The air was still freeing itself from darkness when he appeared. The trees had emerged stoically from the night just a few minutes before, and the tapestry of bright maple leaves slowly covered more and more of the ground with each minute more of daylight. Birds coaxed the dark to evaporate with trills, and rustling rose from the forest floor. I sat as a witness to the great wakening twenty feet up in a maple tree of medium size, waiting with an arrow knocked. The platform of my tree stand pointed toward a slowly rising mound of rock and brambles. To my left the trees were spaced wide enough to grant me promise of clear shots. To my right the land slid away into a gully. Forty-five yards behind my back the earth dropped into a bowl. My fingers were stuffed into the fleece comfort of my camouflage when the leaves crunched to my left. The calm brown startled me, and its intention was toward me. Something thumped against my ribcage as I stood. Blood rushed from my core to my shaking extremities. Small spikes of muted ivory jutted from the young buck’s head. By now his muscles were sliding neatly into place, and the spikes split yearningly at their ends like carved wood. The deer stopped walking and its neck jerked a set of dark eyes up at me. I looked into a mirror. His body was strong and healthy and young like mine. His neck was swollen from testosterone, and his nose was speckled with dirt from following the scent of does. I was sure his white tail would slowly rise, and his front hoof would stomp the ground twice before loping back to where he came from. But I wasn’t sure where he was going, and it seemed like he didn’t either. His head drifted back to the ground; I was lucky. Two steps later my shoulder struggled against the bowstring until my hand felt the patchy stubble of my cheek. I looked through my peep sight and saw nothing. He had found a pocket of darkness in the early morning and safety from the assurance of an ethical shot. My gut might have felt the impact as much as his had I plunged an arrow into the obscurity. My arrow slid back to rest in a slightly awkward attempt to remain unseen. Dark orbs pierced my camouflage again. Again a white tail went up in my mind, and again I was wrong. Leaves crunched slowly to my left, exposing a vulnerable ribcage. My hand returned to my face again, this time more easily waiting for my shot to emerge from the other side of a sapling. The spikes stopped and peered at me again through chinks in the foliage. My arms burned and slowly gave way to shaking. The buck’s head went down, and my arm lurched forward with frustration. Crunch, stop, eyes meet. Head down, crunch. Each time, dark round eyes swung precisely round to mine. Each time something thumped against my ribs. Each time I felt something that thumped inside of him. I wondered if his heart would still be beating when our encounter had finished. Hooves moved rhythmically away from me, giving me less and less of an angle to shoot. Something was nagging me just behind my left shoulder blade. My swollen throat inaudibly exhaled, “Come back.”
He paused with his front right leg frozen in the air. It appeared to me that he was thinking. He oriented his body purposely to the right, broadside to me. I poised my arrow as his head disappeared behind a tree, waiting for his flank to appear on the other side. Only inquisitive orbs and ivory spikes emerged. He stared into my eyes again. My arms shook, not wanting to betray the invisibility that had abandoned me long before. His head went down, granting me freedom from his gaze. The limbs of my bow relaxed. The buck responded with inquisition. I looked deeply at him. His coat was smooth and his head still unburdened by the weight and power of heavy antlers. He stood there, healthy, beautiful, stubborn and maybe dumb for not fleeing at the first sign of danger, blinded by impulse and pheromones. This time he looked, as if acknowledging me. He turned around and retraced his steps. This time he showed me his left side. My hand returned to my face. I found his ribcage and I exhaled. Yellow fletchings floated though the air and disappeared into the beautiful brown, just behind the left shoulder. Hooves sprang and then stumbled away into the bowl behind me. My heart pounded. I heard a final crash, and I knew his didn’t.
…
Drops of bubbly red, crimson bright on fallen yellow maple leaves, spattered a trail over the brim of the bowl. He lay where his legs had left him. One knee after the other pressed the ground and my right hand rested on the sleek brown, just behind the shoulder.
Thank you.
My knife worked deliberately from the back legs to the sternum, careful not to puncture the intestines. A wave of heat greeted me as my hands spilled coils of soft bowels onto the ground. I leaned my weight back on my heels before puncturing the diaphragm. Red poured effortlessly from behind the thin layer of muscle. My hands plunged into warmth, into life, into what I had taken. My arms disappeared forward into his chest; I felt the ringed cartilage of the trachea separate, and my arms returned with the contents of the cavity. It hid in sheathing, clinging to soft sponges as light as air. The heart was heavy in my hand, cradled by bone and blood and tissue made to work by the same steaming pile on the ground. I looked at my arms. Camouflage sleeves sat at the crease in my elbow, marking the line where dappled red began. Blood surged in and out of the veins that ran from my forearm to the back of my hand, pulsing hard. My stomach quivered, and I breathed in and out softly. I raised the deer from its side, emptying the deep red of the cavity onto yellow leaves. I rested him on his side once again.
Dear Lord,
Thank you for this animal’s life.
May I turn it into fine food, fine thoughts, and fine feelings.
Amen
I stared into the orbs again, seeing life, seeing death, and seeing the world. My fingers wrapped around ivory spikes, and I trudged up the hill, dragging the carcass behind me.