Deer Among Hunters
a story from Kevin Brown
Uncle Mac whistles and says, “This is one of hell of a spread.” Sipping his whiskey and soda, he says, “Probably the best twelve-point I’ve ever seen.”
He always does this. Three Thanksgivings now, my whole family just stands around, rattling the ice cubes in their liquor glasses, staring up at that damn deer head. Like it’s some hunter’s Mona Lisa hanging over the fireplace. My aunts and uncles, you only see them on Thanksgiving, and I’ll bet that goddamn deer’s a big reason for their visit.
“Where’d you say you got him?” Uncle Mac says, not breaking his trance. D’s my little brother. His real name is Derrick, but everyone calls him D.
“The woods behind the house,” D says, “off the northern ridge stand.”
Uncle Mac mouths the date on the gold nameplate at the base of the deer’s neck and says, “He’s really something.”
“When are you gonna put one up there?” Aunt Linda asks me, licking salt from her Margarita glass. I lower the driver’s manual I’m studying.
My dad snorts and says, “He’s gotta see one, first.”
Uncle Mac rattles the ice in his glass and says, “You better catch up.” He says, “Your brother’s leaving you behind.”
Coming in from the kitchen a little wobbly, my Mom tells them D already killed a spike and two doe earlier this season.
I toss the driver’s manual on the couch. “I’m who told him where to get the twelve-point,” I tell them, and D says, “Bull!”
“He gets out there and reads magazines,” Mom says. She drinks her drink and says, “D said he walked up on him reading last week.”
I shake my head and tell them I wasn’t reading anything, I was writing a song.
“You and those songs. He wants to be a rock and roller,” Mom says, nudging Aunt Linda’s knee. I hate when she does this. I’ve let Mom read three of my songs and she only mentions them at times like this.
“What kind of songs do you write,” Aunt Linda says, “that old heavy metal junk?”
I don’t answer. She isn’t really asking, anyway.
“It’s ten after two,” Dad says. “You boys are gonna hunt, you’d better head out.”
Standing up, I ask D if he’s ready.
“You’re the one laying around,” he says.
“Put him on the ridge,” Mom tells me, all serious.
I tell her he’s the Davy Crockett. “Let him find his own damn spots.”
“And watch your mouth,” Dad says, flipping to a football game on TV.
At the front closet, we put on our hunting overalls and coats and caps. My brother gears up in Mossy Oak hunting clothes and I have an old generic camouflage hat and jacket. D takes out his 30 alt. 6 rifle and the clip holder belt. On the butt of his gun is a black band holding six shells that straps around for quick-load. Me, I have a 20-gauge shotgun and a box of shells wedged into a side pocket.
“What are you gonna hunt, deer or squirrel,” Uncle Mac asks me, and laughs.
I tell him I’d have all that high-dollar crap, too, if it was all I ever spent my allowance on.
“Bag a big one, D,” Mom says, slurring. Dad turns the TV up and Uncle Mac stares at the deer head again, clinking the cubes in his glass like marbles.
In the garage, we slide on our boots and orange hunting vests from the storage closet. It’s starting to sprinkle, but it isn’t too cold for November. The sky is the color of wet newspaper and bulging with clouds, so I figure it’ll get dark earlier than usual.
Walking into the woods, I tell D to point his gun barrel down. He doesn’t really have it up or anything. I’m just giving him the rounds.
“It’s not even loaded,” he says.
“The point is, keep it down,” I tell him. Then: “Let’s go.”
When we’re about 120 yards into the woods I say, “It’ll be dark early this afternoon.”
“How do you know?” he says, and it thunders ahead.
“Look at the sky. There’s rain moving in—” I stop suddenly and crouch down, looking out in front of us.
“What is it?” he says, and I put my hand up to cut him off. He crouches too, sliding a shell out of the gunstock holder. I look around a minute or two, my hand still up and mouth half open. I don’t really see or hear anything. Hunters just always do this. It never fails.
I whisper to come on and we keep walking.
“Why are we out here?” D says, and spits. He looks around at the tan wheat field visible between the trees at the edge of the woods.
“You’re gonna hunt on the field stand.”
“No,” he tells me, his face soda can-crunched in the middle. “I’m gonna hunt the ridge. Mom said so.”
“What’s she know?” I say. “She know the ridge is dry? Because I do.” He’s shaking his head, and I say, “I scouted the ridge and didn’t find one new sign.” I tell him, “Afterward, I came out here…” and nod toward the field. “…fifteen beds and some fresh scrapes on the trees.” I’m lying. I haven’t scouted anything. I don’t really even know how.
“Let me guess,” he says, “you’re gonna hunt the ridge?”
“No, I’ll be farther down,” I say, lying again.
“This is shitty,” he says, spitting again. “This is real shitty.”
“I’ll be back before it gets too dark,” I tell him, and leave the field headed toward the northern ridge.
It’s raining hard when I get there. Usually, I like to nestle in between the roots of a large oak and relax, but because of the rain I climb into the tree stand, under the roof. It’s an old wooden box spray-painted camouflage, with a five-gallon bucket to sit on. It’s cramped, but it looks down to the bottoms where D got his twelve-point.
It was walking along that bottom. All’s a sudden it stopped and looked right up at me, D would say, his hands holding up an imaginary gun. And all the family just standing around, heads cocked. Smiling. Like it was the first time they’d heard the goddamn story. Kitowww! He’d say, jerking his shoulder back with the kick of the phantom rifle. Dropped him.
On the bucket, I sit real still, moving only my eyes in a sweeping arc out below me. I always do this for about the first ten minutes, then I usually get bored and read or write lyrics in a little notebook I carry. But now, I’m trying to stay focused because I need a buck. A monster. With this family, I’d rather not have anything on the wall than have some three or four-point runt.
