Buck Baker
Twelve and thirteen-year-old boys are the goofiest creatures
on planet earth. I should know. I was
one. From birth to age five, boys are cute and
wonderful. By age twelve, they have devolved into adolescent freaks
of nature. Me? I was buck-toothed and wore thick-rimmed
glasses on my hulking seventy-pound frame. My metal-braced teeth
entered rooms inches before the rest of my face. Awkward doesn’t
begin to describe me at that age. The only hope for a twelve-year-old
is that time will propel him on to manhood.
At age twelve I belonged to a scout troop in Utah that was
connected to our ecclesiastical unit, or ward. A man on
military assignment moved into our ward. I’ll call him Buck
Baker. I’ve changed his name to protect the guilty. He
was appointed to a leadership position in our clergy. In his
civilian occupation he was a full-bird colonel in the Army and commanded
considerable respect among his colleagues. As scouts we didn’t much
consider his rank or profession. He was quite funny, and he made an
instant impression on us. For reasons I do not recall, and to my
embarrassment now, we nicknamed him “Twinkie.” He was in good shape,
all man, and had a commanding presence. Nothing about the word Twinkie seemed
to fit, but that’s what we called him in our immaturity. Did I
mention that we were twelve and thirteen years old?
After being in our ward for just a few months, Buck asked us
if we liked to hike and camp. We lived for it! Olie
Sharpe and Jim Fingerloss (their real names) were our scout leaders, and they
spent a lot of time with us in the mountains. Having cleared his
plans with our scout leaders, Buck offered us a deal that we couldn’t
refuse. He would take us into the mountains for 4
days. He would cook for us and feed us like kings if we would haul
his gear to the campsite. This was before the days of two-deep
leadership in scouting, and Buck would be the only adult.
Not wise enough to ask meaningful questions – we were
slightly less intelligent than tree stumps – the offer was eagerly
accepted. The worst part about hiking and camping at twelve years of
age is eating your own food. In fact, every pancake I ever cooked as
a scout was black on the outside and raw in the middle. We would
usually just end up drinking syrup. But this time Buck would cook
for us! Our regular scout masters had never cooked for us, and back
when I was twelve years old, there were very few dehydrated or freeze-dried
options. As scouts, we could cook and
destroy any form of food, and usually did! As much as we loved
camping and hiking, the real draw was that Buck was going to cook for us! Of course, what Buck was really doing was
preparing a tutorial that none of us scouts would forget.
There is nothing quite as exhilarating as hiking in the pine
and aspen studded Wasatch or Uinta Mountains in Utah… unless you made a deal to
haul Buck’s gear. His “gear” consisted of a pickup truck bed filled
with items! He had a stove, a tent, a table, a camp cot and
mattress, pots and pans, a chair, coolers, water and of course, our
food. Although the campsite was only a couple of miles from where we
parked, it was a steep hike up, and the six of us scouts made the round trip
three times. Most of that first day was spent hauling Buck’s stuff
to camp, and Buck camped in style. Buck himself only hiked the first
leg to the campsite; no roundtrips for him! Besides a backpack, the
only thing he carried on his assent was a .40 caliber pistol strapped to his
hip and a shotgun over his shoulder. As we were about to begin our
last round trip to the truck and back, Buck told us he would have a full meal
ready for us upon our return. We knew we would be more than ready
for some good chow.
Within minutes of arriving back at camp in complete
exhaustion with our final load, Buck announced that his favorite cooking knife
was missing. What’s more, he had already seen it and knew that it
had made it to camp. “Who stole my knife?” he calmly but firmly
asked. None of us answered from our resting positions on the
ground. “Get up,” he said, “and look for my
knife. Someone is a thief.” All of us slowly
arose. All of us that is, except Doug.
As boys, we were a tight-knit group and we all knew that no
boy in our group had stolen the knife, but we would go through the motions of
searching for his knife. Doug just sat there
exhausted. At this point Buck drew his .40 caliber pistol from its
holster, looked at Doug who was still sitting on the ground with his metal mess
kit positioned between his legs ready for food. Buck once again told
him to get up and look for his knife. All of us stared in wide-eyed
disbelief at the scene unfolding before us. Doug called his bluff
and didn’t budge. He told Buck that he hadn’t seen his
knife. Furthermore, he reminded Buck that he had made three
roundtrips to haul Buck’s gear to camp and that he wasn’t budging until Buck
came up with the promised food. BOOM! Buck drew his .40
caliber handgun from its holster and put a bullet dead-center through Doug’s
mess kit… right between his legs!
Doug had new life! We all had new
life! Doug levitated up from his sitting position in a flash! Holstering his weapon, Buck sauntered back to
the confines of his tent as we were running around pretending to look for a
knife we knew we wouldn’t find. We got off a few whispered words to
each other; words like “Help!” or “We’re gonna die!” or “Gotta get off the
mountain!” Seconds later Buck calmly emerged from his tent with his
knife. “Sorry boys,” he said matter-of-factly, “The knife was in my
tent. Food will be ready in ten minutes.” The stew was
delicious and most of us ate out of our mess kits.
Buck established some camp rules that evening. No
one argued... or called him Twinkie. There was a designated trash
bag. No trash was to be seen anywhere in camp except for in the
trash bag. At one point during the week I threw a pop can towards
the general vicinity of the trash bag just to get a laugh from the other boys. Buck’s
hand went quickly and deliberately towards his holster. I jumped up
and ran to retrieve the errant pop can. Just before reaching the pop
can, the .40 caliber cannon thundered again from behind me and the pop can
sprang into the air. I dove to the side and looked back in fear at
Buck who was casually holstering the weapon of terror.
The camp was positioned by a pristine lake with steep
slopes. Snowpack still clung to the northern slope and swept down to
the water’s edge. At one point during the campout, we dared each
other to slide down the 100-yard snow run into the frigid lake. With
tennis shoes and swimsuits each scout took a turn sliding at breakneck speed
into the lake. The sudden impact into the icy water would have
killed anyone with a weak heart. We would laugh our heads off as
each scout came to the surface of the water gasping, and in shock due to rapid
onset hypothermia. One try was all that our scrawny bodies could
endure. Once out of the ice water we ran back to our pup tents. Modesty
was not a priority, and the tents did not offer much space to change
clothes. Shivering, and in all of our masculine glory, we began to
change out of our swimsuits in the open.
I was already putting on dry clothes when I saw Buck smile, unholster
his revolver, and look at Leland who was standing stark naked outside of his
tent in the process of changing clothes. Leland’s eyes met Buck’s,
and he froze in terror. Pointing the gun
towards Leland, Buck only said one word with calmness and a wry grin,
“Run.” “What?” said Leland.
Buck repeated his command, “Run!” Leland dropped his clothes and began running
into the woods as Buck fired several shots intentionally off to each side of
Leland. We lost sight of him through the trees. The rest
of us scouts laughed until tears were running down our
cheeks. Leland came back about fifteen minutes later snaking his way
through the forest and finished changing.
It all makes sense to me now. There's a very good reason you're as warped as you are. It's not your fault. So you just ignore the awkward stares and derisive comments at the next family reunion....
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