The Great Oracle Skillsaw Massacre
by Jim Taylor

When it came to venison, 1988 was a good year for the Taylor household. We were living in southeastern Arizona in the mining camp of Oracle that is located in fabulous hunting country. Two species of deer are plentiful there. At that time, you could get drawn for both Whitetail and Mule deer hunts. Between my wife, my daughter and I we got six deer that season. Since we ate a lot of venison, this abundance of deer meat made us very happy. However, as with all joy, there usually is something that takes a little of the fun out of it. In our case, it was the Great Oracle Skillsaw Massacre. It all started like this........

One evening I slipped on my backpack, grabbed a .45 Colt and headed out the back door. The sun was getting low on the hills when I came over a ridge about three miles from the house and saw two Whitetail bucks feeding in the canyon below me. I slipped down the hillside and across the bottom for about a quarter mile until I was within pistol range of them. One was a nice little spike. I took out my pistol, sat down, and shot him at about eighty yards. The bullet went in the front shoulder on the left side and out the right rear hindquarter and just dropped him right there. I skinned him out and packed him home in the dark. We had meat. Deer #1.

Come the first day of Mule Deer season I was with my daughter on the horses looking for Mulies. We rode the canyons all day and only saw a little spike buck Mule Deer. That night we dropped into bed plenty tired. Next morning we were up early and at it again. We saw the same spike Mulie and chased him around some but never got a shot. Coming home it was getting close to dark and we were beat. On the way down the side of a steep canyon, I saw a spike buck on the other side and thought, "There he is!" I jumped off the horse and grabbed my daughter's rifle while she held the horses. I eased down the hillside until I saw the deer in the brush ahead of me. I pulled up the rifle and fired and lost sight of the deer during recoil. I wasn’t sure if I’d hit him and I held my position and waited. In a few moments the buck trotted out of the trees going uphill. I pulled up again and shot and this time saw him go down hard.

My daughter brought the horses down and we climbed on and rode over to the other side of the canyon where I last saw the buck. We walked the horses up the hillside and separately started searching. Soon I came upon it and saw that it was a small two-point Whitetail! I yelled at my daughter who was about fifty yards up the hillside from me, "I shot a Whitetail by mistake!" She yelled back, "Yep, it is a small spike," and there she was, looking down at another small Whitetail spike buck at her feet, the one from my first shot. By the time we got them both cleaned it was way past dark. I tied them on the old, gentle mare and we doubled up on the Appaloosa to go home. Deer #2 and #3. 

The next morning I was out again, this time on foot, letting the horses rest up and taking it easy myself. About mid-morning I managed to shoot a running Mule Deer buck at about a hundred yards using a 300 gr. .45 slug in my old Ruger single action. He was a nice big deer and looked like he would make lots of meat. Deer #4. 

The day after that saw my wife and I up before dawn and heading out of the corral on the horses looking for a deer for my wife. By daylight we were deep in the canyons looking for Mule Deer. We spotted some at different times but they were spooky and we were unable to work our way close enough to make a stalk on them. 

By noon we were all tired (the horses and us) so we took a three-hour siesta under some trees near a large cattle tank. There was plenty of water and some grass for the horses and we were all happy. About 2:30 we woke up, screwed down the saddles and began hunting again. By late afternoon my wife was disgusted with seeing no deer. 

Along toward sunset we turned the horses toward home. She was fifty yards ahead of me and I saw her jump off her horse and unlimber her rifle. At the shot, her mare took off for the barn at high speed, so I threw the gelding into a gallop and went after the mare. I recall hearing one or two other shots. In a little while I caught up with the mare. She did not like being alone and was not hard to catch. As I rode back toward my wife I spotted a deer on the hillside a couple hundred yards away. When I got back to my wife she got on the horse and we rode over to the deer, a nice big Mule Deer. It was laying on a steep hillside so I tossed a rope on it and dragged it down into the canyon bottom and pulled it up on a tree limb so we could work on it. By the time we got it boned out and packed in the saddlebags it was well after dark. It was a moonless night and we had a long ride in total darkness...about ten miles up through the canyons to the home place. It was well after 9:00 p.m. when we rode in through the gate. Deer #5. 

I took a week off from hunting so I could get some chores done and some rest. Then one morning at daylight I saddled up and rode out. Early on I spotted some Whitetail on the mountain slopes but could not get near them. Then, riding down a ridge the old Appaloosa swung his head to the right and there were two bucks, maybe twenty feet away, just standing there. I shot one of them with my pistol and lo and behold - deer #6! 

Well by this time my freezer was getting kind of full. I had quartered all the venison, wrapped it and stuck it in the freezer. Now it was frozen hard. And it was time to make meat. Dale South came up to help me one day, for this was a two-man job. He brought along his meat saw, sort of like an oversized hacksaw, hand powered. 

After cutting up the first deer my lightening-quick brain figured out that this was going to take us forever, and that it was going to be HARD WORK! Hunting is supposed to be recreation, not work. And this was part of hunting. There had to be a better way. Dale said it was too bad we didn't have a power saw to cut the deer up. Immediately I flashed and said, "But we do!" and went and dug out my skillsaw. 

Now here's the picture. We were working in the kitchen. We had the tables covered with deer carcasses and we were cutting and wrapping the meat sort of in an assembly line. Cut up the quartered section, wrap and mark, and put it back into the freezer. The wrapped meat was labeled "Parts" "Chunks" or "Pieces". It was a simple, yet effective way to handle all that venison. My wife was gone and I figured we would surprise her and have it all done by the time she got home. And cutting them with the skillsaw really speeded up the operation, so much so that we were almost done with the last one when she pulled up in the driveway.

Looking around, I noticed for the first time that we had a pile of "deer sawdust" on the floor. Not only that, it was on the walls, the ceiling, the kitchen cabinets, about everywhere in the kitchen. Again, my lightening-quick brain saw the problem. We had left the ripping blade in the saw instead of using a fine-toothed one, like a plywood blade for instance.

It was too late, for she walked in the door right then. She looked around at the kitchen and the look on her face and in her eyes made our blood run cold. Dale said he had to get home right away and fled out the door, leaving me alone and vulnerable. I decline to say more about the events that followed except that three years later when we sold the place and moved to Missouri we were taking down some shelves. There, out of sight for all those years, lay some little flakes of "jerky," remnants of the Great Oracle Skillsaw Massacre.