Day 3,736 —Today it was Easier: Early Experience with Animals IV—

 

Day 4 wearing my vest for the first half of the run and it suddenly wasn’t as difficult as yesterday. It felt great taking it off and doing the second half of this run without it. My heart rate was slow most of the run and I felt strong. I was thinking about the two 100-mile races I am doing this year and looking forward to it. I only completed 1 100-mile race last year, which has made me feel behind. I am glad I did the training 100 on my birthday, but it is not the same as doing a race.  

Hunting Part III

We were sitting on the deer stand, twenty feet in the air. I was there with my rifle and my uncle. It was quiet and still in the morning. The cold air was refreshing. I got lost watching my breath and scanning the woods. Most of the leaves were gone, but a lot of the trees were thin and standing so close together that there still wasn’t a lot of visibility and the air felt thick. We were looking out at a clearing, and it seemed like time was standing still as we both sat and scanned each opening and each section. My eyes went left to right, up and down, over and over again. I tried to start counting the trees and trying to be able to recognize each sound.

There was a bird. What kind of bird? Was it a crow, or was it a hawk? There was a bug. Was it cricket? I hear branches cracking. What could that be? Was it a squirrel? Then, I saw her. She was an adult. She was medium-sized without antlers. I wondered if her children were close. My uncle had told me he was there for me, so he said something like, “There it is. You see it, Dan?”

I lined up my sight above the front leg and to the right. That is where a heart is on a deer. I was following her with my sight, and then she had stopped. My uncle started saying softly, “Shoot Dan.” He was still only whispering, but he was starting to get louder.

I had started to pull the trigger softly. You don’t want to pull the trigger too quickly and jerk your gun by accident. My uncle was saying it louder now, “Shoot Dan!” I knew he was talking, but he seemed so far away. He said it louder as the deer began to move away, “SHOOT.”

He still wasn’t yelling. He was soft-spoken. The deer ran off, and now I thought I was trying to pull the trigger, but when I looked down the safety was still on.

My uncle thought I didn’t want to shoot the deer. I told my dad and brother I had forgotten to take the safety off and was trying to shoot. I remember some kids at school teasing me, “You can’t even kill a deer!” They weren’t being mean, just giving me a hard time, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind thinking that I didn’t want to kill a deer. I honestly didn’t know what had happened, but I was glad how things worked out. My dad never asked me again if I wanted to go hunting, and I never inquired.

I found out years later that my uncle stopped hunting and switched to taking pictures. I hadn’t thought about it before, but maybe what happened that day convinced him of something. I certainly didn’t do anything intentionally and if anything, I wanted to make everyone happy, for a long time I felt I had let people down by not shooting.