Hunting Near Conifer Corner

My Dad made it a rite of passage for his daughters to go deer hunting in their tenth year. When I was six, it was my older sister’s turn. I could not bear to be separated from her. Since Dad created the rule, he could also break it. Ally would not leave without me anyway.

I remember the first time I went to the site. It was five in the morning, and I slipped into my camo coverall. My Dad placed a bright orange sock hat on my head, saying it would protect me from bad men.

“What makes them bad men?” I asked.

“They are confused and scared,” he replied.

After Ally and I were suited in our gear, we loaded up Dad’s truck, still caked with heavy mud from the previous workday. It was November and cold. Some of the dirt was icy.

We unloaded the truck as the sun gradually rose above the tree line. There was just enough sunlight for the frost on the decaying corn stocks to iridescently gleam. Our boots crunched the stocks and pounded the frost into slush. I followed behind my dad's large footprint, carefully stepping onto the safe confines of the imprint his work boot left behind. His shotgun was pointed toward the fallen moon. The metal ticked with every rhythmic step.

In the center of a field stood a little tin house. The three of us crouched inside. Opposite the door was an open-air window. My Dad and Ally positioned themselves to squat below the opening. I backed into the corner, sat on the cold ground, and wondered what to do with myself since Dad did not bring a shotgun for me.

“Dad, what are we doing h—”

He interrupted me by quietly placing his pointer finger to his mouth.

“We have to wait now, Kid,” he whispered softly.

I would have questioned whether he spoke at all if it were not for the frozen breath floating above his nose, eyes, and hat.

I nodded intently. Dad grinned, grabbing my pink nose with his gloved hand and lightly shaking it. He then patted me on the shoulder twice. This meant Good Job, Kid. You won’t let me down, then. Right?

I watched Ally and Dad from the corner. From their vantage point, you could see the flat expanse of a decaying November cornfield with forest closing in on either side. About half a mile north were more conifers. We were southward, facing the northern tree line.

We waited for about an hour. I would have fallen asleep if not for the insulated chill of the metal hunting house against my back. I watched Dad and Ally look out the window with that metal barrel perched on the windowsill like a flightless bird waiting to sing a tune.

“There. See?” Dad nudged Ally. He looked over his shoulder at me.

“Come take a look, Kid.”

I crawled forward and peered over their heads to see the doe. She was with a teenage buck. I thought, Mom. I thought, Son. The Son had one . . . two . . . three . . . four points on his antlers. That means he was a one-year-old.

Dad once told me that four-point yearlings meant the animal was a teenager.

“Why? He’s only one!” I asked. “I think he’s just a little kid.”

Dad chuckled when I told him, then stopped and looked at then five-year-old me, who was a little kid to him. He grabbed my nose, lightly shook it, and then patted me twice on the shoulder. This meant Good job, hun. You are still a little kid.

The four-point Son walked gracefully through the field. He was keeping watch. Meanwhile, the dawn light shone on the doe Mother, spinning her featherlight brown hair into plated gold fire. Her snout was low to the ground, her neck long on fire with light as he searched for food.

Click. Ally cocked the shotgun up. Her hands shook. Scared. She pressed her blue eye to the scope. Her blonde braids that stuck out of her hat swung slightly with the shuffle. She watched the Mother, and she watched the Son. She could not decide who to kill. Confused.

“Which one, Dad?” she said, not quietly. She spoke with the timbre of a gunfighter, one prepared to live against her unwilling prey.

I held my breath. I shook my head slowly. Dad had told me to be quiet, but I wanted to scream to warn the Mother and her Son against my sister, but I did not want to disobey Dad. You won’t let me down, then. Right?

Dad glanced back at the neon orange hat, shaking like a warning sign atop my head. He looked back at Ally, her cheek flushed with cold, resting against the gun’s dark metal.

I slowed my shaking head and looked at the Mother and Son. We forgot about the risen sun, which no longer shone fiery red light on the featherlight brown hair. Her neck no longer stretched toward the earth, but the Mother and her Son were frozen and staring at our little tin hunting house. It was like they just noticed that it did not belong, or rather, they realized they could no longer trust the house’s safety.

Ally still had the shotgun perched on the sill. She wanted to shoot; I knew it. She wanted to shoot her Son. 

“Can I?” Ally shakily asked.

Dad looked back at me, then put his right hand on the gun to lower it towards the melted ground.

“No, we are going to wait for him to grow up,” Dad replied. He turned around to look at me.

“He’s still just a little kid.”

Ally grunted and uncocked the gun. I reached over and patted Dad on the shoulder twice.