Three years ago, my son, my brother, and I hunted a parcel of private land opening weekend of deer rifle season.

We were in the woods before daylight.

My brother didn't feel up to the physical stress of the hills.

We were about to assault,

so he stayed close to the truck on flat ground.

My son and I were going to walk the area to drive deer to each other.

We called it deer kicking.

Three hours later and not seeing a deer, my son suggested that we get to a higher elevation.

His idea was that the deer were up there and we just needed to get to them.

We started the track up the hill and fought briars and brambles the whole way.

We were exhausted when we got to the top. When we reached the top,

we walked around the ridge trying to get a better look at the terrain below, when we walked up

on a large structure. Tree limbs were formed into an almost perfect shelter. I assume someone had built this, but looking closer, it became clear this was not built

by human hands.

It was well built, too, because my son crawled on top of it and walked around.

It never gave an inch.

Built on the edge of a steep drop-off made me a bit nervous, so I got him to jump down

and we backed away.

We sat down and we had a smoke.

Then he asked if I could detect a strong odor.

I couldn't smell anything due to an accident years ago that took away my sense of smell,

but he said it was strong.

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