Patrick arrived with his parents a week before Christmas. Jesse was a basket case. Maybe it was because I’d never had kids myself, but I didn’t see why they were making such a big fuss about it.
So the kid was spending a week with his aunt and uncle. It wasn’t anything to cry over, but Jesse definitely did her share. Patrick was embarrassed.
“She does this whenever I do something for the first time. She cries every year when I start school. She cried the first time I got on the bus. Sheesh, Mom!”
“It’s okay, Pat, moms are allowed to do stuff like that. If you learn to put up with it now maybe it’ll be easier later on when your wife cries at the drop of a hat,” I informed him.
“Do wifes do that, too?” he asked with a look of disgust.
“It depends on the wife,” his father replied. “They generally outgrow it. Then they have kids and it starts all over again.”
“I’m not gettin’ married,” Patrick declared.
“Now, remember to wear your coat when you go outside. And you must obey Cassidy and Rusty. And don’t go stalking without Cassidy there. And no tracking outside of the yard. No driving of any kind! Don’t stay up too late. When Cassidy says it’s bedtime you go to bed without a fight. Be respectful…”
“Yes Ma’am,” Patrick interrupted.
“And don’t be a wise ass,” Jesse continued.
“And don’t cuss?” Patrick asked.
“Okay, I think we’re ready to go,” Jesse said in a huff.
“You don’t want lunch before starting back?” I asked.
“We need to get home. James has work to do and Mom wants help decorating the house. We’re going to wind white twinkle lights around the front fence of the ranch and I bought inflatable snowmen to put next to the gate.”
“I heard it could snow. Then your snowmen will match the rest of the ranch.”
“It won’t snow. It hardly ever snows, you know that.”
“I know. I just heard it somewhere.”
Jesse gave Patrick an embarrassing kiss and hug then got into the car, teary eyed again. She rolled down her window.
“And eat your vegetables. French fries don’t count. And brush your teeth every night.”
“Jesse, enough already,” said James to his wife.
“And if you want to call home you know the number, right?”
“Yeah, you made me say it over and over again all the way here.”
“Good boy.”
James started up the truck and Jesse waved all the way down the street until they turned out of sight. I imagine she then burst into tears, had a good cry and was fine until they arrived home.
Patrick turned to me and said, “Mom didn’t want lunch because we already ate.”
“Oh, really? Where did you eat?” I asked, making conversation.
“It was like when I buy my lunch at school.”
“You mean a cafeteria?”
“Yeah, only, I don’t get it. People eat there so they can pick just what they want, but Mom made me eat lima beans, broccoli, chicken and milk. So I guess it doesn’t work for kids.”
“You don’t like lima beans, broccoli and chicken?”
“I do, but I’d rather eat a corn dog with lots of ketchup and French fries. I guess I don’t mind milk. Most of the kids at school like Coke. They say I only like milk because I live on a farm. I keep telling them we don’t even have a cow but they are just being mean. They don’t know nuthin’.”
“You’re right, they are just trying to be mean. You only have to give them the amount of respect they deserve, so just ignore their rude comments. Come on, I’ll show you where your room is.”
“Wow, that’s a big bed!” he exclaimed.
“I bought it for Grandpa and Grandma to use when they visit. Your bathroom is right across the hall. It’s all yours unless we have company and I’m not expecting anybody. If you need anything at night, I’m right down the hall and through those doors. Leave your suitcase in your room, and I’ll show you something.” I led him through our bedroom to the big bay window overlooking the backyard. “This big window here is a good place to watch for the deer. When they come down out of the hills they come from that way,” I said, pointing. “There’s a window in the den that you can see them from, too. The deer don’t come every day and, when they do, they could come early in the morning or about four in the afternoon. Do you know how to tell time?”
“Sort of. I can read numbers and I know the bigger numbers are closer to the next hour. So three fifty is close to four but three fifteen isn’t yet.”
“Right. There’s a digital clock on the coffee maker, microwave and the alarm clocks. So, when do you need to watch for the deer?”
“Early in the morning and three fifty in the afternoon?”
“Yeah, I’ll be watching too. If you see deer out there just come get me quietly and I’ll show you what to do.”
“Can you show me what to do before I have to do it?”
