“LIKE I SAID, YOU DON’T have to shoot a deer,” Miles whispers to her the first morning of hunting season. They are dressed in blaze orange and stand outside the cabin on new snow. “I just need you in the woods with your gun. If other hunters come around, they’ll see that this area is taken.”
“That we’re armed, you mean.” Her breath steams in the chilly air.
Miles smiles.
“So I just sit?” Sarah asks.
“Yes,” Miles says impatiently. “I have a spot for you. Sitting is mostly what hunting is about. Staying still and keeping your eyes open. Shooting is the least of it.”
She slumps her shoulders.
“Look at things around you,” Miles says with annoyance. “Nature is great.”
After he gets Sarah situated in her little brush blind—with a pillow for her stump, a blanket for her legs, and a thermos of tea—he moves on down the trail. Before going out of sight, he turns to look back. She’s motionless behind a half circle of branches. Her blaze-orange camo glows, but deer are color-blind. He waves once. She doesn’t move.
Soon the woods belong to him. Walking as quietly as he can, he moves along the trail beneath some pine trees. When you’re deer hunting, stay out of trees. Only monkeys and squirrels climb trees. Every year, deer hunters fall out of tree stands and kill themselves. Used to be that a tree stand could be no more than six feet off the ground. That was the law. Six feet was plenty. If a hunter fell asleep and crashed down, at least he wouldn’t break his neck. Then the game wardens said you could be twelve feet off the ground, then sixteen. Now, who knows how high? And why? You’re only looking for trouble when you climb a tree or a ladder with a gun in your hands. Plus it’s windier and colder the higher you go. What you want to do is use the land for your shooting angles. Get yourself on a side hill where you can see a trail below. Find a stump or a log to sit on, then build yourself a brush blind around it. Sit there. All day. If you can stick it out for a whole day, you’ll get your chance at a deer. Most people can’t sit that long. They get antsy. Got to get up and move....
Miles eases into his brush blind just before sunup. Like Sarah’s, his is a black semicircle of dead branches about three feet high arranged around a stump, with an oak tree to lean his back against. He built it days ago but wanted to let it rest. Let it settle into the landscape. He sits on a gunnysack half full of sawdust, which drapes over the stump. The bag conforms to his butt and will give warmth to his legs. As he situates himself, a twig cracks beneath his boots; then a deer, unseen, crashes away through the gray-black woods. He swears silently; the deer must have been bedded down not far away. Quickly he gets settled. Stocking cap pulled low over his forehead, blanket over his legs, gun across his lap, and a lunch bag within reach—he’s ready.
Gradually, the woods—the black trees, gray brush, and pale snow—forgets him and returns to its own business. A squirrel chatters, then rummages among fallen oak leaves. A partridge flaps from its night perch, goes silent on its glide downward, then flutters its wings through thick brush, a tattered baseball card on bicycle wheel spokes. A dark, wide-winged shadow glides by in absolute silence: an owl. A raven croaks and is answered by the chuckle of another. High overhead, duck wings whistle like a sewing machine on fast stitch. Gradually Miles’s heartbeat slows. The oak tree becomes part of his back, his spine. His eyes are knotholes. There are occasional booming reports from the other hunters, but none close.
Deer season is when they come. State land brings in the hunters who don’t own land themselves. That’s as it should be. You ever see those signs: State Land—Keep Off? Well think about that. People are the state; but still, if you hunt on state land—or live there like I do—you got to stake out your territory. Guard it. No different from the old settler days. You got to get there first, make your claim, and let the other hunters know you’re there. I used to make up a couple of dummies and put an orange vest and cap on each of them. That’s all the other hunters need to see, that blaze orange behind some brush, and they keep moving.
He and Sarah. He hopes that the two of them are enough. His parents wanted no part of sitting around the woods in the cold and snow.
