The Heart of Darkness?

(originally written on October 5th, didn't feel like publishing until I'd had a chance to proofread again and edit a bit)

"Mistah Kurtz?  He dead." 

DEER, ARCHERY (Antlered and Antlerless) Statewide, including WMUs 2B, 5C and 5D: Sept. 29-Nov. 10 and Dec. 26-Jan. 12. One antlered deer per hunting license year. One antlerless deer with each required antlerless license

Why is the above Game Commission quote important?  Early this morning (re 5 Oct 07 - MOGS), I bagged my first six-point buck, only not the way I ever intended to.  The unit is in the midst of an important exercise, big time show with the Army, active duty Air Force, Air Force Reserve, and Guardsmen from a plethora of units.  I was on my way to my fourth and final graveyard shift of the damned thing.  There's a nasty intersection where semi-lit (and POORLY semi-let I might add) residential road turns into unlit farm country road, which is on the way to the regional airport and our tiny "base" (which as small as it is, is a joint venture between the Army Guard and us).  I work less than 5 miles from where I live. 

The speed limit jumps from 35 to 55 mph on this road, right about this intersection.  Hunters and wildlife routinely stalk the woods in the area quite often, black bears have been sighted by runners and bikers of every stripe.  Weird traffic "courtesies" are here:  a right turn signal could mean you're continuing straight, or it could mean you're turning into a driveway.  You don't have to stop for the left turns, but both the straight airport road and the curve to the country road have stop signs.  No one seems to mind the speed limit much. 

Once you gun it across the intersection, the turnoff to the unit is about a half a mile up the road.  At about 2320, my headlights get full of deer, I'm doing about 40 mph mind you, not even close to the speed limit yet (as dark as it is out there, I never drive fullspeed at night in this part of the country), I slam the breaks, and jink right almost into the hedge rows delineating the farm and university property. 

The deer almost makes it.

He almost clears the front of the Ponti.  I clipped the ass-end of the animal, really just his hind leg, with the left headlight.  I don't run him over, and I don't hit him head on, thank God, but he spins head first into the driver's side door, his horns dragging across the quarter panel and scratching the paint, and leaving a couple nice, deep dents, but otherwise no visible damage. The headlight still works, though it's pretty dim right now (by the next morning, it was shot).  I pull off the side of the road about 100-150 ft down the road and throw my hazards on.  I get out of the car, it's pitch black.  My little penlight can't throw off a wide enough or strong enough beam to find him, and for some reason I don't have my Maglite in the glove compartment.  Not finding the deer, I do a quick inspection of the car, revealing the remarkably little damage done, all things considered. 

A truck pulls up and slows, and three local men get out.  They ask if I'm okay, I affirm but, I'm more than a little shaken, one of the men calls that he found the deer, and he's still alive.  We walk over, and I shine my light on the barely visible bulk on the side of the road.  My night vision adjusts, and I can see the deer lying on its side, breathing heavily.  He tries to stand, but his broken hind leg won't allow it.  The way he's breathing and the way his mouth trails blood on the ground, I imagine that I may have done enough internal damage to puncture a lung. 

"Hey look at the side of his face, that's where he hit your car mister, he's pretty f*%*'d up." 

Yeah, he is.  I might have done some brain damage too.  I can see his breath in the cool misty night.  I don't have my pistol on me, lacking a CCW valid in this state, I don't transport my pistol unless I'm going to the range for practice shooting.  I have no knife, at least not one that can bring a quick, merciful death for him.  I can't put him out of his misery, and the way his head keeps on thrashing and his attempts at standing, I'd likely get impaled; I'm not exactly knowledgeable on ways to break a wounded deer's neck with my bare hands, and I don't have tools in my trunk car kit heavy enough to guarantee I can end this.

I call it in, otherwise the three gents who stopped to help would have probably taken the animal for me, if it had been dead on arrival that is.  After a quick call from work asking where I am, I call 911.  About 15-20 minutes or so passes, and an officer drives up, takes my information.  Sometime between the three locals driving off, a few other cars speeding by the scene, and the cop's arrival, the animal finally expires.  It's a relief, at first glance I figured the officer would have to deliver the final blow himself.  He drags the carcass further off the side of the road, almost into the tall grasses, and we proceed up to the unit to finish the matter.  He files the accident report and tells me that if I want the deer, I just need to call the state game commission and give the details, they'd issue a tag, it's bow season anyway. 

