He slung the gun across shoulder and waded out into the river. The current was strong but he was braced for it. The sun had gone behind the clouds and the bank ahead of him was cast in shadow. He wiped the sweat from his brow and unscrewed the lid of the canteen on his belt. He put his head back and drank from it, then poured a little of the water on the crown of his head. A rock moved underneath him and he staggered a moment, quickly regaining his balance. He had definitely seen them in the trees, and then they had sprung up the bank into the woods.
It took him two or three minutes to cross but he had to be careful. The river came almost to his waist in certain places, although it was the only thing he could do – there wasn’t a bridge for a couple of miles – and when he reached the other side of the bank the sun was out again, high in the noon sky.
He set about looking for tracks. This way he would be able to tell which way the deer had run and something about their size. He hoped for a nice two and a half year old buck with a wide chest and strong hindquarters.
It wasn’t long before he came upon fresh hoof marks trodden into the dirt. He squatted on his haunches and put his gun on the ground beside him before spreading his thumb and index finger to measure the print. ‘Six inches’ he said to himself, ‘six inches’. Then he studied the front and rear tracks, the rear tracks fell inside of the front tracks and were slightly toed out. He put his hand on his knee and stood up. The tracks led into the forest.
He followed them for a while surprised at how clear they were, up hill and down. He kept his eyes peeled and his ears alert to the sounds around him. It was quiet except for the occasional woodpecker and the breeze in the trees. He carried his rifle at the ready.
Then something caught his eye: movement the other side of a thicket, thirty or forty yards to his left. He stopped and watched, and slid his fingers into the trigger pull. The thicket moved again and a young buck emerged, weighing around two hundred and fifty pounds. The adrenalin began coursing through his veins and he could feel his heart beating fast with excitement – the young buck was standing in a clearing and hadn’t seen him.
As quietly and deliberately as he could he pulled back the safety catch and brought the rifle to his shoulder. The young buck was looking in the opposite direction. He squinted through the sight and aimed with the cross target to hit the deer in the back of the head. He flexed his trigger finger a few times, and just at the moment the deer turned and saw him, he inhaled quickly and fired.
There was a sharp, loud crack and he felt the butt of the rifle recoil heavily. A flock of birds rose into the air and the gunshot echoed back off the trees. He aimed the rifle a second time in case he had missed, but the young buck stumbled, hind legs giving way underneath, front legs buckling. It tottered sideways for a few seconds, arching it's neck, caught up in the throes of a last dance, before collapsing silently in a great heap.
