It was a slow day at Ace Hardware in Webster Springs, West Virginia, until a  certain photographer from Washington, DC approached the front door with her 85-pound Greek Shepherd. 

Two young men met us dressed in bright red Ace Hardware vests with camo shirts underneath. They looked to be around eighteen—average height, brown hair, similar features—so similar in fact they could be brothers. Both boys immediately turned their attention to the dog, scratching her belly, massaging her back. 

Ace Hardware in Webster Springs caters to a rural clientele. In DC, Ace supplies city folks with basic hardware from picture hangers to bird feed to window shades. Not Ace Webster Springs. Here you can purchase all things Carhartt—a sturdy clothing brand for outdoorsmen—as well as everything a hunter might need before setting out to take down raccoon, deer, bear, or opossum. The needs of fishermen were included too in a corner well supplied with tackle, rods, and reels.

Within minutes, Broc, the more talkative of the two, launched into a monologue on hunting—pleasures of, equipment required, frequency of his hunting trips (daily). Broc pulled up photos on his iPhone to illustrate: a black bear shot down from his tree-top refuge, the first deer he “took down” at  four years old—a grinning toddler sitting atop a sprawling deer carcass. 

Broc was determined to educate me about the intricacies of hunting. I didn’t actually ask but he was an exuberant salesman, showing me the ammunition corner where a locked cabinet housed rows and rows of bullet boxes. He pulled out boxes full of golden bullets that looked like miniature missiles in small, medium and large sizes informing me of which bullet suited which victim. Next we moved on to crossbows, menacing instruments all metal and wires, nothing like the graceful wooden wonder used by William Tell to shoot the apple from his son’s head. A dozen different styles of rifles stood at attention above the ammunition cabinet and Broc explained which rifle was appropriate for your intended “harvest.”

I asked, could I photograph them on their next hunting adventure? Probably not possible as most hunting days begin in the wee hours and continue all day and on into the night. Then my young friend got an idea. He called his Mom, mumbled a few garbled imperatives then hung up. 

“My Ma’s gonna come over with my deer heads,” he announced. “We can take pictures out front on my ATV.”

Within fifteen minutes a large black SUV appeared and a small plump woman dressed in medical scrubs jumped out of the car. Sara is an X-ray technician at the local hospital and seemed delighted to respond to her son’s  latest whim. Broc quickly set up a tableau of the deer heads and two sculls with antlers on the front of his ATV with him sitting serenely in the center. Cars passed by behind him on Main Street and Vanessa’s Cafe provided the far background.

We took a half dozen pictures then Broc pulled up a photo of his “stand” a basic but required piece of metal just big enough to hold the hunter’s bum for hours on end high up in a tree.

Then Mom grimaced and said, “Come on, Broc, enough. Load up your deer heads. I gotta get home and make some dinner.”