Tags
bow hunting, circle of life, death, deer hunting, hunting, Life
This is a story about deer hunting. Any of you that stumble on this site and don’t want to read such things, go no further.
To my friends who are vegetarian or can’t abide the taking of animal life, I hope you won’t think me a monster. I used to hunt, but no longer do, for reasons that I’ll keep to myself. I am, as you know by now, what I am.
*****
It was late October and the morning was just beginning to warm up. The frost was melting, dripping off the branches and leaves, pattering like rain on the leaves that had already fallen.
I was drifting along through the edge of the woods when I saw the scrape, that spot where a buck paws away at the ground to make his presence known to all the does in the area. Anybody who has seen a buck go through this ritual has seen a vivid exhibition of the raw power of nature. This isn’t Bambi.
The buck’s neck is swollen from all the hormones raging through his system. He drags his feet through the leaves and makes noises deep in his throat that almost sound like he’s grinding his teeth. He stops at a place that appeals to him and starts pawing at the ground. Pawing isn’t really the word. Dirt and leaves and ground moss fly for ten feet or more behind him. When he’s done scraping and grunting and pawing, he pisses on himself and the urine dribbles down his back legs onto the bare earth. He’s making sure everybody knows that this is his place.
Anyway, I saw this scrape and knelt down to take a look. It was fresh… looked and smelled to me like it had been made that very morning. I took a look around.
The only movement I could pick up was a fox squirrel gathering acorns. Except for the pattering of the melting frost, the morning was quiet, but a bluejay flew in and started jabbering away, giving me a ration of shit for being there. I moved on about ten yards.
A bunch of crashing and thrashing started off to my left and I took a knee. Here he came, jumping up over some spots in the brush, crashing right through other places, making a hell of a racket. He was big and aggressive and moving fast. I knocked an arrow and watched him come.
When he got to the scrape, he picked up my smell and stopped. I had a clear shot, so I drew, and he turned his head toward me at the sound. He was close, real close, and his looking at me just about did me in, but I picked a spot on his ribcage and released.
The bow hummed, the arrow thunked against his side and went straight through him. He tore off, crashing and thrashing away into the woods so I wouldn’t have to watch him die. I gave him time, then followed the pink, foamy trail of his life’s blood to where he lay on his side dead.
He was no longer beautiful and graceful and proud and powerful, no longer tossing his head and crashing and thrashing through the brush and looking to pass his genes on. He was still. His eyes were glazing and his tongue was hanging out of the side of his mouth, making him look almost stupid.
Here he is.
He was meat now.
But a few days later, when I skinned him and cut him up and put him in the freezer, I didn’t forget everything that went into the meat that would feed my family.
His bloody birth at the edge of the woods, the way he stood on shaky legs and reached for his mother’s milk for the first time. As he grew, the way he found the tender shoots and acorns, then strayed to nearby fields for corn and sorghum, wandered to the stream for water.
His playful romping with others as a youngster, and later his fights with rivals as he sought dominance, his undying quest to pass on his genes to another generation. You can see in the picture that he had one antler broken off in just such a contest, one he’d been bested in.
Now his life was over. We would take his life, chew it up, and absorb its power and beauty. He would become a part of us, as nature intended.
I didn’t know any haunting American Indian songs of thanks, but in my own clumsy white-man’s way I gave a quiet “thank-you” to that buck for feeding us.
He is part of us now. The wheel turns. The circle goes on.
I am pagan as you know but am not a vegeterian, while I do not agree with hunting as sport, to hunt to feed your family is totally different as long as it is done with the thanks to the beast and the earth for providing and you certainly did that here once more while I can’t think of a native american song/prayer for you here is a pagan one which fits your sentiments very well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usXIU8uZPkk (don’t worry not trying to convert you lol just thought it the words might interest you)
Thanks, Paula. It’s a beautiful song. I’m not pagan, not religious, not political. I am, as you know, what I am.
You are wonderful as you, as I say it was more the words that your post reminded me of
Thanks.
I like that you didn’t see him just as meat – that you gave homage to his life..
I spent a lot of time out there, watching them grow up, and couldn’t think of him as just meat. It’s a wonderment, watching them and learning them. I know it’s hard for some to understand, but it was all part of me. Still is, though I don’t hunt anymore.
many things are part of people from birth, childhood experiences, their environment – that’s not hard to understand. the differences are fascinating aren’t they.. recently, after the blood disaster, my youngest had to start eating meat and in a big way.. we learnt to look on it as medicine and be so grateful to those animals x
I liked this Tim, liked the beginning, the middle and the end.
Bow hunting seems more fair to the animals. I feel the same way about commercial fishing pre-GPS, allowing the fish an equal chance.
Have you read Jim Harrison? Your piece reminded me of some of his work from 70s & 80s.
I’m glad you liked it. There was some hesitation about posting it, and I put in a …more… break so people could skp it. I haven’t read Harrison, but he’s from Michigan, so he can’t be all bad.
That’s how I started reading him, living in MI.
He who hesitates is lost; bring it on!
Wow . . . I felt like I was with you on that hunt. My husband and youngest daughter (not Amanda) love to go pig hunting together. I raise such delicate flowers, don’t I?
Delicate flowers. That got a big chuckle outta me.
You’ve seen my daughter with a rifle in her hand. Delicate? Delicate trigger finger maybe.
I’ve known females who could shoot and handled themselves really well in the dojo. They were still very feminine?? at times, another mystery I don’t really care to solve.
My girls are tough when it is needed. Gentle when it is needed. Just like their mom. Tee hee.
Really well written, T.W. I felt as though I were there with you – seeing, feeling, smelling. I come from a family of fishermen and hunters. Our freezer held squirrel, rabbit, and plenty of fish. In recent years, my husband is the fisherman, while his nephew provides the venison. I have no qualms about eating meat and/or hunting, yet my heart ached for your deer. There’s such a fine line between loving animals and knowing they are also part of the circle.
Thanks, Maddie. Kind of hard for me to explain… how beautiful they are to me… but I had no second thoughts about eating them. It’s a conundrum, is what it is.
Great post. We’re a lot alike. I used to hunt, as well, and don’t have a problem with it, just choose not to.
I think I outgrew trying to prove myself and putting in all the time it takes to earn your next meal. People think it’s easy — even with a long rifle. Real hunters know that aint so.
Glad you liked it, Stan. I hunted for meat back then. The first time I took a buck in to a processor, instead of doing it myself, I decided not to hunt anymore.
Wonderful piece of writing; most evocative. Also challenging in content. I’m certainly not a hunter, not much of a meat eater but not vegetarian. In theory I admire those who only eat what they kill but in practice I’m the opposite; too squeamish. If it came to that I would be vegetarian. As it is, I’m too used to supermarket plastic wrapped products that bear little or no resemblance to anything living. A kind of coward’s cop out, I suppose.
It was economics that led me to it, but I think it did me some good to hunt and do all of the preparation myself. I learned so much and grew to appreciate the complexity of nature in a way that I never would have. It definitely changed me.
We live in a pretty sterile world now, with everything done for us, as you say. Ah well. Progress.