My Only Job

They say that there is a first time for everything. I’m certain that’s true and that most of those firsts we don’t remember because we were too young and then when we got older, we were too scared to try anything new or in too much of a rush to notice firsts happening at all. Some firsts, however, stick with you. You may even be in the very moment of a first-time experience when you realize, this will from here on out be tradition, or habit, or old news but today, it is a brand-new experience and I am going to do my best to notice every bit of it. From the cactus spikes punching into my elbow as I inch forward in a mess of gravel and practically petrified cow pies to the dance of the coyote being chased by the mule deer herd to the rattle of the aspen branches as the wind blows steadily from over the hill. This was the case, during my first mule deer harvest.

I was joined by my first hunting mentor, longtime friend, and now boyfriend Willy for this hunt. We drove three and a half hours north that cold October Friday. We were welcomed by ponderosa forests and rolling hills, drastic cliff edges and rock faces reminiscent of the Badlands in South Dakota. Driving closer to where we’d be residing for the weekend, we noticed more and more mule deer floating from the timberline and into the ag fields; a symbol of hope for the hunt ahead of us.

A couple hundred black angus cattle lifted their head to watch my lousy excuse of a hunting rig roll past them, disturbing the dirt in the road and scattering dust past their unamused stare. Two mindless pheasants waddled up the road as if to greet us at the gate and flushed when I whistled at them out the car window. We passed the ranch, initially, to do a quick car scout before dark. Dozens of mule deer, mainly does, fed contently in the ag fields as the sun fell below the high mountain horizon. Willy insisted we keep pushing and go up the road a bit further to scout in the last light of day. The road was what I considered to be a gamble for my two-wheel drive ford but it coughed out some exhaust and scooted onward. We found a few more routes and drainages that looked potentially suitable for the morning pursuit and rolled back toward the ranch. At the final turn before the property, three mule deer appeared in a trampled and chewed patch of grass. We stopped the car no more than fifty yards from them and we watched each other. I tried to steady my hands and count the points through my binocular lenses. One of the mule deer bucks was a four point or two by two as they say out this way. While that may not sound exciting, the height of his antlers and the width of the main beams had Willy drooling. The second mule deer buck was an eight point and belonged on the cover of an outdoor magazine that collected dust on the wood burning stove of an old hunting cabin. The third was a doe or maybe a small spike but we didn’t pay much attention to it either way. They were comfortable with our presence and my eager eyes had me ask Willy if I should consider grabbing my rifle and walking in just a bit from the car for a shot. Willy quickly responded with all of his thoughts and each one was a reason not to, to which I agreed. Hunting doesn’t often occur like that, at least not in my experience, and I ultimately wasn’t much interested in taking the cheap route.

So, we drove to the ranch. When we pulled up to the guest house a yellow lab wagged its tail and thought about barking. He looked tired and trudged toward us smiling with his white mustache instead. Willy and I kneeled down to pet him and from around the house a man shouted, “Mateo, donde estas?” He turned the corner and was surprised to see us standing there but removed a dirty work glove and shook our hands. We walked over to the main home with him and his wife poked her head out the door. “La casa no está limpia,” she whispered to him. I looked at Willy and looked back at them. “We’re sorry, we don’t have you on the list of guests for tonight,” the man said back to us in broken English. Now is probably a good spot in the story to note that Willy is, while having good intentions, notorious for this type of occurrence and to summarize, we have slept in the car, a lot. I have mostly enjoyed the unexpected back seat sleepover adventures across the country that we’ve had on the times when we were expecting a bed or a campsite but this was not going to be one of those times. We had no way to car camp in below freezing temperatures and there was a mule deer hunt that needed to happen. I looked at the woman and responded in my broken Spanish, “no hay problema, podemos ayudar a limpiar la casa. Queremos dos noches aquí, por fa.” She appeared both embarrassed and relieved that we spoke a bit of each other’s languages but she smiled and agreed to the help we offered and our request for a two-night stay. We walked over to the guest house with Mateo at our heels and the coyotes beginning their evening song. Warm yellow lights turned on when she walked inside and we talked about our hometowns and hunting in between changing sheets and bringing our bags inside. Eventually, the place was as clean as it would get under the circumstances and with a swat at a passing stink bug, they were off back towards the ranch house and Willy and I were playing spades and sketching our morning route on a map. We slipped into bed with what turned out to be many, many more bugs and drifted off to the hum of the moths, eager for morning.

