A Hunter's Story

I was pruning the overgrown spirea bush the other day, when my neighbor came over to shoot the breeze. His daughter tagged along, and - quickly bored with our conversation - picked up a wormy crabapple under our big tree and asked what it was. We told her, and then K. and I started talking about how, before the suburban development took place above the village, the deer used to come down off the hill and stand in our yard in the twilight, eating those apples.

"Oh, they're still around," K said. "They're just cagier 'an they used to be so we don't see em as much. I saw one here last fall, right here in the street between your house and Mrs. Brown's. It was the first day of hunting season,a dn dad and I were going out early, and this one came right down out of the trees into the road."

"Really!" I said. "I haven't seen any for a long while. Maybe that one got spooked by hunters."

"Nah, it was early - I think they just work their way down to the river." He pushed his baseball hat back on his forehead and pulled it down again, scratching an itch. "I hit one a few years back, you know, right up on the top of the hill--" he gestured behind him, where the road winds from the river valley up the side of the hill to the north. It used to be much wilder there, and it still is the least-developed area nearby, with a small pasture surrounded by pines and maples at the top.

"Yeah, that's where we used to see them all the time," I said. "Were you in your car?"

"No, in my brand-new pickup." He grinned ruefully. "I'd just washed it too! It really hit me, to tell you the truth. The deer came out of the woods and ran right into the side of my car."

"Did it kill it?"

"Yeah." He looked around to make sure his daughter was out of earshot, and lowered his voice a little. "Actually I had to put it out of its misery."

"Did you shoot it?"

"No, I cut its throat. I was just trying to be humane, and I was afraid if I left it some do-gooder would come along and go, you know, 'oh...'"

"...'poor little Bambi'..."

"Exactly. A deer can tear you up, you know, when they're thrashing around like that." He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and got a disgusted look on his face. "So this cop comes along and tries to pull both my driver's license and my hunting license -- said I was jacking deer."

"What?"

"Yeah, can you believe it? Here's this big dent in the side of my pickup where the deer had run into it. I had no intention of keeping the deer and I told him that. So this jerk says, 'Then why did you kill it?' I told him I was trying to be humane, and quick, and that I was worried about what someone else might do who didn't understand these animals. And he says, 'That's my job.' And I said, 'Right. You just want to shoot your gun.'"

"So he said he was going to pull my licenses and I said, 'Fine, go ahead. But you don't get paid for going to court, and my wife's an attorney, so we can see where this will end up," and he turned around and got back in his car and took off."

Comments

[zhoen]

Why is it called common sense, when it is so rare?

[Dave]

Heh. Good for him!

[Teju]

Ditto what Zhoen said.

I love your description "the road winds from the river valley up the side of the hill to the north."

It instantly reminded me of "in the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains," which is by Ernest someone or other.

[Jean]

Je n'ai jamais compris comment un être humain peut tuer un animal par plaisir .
La chasse n'est plus une nécéssité comme il y a 1000 ans . La chasse est aujourd'hui un plaisir barbare !