Fencerows: “To Kill a Deer”
By John Luthens
On the day of my eighth-grade Confirmation I received a Bible and a .30-30 rifle. It was a rite of passage which bestowed a burden of ethical responsibility upon my shoulders. I was deemed old enough to figure right from wrong, and I was deemed old enough to take to the deer woods the following November.
I’d shadowed my father on many previous hunts, taken a hunter’s safety course, and I held a proper and valid deer license. I was in the bulletproof shelter of youth and I thought I’d earned access to the way of the hunt. I was ready to kill a deer, but I didn’t yet know that it would come at a cost.
It snowed on my first opener and it came in waves the following days. I was old enough and wise enough to know that a blanket of white made for good tracking. When the second weekend rolled around, I had yet to kill a deer and two- feet worth of tracking snow leveled across the November woods. I was still young and unwise enough to slog into the white wilds instead of resting my boots by the fire.
I took my first shot along a drifted fence line. A small doe crashed from her bed in the tangled thickets and kicked into the field. My first shot sailed high. I cracked the lever action and pumped another shell into the chamber. The doe shied away from snow drifts that would have buried a small car and circled back into the forest. My second shot echoed into the trees and split a small maple.
Many years have passed. The deer was fresh from the ranks of the herd, just as I was a young hunter. I have tried to write it off as over-eagerness and spin it into a learning experience. I have tried to forget it entirely. I had the proper permit, but it was a deer that I had no business firing upon in the first place. I should have moved on. That would have been an excusable rookie mistake.
I could see by its deep-sunk tracks that the young deer was struggling in the heavy snow. I knew it couldn’t get far. I shouldered my rifle and followed. That was not a rookie mistake. That became something entirely different.
There were brown flashes through the trees as the deer stopped to rest. It was smart enough to keep just ahead of my rifle sights. We crossed a highway with no traffic in sight. I unloaded to cross and reloaded on the other side. I lost one of my ejected shells in the snow. The deer gained ground.
We chased through the forest and along the field edges. We crossed and re-crossed the highway. I was tiring and the deer was tiring. The snow clouds moved on and the setting sun broke across the horizon. It was purple and white in the deer-track shadows as we pushed towards the highway for a final time.
I have taken much from the outdoor world. I have given much back. I am no better or worse than a wolf or a bear or a deer. I can’t make up for it. I can only remember and share. There was no final shot, just as there was no broken glass or pieces of bumper. A semi-trailer crested a distant hill and then everything was silent. There were only the remains of a deer and a young boy left along the roadside.
John Luthens is a freelance writer from Grafton, Wisconsin. His first novel, Taconite Creek, is available on Amazon or at www.cablepublishing.com or by contacting the author at Luthens@hotmail.com