Morning arrived. Willy and I quietly slipped into layers of long johns followed by camo outerwear and then gloves and hats. I prepared my backpack while he made two cups of tea. I double checked that the gun and ammo were ready to go and Willy checked that my boot laces were tight enough, an honorable responsibility he’s assigned himself over the years we have hunted together. After two trips back to the cabin for miscellaneous items forgotten, we were on our way. We crossed a barbed wire fence by placing the butt of the gun on the top wire and pushing it down until it was low enough to jump over. It was dark enough for each star to still be out and visible but light enough for us to make out the silhouettes of the cattle in the pasture we were trekking through. We whispered about which drainage we wanted to hike toward and the route we’d hike upwards to initially glass the landscape, untouched by us. Halfway through the pasture I noticed something happening that hadn’t happened to me before. The cattle were coming toward us, and not just curiously, they were trucking. A couple of the cows had their heads low and appeared agitated. Willy and I picked up speed but tried not to break into a run and startle the herd. I asked Willy if he thought maybe they thought we had food, before he could answer he grabbed my hand and started running until we reached the ditch and jumped over it. The cattle were loud and gruff and pretty unhappy with us in general. We started to nervously laugh and continued up the hill as focused as possible. I thought I saw Willy flip them the bird from the other side of the ditch while I reached for my inhaler. Onwards.

Having survived the mountain darkness and cattle attack I was feeling more uneasy and embarrassed than invincible by my lack of experience. We were coming up over the first hill when I pointed to three does watching us like spotters from the cliff edge a couple hundred yards away. We lowered our bodies after a few steps and then Willy tapped me repeatedly until I turned my head to see a dozen more running out in front of us from the field up into the mountain. We dropped down to our stomachs and I laid prone and chambered a bullet just in case. I watched them through my scope, trotting and unaware of us as we laid with tweaked backs in the dispersed sagebrush. Our feet were higher than our heads and fog was forming from our mouths as we talked about the deer in the morning light. Willy pointed out a buck but I was unable to spot him before he moved over the grassy peak. The sun had almost reached the summit and yellow light began to pour over the frosted valley. When each deer passed by and out of sight at last, we rose and stretched and began toward the top of the mountain from the other side of where the deer had gone. Willy and I are both very new to western hunting and maybe that is even obvious in my recounting of the events but at any rate we always work off of two plans when we hunt; endless bickering and gut instincts. We made our cases and decided that Willy’s plan was best to start but that the next call was already designated to me. The next seven miles went just like that, exchanging of thoughts and plans and shots in the dark. We pushed a couple of does, watched a mom and fawn feed and groom from a cliff above them, and spotted a small group of does nestle in and bed down by about one in the afternoon in the sage brush and late autumn golden rod. I was pleased with our opportunities to study and observe the deer in multiple settings since the start of the day and we sat down for a lunch of turkey sandwiches and honey crisp apples against a couple of trees just below the ridge.

We made a plan to hike back out and try another approach for the afternoon.

We were back at the cabin by two in the afternoon and determined we shouldn’t spend too much of daylight thinking when we could be in the woods. Willy and I discussed our options and I finally convinced him to hunt the timberline near an ag field. We hiked back in and were surprised by a group of deer already feeding in the field as we approached. There were two massive bucks in the group that were basking in the sun as the does and fawns fed and chased away a nearby coyote. We watched them and eventually Willy figured out where the deer were coming from. An evident deer trail ran down the timber and within a few minutes we watched a doe and two fawns come trickling down it, hop the fence, and go off to browse the vegetation. If I wanted a decent shot within the two-hundred-yard boundary I had set for myself on my first rifle hunt, I’d have to get in closer. With the number of deer that had already come down the trail and the large group feeding, it would require a strategic and steady crawl toward the edge of the small hill or rather dirt pile that we were currently sitting on. I lowered myself down on to my belly with the rifle in one hand, a chest rig strapped around my front side, a backpack sitting on top of me and my glasses sliding down my nose as I began to inch. Each push, I would use one forearm and the opposite leg to shift forward and in the next lift the rifle and pull my other leg forward. As I crept further I slowly unclipped my chest rig, took off my gloves, and left quite a few items behind. After a half hour of tedious inching, I reached a comfortable spot and set myself up. Willy crept up behind me eventually and we pulled slivers from our hands while we waited a bit longer. More deer came running down the trail, all does. I wasn’t opposed to shooting a doe and as the evening progressed, I made an internal decision to take a doe after all. I whispered to Willy, “I think I am going to shoot that doe, is she in range?” and he replied, “dude, look left, I think those are bucks.” Not much communication followed. I shifted my body toward the two bucks that had lingered in without our knowing and watched them both for a moment. “Do you know which one you are going to take?” Willy asked and I nodded to indicate ‘yes.’ I hadn’t looked at the antlers for any reason other than to make sure they weren’t spikes, once I realized there were more points, I just went with my gut and preyed on the buck that remained mostly broadside. My only responsibility from that moment forward was to cleanly kill. I asked Willy to tap me twice when he thought it was appropriate to shoot and I was within range. I felt two taps on my right arm and steadied the rifle. The crosshairs hovered over the buck’s heart. I breathed in, I breathed out, and I squeezed the trigger.

