched up like a bobcat had got a hold of me! And I was just a little upset!! (To put it mildly!) The horse was not about to come out of the tree, so I pulled the .45 and shot into the ground behind his back legs. Didn't even budge him! (That's what happens when they get used to gunfire.) I finally got a quirt and whipped him out of the tree. I got the deer off and the saddle and saddle bags and both of us settled down. I repacked everything, tied the deer back on and we came on home with no more problems. I still don't know what his deal was, unless he finally figured out that there was something dead on his back! Or maybe his ears just finally stopped ringing. I don't know. It was only 10 A.M. by the time I was back at the house hanging the deer. Didn't turn out to be too long a day after all, though for a time there, I was wondering!