“Well, it’s sort of the same as stalking rabbits only deer run away instead of freeze when they get scared. So you have to be very careful not to scare them. You have to move smoothly and silently and only move when the deer are distracted or eating. When they look up, freeze. When they look away, stalk slowly and smoothly closer. There’s a spot in the backyard we will start from. The deer are used to seeing people there so they won’t be as scared if that’s where you begin. Do you know what deer tracks look like?”
“I know they have pointy hooves.”
“There are deer tracks by the barn. I’ll show you. Let me grab my crutches.”
“Why do you have crutches?”
“I hurt my feet tracking behind a fire. That’s why we’re stalking deer here, close to home.”
“Can I see?”
“Yeah. It looks better now. The blisters are almost all gone but they are still real sensitive and the rocks outside are hard to walk on.”
“Ewe,” he said when I sat down and began pulling on slippers.
“I need to make a new pair of moccasins. Do you want to make a pair of moccasins while you’re here?”
“You can do that? I thought a big machine made them.”
“It does, but you can make your own. I won’t say it’s cheaper to make your own but you can choose leather that you like, and you can fit them to your feet. Let’s go look at the deer tracks. If you see them here, you will recognize them when you see them in the hills back home.”
I carried my crutches to the back door and then used them to make my way over to the corral. The deer always fed on the lawn and then moved off past the barn. I’d learned to keep the corral gate closed because deer would wander in there and then get trapped. If I ever wanted venison during hunting season, I had the perfect deer trap. But, no, I’d never shoot any of them, these were my deer and I wanted them to feel welcome at my house.
“Patrick, here you go. These are the front hooves and those are the back ones. See how close together they are? Now, follow this doe. See if you can track her.”
He squatted down and studied the tracks. I wasn’t going to hurry him. Everybody learns tracking in their own way. He had to categorize the tracks in his own mind and rushing him would only interrupt the process.
“These are the front?”
“The back hooves often overlap the front ones because of how deer walk.”
He rose and squinted down at the tracks then slowly moved forward. As I followed along I thought of the many times Victor and Landon had followed me in the same manner, with patience and never interrupting. Now I was wondering if they had been partnered with me because of their infinite patience. It took all my own patience to slowly follow along with Patrick.
“What’s this mark?” he suddenly asked.
“Good catch!” I praised. “That’s a dew claw. You know how dogs have a pad and a claw up on the side of their leg?”
“Umm, no,” he answered.
“Shadow, come!” I called. Once the black and white bundle of energy was sitting in front of me I asked for a paw. “Here, feel Shadow’s dew claw. It’s like a pad. Deer have them too, and they only show up on tracks as they move through soft sand or when they are leaping or running.” As I released Shadow’s paw he gave me a quizzical look. “Good boy,” I said, petting him.
“So this deer was walking along until something made it jump or run? What made it jump?”
Oh, man, this kid was going to keep me hopping.
“I don’t know, but maybe we can find out. Which way did the deer go when it jumped? Picture a horse startling. I’m sure you’ve seen that. Remember how they lean back right before they jump a little?”
It felt odd going into so much detail with a little kid and made me wonder how Chase would have handled Pat’s question. Somehow I thought that, if Chase had been here, it would have pleased him to find us out here puzzling over which way a deer jumped.
“I think it jumped that way,” he said pointing, “but I don’t know why.”
I bent over the track and used a piece of dry grass to point.
“See, the dew claw? It moved just a bit after it hit the ground. It hit right here, and then when the deer jumped the angle changed. Now look at the points of the hoof. There is a deep print. It shows you how the deer’s weight was distributed during the jump. All the weight is right here and it was pushing against that spot. So… where did the deer jump?”
“How come you talk to me like an adult?”
“Huh? I don’t. I talk to you like a tracker. Do you understand what I’m trying to explain?”
“Yeah, but Mom would never expect me to. She’d try and figure out some wimpy little kid talk and I’d have to try and figure out what she really meant.”
“Sorry, I’ve never had kids, and I haven’t learned wimpy little kid talk yet. So, where did the deer jump to?”
“She pushed this way. So she jumped that way. How do you know it’s a she?”
“Well, I don’t. I just see a lot more does than bucks so I assume it’s a she.”
He walked in the direction of the push and found where the doe had landed.
“She landed here and then her tracks go that way.”
“Now let’s go see what scared her. She wouldn’t jump towards a scary thing so she must have been jumping away from it.”