A loud boom erupted and echoed across the valley and the deer scattered. All, but one. The time it takes for a rifle bullet to travel two hundred yards is practically a quarter of a second. That quarter of a second remains as an entire memory in my head, and the clarity of the experience and thoughts in the proceeding seconds are concrete. I watched the buck drop instantly. My hands shook uncontrollably and my first thought was, “so that’s how that works,” in relation to my first time witnessing a big game animal be shot with anything other than a bow. My second thought, honestly, was, “damn, I’m good.” My third thought, “Is he moving?” He was. The second buck that had bolted upon the shot had returned and was circling the other buck rather frantically and helpless. Willy confirmed, “he’s moving, get ready to take another shot.” “Did I get him in the spine?” I asked regretfully. “Maybe, he is trying to pick his head up, you might have to take a neck shot.” I prepared for a neck shot but the buck could not raise his head, he appeared to be paralyzed, confirming my question about the first shot. I watched him closely and determined we needed to get closer. Willy agreed. As we rose and ran lowly toward the buck, I had another thought, “I wish I could pass Willy the gun, I can’t do this.” “Get ready,” Willy told me. Now the next moments are unclear to me but Willy says it went like this, “The bucks head lifted at last and the second buck finally got out of the way, the buck showed signs of more strength and finally sat fully up opening a clear shot to his chest or neck now, Christine repeatedly said aloud ‘I have to kill this buck, my only job is to kill this buck, I have to kill this buck, that is my only job.’” In that moment, I demanded my emotions and adrenaline to subside and steadied the gun again. I pulled the trigger, the buck collapsed, and died at last.

A lot of people have a lot of opinions on hunting and the emotions and motivations that come with it. My opinion is this, there is no room for opinions in an experience that is so matter of fact, and you can only know such experience by doing it yourself. It’s not for everyone. I sometimes question if it is for me in the time between watching a deer drift across the land and pulling a trigger. Killing is not honorable but such a thing exists as honorable killing. When you have decided to take life for food, your one and only job is to do that as quickly and ethically as possible. Some of that can be conjured up in prep, most of it comes down to the moment of truth and the decisions you make during it. Willy looked at me and told me it was time to go have a look at him. I was worried he would rise again, that his chest would still be moving air through it and his heart pumping when we stood over him and that I’d have to end his life with hardly any distance between us. I even made Willy touch him first, I felt like a child. Then I grabbed his antler and lifted his head and put my hand on his chest, still and empty of air, and I began to cry. I don’t share the intimacies of my spirituality or emotion often on this platform but I will say this, it was a top tier spiritual experience. I watched the soul of a living creature leave its flesh form and turn from life to death and then to meat and to life again in a matter of a couple of days. Willy and I dragged the deer east toward the rising moon and to the edge of the field where we could raise him up on a bit of an angle to begin the gutting process. I was happy to have Willy, an experienced hunter with me for the process from trigger to table. Just as we punctured the hide over the chest of the buck, I noticed something walking towards us in the dark. The animal was practically glowing and I squinted while trying to make out what it was. I tapped Willy’s shoulder and told him to join me in my now nervous guesses and assumptions. A second animal appeared behind it, darker and at about fifty yards in the now dark crescent moon night. “Oh my gosh,” Willy breathed out, and two horses, one white and one black came walking calmly towards us. I stood up to make sure they saw us too. They came up to us and sniffed around a bit and gazed at the still and bloody deer at our feet. They looked at us, watching our eyes, then began to graze next to us while we continued gutting the animal. It was strange but welcomed and peaceful company. I counted the buck’s points with my finger tip, six antler points. The coyotes started to sing all around us. I looked at Willy and let out a loud howl. He joined me and the horses grazed and the buck laid there and we laughed and cheered and quartered him up. We hung the quarters from the upstairs balcony of our temporary and wooden home late in the night, then washed our hands and drank loads of wine.

I think life’s most intimate and special experiences are often meant to be kept close, told under very limited circumstances, to those worthy of our life secrets, be they good or bad. Other times, I consider the impact of these stories, the ones that make you think clearly and deeply: considering such experiences as life and death. It’s hard, you know, to choose which stories are ours and which are instead meant for anyone willing to listen. Maybe they aren’t even a story at all, if they are never told. Well, this is a story I chose to share because while I spun the deep red backstrap of the buck around a cast iron skillet filled with butter and salt and ate its warm meat with Willy next to me, just two days after watching him die, I considered this; there are few ways to understand life fully, and hunting is one of them. This story, to me, is one of them. To live, something must die. To die, something must have lived. Horses must graze on the grass. Coyotes must gnaw on the voles and weak fawns. Ravens and magpies must pull away the guts from the carcass. We must eat the deer, that just a few days ago was eating too. I know there’s a lot of theories these days on how we should eat and what we should eat and why. The way I see it, that deer is now a part of the coyotes we sang with, the magpies that made us laugh in the morning, the soil that grows the nourishing grass, and now, a part of us too; the hunters.