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Myrtle Beach Indoor Shooting Range

Ted Gragg ⁽⁴⁹⁶⁾ United States

Ted Gragg

Myrtle Beach Shooting Range

Jack...

Posted Tuesday, July 28, 2009 (116 days 16 hours ago.) Viewed 1,336 times.

He was black. He was short, stocky, surly, and had a relationship problem with people. His name was Jack. He was my friend.

I needed an assistant. Times were lean in our state and the department wasn't much on new hires. That's how Jack and I came together. We met at the county's animal impound lot. An attendant was showing me about the grounds and we were nearing the end of the tour. We had walked down the long aisle of security cages, turned, and were making our way back down the aisle toward the entrance.

The rattling of a cage door startled me. I turned suddenly toward the cage on my right just as a large bulky beast body-slammed against the cage's door, rattling it again. I watched, fascinated, as the muscular Black Labrador ambled toward the rear of the cage, turned, and hurled himself at the cage's opening again as if he could tear the door from its hinges.

"Bad tempered, that one." The attendant's voice drew my attention from the dog. "We're putting him to sleep permanently tomorrow morning!"

The dog sat on his haunches in the middle of the cage. He watched us intently, never moving, just breathing deeply, his massive chest expanding with each new breath.

"Open the cage and let me in." I said.

The attendant's jaw dropped. "What? I don't think so. You don't want that animal. He's vicious!"

"Open the cage." I said again.

"Man, you can't be serious? You are serious! Man, I ain't gonna be responsible, you know. You really want in there?" The worker asked.

I nodded affirmatively.

The attendant opened the door allowing me to pass and then slammed it shut behind me. I heard his footsteps retreating down the hallway. The dog never moved. He just sat there, watching me, brown eyes never wavering, just waiting as if to say, "Alright, buster, you started it, now what?"

I squatted down, looking at the massive animal on his level. We stared at one another for a long moment. I balled my fist up and extended my arm toward Jack, passing my fisted hand slowly in front of his nose, letting him catch my scent. He never blinked, never took his eyes off my face. Then slowly, ever so slowly, he lifted his right paw. I grasped it, shook it, and we formed a bond that day, Jack and I.

I opened the cell's gate and walked down the hallway between the cages. Jack fell into stride, two steps behind me and two steps to the right, and we marched down the hall, past the reluctant attendant, and out the front door.

I lowered the tailgate on my pickup. Jack jumped up into the bed of the truck, chose a position behind the cab, placed his forefeet on the bedrail and looked at me as if to say, "Okay, let's move it out of here!"

The dog never moved from that position until we reached home and I lowered the tailgate. At that instant I decided to see if he was gun shy. I drew my pistol and fired just as his feet touched the ground. Jack took off on a dead run straight to the impact point of the bullet, stopped, turned toward me, and cocked his head. You could see the question forming behind his eyes and then the awareness of what I had done. His lips curled slightly into a sardonic smile.

I grinned. This was going to be some dog. But man, did he stink! I realized that the wind had shifted and I was downwind of the animal. A bath would help that! I started toward the water hose that was coiled beside the house. Jack followed and sat stoically while I sprayed him down, treated him for fleas and ticks, and began putting the tools away.

I returned just in time to see Jack heading for the deepest mud hole in the driveway. He rooted and rolled in it like a hog until he was covered in caked mud. Then he pawed the mud into the air and onto his back, finally shaking himself to loosen his mud-caked fur. He was always dirty. If it smelled he rolled in it until he could wear the stink. Once in a heavy downpour in a moment of weakness, I invited him into the cab of the truck. That was the last time too. Gosh, he stank. For all the time that we were together, I never saw him clean. He liked dirt and just plain wanted to smell rank.

I began taking Jack with me when I would hunt or when working alone as a game warden. Stake-outs and still hunting bored him. During those times he would wander a few yards away from me and began gnawing trees down; not little two-inch saplings mind you, but big stuff like four and five inch diameter trees. I would motion for him to be quiet and he would lower that big black head onto his paws and wait until reprieved or told to get into the truck. He seemed dejected when there was no action, nothing to chase, or something for those big massive jaws to bite.

You didn't pet Jack. He was his own dog. The only reward he wanted was a Twinkie roll or a pack of Lance crackers after a hunt. Just give him the pack, he would do the unwrapping. He preferred it that way. And if he didn't know you, he would disappear into the shadows only to sneak up behind you and growl lowly when he was in reach of your leg. He chose his own friends; Connie, our daughters Wendy and Holly, and my game warden partner, Mike. Those were the only people that he needed.

