Luke's Way -Coda

The last day of deer season for me was a Monday. Luke and Rob left Sunday morning for Kentucky, and I decided Sunday evening to get out for just a few hours on the last day. I was still basking in the afterglow of the memorable squirrel hunt turned deer hunt and feeling relieved and thankful that the weekend was a success for Luke, and for me also. I once again awoke before dawn, but more gladly than in days past, moving in that mode of savoring the last day of something, be it a vacation, a season like summer, or whatever one looks forward to for longer than one can actually enjoy. I was clearly savoring the last day of deer season. Putting on my orange coat, which thankfully was becoming just slightly less jarring in its vividness. Grabbing a handful of slug shells out of the cigar box, picking up the old deer gun. It occurred to me that I might want to “keep my luck” and not switch guns, owing to the recent success of the “magical gun of mystery,” but I scoffed at my hunting mysticism and superstition and reminded myself that this was just a couple of hours on the last day. So I settled on the bolt action WWI relic and headed out the door.

My destination was the O’Connor tree stand, not 50 yards from where the gray doe came to rest Saturday. It is a comfortable stand, easy to get to quickly in the snow, and over the years, incredibly productive, or so I had been told. To date I found it to be excellent for ground squirrel observation.

As I settled in I took my habitual deep breaths and closed my eyes, listening for a few minutes. It was beautifully quiet. Even more snow had fallen in the night. A Great Horned Owl announced the end of his shift, and a gentle breeze made the tree sway slowly. I opened my eyes and there was a bit more daylight. The trees looked like they had been lightly moistened and dipped into confectioners sugar, creating a fantasy quality in the gully where one might expect to be visited by the Sugar Plum Fairy or Old Saint Nick at any moment. I chuckled at this thought, preferring rather a gift of a different sort on this last morning of deer season.

Yet, I was aware of my inner voice encouraging me to avoid being greedy, especially as Christmas approached. So I rested my mind on the gift I had been given by Luke, by hunting Luke’s way. I replayed the dinner conversation where Luke innocently rescued me from wallowing in self-pity, a perfectly ridiculous waste of emotion, especially during hunting season. Turning my head slightly, I scanned the ridge top where we had stood, looking down at the fleeing doe. Slowly turning my head still further, exaggerating deliberateness, I surveyed the area where she was bedded, where she began her ascent up the far ridge, and where she fell. And then I froze.

Simultaneously I saw motion in the extreme periphery to my right and heard twigs snapping. “Too loud and too cold for the ground squirrels” I thought. The problem was, due to my reminiscent rubber-necking a moment ago, I was now in need of a more than 180 degree adjustment of my field of view. I began the super slow revolution of my head upon its axis of my slightly cramped neck. Gradually, in the periphery of my left eye, one doe appeared, then three, then five then more than I could easily count. They were moving quickly from left to right. I was thinking to myself, “Well now, what an embarrassment of riches…which one shall I concentrate upon?” Just as I was about to raise my gun, the does seemed to hear something behind them, which caused a domino effect of snorting and tail and ear twitching. They began to move further to my right at a trot, looking as if they might slip over the little ridge to the west without offering me much of a shot, especially if I didn’t hurry. And then I saw two more deer coming fast out of some brambles from the left, two that had been lagging behind the larger groups of does apparently.

The lead deer seemed smallish, the second appearing larger, but her head has concealed behind the first. “Ok” I thought “slowly raise the gun, just wait for them to pass into your field of fire, and take the second deer.” I raised the gun, aware of a faint sound of fabric rubbing. I remember hearing a belch-like grunt and thinking “Strange…that second doe just burped” and then feeling like I might have been injected with a few cc’s of straight caffeine intravenously. At about the same moment, all of the moisture previously existing in my throat and mouth was forced as if by a press directly out of the pores in my hands, my heart rate spiked like the NASDAQ at the birth of the phrase “dot com” and, oddly, I was aware of the sound an overloaded transistor makes before exploding, that high pitched note that keeps getting higher. All of this because I was witnessing a natural history miracle; the belching trailing doe raised her head and became a magnificent nine point buck before my very eyes.

The miracle buck was trailing the doe in heat with a purpose, and they were moving quickly. Everything was moving quickly, and paradoxically, ever so slowly. As I watched the buck extend his neck and head to better understand the doe’s tail, it was as if I had been given wildlife footage and was being afforded an opportunity to leisurely observe the film frame by frame. In this frame, hmm, interesting, look at that moss hanging of off those antlers. In the next, oh, I see, they were down in the little bog…look at all of that mucky mud on her and all that pond scum and vegetation on his front legs. In the next frame, well, extraordinary, those antler beams look thick as axe handles from the rear view. And then the film was speeded up, fast forward style as I became aware that I could no longer see the doe and would quickly lose sight of the buck. He was escaping me after passing at twenty yards. For some still unknown reason, I whistled, as if hailing a taxi, and then said “Hey!” The buck pulled up short, and stood stock still for a second or two. I was aware that if I clenched my jaw any harder I would break a molar. He turned his head to the right, eliminating the back of the skull shot I had just set up, but giving me a fair neck shot if I could readjust quickly. I re-targeted none too smoothly, in a fast, overly law enforcement-esque fashion, saw the red dot settle in, and touched the trigger. At the report of the gun, the miracle buck went directly down, and I remember exhaling, or was it inhaling, as if I had nearly drowned but made the surface at the last second. The sound of my gasp startled me more than the report of the gun. The powdered sugar on the small trees where the buck now lay was sliding off of the branches and sprinkling down over the animal’s massive head and antlers.

The buck unofficially “green-scored” darn close to 140, which is big news for me and my neighbors, but probably won’t make the local papers, and surely won’t make the big book. Yet sitting here now, basking in the magic of my family at Christmas and thinking back to the fairy dust sprinkling on the miracle buck’s head, I know the real story. I know that the deer campaign I set out upon on opening day, the “year of the buck” obsession that drove me to measuring the enjoyment of my hunts by the presence or lack of quantitative accomplishments and achievements, wasn’t hunting. I learned that taking a young person out to have an adventure, or sharing the woods and waters with a friend, or that taking “me” and my need for success out of the equation and putting the focus on relationships with companions, with the game, the worthy quarry, and with all that is wild or desires to be, is hunting. I know that the way of hunting, the ways of predator and prey, are paths sometimes hidden from us. And I know that Luke’s way, the young boy’s way of noticing but perhaps not judging, is a good way to avoid becoming lost while on these paths. I know that in hunting, as in life, things don’t always go our way. And that’s okay