The day before deer season opens, Scott and I work all day, then pack up the car and drive two hours south. We pull into a small campground just before midnight and don headlamps to set up our tent. I set the folding travel alarm clock for four thirty, then change my mind and reset it for five. I’ve had a long week at work. No sooner do I close my eyes than the alarm is beeping next to me. Several snooze rounds later, I switch on my headlamp and start pulling on layers, still inside my sleeping bag. We were planning on boiling water and brewing coffee but it’s too cold to stand around waiting for the stove to heat up, so instead we jump in the car and drive to a spot that we visited while scouting.
It’s almost six when we pull off a dirt road. I take my gun out of its case and load it with one bullet, then slip a few more in my pockets. In a hurry to get in place before the sun rises, we make our way noisily to a wide, rotting stump. It’s still plenty dark, so our headlamps bob as we pick our way there. I chose this landmark because it will shield our silhouettes while offering a 180-degree view. As we hike, I wonder if deer can see our lights. I shrug off my backpack and sit down against the stump. Scott sits against another downed tree about ten yards behind me. I try to stay as still and quiet as possible.
Daylight builds and soon I can actually see the landscape around me. At one point, a chipmunk races along a downed log and nearly bounces off my back. I take it as a compliment: I’m sitting perfectly still, as far as this animal can tell. No sign of any deer, though.
By midmorning, I am frozen stiff and I motion to Scott that it’s time to get up and leave. We hike back to the car and drive back to our tent for a nap and some long-awaited coffee. That afternoon, it gets warm—over seventy degrees—and Scott fishes a nearby creek while I re-read a book called Deer Hunting, by master hunter Gary Lewis. The chapter I’ve opened is all about the importance of stealth. He recommends taking one step and then waiting, listening. Humans are the only animals who stride with such regular cadence, he writes, so walking to one’s normal beat is an alarm to the sensitive ears of wild deer. I feel guilty when I think back to our groggy, clumsy hike this morning.
We head back up to the chosen stump a little later, this time parking farther down the butte and hiking—more slowly and quietly this time—up the ridge. We sit next to another tree stump in a slightly wider clearing. Scott reads and I scan the clearing, peering into dark spots for the flick of a tail, the crook of an antler. This time, I’m sure we’ll see a deer. I wonder, too, if I really want to shoot it. How guilty will I feel? Do I really want to deal with the guts and skin and—shudder—tying off the anus? After another two hours of backbreakingly still and silent sitting, however, I have my answer: a resounding yes. It’s still opening day of deer season and I already feel that I’ve put in too much effort to go home empty-handed.
When it’s dark, we switch our headlamps on and tiptoe back to the car. We return to camp, heat up a quick dinner of leftover meat loaf and go to bed at eight thirty. Two men driving a sedan with New Jersey plates pull into the campsite next to ours and proceed to chop wood for an hour and a half, carrying flashlights past our tent as they drag logs back to their chopping block.
The next morning, the alarm buzzes at four thirty. I’m already awake but wishing I were asleep. I hit the snooze button a couple of times and stay nestled in my sleeping bag. Plink, plink. It starts to drizzle on the tent. We wake up and drive back to what we’ve started to call our “parking spot.” Again wearing headlamps, we tiptoe up the butte and out to the same giant stump where we watched the sun set yesterday. Nada. A few hours later, we tiptoe back out to the logging road and start heading down to our car. As we creep—heel, toe, heel, toe—we notice several fresh-looking hoofprints underfoot.
“Were they sneaking past us on the road?” I whisper.
“Looks like it,” Scott says.
We head back to camp, where we fry up some potatoes, onions, peppers, mushrooms, cocktail weenies and eggs together in a skillet. As we cook, we remark how strange it is that we haven’t heard any shots. I admit to Scott that yesterday evening, sitting quietly in the clearing, I actually wondered if I had the dates wrong. But I didn’t.
“Maybe we’re just in a really bad place,” Scott suggests.
“Or maybe”—I fumble for a more optimistic angle—“it’s so warm that other hunters aren’t having any luck, either.”
