TODAY we held a funeral for Bambi, our fawn. There was Missy and Cookie and Rowdy and Benny and me. We dug a hole near the fence, found a cardboard box to put Bambi in, and covered it over again. We said a prayer and put a cross on the grave. We said goodbye to Bambi, and we cried.
My dad brought the fawn home about a week ago because he found the mother dead up in the hills where he was checking for cattle. Somebody shot her. Dad says never shoot deer in summer because that’s when the females have their babies.
Mum gave the fawn some cow milk in a baby bottle every day after she milked Bossy. She thinks the cow milk was too rich for it, that’s why it died. My dad says it must have got scared and died of shock. He asked us if we scared it or chased it around, but we didn’t. We think our cousin Mickey shot it with his sling shot. He does that to birds. Dad caught him once and told him never to kill animals unless you need to eat. Dad said never to make animals suffer.
We used to have a baby bear too, when I was eight. Her name was Pa-cheet, which means baby bear. Somebody shot the mother bear, and they found the baby and brought it to my dad. Dorothy used to play with Pa-cheet. She would kneel down and call Pa-cheet to jump on her back. Then she’d grab Pa-cheet’s front paws and flip her over her head. Pa-cheet would go rolling over and over, then get up on Dorothy’s back for more. Pa-cheet used to get lonely and cry at night.
When she got bigger Pa-cheet used to scare us when she got too rough. She started to get into the food all the time. She dug in Mum’s cupboards and spilled flour and sugar all over the kitchen. Once she chased Missy and me up onto Mum’s bed because she smelled the boxes of plums and pears under the bed. She started growling and clawing at us. She wanted all the fruit to herself. Mum got mad and told my dad to do something about it. He chained her up to the dog-house, but soon she got big enough to break the chain. That’s when my dad drove her up into the mountain and dropped her off. Next day she was back on the porch crying for food. I think my dad gave her to the wildlife people after that.
We’ve buried other animals down by the fence. There’s a duckling, a bird with a broken wing, our cat Otter, Chipper our old collie, and there was Henrietta the chick who was born with one leg backwards. She was my special pet. I used to feed her and every night I put her in one of my dad’s wool socks that I hung on a nail on the wall. You could hear her cheeping softly just like chicks do when they are under the mother hen’s wings. She died when Jimmy sat on her. He was sorry about it. He didn’t see her because she was in her sock. I was mad at Jimmy for awhile after that.
I thought about Charlie today too when we prayed for Bambi. He had no dad, only a mum. He was probably trying to fish for her when he drowned. I got mad at Charlie and felt like cussing. I thought about him fishing at the edge of the river and falling in on purpose. Then I knew it couldn’t be. He’d have been wearing a white T-shirt and old khaki pants, probably an old hat. I don’t know if he was fishing with a pole or helping somebody net fish. Maybe he was just walking by and tripped.
Once I saw a bigger boy picking on Charlie, shoving him. Calling him names. Skinny as he was, Charlie pushed back, ready to fight.
Charlie wouldn’t have gone in on purpose. He wouldn’t have given up. He wouldn’t have been drinking alcohol and fallen in accidently. He just fell into the river and didn’t make it out.
I thought about the old T-shirt he always wore, kind of big on him and always clean. I thought of what he might say if he could be here for a minute. Then tears came in big drops down my face.