The alarm clock went off on schedule at 3 AM. Its incessant mechanical beeping in the blackness forced me awake with unrelenting intensity. I realized immediately that it was time, so I opened my eyes, jumped out of bed, and hit the light switch. It was opening morning of my first deer hunting season and I needed to get going.

I had spent days, perhaps weeks, preparing for this moment. I dressed quickly. Long underwear, socks, jeans, boots, t-shirt, flannel shirt, and sweat shirt all went on in a flash. I went down the hall and into the kitchen. My empty rucksack was lying on the kitchen floor waiting to receive its load of provisions. Sandwiches, snacks, soda, water, and candy bars were tossed inside and it was hurriedly closed and placed by the door. I waited for the coffee to be finished, the warm comfort of its smell, the gurgling of the coffee pot, and the anticipation of its taste increasing my consciousness after my brief night’s rest.

After quickly eating breakfast and filling my thermos, I loaded my truck and headed out. I opened the window to get some fresh air because my senses needed further stimulation at this ridiculously early hour. As I drove through the city, I passed by row upon row of houses completely dark in the middle of the night. They seemed lifeless, more like human storage units with their unconscious, dormant contents tucked warmly away in secure comfort. At that moment, a warm bed and some shut-eye sounded pretty good to me. The civilians in their beds were unwilling to partake in the carnage of the hunt while I was on a quest to kill a deer.

Which one of us was the fool?

Asking myself this question made me think of my father. He would definitely say that I was the fool. In my youth, my dad and I had done lots of fishing together, but he never cared for hunting of any kind. Occasionally, he took me and a friend small game hunting. He would walk along or read in the car while we would pursue squirrels, rabbits and pheasants…but he would never take me deer hunting. Going with somebody else was also not an option. He just plain didn’t like it and thought it was unsafe. My dad didn’t like the taste of venison, hated the possibility of wounding and losing an animal, and concluded that there were too many maniacs in the woods with guns. In his youth, he had shot a six-point buck on a hunting trip and never seemed to get over feeling bad about killing it. He often told a story about letting a big buck walk away instead of shooting it and how good it made him feel. As he talked about it, his facial expressions and emotions made me think that letting the deer live made him feel as if he had redeemed himself.

Coupled with my father’s lack of enthusiasm, college and military service had distracted me from pursuing the sport. After moving back to Eau Claire earlier in the year, some old friends had invited me to join them for the big hunt. Today, I was finally going to get my chance to experience opening morning at the age of thirty-one.

As I motored along, I started asking myself why I was so bound and determined to kill a deer. Was it instinctual? After all, only one or two generations have passed since we were required to hunt to feed ourselves. I convinced myself that we, as a species, have hunted since time immemorial, and our wild side doesn’t go away because we have grocery stores and shopping malls. In other words, I had convinced myself that my quest was justified and that I was righteous in my endeavors. Since this was my first deer hunt, I wanted to find out how much “killer instinct” I harbored within me. I hoped and prayed and fantasized that today I would get a chance to kill my first deer.

After about ten minutes of driving, I finally had made it to the edge of the city. The blackness of the country roads gave my tired eyes a welcome respite from the bright signs and blazing streetlights now fading into the darkness in my rearview mirror. I followed my headlights through the blackness, keeping the white line on the right and the yellow lines on the left as I carved my way through the night. Occasionally, I would see farmhouses lit up with men in orange suits gathering in the light like giant insects, congregating with coffee cup and cigarette in hand as they prepared to head out into the dark forests and fields. I bobbed and weaved down road after road until I finally arrived at my spot and prepared to enter the swamp.
It wasn’t long before I was out of the truck, dressed in blaze orange cover-alls, and loaded down with all of my equipment. I carefully closed the door of my truck and picked up my rifle. I also brought a five-gallon bucket to sit on. I quietly crept into the marsh along a trail that looked easy to navigate during the day. With my rifle in one hand and my bucket and a flashlight in the other, I fought my way through the brush-choked labyrinth to an old tree that had toppled over some time ago. Removing my backpack, I sat down on the bucket with my back against the tree’s stump and loaded my rifle. I made myself comfortable, shut off my flashlight, and waited for the sun to rise and the hunt to begin.

As I sat in the darkness, the pungent, rotten smell of the swamp seemed to hang in the still, cool air like bad cologne. I had broken a sweat when I walked in, and now I began to shiver from the chilly air. My pitch black surroundings deprived my eyes of sight and seemed to amplify my other senses. Along with the anticipation of the hunt, the apprehension of being alone in the woods and my lack of sleep had me on edge. I looked forward to the sunrise knowing that warmth and light would comfort me and liberate my consciousness from its current state of disoriented confusion.