We followed the opposite direction looking for any clues as to what might have startled the doe. I found a footprint but didn’t mention it to Patrick.
“Look this way,” I advised him.
“Did you find it? What was it?”
“It was a man eating cow.”
“Na uhh, there’s no such thing as a man eating cow. You’re trying to trick me.”
“Then find what I found. We need to go home. If we are out in the hills when the deer come they might stay away.”
He began trotting over but I stopped him. “Nope, don’t do that. You might be destroying just the information you need to solve this mystery. Watch the ground as you walk slowly. I’m not standing near it. I want you to find it. It could be a wolf or a coyote or a person or a mountain lion or a man eating cow… widen your search just a bit. It doesn’t have to be close to scare a deer. Deer are very alert. Do you see any tracks, anything at all?”
I watched as he got closer and closer to the man’s tracks. When he saw them he was disappointed.
“Aw, it was just a person.”
“But what do we know about this person? And he really was a man eating cow. Look, he dropped a piece of beef jerky in his surprise.”
“How do you know it was a he?”
“With people it’s fairly easy to tell. Look at his track, and then look at my track. Now compare the two. What’s different?”
“The man’s track is lots bigger, but women can have big feet too.”
“That’s true, but men’s feet are usually wider, even if they aren’t longer. Once you’ve been tracking a while, you will notice men walk differently too. You have to do a lot of tracking to get all these quirky little facts into your head. Then, when you see tracks, you’ll know right away if it’s a man or a woman, even when the prints are big or small. There’s a list of things that you can run through in your head to narrow down the description. For instance, I can tell just from these tracks that this man was almost six feet tall. He wore brand new hiking boots. He had almost black, curly hair and brown eyes. He likes beef jerky. He carries a camera.”
“You can’t know all that from these footprints,” he admonished me.
“I can’t? Look. Back up on his trail just a bit and then track him. See? Footprint, footprint, footprint, he’s walking along…oops! A deer! Now look at his tracks. One foot here, the other there. A very stable standing position. I’m betting he stopped and tried to take a picture of that doe. Yesterday, afternoon.”
He still looked at me doubtfully.
“We need to go home. Do you need a snack before the deer come?”
“I can snack?” he asked, like it was a foreign word.
“Yeah, you can snack. You can even help me make Christmas goodies. I need to send some to work with Rusty and I was going to bring some on my trip to San Diego.”
“Why are you going to San Diego right at Christmas time?”
“Rusty’s mom, dad, sister and brother live there.”
“I wish you could come to the ranch for Christmas.”
“I will next year.”
We entered the warm house not realizing how cold we’d been outside. Days were a lot chillier in the foothills than they were in town. I showed Patrick how to measure and add the ingredients one at a time to make cookie dough. Our cookies were made with a little extra vanilla for flavor because Patrick had tipped the bottle a bit too fast. We mixed up the dough and then tasted it.
“What do you think?” I asked. “Too much vanilla?”
“I like it.”
“Okay, now for chocolate chips. What kind do we want? Peanut butter? Dark chocolate, milk chocolate? Swirls?”
“Let’s use peanut butter and milk chocolate, then it’ll be like Reese’s peanut butter cookies.”
“Okay, then our fudge will be made with the dark chocolate.”
We added the chips and mixed it all together.
“It’s three thirty, time to start watching for deer. Let me give you a few tips.” I went to the den window. “See those trees right over there? Watch that area. Don’t just look for a deer. Watch behind the trees for any movement, any deer colored movement. If you look for hints of deer then you’ll see them sooner. And don’t rush out there. We should only sneak out there after they come all the way in.”
Patrick sat by the window waiting for the deer.
“Don’t stay in the window, you’ll get tired of waiting real fast and the deer might see you. Just check the window every ten minutes or so.”
I put a test cookie in the oven. When I saw that it was baking well, I had Patrick fill a cookie sheet with dough balls. He checked the window and then we filled another cookie sheet. I could tell I was going to do most of the baking myself. Pat ran down the hall and into our bedroom to check from the big window. I switched the cookie sheets when the timer went off and put the cookies on the cooling rack then checked the window in the den. No deer. Rats. Each time I switched the cookies sheets I checked the den window, too. Three cookie sheets later it suddenly occurred to me that the house had become way too quiet. I went to the bedroom expecting to see a discouraged six-year-old sitting in the bay window. Instead I saw…nothing. The room was empty.