The world goes cold—not
for lack of heat—as I step into the dwelling of a fellow being. The ground is
familiar. The air is not.
My intention changes
the atmosphere. My boots tread a familiar course more tenderly than ever
before. Solemnity resonates throughout my body.
A silent tension is
latent in the trees, not manifest but when playing by the rules of the arena. Under
the lens of the present mood, it forms a viscous weight in the understory.
It’s a primitive game,
worlds removed from the calloused, disconnected existence that modern living
affords—one that is best played with primal senses, determination, and
pensiveness. And so perhaps it is suiting that such a journey begins solitary,
long before the sun awakens and the dissembled world has a chance to impose.
Thoughts run rampant as
the morning progresses, lost in a daydream that becomes more real as the cool,
pre-dawn moonlight trades places with the gray of morning. If the dream comes
to fruition, I’ll be blessed by a rendezvous with a storied local. Gaze panning
nervously, I slide down a shadowy, pine-covered ridge.
Much like my own, my
target’s early hours are ruled by tradition. Nestled against the sprawling roots
of an uprooted oak in a dense creekbottom, his eyes drift open by the light of
a late-to-rise moon.
The mating season is
coming; and soon the world will be an even harsher place. The air says so. Carb-loading
on freshly fallen starches will be a rule of survival going forward. Gently, he
stands from his bed, shaking dirt from dark hair.
His mood is heavy, too.
Seven years of hooves on this ground have instilled a caution for the season. For
it’s when the gums and maples ignite and the call to mate courses like
electricity through his body that humans set out to fulfill their own ritual. He
runs his tongue over a dark nose, whetting a vital sense.
Nose to the wind,
antlers bobbing, the character deserts his bed for the comfort of a well-worn
foot trail, weaving through young forest, following the creek downstream.
At the base of the
ridge, I encounter a familiar beaver field—timber flooded and drowned by a
beaver pond that jumped its banks four springs before—repurposed as a thicket. Through
the haze of morning, I fix my gaze on an opening in the treeline opposite me, where,
if all goes to plan, I’ll catch the first glimpse of my quarry.
More light filters
through the canopy and illuminates his trail. The undergrowth grows sparser
nearing an opening facing the base of a tall ridge. Cautiously, he approaches,
pauses, nose to the sky.
An ivory crown, perched
stately above a steely gaze, catches my attention and sends my heart rate
flying. All else falls into an inaudible background. My grip tightens around
the handle of a bow that previously seemed weightless.
White-rimmed ears
swivel as the crown falls. Satisfied, the veteran resumes, perusing his domain,
unaware of the felon in his presence.
A few steps further,
and the whitetail buck’s tawny form emerges from a tangle of rose and stump,
mere feet away. Fear and dread flicker in and out of my body, mixed with
feigned composure. The weight thickens. My muscles tremble.
His crown, a
culmination of dominant wit and character, drops to the brushy ground,
browsing. He’s blinded.
Seizing my chance, I
drive away fear and draw the nocked arrow back with a deep breath. It’s
mechanical, practiced. Exhale.
The weight increases,
ever more.
Thwack!
The animal dips,
wheels, and sprints, frantically—body low to the ground, hooves falling over
hooves. The world comes crashing back—the warmth, the color, the sounds, the
smells.
Elation fills my
extremities, as the brown form bounds out of sight, and a mortal crash
concludes chaos. Tension rattles my body uncontrollably as it escapes,
returning to hide amongst the landscape within another predator, another prey.
Shallow is my breathing
as I lunge through matted tallgrass and drowned tree trunks towards the creek
where I know my fellow to rest. My eyes fall on motionless coat and bone.
The pain of death is a
universal sting, felt by all who too know life. A trickle of doubt and
self-loathing penetrate my mind. God speaks to me as it brings me to my knees.
“This is what it means
to live,” He says. For it, I am thankful.
So begins the process
of repayment—to the land, and to the spirit of my late companion. The weight I
have come to know develops and lingers in a haze of reverence about my mind,
but I find comfort in knowing, by some shrouded hint of heritage, that its
burden is a manifestation of being truly, and utterly, human.
*Originally published in The Rural Virginian
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