We drive to the closest town, Chiloquin, to fill up our tank, and I ask the gas attendant if many people have brought deer through town.
“I’ve only seen one,” he says. “Everyone else has bad reports. Two weeks ago, when it was colder, they were down here. But once it got warm again, they went back up.”
I nod. When I recount this conversation to Scott, back in the car, he’s full of questions: Where did the successful hunter bag his deer? Where is this “up” place that the deer go when it’s warm? We’re on top of a butte and we’re not even seeing any hunters, much less any deer. I have no answers.
Later that afternoon, we head back to our spot, this time hiking up to a little opening that overlooks the road. Again, we notice fresh tracks on our approach, which I take to be a good omen. The sun is behind me and I see a long shadow of myself carrying a gun. It’s startling how the gun changes my appearance. I look dangerous, which I guess is how the animals see me.
Scott reads a book under a thick stand of fir. I sit out, more exposed, for a better view. I can’t stop fidgeting. My stomach grumbles. My back is sore. Where are the deer? I get up and hike slowly around the top of the butte until sundown, again seeing no sign of deer.
The next morning, we awake to howling wind, gushing rain, thunder and lightning. According to my readings, the deer will be bedded down somewhere, not moving around, in a storm this severe. I switch off the alarm and we fall back asleep.
That afternoon, the sky brightens and we hike through thickets of trees to a small clearing. Scott sits against a tree trunk, behind and below me.
I’ve been sitting for what feels like hours, daydreaming and trying not to fidget. My gun is in my lap. Staring into this clearing is becoming meditative. I start to notice everything about it. I recognize which chipmunks are running along certain routes, and what they sound like when they stop and pick up a nut or seed. I peer across the clearing and imagine that dozens of deer are waiting in the shadows, watching me. That crook, could it be part of an antler? I check through my binoculars. Nope, just a branch.
And then, like magic, a doe appears in the clearing in front of me. I mean, appears. I don’t hear her arrive or watch her step into the light. It’s as if a special-effects engineer just beamed her into view. Right as I see her, she notices me. We stare at each other for what feels like several minutes, her giant funnel ears scooped toward me. (The species that inhabits this part of Oregon, mule deer, or Odocoileus hemionus, are named for their giant ears.) I try to stay as still as possible, hoping that my impossibly loud heart won’t scare her away. I narrow my eyes, trying to will a pair of antlers onto her head as magically as she popped into my clearing.
But she doesn’t have antlers. And she has had enough. She bounces away, flicking her hooves backward with each graceful leap. I take a deep breath. Even if she had been a he, antlers and all, there’s no way I could have raised my gun to my shoulder fast enough to shoot before she bounded away. Lesson learned: Don’t hold your gun in your lap; hold it where you can use it.
Later, Scott tells me that the doe was looking straight at him. It reminds me of that Disney World ride where the ghosts all seem to be making eye contact with you, no matter who else is in the haunted house.
At the end of the day, we head back to camp, pack up and head home. Scott needs to check in at his office. I need to restock our cooler.
Two days later, we return to what we’ve dubbed Deer Camp. We awaken at five (deer hunting is turning out to be more of a marathon than a sprint, so why wear ourselves out with masochistic wake-up calls?) and drive back up what Scott has started calling “Bu
ck Butte.” He’s an optimist.
We settle under some trees facing the small dirt road that we hiked. It’s a little warmer this morning, above freezing, and foggy. Once the sun is up, I creep around to the various clearings that I’ve identified on this butte, looking for deer. Then Scott and I hike up behind where we sat. We notice a thin game trail that might be fun to investigate later. By now, I’m ready for breakfast. We go back to camp, eat and then decide to explore the low-lying area around the butte. All day today, we have heard gunshots all around us. Unlike experienced hunters, I can’t hear the difference between a shotgun and a rifle. Duck-hunting season has opened, and we’re not far from a popular bird-hunting area, so it’s possible that some of the shots are being fired at birds. Still, I can’t help but worry that others are bagging deer left and right.
