Chapter Twenty-Five: Luke

Granddaddy and I went deer hunting this past Saturday in the neighborhood. I might as well get this out of the way now. I blew a shot at a doe that was only about 12 yards away. All night I was so excited that I couldn't sleep. I kept tossing and turning and thinking about how I was going to handle things when a deer came by, and how I was going to keep calm and make a good shot and the deer wouldn't go very far and die quickly. I didn't want it to suffer when I shot it. Finally, I just gave up getting any sleep and got up an hour before I was supposed to and ate a huge bowl of oatmeal for breakfast with bananas, cranberries, and blueberries. I didn't want to get hungry when I was sitting in the blind. Dad and Mom had gone away to a race for the weekend, so I didn't have to worry about waking them up.

Granddaddy picked me up early; I think he was excited about my being excited about going. We got to the blind about an hour before sunrise, and when it's dark like that, it's just my favorite time of the day. Even in the neighborhood, I heard two screech owls whistling that creepy night song of theirs, and then as it got closer to dawn, the cardinals, and robins and Carolina wrens started singing. I just love listening to the birds. Then dawn came, and I could see better and better as every second went by.

We had been sitting there looking out the blind's front window for about 20 minutes, and this young doe came out of the woodlot and started feeding toward us. She was about 20 yards away, which is within range but her head was pointed straight on toward the blind. I needed her to turn broadside and begin feeding before I could shoot...that's what the magazines say to do. I raised my left knee, propped up my crossbow with my left elbow on my knee, and clicked off the safety so the doe wouldn't hear it when she got super close.

So she kept walking and walking and getting closer and closer and still I couldn't shoot because she was still head on toward us. My heart was just pounding and pounding and I started breathing hard and Granddaddy whispered relax, you can do this. I felt like I was going to hyperventilate. The next thing I know the deer was just, like, eight yards away right outside the window, and I raised up the crossbow just a little, and the doe, she stared daggers at the window. And I rushed the shot and I thought the arrow went right over her back and into the woods. The doe ran off and Granddaddy said did you hit her, and I said that I wasn't sure but I thought I missed. And he said that I had better go outside the blind and make sure that I missed, because it would be wrong if I did hit her and she was out there in the woods suffering.

So I climbed out of the blind and went into the woods and scared about five or six deer that were just inside the tree line and they went running and snorting through the woods and I heard other deer that I couldn't even see running and snorting, and it was just a big mess. Then I found the arrow and there was absolutely no blood on it...that confirmed what I had thought had happened, that I had blown the shot.

I went back to the blind and told Granddaddy what had happened, and he said that was okay, that I would kill the next one that came by. That made me feel a little better, but we sat there for like hours and no more deer came by. I had ruined hunting for the whole morning, I was so angry at myself. When we left, I stopped by the man's house and told him what had happened and he said that was okay, everybody messes up some time or another. Then I just blurted out and asked if we could come back Tuesday after school, and the man said yes...he was tired of the deer eating everything in his garden and stripping his fruit trees.

So I practiced and practiced with my shooting form the rest of the day Saturday and Sunday, and I worked on my breathing and being relaxed, and Granddaddy picked me up after school on Tuesday and we drove straight to the man's house. We lucked out that no deer were in his backyard right then, and we eased into the blind as quickly and quietly as we could without any deer seeing us.

About an hour later, I finally saw the first deer of the evening. She popped out of the woods 15 yards away, turned broadside and put her head down into some clover and began feeding. It happened so quickly I didn't have time to get nervous. I raised my crossbow, sucked in some air and let it out and said to myself relax, relax, relax, and shot the arrow. It went right through her chest and she sort of staggered into the woods and a few seconds later I heard this big crash. She had to be down, I just knew it.

I burst out of the blind, entered the woods, and there she was just 25 yards away—dead on the ground, she hadn't suffered one bit. I let out this yell and Granddaddy came out of the blind and by then I was standing over the deer and getting out my Buck gutting knife. I got out this sheet of paper on how to field dress a deer that I had printed from the Internet, and I went to work, saving the heart and the liver and removing the insides. Dad loves liver and onions, and I thought maybe he would be proud of me for once for bringing him something and not messing up like I do all the time with vacuuming and washing his cars.

My hands were all covered with blood, and I made this mental note that I should ask Mom for some of her dishwashing gloves to take next time I went hunting. I got blood all over my camo, and Granddaddy said there was this big streak of blood across my forehead where I must have wiped the sweat away. I didn't care about that at all. I had just killed my first ever deer!