A long, cold hour passed before I started to see the silhouettes of the trees and bushes start to appear against the brightening sky. Slowly, the sky brightened more on one side of the blackness so I knew which way was east. As more time passed, the brightness intensified. At one instance, I blinked my eyes and the black and white world of the night seemed to give way to the colored world of the day. It wasn’t long before I felt the sun’s warmth and heard the first bird chirp a feeble welcome to the light. A slight breeze began to blow and the intense smell of the marsh subsided, soon to be replaced by the sounds of rustling leaves and branches. Coupled with the sounds of birds, the forest sounds reached their crescendo as the sun broke free of its earthly bounds like a slow motion space shuttle launching into the crisp, robin’s egg autumn sky. All of the animals within that swamp were now fully awake, creating a menagerie present on a stage where a significant drama was about to take place.

From my spot on the stump, I could hear the distant steady breeze of cars moving in a group along the country road. As they approached, the cars slowed and soon came to a halt. My hunting partners had arrived at the south end of the swamp and would soon be headed into the woods. The car doors slammed along the highway. I was kind of surprised that Matt, Dan, Kevin, and Brian had arrived after sunrise. Talking loudly and making noise was the norm for these guys, and every deer within three hundred yards was aware of their presence.

Soon, the gang started shouting for me because they had seen my truck. They knew I would be deep within the swamp by now. I didn’t respond to their shouts in any way. I had been hunting for two hours, and I had not seen or heard a deer. Joining the group seemed like the best option so I picked up my gear and walked westward to a small stream. After quietly crossing it, I continued west to an open field. I walked up a small rise and was about to enter the field when I heard Matt yell, “there’s a buck, there’s a buck,” at the top of his lungs. I had no idea where the buck was, but I dropped my bucket and cocked my rifle in anticipation. Suddenly, I heard him yell, “there’s another, there it goes.” This time, I saw the buck running full steam across the road in front of me about 200 yards away. Everything seemed to go into slow motion. I raised my rifle, aligned the sights, and drew a bead on my target in what must have been an immediate reaction. My army training kicked in and I remember being taught to “aim center mass”. As the deer sprinted across the field and jumped into the swamp at its border, I pulled the trigger. The rifle kicked and I instinctively worked the lever to reload. The deer was gone. It had vanished into thin air…

From behind me, I could hear the guys yelling: “Did you see that? Wow! Amazing! Do you think you hit him?” I didn’t even turn around or say a word. I started marching across the field to follow up my shot and to see whether or not I hit my target. I approached the edge of the field and looked into the brush for any sign of the deer. Suddenly, I heard a soft crunching noise, so I entered the swamp. To the left, I saw a dark object lying on the ground. As I moved closer, I could see I had shot my first buck. Its front legs were slowly moving against some leaves, so I finished it of with another shot.

“Over here,” I shouted to the guys. “I got him,” I exclaimed with a mix of joy, amazement, and disbelief. I had just made the best shot I would ever make in my life! I jumped up and down and yelled like I had just won the lottery. The guys were stunned speechless. It was the biggest buck shot by anyone in their party in over eight years of hunting!

Eventually, I regained my composure and realized I needed to field dress the deer. Matt and I each grabbed an antler and hauled it out of the swamp. To make things easier, I backed my truck into the field next to where we had dragged the deer. After throwing all of my gear out of the truck in an insane state of euphoria, I was ready to get to work.

Before I started dressing the animal, I looked it over rather carefully. I couldn’t help but to be amazed by its great beauty, and my inquiring mind wanted to learn about the deer before I damaged it in any way. As I knelt down to take a closer look, and I noticed its very powerful, musky smell. The deer was an eight-pointer with a heavy, uniform set of antlers and a thick neck. Its coarse, thick fur was very dark and a black ridge of color ran up the center of its dark brown back. The animal was lean, muscular, and appeared to be very healthy. There’s no doubt that this deer was a perfect specimen.

What I found most interesting were the deer’s large black eyes. They seemed to be looking, still staring into the world despite the animal’s death. The eyes were dark and shiny and seemed to glisten like pitch black marbles in the sun. I suddenly had a hollow feeling inside of me, knowing I was the killer of this amazing creature. The finality of the deer’s death started to grab me and I wasn’t sure that I was happy any more.

After the guys distracted me from my thoughts, I took some pictures and dressed out the deer in short order. I reloaded my stuff, tossed the deer in the back of my truck, and parked, once again, out on the road. I soon rejoined the hunting party and we hunted until dark. We bagged several does and had a good time laughing and joking throughout the day. It was a fun and wonderful day that I will never forget as long as I live.

On our way home, I stopped to register the deer in Wheeler. While waiting in line at the gas station, I opened the tailgate and looked at the beautiful buck that I had bagged earlier that day. Despite the compliments from several passers-by, I had mixed feelings about the success of the days’ hunt. Since I had dressed it out, the once-bright eyes had clouded over and the animal had lost its muscle tone. The fur was messed up and it smelled bad. The deer was no longer a perfect specimen. In fact, it wasn’t an animal. The deer had become just a thing in the back of my truck. The deer’s life force within had departed this earth. It would never again taste fresh clover, mate with a doe, or know the warmth of the sun. The animal’s complex inner machinery was forever destroyed, and now this miraculous creation lay in the back of my truck, just another inanimate object, like a wrench or a bucket, silent and unresponsive for all eternity.