As he waits, first light climbs down the trees branch by branch. Oak leaves and then pine needles come into focus. The wall of the forest gradually opens like curtains on a stage. As the light grows, the deer trail lengthens, unwinding among the trees; its narrow path of scuffed snow, dirt, and oak leaves are like the trail of a snake slowly sliding forward.
At that moment the buck arrives. He has come silently along the trail toward Miles—then materialized all at once as if assembled from the brown brush and black tree limbs. Smooth oak branches for legs. Barrel of a fallen log for its heavy neck and chest. Antlers curving up like old wild grapevines.
Miles clenches his gun under the lap blanket.
The buck pauses to listen, then keeps coming.
Miles eases off the safety, making sure it does not click, then slides his lap blanket to the side.
If a deer sees you first, it’s already too late. Best just to stay still and wait for the next one. But if you see him first, he’s yours....
Suddenly the buck halts and bobs his head. He whistles—a sharp sucking in of air—to fix the strange scent. His tail erects and flickers white. He looks not at the brush blind but at the woods beside and beyond: Something is not right.
Miles throws his gun to his shoulder, and in the same motion the giant buck throws himself backward in a tangle of white flag, pale belly, black antlers, and oak-leaf-brown flanks. Crash! crash! crash! He’s gone without a shot.
Damn! Miles lets out a breath. His heartbeat roars in his ears. He lowers the gun. Presses the safety.
He is shaky—glad to be sitting down and not in a tree—but he feels like a fool. What did he do wrong? The breeze was in his favor. He didn’t move. He was in the right spot at the right time. The woods around him are silent. But they are aware of him now. Listening. Watching Miles, the stupid human who pretends he is a tree stump.
And he really has to pee.
Leaving his gun behind, he takes a short walk behind the blind. His bladder is full enough to write his name in snow—first and last, in cursive—but he concentrates on making the smallest steaming hole possible. He still feels shaky. In the middle of things, he looks up suddenly. The old dog is watching, lying thirty yards deep in the woods. The dog spooked the buck!
He lowers his eyes as if he has not seen the dog and finishes peeing. He zips up and kicks snow over his mark. Casually, as if in no hurry, he walks back to his brush blind. Out of sight behind the tree, he eases up his gun, clicks off the safety, then wheels around.
But the dog is not where he was.
He is not anywhere.
To make sure he was not seeing things, he walks deeper into the woods, tracking left and right until he spots a matted, melted spot in the snow. A dog bed of oak leaves. He swears, kicks at the wet oak leaves, then returns to his brush blind. Still steamed, he plops down and leans the gun against the tree. As if any deer will come now. He fights off the urge to go home....
Not many people can last a whole day on a deer stand. If you can do it, you’ll get your chance.
“I had my chance,” he mutters. He pours a cup of lukewarm coffee and eats half of a cold fried-egg sandwich. After his snack, he settles back against the tree. Soon the forest slowly tips, rights itself, then tilts sideways again. His eyelids weigh a pound each. They droop and sag. He gives in to a nap—just a short one....
He jerks awake with drool on his chin. The light is higher. Two chickadees flutter and peck close by. One suddenly lands on top of his stocking cap, walks across it, and gives him an upside-down look. He blinks, and the little bird darts away to the next tree, where it continues to feed. He wipes his chin and gathers his gun closer. Bucks move in the middle of day, especially if they’ve been up all night horning around after does. They bed down at sunup, sleep a few hours, then start sniffing around again. When they’re in full rut, they can’t stop moving....
But through midday nothing stirs except gray squirrels and a small flock of Canada geese that comes over on its way to the river and the rice bed. He should be hunting them instead of deer.
Along about three P.M., the pale sunlight takes a slow step backward. The trees straighten. Listen. Among them and the leaves and the trail there is an expectancy. A feeling that something is going to happen. Miles’s heartbeat kicks up a notch. He squeezes his gunstock, touches the safety, rests his finger near the trigger. Turning his head ever so slowly, he makes sure the dog is nowhere around, then focuses again on the trail.