We talk a bit, and he shares his deer collision story, and a few others he's responded too, he remarks how lucky I was that my car got off pretty light, nor was I hurt one damn bit.

Fact is, my reaction might have saved my life:  if that buck's head had come through the driver's side of the windshield, with that rack, I might not be typing this.

I get to the unit, report in, get my changeover, and ask if anyone on hand wants the deer.  We have enough avid, active hunters in the unit, and I've seriously thought about going out this year with them.  Unfortunately, none are on shift for the next 8 hrs or so, and no one's going to want it by then, and I don't have the means to store, dress, and clean the animal myself.  It's been a LONG time since survival school, I don't have the recent experience to do it right, not without making an even bigger mess.  I call the insurance company.  It looks like I'm going to need some body work done, maybe check the alignment too (all together, about $1500 smackers).

So, here I am 9 hrs after the fact.  I drove by the scene just after sunrise, my neck on a swivel to see (hopefully) that someone claimed him.  Nope.  There he is on the side of the road still. 

Here's what bugs me. 

Hunting for food and useful animal products doesn't bother me.  I don't care for hunting purely for sport, never have, for no use of the animal itself save for a trophy.  I hate waste, I hate killing anything larger than a varmint or  rodent for the pure heck of it, and I figure if you're going to take life, you do it to help sustain the life of you and yours.  It's damn certain how I ended up here typing this, and that you're reading it.

I had no problem killing our rabbits in survival, and my big fish kill is one of my prouder moments.  This bothers me.  Why?  Because the animal suffered for no purpose.  I saw his spittle, from where his mouth impacted my door.  It took him about 30 minutes to die, and I didn't have the means to render a merciful end.  I thought, briefly, about running home to grab my pistol, coming back and finishing this, but that idea seemed like leaving the scene of an accident to me, so I waited for the cops.  I had my rattan sticks in the trunk, but I didn't think of those at the time.  In survival, I'd used sticks to kill rabbits.  There was still the matter of getting close and not receiving 6 points of antlers in the face or gut. 

Finally, when I was alone out there just me and the deer, I said I was sorry, and said something resembling a prayer. 

"I'm sorry.  Not like this.  I'm sorry."

Why apologize to a deer?  I apologized for a painful, all too slow death, one that I almost averted.  When I first saw him, seeing that he looked relatively unscathed, I thought that perhaps, miraculously, maybe he'd just been dazed, got himself a nice bang on the nugget.  Not so much.

I don't have a problem with the killing, but the suffering, and the sight of the breath steaming out of his bloodied muzzle as he heaved and thrashed about trying to stand and run away, that's what bothered me. 

I know it was an accident, and like I said, the hunting of deer and (most) other animals does not bother me.  It's part of how we humans got here in the first place, it's in our blood, as much as some people posture and pretend and act like they're too good for it. 

The truth is, pretty much all the hunters I know are far, far better stewards of the natural world than all the self-righteous-vegan-pansy-animal-rights "BUT IT'S FOR THE CHEEEELDREN!!!!!" clowns in the world.

I say that if a man can't find it in him to hunt/fish, to kills something for food if necessary, I sometimes wonder what he does have in him, save years and years of Disney movies.  Does the "sheepdog" ever come out?  Does a human "switch" exist in this man? 

Harsh, prejudiced, and over-generalizing, but only to a point, I think such a man misses out on a significant part of his birthright. It's almost as questionable as the stoic modern Malthusian wannabe sophist who declares he doesn't want children, better to help reduce the burden of overpopulation or such.  I wonder if those men are afraid, deep down that they might just enjoy it if they gave it a try (hunting or family), and what then of their whole little constructed worldview?

Back on that road, I didn't want that buck to lie there and thrash about for his final minutes on this earth.  That's not how I wanted my first buck.  Those 30 silent, cold minutes shame me.

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Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, The Virtuous Republic, , The Populist, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, The Bullwinkle Blog, Big Dog's Weblog, Pursuing Holiness, Adeline and Hazel, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, DragonLady's World, Walls of the City, Blue Star Chronicles, Pirate's Cove, The Pink Flamingo, CORSARI D'ITALIA, High Desert Wanderer, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Comments

[Rosemary]

I wish I could tell you not to worry or feel so sad, but I know how stupid that would be. I hope you feel better soon. Godspeed, l'il deer. (Yes, I believe all animals go to Heaven!)