There he was, an extremely bright and energetic ten year old boy standing before me with a big smile on his face. He introduced himself, Jordan Sanders, and then his parents Lisa and Billy. We chatted for a moment, and I asked him how he was doing. He said he was doing just fine, but he sure would like to go hunting sometime. It was late October, and he knew that deer season would be opening soon.

Jordan was not a complete stranger to me before that day. I knew through a mutual friend, Mark Shrewsbury, that he had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in his leg the year before. They had removed a tumor from his calf muscle and followed up with chemotherapy and radiation treatments. He was on a quarterly checkup schedule, and seemed to be doing fine. His doctors and family were hopeful that his problems were behind him.

But then came Jordan’s August checkup. The cancer had spread to his lungs, and any future treatment would be experimental. Even so, the decision was immediately made to declare war on these new tumors, and Jordan received a round of chemotherapy on October 10, 2003.

After Jordan and his parents left that day, I made a call to see if there would possibly be a time before his next treatment for a deer hunt. I had seen a nice eight point buck the previous week while hunting near Abilene, and wondered if it would work for Jordan to try his luck. His parents checked with his doctor at Children’s Hospital in Dallas, and he was given the “go ahead”. So I picked up a hunting jacket, gloves and a cap, borrowed a “youth sized 243”, and met Jordan and his dad in Tyler on Tuesday, November 4th. We loaded up and headed for west Texas. Little did I know what a wonderful hunt I was in for, or how easy it would be to fall in love with this little boy.

We arrived at the ranch right at 4:30 pm, just in time to grab the gun and race to the deer stand. Jordan wanted to drive our Kawasaki “mule”, but since we were in such a hurry I made a deal with him to let me drive on the way out, and he could drive back. We had not been in the stand fifteen minutes before deer began coming to the corn from the nearby feeder. Jordan was so excited, it was all he could do to be “sort of” quiet and still. First a few does, then a young four point buck, then a seven point, and then an eight point. Jordan really liked the eight point, but I assured him that we had a much larger one that might come out if we were patient. But after a few minutes he leaned over to me, and in his very best whisper he said, “I don’t care how big the other buck is, I want that one”. I’ll tell you, when he said that to me, I handed him the gun.

Have you ever noticed, kids can really shoot, but Jordan had never fired a large rifle before. So the first thing I had done when we got into the stand was to get Jordan positioned for a shot, make sure his chair was high enough, his sandbag just so, and get him used to the gun by “dry firing” it a couple of times. Jordan is a fast learner. After I handed him the gun he took careful aim, and stuck that 243 right in the middle of the buck’s shoulder. It was lights out for the buck, and a “high five” for Jordan.

But the excitement for the day was not over yet. Jordan reminded me about our deal for him to drive the “mule” back to the house. And he was doing just fine when we ran up on a five foot rattlesnake stretched across the road. Jordan, being the fast learner that he is, made the executive decision to “floor” the mule past the snake. What he didn’t anticipate was the snake making a “Michael Jordan” move to my side of the vehicle as he coiled up to strike at whatever this big thing coming fast at him was. Well, if you know anything about the design of a Kawasaki mule, you know that it is built very low to the ground and has no side door. So as the right front tire ran over this already upset snake, I quickly concluded that he was fast becoming downright mad, and as we passed on by, with his rattles going ninety to nothing, I assure you that my feet were well above my head. Jordan thought that rattlesnake was pretty cool.

The next day was to be a memorable one as well. Jordan wanted to get up at 3:00 am, but I convinced him to wait until 5:00. He didn’t want to miss a thing. When he got up, he said he wanted to hunt a hog. Well, it just so happened that we had seen a very large boar on camera, so we went to the area where we had seen him and waited. The weather was perfect and we were there at first light, but no luck. The boar never showed.

That afternoon, still looking for the boar, we picked another stand. A few deer showed up as the feeder went off, but then they suddenly looked up and ran off as if something had scared them. Jordan said, “Maybe it’s the boar”, and as I sat beside him in disbelief, the big boar we had been looking for walked in.

Unbelievable, twelve stands on the ranch and the boar picks ours. What luck. Jordan was so excited, it was great, and my excitement grew too as I saw this boar through Jordan’s 10 year old eyes. After an eternity waiting for a clear shot, Jordan had the opportunity. He squeezed the trigger and dropped the big boar in his tracks, all 275 pounds of him, with a perfect shot right through the shoulder.

We went back to the house that night on top of the world. Jordan was so proud of his two trophies. And we were all so proud of him. And as we sat around the campfire, telling stories about bucks and boars, I realized that I was really getting attached to this kid, and we still had one hunt to go. Jordan had said he wanted a buck, a boar and a turkey on this hunt. Two down, one to go.

The next morning the temperature had dropped. Jordan and I were in the stand well before daylight, with Jordan wearing his new hunting outfit and wrapped up in a blanket. As daylight approached, I began to make out the vague images of three deer. As the light got better I could see that they were actually bucks. And then I realized that the larger of the three was the nice eight point that I had wanted Jordan to shoot to begin with. So I asked Jordan if he would like to take him.

Well, if you’ve ever asked a ten year old, sitting in a deer stand, looking at a really nice eight point buck, if he wanted to shoot him, you’ll know that it doesn’t take the long for them to make up their mind. Jordan wanted that deer. But there was no shot. The deer would not give us a shot. We watched him for fifteen minutes, still no shot. And then he began to leave. He was just walking off, directly away from us, still no shot.

So I thought, this buck is not getting away quiet that easily. I had to stop him. This little boy was going to have that buck if at all possible.

So I began to whistle at the deer, but he just kept walking away. Then I clapped my hands several times. Still, no response. Finally, I leaned out of the stand and just called out to the buck. It was then, just for an instant, that the deer turned and stopped to see what all the noise was about. And that’s all the time Jordan needed.
As the gun fired the buck rolled over hard and disappeared into the brush. But then we saw him running to the right, or was that him, I wasn’t sure. Jordan asked, “Did I hit him”? But I assured him, the deer was hit solid, and I felt good about him being down. Even so, we gave him a few minutes before we left the stand.

When we approached the spot were the buck was standing, he wasn’t there. I thought, “Please don’t let this happen”, and began looking. I guessed that the deer running to the right must have been him, but I still felt good about him being hit solid, especially in view of the fact that I had a “crack shot” ten year old doing the shooting, so we began walking.

We covered several acres looking for that buck over the next hour with no luck. Then I decided to take Jordan back to the house and return with some help. But as I walked back to the spot where the buck had been shot, I thought to myself, “What if the deer running to the right was another deer after all, and Jordan’s deer ran straight away from us?” So I turned and started walking, about one hundred yards or so, and there he was, lying on his side with, guess what, a perfect shoulder shot.

I truly felt privileged to be the one to call out to Jordan, after what had turned out to be my all time perfect hunting trip, and tell him his buck was down. What an experience, and I cherished every minute of it. As he helped me drag the big buck the one hundred yards or so up to the road, all 185 pounds of him, leaning into every step of it like he was pulling a plow, I was so proud of him. I could not have been any more proud of my own son. What a big hearted little hunter, and what a memory.

As Jordan headed back to his home in Gilmer later that morning with his dad and Mark, we made another deal. I had promised him a turkey, and we would get him in the spring, a big gobbler. We hugged each other and he drove away, a huge smile on his face. I had fallen in love with this boy, and I realized that God had blessed me in a way different than ever before.