by Jim Robertson

As I write this it’s ‘General Deer Season’ and although the bucks are wisely hanging out in the high country above the valley floor, I just heard a gunshot when I stepped outside that could easily have resulted in a hunting accident for any of us living in this sparsely populated area,  including my dog, or people’s horses and cows or the does and their fawns who call these foothills their home.

The following is a fictionalized account, based on countless actual hunting accidents, that takes the reader inside a hunter’s mind after one such tragedy…

I can’t believe I shot the boy. He was 12 years old, but I still called him Markey, and he called me Uncle Mel. He was growing up fast, and I was honored to take him out on his first deer hunt. His mother, my sister-in-law, bought him the standard safety equipment and Markey wore his orange vest religiously. 

I don’t know, I guess he must have been bent over to tighten up his new boots (he had been complaining that they didn’t fit him right), but all I saw was a patch of brown hair that looked like fur (it was hard to tell at that distance in the low light and from behind the thick brush we were hunting in).

We were following a nice buck we had seen earlier that morning. Its tracks were fresh wherever we found them and although I’ve killed plenty of deer throughout my life, this one had a rack of impressive antlers that anyone would have loved to claim as a trophy for their wall. I was thinking of mounting it head and all.

I should have let Markey harvest it for his first buck, but I didn’t want to miss the chance and let it get away, so I took a shot. I knew it wouldn’t be a clean kill-shot, but I figured it would drop the deer and give me a chance to go catch up and finish it off. What I found when I got there, I’ll never forget for the rest of my days…

Instead of a prize buck, the pitiful sight of Markey’s bloodied body will haunt me from this day on whenever I raise my rifle and sight through the scope. Now, rather than the elation of going to the bar and reliving the adventure by bragging about it to anyone who would listen, I’d have to face the boy’s mother and explain why, after losing her husband—my brother—to a deadly fall from a tree stand a few hunting seasons back, she now would have to mourn the death of her first-born son as well.

It just doesn’t seem fair that what should have been a proud moment shared with all who would appreciate the thrill of the hunt, I would now have something so embarrassing to try to live down. I had rehearsed the story over and over in my mind about how deer had gotten so overpopulated and had become a road hazard and that as a hunter we were doing society a favor by thinning the herd, but now I had to dread telling the story of a hunting accident to the Sherriff and anyone to else who wanted to know about it. Instead of being a hero, I would now be seen as some kind of criminal. But hunting is legal, and I was just doing my part to share the experience with the younger generation so they wouldn’t lose touch with an important tradition. 

I know my hunting buddies will understand when I tell them about the accident and I expect to get a call from someone in the NRA or the Safari Club or one of the other hunting groups to coach me on what to say to the press, but I half expect to get some looks or hear people talking in hushed tones about me at the local grocery store until this thing blows over. As bad as this all is, it would be worse if some animal rights or anti-hunting do-gooders got wind of it and tried to use it to stop hunting for good. Heck, for many of us, it’s our favorite sport; we don’t know what we’d do without hunting season to look forward to.

I can just hear some of their types saying that hunting is cruel and unnecessary and that we should just let the natural predators control the deer like they always have. Well, I’m sure there’s a lot of reasons to keep on hunting. I can’t think of them now, but I know we didn’t kill-off wolves and control cougars for nothing. The fact that it gives more game for us to hunt is reason enough. Aren’t humans more important than wolves, bears or mountain lions? I wouldn’t want to go on living if I wasn’t better than those animals.

I remember one of the last things Markey said to me just the other day. He said, “Uncle Mel, why don’t the non-hunters appreciate what we do to keep the deer numbers down?” I told him, “I don’t know, Markey, they seem to have some kind of hair-brained idea that nature can take care of itself without us. If that were true, I’d hang up my gun forever—which I don’t plan to ever do, and I hope you don’t ever either.” “No sir,” Markey told me, “Now that you showed me the ropes, I plan to be out here hunting every fall for the rest of my life, like you.” Besides some of the big bucks and bull elk I’ve shot over the years, that was one of the proudest moments in all my life.

As I crouched down to check for a pulse, which I couldn’t imagine finding since the bullet had gone clear through his head and almost removed the top part of his skull, I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye and I looked up to see the buck we were after looking down on us from the top of a steep, snow-covered ridge. Although I know he couldn’t possibly have been thinking it, it’s almost like his expression was one of disdain—like he was thinking, ‘You humans will kill anyone, even your own kind.’

The buck then turned away and crossed the ridge out of sight. I looked back at the boy and quickly gave up on trying to find any sign of life—he was surely gone. I covered him up with my coat (I was too hot for it now anyway), then stood up, turning my back on the scene and took a step or two away. Time seemed to be moving slowly as I pulled my ‘smartphone’ out of my back pocket and dialed 911. The sheriff’s dispatcher told me they’d send a helicopter out I should keep my phone on so the ambulance crew could find my location. As I hung up, I thought about the fact that wildlife don’t have the chance to be rescued—when they’re shot, their life is over, no matter how long it takes for them to die.

The whole situation was turning ugly, and I found myself thinking that maybe this would be my last hunting season. It just wasn’t worth it to put so many others through so much for a sport or hobby. Maybe I should switch to hiking instead since that’s the only real exercise you get in the sport anyway, besides packing out the meat from a kill which can be treacherous when you have to posthole through fresh snow over blowdowns with a heavy pack on your back.

The more I think about it, this is my last hunting season. My buddies will understand, and if they don’t then maybe they weren’t my true friends after all. And to Hell with the Safari Club and the NRA. They’s just a bunch of Trump supporters and I’ve always voted Democrat anyway. I’m sure predators can keep the deer populations in check without Me and Markey’s help. They’ve been doing a good job without human hunters for millions of years. And if folks would just slow down—and maybe if there were fewer cars on the roads—there wouldn’t be so many accidents involving deer. Truth be told, we weren’t really hunting to help anyone else but ourselves anyway.    

I’m hearing the helicopter now, coming up from the wide valley below. At least I won’t have to pack out Markey’s body—that would make this whole thing even more depressing. I just hope the boy’s mother forgives me. Heck, I hope I can forgive myself. It might be good time to join C.A.S.H. and become an anti-hunter to redeem myself…