HUNTING

The sound of a small rock rolling down the hill caught my attention. It was a soft sound, barely distinguishable from the silence of the morning. I looked up and over the dry brush I was hiding behind and stared hard at the steep slope angling down toward me. It was a good three hundred feet distant. With my naked eye, I scanned the slope from left to right, from top to bottom, determined to spot the source of that sound. But nothing alive came into view. I scrunched back down and leaned against the dead tree that was part of the blind. I had been positioned here since daybreak, remaining nearly still ever since, only shuffling from time to time to relieve stiffness, and once to remove a small rock that had slipped into the inside of my tennis shoe. I should have been wearing boots. As the sun slowly pulled itself over the ridgeline, I felt myself urging the morning forward. The plan was for the hunters, all six of us, to regroup at noon, where Wade, the rancher, and his son, had left the pickup truck. From where I was, it was about a mile north. There were two more hours of waiting to get through and I didn’t know if I had the patience. I wanted to use the rifle they had given me. I was a first-timer, as a deer hunter, and, having just turned twenty-two, I thought I had something to prove. But at the rate nothing was happening, that might be a long time coming, if ever. 
       After a period of quiet, I heard my horse snort. I looked back behind me to check on him. He was still where I had left him, hidden behind a small copse of trees roughly fifty feet away. I had ridden this horse several times before and knew I could trust him. He knew how to be patient.
       Then I heard it again, the same soft sound of a small rock rolling down the hill. Again, I scanned the hillside, sweeping my eyes back and forth across the dust-colored terrain, my pulse beginning to quicken. But there was nothing moving up there, as far as I could see, except for two hawks gliding lazy circles high up in the sky. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me, maybe I’d been alone too long. But these doubts were cut short, because there it was again, that soft sound, even closer now, right on the heels of the last trickle of sound. This time I picked up my rifle, slowly, and carefully laid the barrel across the dry bark of the dead tree, pointing up at the ridgeline.  Shouldering the rifle, I cocked my neck down to the scope and squinted through to the crosshairs.       Now magnified, the ridgeline felt close enough to touch. It didn’t take long to find what looked like a trail leading down the slope. Following this path as it zigzagged back and forth, I couldn’t tell how old or fresh it was. But I kept tracing its descent with the crosshairs. And then I stopped. Standing perfectly still, blended nearly invisible into the hillside, a deer stood motionless. My heart jumped a beat and I had to look again to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. But she was there, as still as could be. She was listening, ears half rotating like radar. Is that why she stopped, had she heard me? After a moment, she continued down the trail, her pace slightly hurried. As I followed her with the scope, I was taken with the grace she possessed, as she soundlessly maneuvered the steep decline. 
       Then the deer slowed to a stop, and now I knew why she had hurried up before. She was catching up with the rest of her friends. She was the last in the single-file line, the rear guard, making sure there was no threat nearby before rejoining the group. And that’s exactly what she did, but as I lowered the crosshairs a fraction of an inch, what appeared before me took my breath away. It wasn’t just a small band of deer, not the five or six I expected, but a herd of at least fifty or more, roiling in silent commotion at the base of the hill. And they were in a rising state of panic, sensing danger, not knowing which way to run.
       Lifting off the scope, I strained to see with my own eyes what I couldn’t see before. And now, knowing what to look for, I could just make out the herd straight in front of me, amazed that so many could have gathered there without my awareness. Returning to the scope, I searched for the buck, the male deer. He had to be there, somewhere in that tumult. I just needed to see the rack, the antlers, that would flag his identity. And it didn’t take long, the branched horns rising above the rest of the deer, giving away his position. Here was my target, cleverly hiding in the midst of the others. I lowered the crosshairs to exactly where I had been told would be the cleanest kill shot. The chest, dead center, from profile. I had to wait for a few of the deer to move out of the way. And then it came, the moment the buck was completely exposed. My aim was perfect and I pulled the trigger.
       The bullet exploded from my rifle, and a piercing thunder instantly followed, the echo slamming against the hillside, so quick, so loud, it was as if the very air had been ripped apart. Jolted off the scope, I lost sight of the buck. He was nowhere to be seen. Had I killed him? Was he down on the ground, out of view? Or was he hiding again? There was no way to know. The rest of the herd was now in full panic, twisting and turning, moving in every direction, its fear palpable. And then, off to the left, I saw the buck slowly emerge from behind a thicket. He stepped out in the open and stood in perfect profile to me, again. As I lined up the crosshairs, the thought occurred to me that maybe this was a second male. He looked to be the same size as the first one, the same size rack, a four-pointer, and a second buck would make sense considering the size of the herd. But I didn’t have time to think. I had to shoot now or lose my chance. Aiming the crosshairs, chest dead center, I pulled the trigger. And this time I saw the buck fall.
