Saturday, May 17, 2008
We aren't just angry at terrorists; we are furious that we are not immune to death.
Oct 8, 2001 | I drove over the Sierra Nevada on Highway 4 Saturday, Sept. 22, the opening day of deer season. Pickups and campers occupied every wide spot on the highway; men prowled the road with rifles, searching the ravines and hillsides for something to shoot. I sped up slightly, even on the narrow, curving road, as if I were trying to run a gantlet of potential death.
The scene of deer hunters gathering in the mountains always reminds me of my youth, when my dad took me hunting on the Sonora Pass. I was 15 when he gave me my first and only deer rifle, a 270 Remington bolt action with a scope, a gun with a very high muzzle velocity, "capable of bringing down a buffalo," he said. Two years later, I took my last trip with him and his brother and two other men into the mountains.
We played poker the night before around the campfire, big men and me, feeling enthralled once again by our manhood and our temperament and involved in a near-silent odyssey. The next morning we awoke before dawn and hiked up the long ridge to our respective stations, assigned by Dad, who was always the chief strategist in such things, even more than his older brother. He whispered for me to "stay right here until you hear my whistle," and walked down the ridge until he was out of sight.
We were all strung out along the ridge in solitary vigils. I huddled down against the cold morning wind, gripping the gun and straining my eyes to see down into the ravine below me, not sure of what I would do or how I would feel about it if I actually saw a deer.
I never told my dad or anyone else what happened that morning. Rather than whistling, he came back by about two hours later, patted me on the back and told me, "There don't seem to be any deer up here right now; we might as well go back down." I stretched out stiff legs and followed him down the mountain.
On the trip home, I sat up straight between dad and his brother, moving my legs every time the gearshift knob ground into a higher or lower gear coming up out of the Melones grade. Neither of them said anything, and I eventually nodded off at the whine of the motor and the grinding of the gears, losing the sensation of shoulders touching on the front seat of the truck. My uncle dropped us off at our home in Angels Camp without saying much, and drove away.
I was never quite certain exactly what happened up on the ridge, even though I tried many times to conjure up the details, but what I think happened is this: Sometime after dad left me, while I was staring down into the ravine and gripping my rifle tightly to keep my hands warm, I think I saw a giant buck slowly walk across the ravine right down below me, moving from my left to my right. The light was pale and evanescent, like a gauzy dream, and the deer could easily have been imaginary. I remember tightening my grip on the rifle, even raising it slightly without actually sighting it while I watched the deer walk by me.
I remember fleeting bits of debate as I tried to decide what to do. The notorious "buck fever" had been a topic of conversation during the poker game; one of the big men even admitted to having had a case of it years before. Buck fever is a kind of paralysis that sets in sometimes, almost an enchantment, like delirium of the deep, that results in a complete failure to act and subsequent ridicule and embarrassment if the sufferer is found out. I could not deny to myself that I was indeed enchanted, watching the vaguely outlined deer with its antlers high, upwind from me, unaware that it was about to be killed. It was incredibly beautiful, even if I wasn't certain that it actually existed.
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