The blazon orange hunters looked virtual, almost surreal contrasted against the backdrop of snow covered pines and woodlands. They came upon us is haste panting heavily with rifles in mittened hands and steaming from preparation in the frosty November evening.
“Did’ja guys get’em?”
“No” Mitchell replied “is it yours?”
“Yup.” Said the first. “Uh uh.” Said the other in agreement.
*
The tracks Mitchell I followed for the past quarter mile now ended in bewilderment. Not less than an hour ago Mitchell’s father and grandfather flanked us about 10 minutes away. A shot agitated the pine forest’s eerie stillness. We jolted and ran straight towards the shot.
“Dad” Mitchell yelled. “What’ja get?”
“Not sure if I hit’em er not – looks like a doe though.”
“Where’ya guys at?” I asked. The pine were dense – so dense in fact that without the boot marks left behind us navigating our way out would be precarious.
“Just keep coming towards our voice.” Said Mitchell’s grandfather. I warmed at his concern. “Keep comin boys, keep coming.” He said again.
We regrouped, exchanged analysis of the event and drank a few sips of almost frozen water from our canteens. Mitchell’s father decided our charge: we’d split up again, spread out a safe distance from one another and begin a thorough search for the tracks.
Mitchell and I paced not twenty to thirty meters off when we spotted the small hoofmarks in snow… three hoofmarks stamped regularly while the fourth was none but a bloodied scrape on the snow’s surface.
We followed the markings until we found ourselves in conference with the hunters.
*
“Well, my dad shot at a small doe a ways back… I think this is the trail.”
“Ya, I think we may have crossed trails… was yours a doe” I inquired.
“I think so—Dan?” He turned to his companion. “Not sure. We tracked it all the way from the road.” said the hunter named Dan.
“D’you guys nic it at all?” Asked Micthell.
“No, but looks like you guys blew a leg off… front leg. Shit. There’s not even a hoof on that leg” said the hinter now crouched down near the bloody trail. “K boys, we’re gonna go on out that way – good luck ya’ll.”
The two men exchanged waves and left disappointed.
Mitchell and I tracked about another fifteen minutes or so when I followed the trail forward with my eyes and spotted her bedded down under the low overhand of an evergreen. She was small – an adult doe but small nonetheless.
Mitchell stopped as I raised my rifle to capture her in my iron sights.
She lay with leg broken off, hoof and limb hanging only by remnants of skin and tendon, a sharp snow-covered bone jutted out from the center.
She lay with eyes in full display of fear and torture.
She lay with her nose nuzzled into her side in failed attempts to hide-away the moment.
She lay like divinity in a holy shrine surrounded by boughs of evergreen.
I aimed center-mass at her shoulder to nail the heart. I squeezed the trigger. She leaped at the shot and bored through the forest. Mitchell fired his twelve-gauge also but to no avail.
“Did’ja get it?” Yelled Mitchell’s dad and grandfather almost simultaneously.
“No” we replied.
Mitchell’s father and grandfathered linked up with us and we four tracked the doe for a short distance. This time Mitchell’s father took the lead and discovered the beautiful white-tail in similar exhibit.
He leveled his thirty-ot-six quietly, fired only once, and struck the deer in side of the head – its opposite releasing matter in conical formation across the snow to the doe’s rear.
“You see!” Said Mitchell’s father shakily and almost frightened “this is why its soooo important to be safe with these things” He faced us now and pointed at the deer rifle in his grip. “You see what these things’ll do to your head.” He displayed a genuine concern.
Mitchell and I stood to the side mouths open as Mitchell’s father and grandfather dressed-out the whitetail. They rolled her to her back, cut her open from the vagina to the chest, and broke her pelvic bone by placing the hunting knife down against the cartilage at stomping on it with a boot heel – all basic gutting techniques known to game hunters. Mitchell’s dad pulled a pair of rubber gloves from his pocket a slipped them over his hands. He felt around the inside of the cut flesh for a moment then slid his hand, palms-down, up and into the rib cage. He bent his fingers inward and pulled down towards the broken pelvic bone expelling all the still-quivering innards onto the snow. Steam wafted from the organs like the soul of the doe evaporating from her body into the evening air.
She lay with one eye towards the sky jostling and flowing with the movements of her disembowelment.
She lay at rest lastly after this, such a terrorizing occurrence.
She lay, sacrificed, and given wholly as replenishment for us, such unknowing humans.
She lay in my mind, to this day, as vividly as that moment at dusk;
virtual, almost surreal
contrasted against the backdrop
of snow covered pines
and woodlands.
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