       After a few moments, I stood up and watched the stricken and frenzied herd disperse in front of me. Once they were gone,  a  sharp silence remained in the air, an absolute stillness. I swung my legs over the dead tree and began walking in the direction where I had first sighted the buck. I had to see if I had killed twice. Quickening my pace, it didn’t take long to reach the spot where the buck would be, and after circling the area a couple of times, I found him. He was lying flat on his side, eyes open. I stood looking down at him for a moment, thinking there should be something I was supposed to do, but I didn’t know what. Turning away, I looked to where the other buck would be and walked hurriedly in that direction. And it didn’t take long to find him either. Lying in the dirt, dead, his antlers causing his neck to twist his face upwards, as if he had strained for one last look to see who had done this.
       Having killed twice, I had more than satisfied the inarticulate need to prove myself. Now I needed the other hunters and their approval. I hadn’t heard any other gunshots that morning, so it was likely that I was the only hunter to have scored. Turning away from the dead deer, I hustled back to the blind, and quickly gathered up my things into the saddlebags, strapping my rifle tightly in its sheath. Then I untied the reins holding my horse and swung myself into the saddle. With a sense of growing excitement, I turned North in the direction of the truck, and once clear of the trees, I spurred my horse into a gallop.
       The land was mostly dry and dusty, with scattered rocks and sagebrush strewn over the surface. The air felt fresh and scented with the country. We were approaching a slight rise in the ground, a small incline, blocking the view ahead. But instead of slowing down, my horse powered up the slope even faster, and just as we crested the rise, just as the horizon came back into view, we confronted a large sagebrush directly in front of us. My horse made an instantaneous leap to the right, avoiding this unexpected obstacle. But this had the unintended consequence of throwing all of my weight abruptly to the right side, causing my right foot to slam down hard into my stirrup. This forced the cinch to loosen and the saddle to slip, rotating downward, shooting my foot through the stirrup, making extraction impossible. Within a split second, my face was in the dirt, and my horse panicked, bolting forward, terrified. I landed hard on my left shoulder, closing my eyes on impact. My right leg was strung up and tethered to the saddle that was now bouncing under the belly of the horse. I let out a scream at the top of my lungs for the horse to stop, but this only made him run faster. The instant I opened my eyes, I could see the horse’s rear hoofs pounding like pistons just inches from my face, and I knew there was nothing I could do. Any second I would bounce the wrong way into a driving hoof. My face would explode and death would be instantaneous. 
         Seconds flew by that felt like minutes, and the horse, running at unimaginable speed, showed no sign of slowing down, as it dragged me flailing at its feet. In that moment, when time seemed to stretch, I suddenly felt completely insignificant, as if my life had abandoned all meaning. But then something impossible happened. The entire legging holding the stirrup ripped off the saddle, releasing my foot from its grip and dumping me in the dirt, bruised and scraped, but alive. For the briefest moment, I lay still. It was quiet, except for the fading sound of my horse running away. I looked in that direction, just in time to see him disappear over the horizon. Slowly getting up onto my knees, I sat back on my heels, looking in every direction to see if anyone had seen what had just happened. But there was no one in sight. Taking my time, I eased up onto my feet and dusted myself off, as I tried to understand what had just taken place. It was as if a giant raging hand had shot down from above, plucking me up and smashing me down, intent on my destruction, but deciding at the last second to let me live.        Standing still, just listening, I heard a vast silence surrounding me, and I felt separate from it. I needed to start moving, my legs and arms and back were beginning to stiffen. Turning to look from where I’d just come, I began a slow stumble walk in that direction. After roughly fifty yards, I found the borrowed hunting rifle that I had just used, laying in the dirt. Picking it up, I wiped it down with the tail of my shirt, and then I headed to the truck.
       Arriving before anyone else, I climbed onto the bed of the truck, grabbed a bottled water from the cooler, and sat down, leaning against the back of the cab. Half an hour later, two of the hunters showed up, happy to see that I was okay. They said they’d seen my horse off in the distance running full speed with its saddle upside down. They assumed the worst, as they tracked back to the truck looking for me. Within a short time, everybody had returned to the truck, and I had told my story a couple of times. Before we headed off to claim the two bucks that I had killed, Wade, the fifth-generation owner of this ranch, led my newly saddled horse over to me and asked if I wanted to get back on. I said yes, and swung up onto the saddle. Then Wade said one last thing to me. In a low voice, he said, “Son, I’ve never known anyone to live through what happened to you today.” After giving me a hard look, he pushed on.
       The rest of us followed Wade as he led us to the site of the dead deer. He seemed to know exactly where they were, without needing me to point them out. Someone brought up the pickup truck and we dragged the deer close to the tailgate. There were two young men, older than me, who seemed eager in their desire to gut the deer, and they asked me if they could have the honors. Looking down at the two carcasses, the thought of plunging a hunting knife into their still warm bellies, held no attraction for me. Nodding consent, I told them to go ahead, and they leaped to the task with an enthusiasm that surprised me. Standing back a few feet, I watched the disembowelment, the steaming life spilling into the dirt. And I wondered why I felt an impatience, unnerved by a sense that I was waiting for something, a reprieve of some kind, unsure why the one I had just received wasn’t enough.