“The deer died of strangulation.”
It’s a weird statement to hear first thing in the morning. Life is weird though.
My husband was standing in the bedroom, having been the first up that morning to feed the chickens and ducks, and made the grisly discovery.
“It got itself tangled underneath the wire fence,” he said. It had barely been breathing then, its tan face had turned pale—something I didn’t realize could be observed through fur—and he had managed to untangle it, but it was too late. One beautiful doe lay disentangled but lifeless on the sand under the camphor tree. It alone had the explanation as to why it didn’t jump over the four foot fence like every other deer had for the past ten years. I set that thought aside–there were more pressing matters to attend to.
My husband asked, “Do you think someone would want it for meat?”
That was a good question, but more importantly, just how many people did I know that could/would harvest a deer? Having lived most of my life in a city-ified environment, I am not best friends with a range of hunters. Forgive me any sophisticated hunters that may be about to take offence, but I have an image in my mind of the large antenna still wiggling in the breeze on the back of a pickup truck splattered in mud because it’s owner is probably the guy that caused all those unsightly tire gouges in the grass all over town, and in this image the portly truck owner has just pulled over to remove the useful bits from a fresh roadkill. I didn’t personally know any fellows like that.
Herein lies the moral of this story: Just how varied is my friendship list? It is probably good to diversify, and not just because one might need to call in a favor, but to add some new perspectives into the mix. For instance, it’s probably good to know at least one good-ole-boy, to better understand the joys of splattering mud on the walls of tidy businesses while leaving tire ruts in their grass. There are a lot of perspectives to be understood in this world.
I ran through my internal list of friends for who might want to take a deer, and take it quickly. Somehow it seemed a shame to waste it. In nature some scavenger would be fed—basically every wild animal larger than a song bird that lives in my woods would be happy to get an easy meal—but I just wasn’t that keen on smelling the poor doe while everybody got their fill. It would have to be buried. And that’s a bit of a waste, isn’t it? All the resources that existed in the creature would simply be dissolving into sandy soil that would not retain them anyway. Or maybe it would nourish the otherwise perfectly healthy camphor tree? No, better to let the resources go to someone.
And so I climbed out of bed and started calling around, because a June morning in Florida isn’t exactly conducive to keeping meat fresh. The clock was singing away the passing of every fifteen minutes in that elegant way it has, with its pendulum swinging, not a care in the world for deer or fences or building relationships among a wide range of humans.
A friend of mine told me her husband would take it, but he was working, “and by the time he gets off this evening it will be spoiled. I’ll send his cousin to get it now.”
And the cousin came zipping down the driveway in reverse and parked. The large antenna was still wiggling in the breeze on the back of a pickup truck splattered in mud (because it’s owner is probably the guy that caused all those unsightly tire gouges…) My husband wheeled the poor deer, covered in canvas, out to him in our wheelbarrow.
“I’ve got to start bringin’ a wheelbarrow out with me when I go huntin’,” the cousin guffawed sociably.
And so the deed was done.
We should stay in touch with that cousin, I thought as I made my way out to my roselle patch. The sweat was trickling down my forehead as my hands pulled up the weeds that had managed to force their way up through the thick layer of mulch. I eyed that spot along the fence just across the way. Despite the sweat that was draining down into my eyes I could see a place where the brown camphor leaves had been swept aside and a hollow of smooth white sand had been left from the doe’s struggle, like a grave marker.
“Poor thing,” I whispered. The leaves will fall onto that spot again soon, and the chickens will scratch it all up, but I’ll remember this lesson.
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket—it’s good to know all sorts of people.