I watched a night hunter come out of the swamp past legal shooting time one night. The hour was late. I thought that I had enough surprise on my side to make a docile bust. I made a bad mistake. I turned on the headlights and pulled the truck right up beside the guy. After identifying myself as a law enforcement officer, I requested his hunting license and identification. Everything soured. He swung a hard right fist in my direction. Just as the fist came close to my face, Jack suddenly appeared from behind the cab of the truck, clamped down on the suspect's wrist, and held on as if to say "Cuff him and read him his rights!"

The perp was twisting and jerking, screaming over and over, "Let go, let me go. That dog'll bite!

Jack evened the score that night. Smell or no smell, we were even for his reprieve from the dog pound. He knew it and so did I. Our relationship got tighter and we were always together in the forest. I watched his back and he watched mine. We worked this way together for years. Old age finally got Jack. I was with him at the end. Sometimes, just sometimes, I get the feeling that he's still back there, two steps to the rear and two to the right, just watching, just waiting.

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A Confirmation of Liberty

Posted Monday, June 29, 2009 (146 days 1 hour ago.) Viewed 727 times.

The morning mist began to thin. They stood there, atop the hill, no uniformity of dress, in a ragged line, facing toward Boston miles away. They stood there, bold in the fear of the unknown, resolute in the awareness that all men are created equal by God to chart their own destiny, and bound by determination to exercise the freedom of Liberty .

The dusty roadway passed through the pastures bordering Lexington , a Massachusetts village, an inconsequential collection of barns, houses, and shops that hid the weapons stockpiled by new patriots and the provisional government of the Committee of Safety. The roadway's dust still bore the traces of the couriers led by Paul Revere that had passed that way in the darkness scant hours before.

"The Regulars are coming out! The Regulars are coming out!" Paul Revere's cry echoed throughout the Middlesex County arousing other couriers who dashed away on horseback, alerting the militia. The British troops of General Gage were marching secretly to seize the mess bowls, powder, foodstuffs, cannon, and ball sequestered at Concord and Lexington .

The British line, six companies strong advanced, soldiers marching in unison, buttons gleaming, scarlet uniforms bearing white clayed crossbelts, all in perfect order and harmony, assured in their prowess, training, and arms, resplendent in the aura of the mighty British Empire and King George III.

The militia stood firm, all forty of them, led by Captain John Park. They presented arms.

"Dont fire unless you are fired on." Park ordered. "But if they want war, it may as well begin here!"

"Damn you!" Shouted British commander Major John Pitcairn. "Disperse, you rebels! Disperse!"

Forty hammers cocked in unison broke the stilted silence. Forty muskets still held in readiness at present arms. Forty men, patriots all, stood yards away from the assembled might of the British Empire . Forty men, united, bound by freedom's desire, resolute in their action, stood unmoving, firm, for Liberty .

The British soldiers raised their muskets into firing position.

The Forty stood firm. They did not disperse.

Major Pitcairn, the British commander, paused, looked left, then right, raised his sword, and shouted. "Fire!"

Eighteen Patriots of the original forty fell that morning. The Patriot commander Park ordered the survivors to scatter and defend themselves. These troops began to return a sultry fire on the British soldiers from behind stone walls, trees, and haystacks. They were soon joined by other militiamen from the county who began to fire from seclusion on the British troops. This fire continued to harass the Kings soldiers as they began their withdrawal toward Boston . Forty-nine patriots died that day and thirty-nine were wounded. The British force suffered seventy-three killed and one hundred seventy-four wounded as they marched back to Boston . They had destroyed only half of the stores of the new provisional government. Their mission to quell the rebellion had ended in failure.

Liberty had prevailed. The birth of a new nation founded by free men upon freedom's precepts had stood firm while being assailed by the strongest foe on earth. They were we. We are they. Liberty . Then, now, and tomorrow!

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The Boy and the Bear

Posted Monday, August 18, 2008 (1 year 96 days ago.) Viewed 761 times.

It was in December. The day was warm for the last month of the year, one of those near perfect days with hordes of white cumulus clouds hung in a field of blue that covered the golden earth like a mantle. It was the kind of day where you enjoyed all of God’s creatures, even the solitary mosquito that continuously buzzed around the back of your neck.