We hike a long loop, locating another promising game trail. This time, we follow it. I enjoy the new scenery and feel excited that this could be where the deer are. Where my deer is. We see fresh deer and elk scat, which is embarrassingly exciting. I’m so thrilled by this poop that I feel like a proud new parent. We also notice strange marks in the duff, as if a buck (or a bull elk) has pawed at the ground or dragged a hoof. Pine needles are bunched up and the bare ground is revealed underneath. Later, I learn that sometimes when a buck is startled, it paws at the ground.
That evening, during our headlamp-lit hike back to the car, I put on a cheerful face.
“I know this sounds crazy because I haven’t even seen a deer, but I feel like I’m getting better at this,” I tell Scott. “I can focus longer. I’m quieter. I’m more prepared to switch off the safety and take a shot if I do see a deer… I think.”
On the drive back to our camp, I pray the only way I know how: by wishing on a star. Please, please let me shoot a buck tomorrow, I think as I look at the dappled sky. Then I add: Safely. Humanely.
The next morning, it’s dumping rain when the alarm sounds. I switch it off and roll over. We sleep in and finally emerge from the tent at nine thirty in the morning. In hunting time, this is already afternoon. We drink our coffee and eat our breakfast in the car, trying to stay dry. We drive southeast and discover that in the farthest corner of my hunting unit, it’s not raining. We are not too far from where we saw the velvety buck while we were scouting, either.
This is classic mule deer country. It’s open, especially since a wildfire burned the area years ago, with rocky outcroppings and steep canyons. We park and hike to the top of a steep rock formation. The hiking is tough. We thrash through snowbrush and at one point I even tumble backward off a rocky ledge. I’m not hurt, but I also can’t imagine sneaking up on anything here. Too bad, because there are signs of deer everywhere. We walk past bedded-down shrubs that actually reek of wild animal. We step over piles of poop so fresh that they still gleam with moisture. There are sharp tracks and well-worn game trails beaucoup.
Next we hike through a low-lying draw that we spotted from a perch on a tall outcropping. Again, deer sign is everywhere here. We creep along, stopping frequently while I peer through my binoculars to scan the low-lying vegetation. Again, we can’t help but sound loud and clumsy. Again, the deer stay hidden. Again, gunshots are firing all around us. After a few more hours, we head west to our old familiar area and find that the rain is gone and only a thick mist lingers.
We head back to what we’ve dubbed the low country, surrounding our butte, and hike out to the game trail. We follow it to a clearing that looks like the intersection of eight or ten different trails. An interchange on the deer superhighway, perhaps?
I sit as still as possible between two snug snowbrushes. As water drips from trees, the forest sounds like a bowl of Rice Krispies: snapping, crackling, popping. It keeps my attention piqued, no time for daydreaming today. Was that a dollop of water dripping from a ponderosa branch onto a manzanita leaf? Or was it a doe stepping carelessly on a pinecone? Was that a chipmunk scurrying across dry bark or was it the creak of a giant buck’s knee? I am so alert that I notice out of the corner of my eye when a pale yellow currant leaf drops to the forest floor. I watch a black ant scale the branch of a snowbrush next to me. This scene is still and almost silent, yet I feel as if I am surrounded by garish displays of life and movement.
Again, darkness falls without so much as a teasing flash of deer. I click on my headlamp and start the long, cold trudge back to the car. My whole body feels heavy and sore. I am pissed off. Frustrated. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. How could I have ever been duped into thinking I’d get lucky enough to shoot a buck?
Sunday morning we wake up early and hike back up Buck Butte, to the end of an overgrown logging road and down a brushy slope to a small clearing. We sneak behind a log and wait for the sun to come up. The stars are incredible. But we’re both sleepy. Scott starts to snore and I don’t even bother poking him. What’s the point? I’m too uncomfortable to stay still, too fidgety to keep quiet. I wonder if I’m getting louder—worse at this—or if I’m just more attuned to how much noise every little movement makes.
