The buck...

I pulled up to a parking spot in the lot. There across the street was where the old house was. I never was too attached to the place to be honest, too much of a maintenance nightmare too much money down the drain. I didn't mind seeing it leveled and gone. But down the street was a different story. Here at the end of the street were where the tracks were, leading from town five or six miles to the next town. Behind old factories and behind old farms, I've never met a soul here. Here I walked several times a week. This felt like home. The tracks were pure nature without the grand views of mountains or waterfalls, instead nature in the form of  blackbirds and groundhogs, thistles and muskrats in the ditches.

I used to come here and walk the tracks and think. Which was what I wanted to do today. Relive the hunt in my mind while it was still fresh. Walking the tracks, dead sycamore leaves rattling on the stones I remembered last night.

I'd been sitting there in the stand watching two squirrels quarrel when I heard a crunch. Not louder really but somehow heavier than the crunch of the squirrels I'd been hearing for the last several hours. The squirrels noticed as well and stopped their quarrel and set up on their haunches and looked in the direction of the sound. A few more crunches and out he stepped.

By now I was about a mile down the tracks at the third little bridge where the tracks crossed a small creek. I crept out to the edge and peered over. Here in the pool under the bridge was a multitude of small fishes. Chubs and minnows, in the clear water I could even see a couple darters hugging the rocks their fins splayed out and strong stripes on their sides. I sat on the concrete bridge abutment watching the fish as my mind wandered back to the buck.

He stepped out into view, materialized seemingly out of thin air in that way only deer can do. A couple more steps and he stopped and looked sideways. Almost posed, showing his profile. My god he was beautiful. I've seen much bigger deer, heck killed bigger deer but I've never seen one so beautiful. He looked simply regal standing there. I think that is what I'll always remember about this deer, him standing there looking so fine. I'll admit after harvesting forty or fifty they have blurred a bit, sometimes the memories get tangled up a bit. But I'm pretty sure this was one of those clear moments that come around every so often that always stand out clear and true over time. 

I slipped off the concrete and stepped into the little creek. I still had on my knee high rubber boots I'd worn hunting. A little creek is nothing if not a window into the past. I walked slowly upstream in a few inches of crystal clear water looking down. You never know what relics of the past you might find in a creek. I've found everything from mastodon teeth to corals from the bottom of ancient oceans to shards of pottery and stone tools. Not far from this very spot a few years ago I found a huge molar. A few days later the guy at the natural history museum said it was a bison tooth. It was hard to imagine wild buffalo here behind the stacks of old pallets out back of the factory. Ocean to mastodon to buffalo to railroad track, it all comes and goes eventually.

The buck took a few more steps forward. The squirrels just turned and matter of factly just hopped away giving the ground to the buck. Now I was looking at him thru a beech tree still holding most of it's leaves. Screening me as well. I ever so slowly began raising the bow. He seemed completely relaxed. Or at least as relaxed as a buck out in daylight can be and I remembered clearly thinking I think I have a chance here.

While reliving the encounter with the buck I'd slowly waded upstream picking up the odd fossil here and there, even pocketing a couple to add to the pile next to the flowerpots at home on the patio. then there it was, a small bird point lying on the creek bottom. I held it in my hand and tried to imagine the hand of the last man holding it. Three hundred years ago? Three thousand? Who among us will ever create anything that lasts much beyond his lifetime? Sure our children will remember us but they too will die and their children will die and then there will be nothing of us left. But here by the oddest chance this man created this thing that lasted thru time. Would the modern arrow that hit a twig in flight a couple weeks ago and was lost last a fraction of this time? Probably a few decades at most. What better a talisman to remember a bowhunt by than a stone point?

Another step and the buck stepped out from behind the beech and into the open. I made a terrible shot. One of the worst I've made on a deer in years and hit him high. Perfectly high and he took a leap and piled up right under the tree. It had been a long season, full of drizzle and rain every time I went out. Long wet days spent staring out into an empty silent woods and then suddenly this beautiful deer and there he was lying right under the tree. I spoke out loud sincerely thanking the woods and thanking the spirit of the deer before climbing down. I've never been a whooper or a hollerer after a kill. Anytime you kill something it is a solemn moment. Pure and right with nature but solemn. Anyone who has ever gutted a deer or cleaned a rabbit knows this is damn serious business and I'm never self conscious about thanking the deer and the woods afterward.

I turned and began heading back down the creek towards the tracks. A doe that had stood back in the brush and had let me pass without my noticing flushed in a blur of motion and flashing white tail when I turned back towards her...