We push our way through the cattails with their tufts and the arching alder, our feet sinking into the mud, and at last we arrive at the King of Trees. Three years back, I built the stand: a ladder with a platform at the top and a big notch so that it sort of hugs the tree. I put it together back at the cabin and then dragged it down here. Trust me, this was no easy task, but worth it, since I’d been hunting on the ground with Finch for five years, which with a bow is almost impossible.
I tie my bow to the rope that hangs from the tree. Finch climbs up first, and I follow close behind, so that just in case she were to lose her footing, I could catch her. Then, once we’re both in the stand, I slowly pull up the bow. We tuck down against the tree, settle in, pull the large camouflage blanket over our bodies, tuck it in at our sides. The bow’s ready, the arrow’s nocked.
I could almost lean into it, the peace of this place—the world quiet except for the whisper of slow-moving water, the breeze and the trees tossing the very last of their leaves, the thrushes darting through the purple-red stalks of alder, and Finch taking it all in, tucked in next to me—except we’re not just hunting, today. I’m waiting for him.
The first thing I do is use the scope on the .243 to pan the whole valley, looking for Scotland. I stop and take a good long look at our blind, and it’s clear: he’s not in there. At least not yet.
Finch kicks her small legs, knees bending, feet twitching and rubbing along the plywood.
“What is it, Finch?” I whisper, close to her ear. “No deer’s gonna come anywhere near us if you don’t sit still.”
Her legs quit moving and she turns to look at me, eyes wide, wrinkling her nose, showing her baby teeth, the one loose and hanging on by a thread. This is a new look for her. Her bear face, she calls it. I think she imagines it’s scary but Finch is eight and beautiful, and even her ugliest face isn’t scary. I’m not just saying this because she’s my daughter, though I suspect all parents see their children through a certain lens that makes them more attractive than they truly are. Finch, though—she really is an exquisite little creature, with her blond hair and her eyes like water, clear and changing, somehow green and gray and blue all at once and sometimes more one than the other. A spitting image of Cindy when she was a kid.
She plucks a leaf from a branch, leans back against the King of Trees, and begins tracing its veins with her pointer finger. I reach out and squeeze her hand and lean back next to her, and I think, no matter who you are in this world, you’d be hard-pressed to experience a moment better than this. The December sun warm and still high in the sky but dropping, flinging light through the saplings. The breeze. The air heavy with pine and dirt and whitetail, too: the promise in that smell, the hope of something to come. All of us hoping. I close my eyes and listen—
Leaves. Step step step. Finch, hearing it too now, presses her fingers into my palm. Step step. Whatever it is, it’s close, but behind us, the King of Trees is blocking it from view. Stomp. Hoof pounding the ground. This is a deer, sensing something isn’t right. But step step step step, and in a moment, they walk into our line of view, their bodies tight and alert. Two of them, doe and fawn, their coats in the midst of turning from that amber color of summertime to the darker gray-brown of winter.
I’ve always hated it when this happens. Mother and young. You take the mother, the fawn is left to fend for itself. You take the fawn, you’re killing a baby in front of its mother. And I know animals are animals and maybe they don’t feel love, but still. It’s an ugly situation either way, and I wish it could be avoided but it can’t. Well. We need to eat and my rule has always been to take the mother, more meat. Slowly, I move my hand to the bow.
The deer step from the woods into open ground, the mother looking around, assessing everything, cautious. I still need to draw back the arrow, which means they need to get farther out ahead where they’re not right next to us. A delicate matter, hunting with a bow. The deer has to be far enough away that I can pull back without her seeing me, but she can’t be too far away, or she’s out of range. The doe raises her head and sniffs the air, then seems to relax a little, snout to ground, grabbing grass. They are so close but we’re downwind so they must not smell us. Step. Beautiful, delicate creatures. So close I can see the silhouette of the doe’s thick lashes. Her watchful brown eyes. They inch forward, and by now my heart is pounding, waiting for the moment because when it comes, I’ll need to be fast.