A simple photo shouldn’t do this to me. Every time this picture has popped up on my screen, my heart is stirred with emotions. Those emotions cut a wide swath from deep gratitude to some sense of loss. It’s hard to convey how deep and important this accidental photo is to me on paper, but I want to take a chance in the following paragraphs.

The Accidental Photo

On the surface, it’s just not a great photo. Two guys walking in a non-descript landscape. The “photographer” cut off the top of both guys heads. You can’t even see one face. It wasn’t staged or planned in any way. In fact, the “photographer” was a motion sensor in a trail camera posted near a corn feeder. The value isn’t found in the composition of the image.

The value is found in the relationship of those two men and the moment of time accidentally captured by the motion sensor. It is a chance photo of two men who have walked varied paths in life but have chosen to walk together more frequently in recent years. The picture is a snapshot of a larger story. It’s a story of two hunters, two brother, two friends.

The nearest man is me. I’m the one facing away from the camera. The other guy is my “little brother” Robert (or Bobby as I’ve always known him). We grew up together in a blue collar family. Dad taught us to work hard with our hands. He also instilled in us a love for the outdoors. We both grew up around guns and fishing poles. We hunted squirrels, rabbits, dove, quail, and deer with dad and grandad. We learned to run trotlines in the summer and fish for white bass in the spring. We camped in the mountains of Colorado and on the banks of the Colorado river in Texas. We love the outdoors.

Careers and Family

As many do, we drifted apart as we married, began our careers, and raised our children. He became a fantastic police officer and I followed God’s call to the pastorate. He had two boys and I had 4 girls. Our oldest kept us busy with a lot of hospitalizations and surgeries much of her life until she passed away just short of the age of 15. His boys kept him busy in sports playing baseball and football for many of those same years. My family spent what vacation time we had camping as we traveled during the summers. He hunted every fall with dad and a few other friends and travelled with his boys for baseball.

We never completely lost touch. We managed a few vacations together camping in Florida. Our families travelled together on a special trip to NY and DC for Katie over Christmas break the year before she died. I joined him on some exciting “ride-alongs” in his patrol car early in his career. He was able to visit me in May for a few quail hunts. He was there for us the night Katie died. Our girls had travelled to Austin with our mom. He packed them up and drove them to May, TX to be with us late that night.

Mid-Life Changes

As we grew older and our kids began to move off, life began to take a dramatic turn as it does for many. In 2012, one of our older brothers Rodney died unexpectedly from a sudden heart attack. Three years later our dad passed away the week after Mother’s Day. It was that Fall that we began to spend more time together. 

He had joined a deer lease a couple hours from my house along with our other older brother Rick. He invited me to join him as a guest. We worked together filling corn feeders a few times. We spent hours in the deer blind talking about our life, health, and our families. He taught me more than I thought I could learn about aging deer. The next couple years, I joined him every chance I could when he was working on the lease. I was also able to hunt as a guest with him a couple times each year harvesting does and hogs for meat.

Really Reconnecting

In 2018, I was able to officially join the lease as a member. We no longer would be sitting in the same blind during our hunts, but I’d have a lot more freedom to work with him as a partner on the lease. He continued to teach me all he could squeeze in my brain about hunting white-tailed deer and feral hogs. I soaked up all I could. He loaned me a bow and taught me to bow hunt. The first weekend on the lease that year he helped me with my first kill on my first hunt just a couple weeks after I had my appendix removed!

In my second season on the ranch, I decided I’d try to take my trophy deer with my new archery skills. One incredible chilly October morning, I harvested a wide 10 while he was in another blind harvesting the ranch record! To be honest, I’m not sure the excitement of that day will ever be surpassed. 

We’ve spent hours on the ranch building and repairing blinds and filling and repairing feeders. Time is never wasted while sweating in the summer sun or sitting around the campfire. His boys and two of my daughters have joined us. I know I can depend on him and I hope he knows he can depend on me.  

The Spring of 2020 we spent a few days rebuilding two bow blinds and adding a blind where we had not been able to successfully bow hunt. The third blind is the location of the above photo. I remember working for hours building the blind after we discussed and calculated the location. We moved the feeder so that we could set the blind in a clump of mesquites the correct distance away. It was just the two of us on the lease that weekend and one of those times we worked hard, got a lot done, and enjoyed the company.

The Big Buck

Early that Fall of 2020, I watched a great buck in velvet that we nicknamed “Bump.” He had a cool rack with really long tines. He had a distinct “bump” between his right G2 and G3. We determined that he was too young to harvest and needed another year. He made it through the season, and the next summer, to show back up even bigger in 2021.

My first deer hunt in October of 2021, I watched Bump from this blind for over an hour. I was determined to not shoot on my first hunt, so I spent the time photographing the deer. Though he was spectacular, it was very early in the season. I wanted the opportunity to sleep on it, pray about it, and make sure he was the buck I wanted to harvest this season. The “bump” had grown several inches. He had developed some unique character from apparent damage to his antlers during their growth period.

The next day, I made the decision to hunt him, hoping he would return to that blind. He did. I made a great shot and he went down in sight. “Bump” is a “buck of a lifetime” for me.

I was elated and immediately called my brother. I told him we wouldn’t need the dogs to track this one, but I’d need his help getting it back to camp. I sat in the blind until I heard his old Nissan ranch truck coming up the dirt road. It seemed like a long wait but the timestamps on the camera tell the story. I shot at 5:42pm and my brother arrived at 6:04. I greeted him at his truck, and we began to walk to the deer. Though I knew where the deer was, out of habit, we looked ahead for the bloody arrow and searched the ground for the blood trail. 

Following the Blood

That’s where this picture was snapped. As we began to walk the trail of blood, we passed in front of the game camera. In the photo, I’m excitedly explaining the hunt, and he is smiling as he soaks it in. In the photo, we are in step together, enjoying the moment.

Yep. Every time I see this photo, I get emotional. At 55 and 53 years of age, the Lord has brought our paths closer together. We are not always in “lock step,” but we enjoy a great relationship that is rooted in our own blood relationship. However, it doesn’t escape me that it is in the harvesting of God’s bountiful gifts that we find ourselves walking other blood trails together. 

The shared blood of family often binds people together, but there is so much more to life. Years ago, we both put our trust in the blood of Christ shed for us on the cross. I was called to preach about that blood. He was led to serve his community willing to shed his own (and sometimes did) as an officer. It is said that there is life in the blood. I believe he saved several lives. I hope my declaration of God’s Word has saved many lives as well. Certainly, the blood of Christ gives us hope of eternal life. We hold to this truth as we look forward to seeing Rodney, mom, and dad again.

As we followed the trail of blood left from this hunt, I see a picture of two brothers who are becoming even better friends as they follow the blood. 

[Side note: As I thought through this blog, I can’t get a certain video out of my mind. You’re My Brother, You’re My Friend I blame Zack Hudson and Kevin Skinner for this.]