Shots rang out very near our two horses on the trail. It sounded like heavy artillery. Hope and I were riding at James A Reed park today. Hope called the Park Ranger department to report that we were trapped in a real life shooting gallery. Park Ranger returned her call and was on the way to investigate.
We decided to take the park road back to the parking area. I thought the road would be safer than the trail. Plus we might be able to see the shooter if we were on the road.
About a city block later, we spotted a suspicious minivan parked on the side of the road. I yelled out, “No Shooting” a couple of times. Amazingly, we spotted an invisible man wearing cameo in the woods. He was coming back towards the suspicious mini van. He became more and more visible as he got closer to the car.
We waited. Jazz would not go forward as he wanted to see what the invisible man looked like. The cameo man walked slowly towards the car. He was carrying a rifle. We could see the rifle because it wasn’t wearing cameo.He might have been 50-100 yards from us on the trail when he was shooting.Hope was nice to him and asked him what he was shooting.
I heard him sayhe “does” as in female deer plural.
My blood pressure hit the top of my temper thermometer. “DOE’s! You are shooting doe’s in a park where there are people?!”” Crows”, he said. “I was shooting up in the air. I’ve been shooting crows out here for about 20 years.” I nicely replied at a moderate loud tone, “I’ve been riding in this park for 20 years and never heard anyone shooting so close to where I was riding or anyone shooting crow!”
If I were able to get back on my horse, I would have gotten off Lucky and went to yell at the man close up in his face. Of course, he did have that rifle. I could have goaded him into thinking I was a crow! I could have been crow bait today.
Instead, I read his license plate out loud twice and said, “I’m going to report you!” Sadly, there were numbers involved in the license plate and I’ve never been good at numbers or memorizing a letter-number combo, but he didn’t know that.
Jazz had decided the old man was boring by this time. Hope and Jazz were walking down the road. Lucky Star felt that his place was with Hope and Jazz, not with me yelling at an old man. Lucky told me to “leave it alone” and get with the riding program. Staying and yelling at the old man was difficult. Hope called our Lone Park Ranger and told him we had found “the shooter”. The park ranger didn’t seem so concerned when he was told the man was shooting at crows. After all, the shooting was directed up.
Lord help us….
All about my horses!