Once the sun is up, we tiptoe across the clearing to a steep patch of trees where I heard—or thought I heard—something big lumber through the dark. As we pick our way downhill through the fallen branches, we see piles of giant poop pellets. Some of the piles are very fresh. My stomach flutters. There is at least one big buck traveling through here on a regular basis.
Later in the day, we come up with a new plan. We start at the base of the butte and creep up the side of a clearing, quickly and, for once, quietly. Then we cut across the clearing and tuck ourselves behind an old snag. We find some gelatinous, neon-orange mushrooms sprouting from a stump, and Scott finds a piece of wood that looks like the face of an owl. As the sun sets, still seeing and hearing nothing, I creep along the side of the slope until I reach another small drainage. I hide there with a good view down the clearing. The wind direction is perfect—anything walking up or down the hillside wouldn’t catch a whiff of me. But again, I see no deer. I leave frustrated and discouraged. The animals are only moving at night, it seems. Almost a week has passed since I saw that doe. This is getting pathetic.
The next day I hide among the snowbrush at the edge of a small, flat clearing at the bottom of Buck Butte. I keep hearing buck-like sounds that quicken my pulse but turn out to be squirrels or, in one case, a black woodpecker with a white head and red patch. Later, I consult a guidebook and discover that this was a rare white-headed woodpecker (Picoides albolarvatus). Instead of waiting for the sun to go down, I scribble notes in my journal, right here, right now. I’m sure it’s a dead giveaway to the deer, but fuck it. After today, there are two days left in deer season. It’s time to look for silver linings.
So I didn’t get my deer. All is not lost. For one thing, I have enjoyed spending so much time with Scott. It’s surprisingly romantic, being alone with him in the woods, seeing him embrace this new activity, this new goal.
Two, everywhere I go now, I see game trails and deer beds and all kinds of animal scat—coyote, deer, elk, rabbit. One night I even dreamed of deer poop. These woods feel alive in a new way to me. As with fly-fishing, I feel like I am learning a foreign language.
At dark, Scott and I head back to the car and then camp. We drink whiskey and reheat leftover meat loaf in a skillet. We build a campfire and sit close to it, poking the wood and talking about our families and the family we hope to have of our own someday. Nothing promotes deep, philosophical conversations like an open fire does. Even though this hunt has been frustratingly death-free, it’s impossible not to think about the circle of life. Dead deer or not, it’s what hunting is.
That night, I am drunk and my stomach is so upset that I barely sleep. I curl into the fetal position and hatch a strategy for tomorrow. When the alarm buzzes at five, I am already awake and grateful to get out of the tent.
We spend the morning exploring the top of Buck Butte, again seeing no deer. In the afternoon, we walk along a small stream and hunt not for deer bu
t for mushrooms. Success! We collect a box of white chanterelles, savoring the instant gratification that deer hunting has so cruelly withheld. As it gets dark, we drive to a highway diner for supper, with plans to go to bed early and give it our all tomorrow, the last day of deer season.
But this day comes and goes like most of the others did: without a deer in sight.
It reminds me of a moral that anglers often repeat: There’s a reason it’s called fishing instead of catching. I know this. Big-game hunting is very new to me, and I must be patient. But after two fruitless deer seasons—first in Michigan, now in Oregon—my patience is waning.
CHAPTER 14
BIG GAME
I return to work for a week before elk season opens. Everyone in the newsroom asks about my deer hunt and I relay the disappointing news. Or, rather, non-news. I try to get myself excited about elk season but I can’t muster much enthusiasm. If I couldn’t track down a buck deer, what hope do I have of finding a bull elk? Biologists estimate that the average American elk hunter kills an elk only once every eight years.
Elk (Cervus canadensis) are closely related to deer, and the two species’ habitats overlap, but they behave quite differently. To hunters, these behavioral differences matter. Deer prefer to nibble on shrubs and young trees, whereas elk, like cattle, favor grass. And while deer usually travel alone or in small groups, elk live in herds—sometimes called gangs—that range from just a few animals to hundreds. Biologists predict that this behavior stems from a time when elk lived on flat, open plains.
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