The Case of the Hunted Hunter

I often go hiking in a forgotten forest outside of town to escape my TiVo that insists on showing nothing but reality show marathons—no matter how many times I program it to record PBS.

On one particular Sunday I tramped beneath the canopy, losing myself in the blissful meditation of my footsteps on the fallen leaves, when my serenity was shattered by the sound of a bullet shrieking across the air and in my general direction.

I dove behind a maple and into a pile of bear patties. Who could be shooting at me? I thought. A parade of perps crossed my mind—maybe it was the workers’ comp fraud I defrauded or the frock salesgirl I defrocked.

“Hold your fire,” I yelled. Getting no response, I walked toward the sound of the shot waving my hands in a very un-deer-like way until I found myself in a quiet clearing.

“What are you doing?” shouted a voice from above.

“God? Is that you,” I replied, falling to my knees. “I’m sorry about telling that joke about the nun and the goose with the stuttering problem!”

“Up here, you moron,” came the voice again, not from beyond the clouds, but from a man sitting in some sort of second-rate tree house. I wouldn’t have spotted him at all except for the camouflage pants he was wearing.

“Why did you shoot at me?” I asked.

“Because I’m participating in the sport of hunting,” he retorted.

“Sport? Can it be called a ‘sport’ when the other team doesn’t know it’s playing?” I prodded.

He snorted a buckshot laugh, finishing with a “Yep.”Obviously I was dealing with a master debater, one who was trying to turn my peaceful hiking country into a war zone. I had to shoot back with the only weapon I had—insurance knowledge.

“You know,” I said, “You’re opening yourself up to potential liability by hunting on this land.”

“I have a right to be here,” he said, growing irate, the barbeque sauce stain on his white t-shirt heaving higher and higher with each breath. “I have coverage under my homeowners policy for property that I lease from someone else for hunting purposes. I pay a fee each season for the right to hunt on this property and I’ll be a cotton-pickin’ biscuit eater if I let some know-nothing city boy tell me otherwise.”

“You might want to ask your deer stand for another opinion,” I said sarcastically. Why was Ace trying to shoot down the hunter’s game?

For help solving this mystery and to check your solution against Ace’s, click here.

Jonathan Hermann (hermannism@gmail.com) is an IA contribution editor.