Hunting

Only a few days left in deer hunting season. Mia and I have been careless this year on our walks, not wearing our orange collars and red "No Fear" caps. Occasionally, we hear gunshots but they're faint and far away, or are the gates of dumptrucks slamming shut. As we walk through the woods lining Bayview I do imagine a bullet zinging past my head, and I stand in my everyday garb, LL Bean shell and jeans and righteous indignation, yelling at the hunter, "A blue deer?" Mia imagines too, sniffing the trails cutting across the road and conjuring something out of those smells. I give her credit for associating the smells with the animals seen so often this summer, although I shouldn't anthropomorphize.

And I shouldn't anthropomorphize about the deer either, but I can't imagine killing one. They are incredibly beautiful, and the picture of grace, and their sense of smell puts our little poodle's to shame. I've read that hunters go to huge lengths to disguise their own human smell, even rubbing out footsteps in the leaves. I guess during hunting season their prey is extra wary, or understand the calendar, because Harry the Hunter could have had his fill right here if they act in November as they did this summer, crossing and re-crossing the roads, annihilating our flowers, marching their fawns. I haven't seen any this week; like any overmatched army, they must retreat in the face of war.