The Hunter
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

David Irving

Among 20 snowy mountains the only thing the hunter saw in the early morning light from behind his blind was a deer moving at the edge of the woods. The young doe lifted her head and sniffed the crisp air just as the 160 grain bullet tore into the flesh of her left hip and shattered the bone there. A whine cut the air as the doe leaped in agony. Adrenalin poured through her system, fear coated her eyes, a gush of red erupted onto the snow at her feet.

“Goddammit! Missed the fucking bastard again!” the hunter swore, smacking the side of his 7mm Remington Magnum with his paw. He pressed a gloved thumb against the right side of his nostrils and blew out a wad of snot on the snow at his feet. “Wish the hell Harry would hurry and get back with the goddamned coffee!!”

The hunter stepped away from his blind, stretched, walked a few feet away, unzipped his pants, and began to piss in the snow. He tried to trace the figure of a deer in the snow as he pissed.

“That buck must have been at least a five-pointer,” he exclaimed. He thought about his thirteen year-old son Joey and how exciting it would be to tell him about the buck. Joey would be old enough to bag a deer himself next year.

“Time to make him into a man,” the hunter mused. Joey had been acting mighty strange this year. His teacher said he loved poetry. Wanted his dad to start him on piano.

“Hell! Were not havin’ none of that damn crap in this house,” the hunter said. To himself he thought, “You don’t suppose he’s turnin’…” He paused for a moment, and his eyes narrowed. “Na! Impossible!” he said.

Staggering wounded back into the cover of the woods, the young doe dragged her wounded leg and limped towards the safety of the small family of deer she had just left. But at the sound of the gunshot the family had bolted in all directions. The doe sensed she was alone and shivered uncomprehending. She wandered deeper into the woods. Were the wolves that howled nearby in the night still around? Would the pack smell the blood? The doe could move no further. Her knees buckled and she collapsed near some shrubbery and managed to crawl behind it. There she lay panting and waiting. The doe mewed, looking out with large, oval, brown eyes, and whined with the pain, her ears perked up intent on every sound. She wanted to lick at the wound if only that would ease the searing pain, but it is was too far back and too high up to reach.

Originally published on Cyrano's Journal


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