An overlay of brown and coarse broom straw swayed slowly in the slight breeze; the same breeze that brushed across your brow beneath the cap’s brim and reminded you of a Mother’s touch. Beyond the field of broomstraw, the earth fell away into the blackwater swamp that held the upright graying Water Oaks and Cyprus trees against the blue and white sky. Here and there a splash of red marked the tall and stately Popular trees whose tops were tainted with the vestiges of Fall. The solitude was broken by the occasional bark of a grey squirrel, a passing crow now and then, and the steadily drumming of a breakfast seeking woodpecker. Faintly, just faintly, every once in a while, the boy heard the far-off baying of the dog pack.

The boy listened, his head cocked in the direction of the incoming sound. Faintly, still faintly, but maybe, just maybe, the running pack of hounds had turned more toward him. He looked down at the rifle and touched the bolt, eased it open and back just enough to expose the bright gleaming brass base of the cartridge that nestled in the chamber of the gun. Satisfied, he pushed the bolt handle forward and down and locked the bolt. The rifle was ready. After all, he had built it, or rather altered it from the original 1942 German Mauser that his uncle had claimed as a war souvenir following the defeat of the Axis Powers in Europe and the end of World War II. The rifle’s wooden stock gleamed darkly with the finish that he had applied by hand. The hot bluing of the rifle’s barrel and frame was near perfect, and the jeweled and polished bolt and receiver reflected the hours of work that he had done on the gun. It wouldn’t fail, couldn’t. Too reliable. He had told his Father so. But Dad’s response was still negative. “Better take the shotgun!" was all he said. His father liked Browning auto-5 shotguns, pure and simple. They were heavy but they did the trick and always worked. His father’s favorite shotgun bore the notches, over a hundred, of the whitetail deer that had proven the Browning’s reliability.

But the boy knew better. Their time had passed. Today was the day of the rifle. It could reach farther and weighed less. After all, today they were hunting bear. And if they found one, if the dogs were pressing the animal hard, if the animal was aggressive, well, after all, they were dangerous, these Carolina bear. Right, and more firepower, more energy than the Browning could provide, was needed. The boy knew. He had reasoned it out. His thoughts were interrupted by the closer baying of the running hounds.

“Yep," He mused to himself. “They’ve turned. Ol bear’s running the lay of the branch. He’ll cross one side of the creek or the other, and head this way." The boy stepped behind a small brushy Cedar sapling and leaned against a stout oak tree. Again, he checked the safety on the rifle.

A whirling sound jerked the boy’s head left toward the broomstraw field as a covey of quail erupted from the brown cover. Had the quail not broken cover, he would not have seen the bear, it was that far ahead of the hounds.

The rifle came to his shoulder in one practiced movement. He sighted down the barrel, flipped the safety lever with his thumb, and put the front sight bead on the bear’s shoulder, slowly tightening the trigger, holding steady, feeling the trigger’s break under pressure, relaxed, sure, steady on the running bear, everything perfect. The gun misfired. He heard the click of the released firing pin, but there was no discharge. With a fast right hand motion upward and without dismounting the rifle, he extracted the unfired cartridge, rammed home a new round, drew his sight on the closing bear, and fired again. Again, the fatal click and no discharge. He bolted and chambered another round, rattled now, losing faith in the rifle, and still the bear came on.

Closer now, less than fifty yards, the bear was covering ground quickly. The animal paused, looked back over his shoulder for a hair’s breadth of a second, listening for the baying hounds, then turned and came on, straight for the boy.

The boy tried again, throwing up the rifle, this time moving the safety in a different direction, taking up the slack in the trigger, and fired. Nothing happened. Except this time the bear saw the boy and turned even more toward the hunter. The roles had changed. The boy’s rifle had failed, four shots, all four cartridges failing to fire. The bear crossed the road and neared the boy.

“That’s a big bear!" The boy spoke unexpectedly.

The bear faltered in its stride, as if startled by the lad’s exclamation: then continued on by the awed boy as if to say, “Kid, do you know what you’re doing?’ The boy reached out with his hand and touched the bear’s flank as it passed by, it was that close. Then he looked down at the rifle that he had worked on for so many hours, shouldered it, and walked over to the one-lane bridge that crossed the creek. He removed the carry sling from the rifle, looked at the firearm again and caressed the gleaming stock, and threw the firearm into the black water beneath the bridge.

“Dad was right, as usual. Should’a taken the shotgun."

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Myrtle Beach Indoor Shooting Range

Jack...

A Confirmation of Liberty

The Boy and the Bear

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