Even so, I last about forty minutes before I start to yawn and shift. I lean back and stretch. I still can’t figure out the obsession with all this: you’re cold and wet and sleepy and cramped. Four of the most uncomfortable feelings all rolled into one big testosterone ball. All for a head that hangs on the wall, glassy-eyed and eerie, collecting dust.
Listening to the rain drumming the wooden roof and the distant echo of thunder, I start to think about getting my driver’s license. How good it’d be to just drive away from here and all this trying to please everyone. I take my notebook out and draw a rough sketch of a Chevy Nova. I’m coloring in the tires when I see movement in a thicket about fifty yards away.
I lean up, take a small pair of binoculars from my coat pocket, and find the movement. It’s a buck, but I’m not sure what size. Shit, I think. Shit, shit. I can’t get a horn count, but it’s all of D’s twelve. Maybe more.
He’s too far for my lame-ass shotgun, and he’s slowly moving away, up the opposite hill. I shoulder the gun and ease down from the stand to see if I can get closer. With the storm and everything, I’m hoping he can’t hear me.
On the ground, I start toward him, putting my weight on my heels. Rolling my feet softly forward to reduce noise. Ducking low, briers catch my coat sleeve and rip free, swaying as I step over a hollowed out oak log.
The deer doesn’t spook. He keeps his head down in the wet leaves, feeding on persimmons.
I aim when I get closer, but the brush is too thick. The light’s a little weaker, but through the small gaps in the thicket, I can make out the outline of his fat body. After a couple steps closer, he jerks his head up and I stop. He looks around, his nose working the air, ears twitching, then drops his mouth back to the ground, moving diagonally up the side of the ridge. He reaches the crest of the hill and I raise my gun, fifteen yards away, drawing a bead directly above his right shoulder. I thumb the safety button. I’m about to switch it off when he jerks his head up again and stares straight at me.
We both stand here, staring at each other, with the rain falling loud and cold on us. Not moving, he looks like D’s mounted deer, marble-eyed and lifeless. I hook my finger through the trigger guard. I shift my weight and inhale, and out of nowhere, he takes two steps in my direction, then picks up speed into a stride.
I squeeze the trigger but it doesn’t give. I barely realize I forgot the safety button before he rises, on his rear haunches above me, kicking. I drop my gun, raise my hands over my head, and scream. His hooves swat the back of my head like a boxer on a speed bag, and I scream again.
He knocks me to my knees and I brace for his horns going straight through me. Still screaming, I keep my hands up, his shots jamming my fingers back. He drops down and I spin out from under him, stumble to my feet, and break toward the stand, yelling. He sounds like he’s right on my heels and I’m still waiting for his antlers to gore through my stomach and come out gooey red in front. I look back over my shoulder. After what seems forever, he stops chasing, turns his momentum in the opposite direction, and trots up the hill.
I reach the stand and scale the ladder in a few lunges. I drop over the bucket and lean against the back, my breath cutting the lining in my chest. The deer clears the hill, and over the rain I hear him bouncing down the other side, snapping twigs and branches.
My hands are shaking and my scalp throbs. I touch where it burns and a chunk of hair comes out bloody on my fingertips. On the other hill, I see my gun in the leaves and I start to cry. Except for the crying and shaking, I sit motionless, soaked and cold and staring at my muddy gun until the dark takes it away.
I jump when I hear the gunshot thirty minutes later. A few knots have sprouted on my head and my fingers are spiked out in different directions at the knuckles. The rain’s stopped.
Easing up on my elbows, I listen for another shot. Nothing.
“God,” I say, “damn it.” I drag myself up to the bucket, letting out a high whine when my hand bumps the rail. “Fucker killed one,” I say, my eyes starting to burn. I put my head down on my arms, my face hurting under the skin, and start to cry again. It’s embarrassing, but D always gets the deer. Some people always get the deer.
When I finally stop bawling, it’s too dark to see. I knuckle my eyes and slowly climb down. Now I’ll have to act all proud of him. Show sportsmanship and everything. What I really want to do is stay in the stand. Just sit all night, listening to the leaves drip and gumballs thumping the ground.
I climb down, take out a small flashlight, and find my gun. The barrel jammed full of mud. After scraping some of the mess off, I head toward D’s stand.
My gun held to my chest, at every shift or pop in the thickets, I’m jumping. Turning. Shining the light in different directions. Limb cracks and squirrels, now they’re just that crazy deer charging after me.
On the way to the field, I get turned around. All the trees look the same. I almost start to cry again, but to the far right I hear faint voices. I walk toward them and, as I get closer, I recognize the laughs.
“I pulled the trigger and he jumped five feet in the air,” D’s saying. “Sucker ran fifteen yards and dropped.” Uncle Mac and Dad high-five him, still laughing.
“You hit the jackpot, buddy,” Uncle Mac says.
Dad says, “Fourteen-pointer.” He says, “And I’d say at least a sixteen inch spread.”
Uncle Mac whistles and says, “Son. Of. A. Bitch.”
That’s my deer, I think. My crazy fucking deer.
Their flashlight beams whip around on the trees like out of sync strobe lights. They must have heard the gunshot from the house and come out looking through the field. They’re all wearing orange vests and hunched over the large brown lump on the soggy ground.
I wipe my eyes again. They’re sore and swollen from crying. I ease my wet hat on my head to hide the knots. “Told you,” I say, hoping they hadn’t heard me screaming earlier. They point their lights at me and I lower my head to hide my eyes. I say, “What’d I tell you?”
“There he is,” Uncle Mac says. “Come see what your brother got.”
“What about you?” Dad says, when I’ve almost reached them. “You get anything?”
I don’t answer. Besides, he isn’t really asking, anyway.