By four P.M. the light turns gray and grayer. As the depth of field shortens, pine needles and the fine spear ends of brush fur, fuzz, turn indistinct. His heartbeat is running fast and steadily now, like river water channeled around a narrow bend. Something is going to happen.
Then, as if he has called him up from the forest, a little buck appears. Barely half the size of the big one, this deer is a “spike”: two small, irregular antlers poke up in front of his big ears. The deer stops to paw for acorns, finds none, then continues closer, oblivious to the brush blind. To Miles’s unsteady gun barrel, swaying as if he’s suddenly on board a ship.
“Buck fever”—every hunter has it at some point. Men do crazy things—jack the shell out of the chamber, shoot into the ground—and swear they were aiming dead on. They can’t figure out how they missed, but the real reason is buck fever.
Miles sucks in a deep breath, tries to hold steady, and fires. The shotgun rocks him, but he hears no report, no sound. The little buck wheels sideways and runs.
There is a blood trail on the snow, scarlet drips that turn to blotches, then to sprays of crimson. Blood on small aspen trees where the deer has ping-ponged against them—and then ahead, lying on the snow, the brown length of the deer himself. A wide-open eye with long and delicate lashes stares blankly at the sky.
To dress a deer, you start at his hind end. First roll him onto his back—and make sure his butt is pointing downhill. He’ll drain out better that way. Work your knife around his bunghole, and be sure not to cut into his bladder. The goal is to keep the meat as clean as possible. After you’ve cut around his business end, you’re ready to empty out the stomach. Make a small slit at the base of his belly, then put two fingers in there to hold it open. With the other hand, put your knife, blade up, between your fingers. Then move both hands upward, cutting only the skin. You want to keep the gut sack whole. Once you’ve cut all the way up the vee of the rib cage, you’ve got to reach in all the way to your elbows and cut those membranes that hold the gut sack in place. If you do it right, the whole thing will come loose in one big bag.
Kneeling, breathing hard, his arms elbow deep in hot blood, Miles works by feel. The steamy scent is like one of his mother’s herbal teas, only stronger. Ranker. His stomach clenches as if he might throw up; but suddenly the jiggly sack is free inside the cavity. With both hands, he rolls it out like a big blubbery basketball.
Be sure to save the liver, and the heart, too. They’re good eating. Cut ’em in thin slices and fry them up with onions.
“I don’t think so,” Miles murmurs. He goes to the front of the deer and pulls it forward by its antlers, away from the mess. The gobs of blood behind are already clotting into red, quivery jelly. Taking up his knife again, he closes his eyes and feels around farther up inside the chest for the heart and lungs, which must be removed.
The lungs are pink and foamy, the heart harder to find. Working by touch, he finally cuts it free. Lifts it out. It fits exactly in the palm of his hand. His shotgun slug has shredded the bottom lobe of the heart. A perfect shot.
The air is colder now, and with snow he scrubs blood from his forearms and wrists and hands. He washes with handfuls of snow. It melts away pink and watery, and the real color of his skin returns. He stuffs handfuls of snow inside the deer to clean it, too. The cradle of the ribs appears, pale boned, fresh, clean. As he works, a crow drifts over and caws to another. A raven squawks not far away, and in the brush, like a ghost, the old dog appears. Miles reaches for his gun, then stops himself. He needs to stay focused on his deer and get it back to the cabin before dark.
Removing his belt, he loops it around the little buck’s neck and drags him away from the gut pile. The deer is surprisingly light—his brown hair slides easily on the snow—but then again, Miles is full of adrenaline. With every yard he moves away from the kill site, the old brown dog eases a yard closer. Miles stops; the dog stops.
After he has dragged the deer about a hundred feet, the old dog is ten feet from the gut pile. Suddenly he lunges forward and gulps up a chunk of fat. Miles has plenty of time to lift his gun and get rid of the dog once and for all, but he doesn’t. The old dog feels Miles’s gaze, crouches lower for a moment, then snatches the deer’s heart and runs.