Noah and his deer ~ November 13, 1997

David Heiller

The alarm clock rang at 5:30 a.m on Saturday, November 8. I was waiting for it to ring. I hadn’t slept much. First day of deer hunting will do that, even if you aren’t going hunting.

I got out of bed, dressed, went upstairs, and woke up my son, Noah, 14, who was going deer hunting for the first time.

I lit a fire in the wood stove. We ate cold cereal. Noah put on the warm clothes that he had laid out the night before in the kitchen: long johns, snow pants, T-neck, jacket, blaze orange sweatshirt, stocking cap, choppers. It was 33 degrees outside. You can never be too warm when you are hunting.

We headed out to the deer stand at 6:15. I had made the stand a few days earlier, nailing a platform between an oak tree and a basswood at the edge of the woods. It was about 12 feet high. We saw a lot of deer tracks near the stand.

Noah climbed up. I headed back to the house. It wasn’t big enough for both of us.

He came in at 9:30. He hadn’t seen anything from the stand, but he had seen a big doe as he walked through the woods. We had seen a doe there two weeks earlier. Maybe it was the same one.

That afternoon we went to the Minnesota Gopher football game with Noah’s friend, Matt, and Matt’s dad, Scott. I asked Scott if it would affect deer hunting if I went to the woods with the tractor to bring in firewood.

Noah and his deer.

“No,” he answered firmly. “In fact, my dad used to carry a rifle with him when he was on his tractor, just in case he saw a deer.”

Noah and I got up on Sunday morning at 5:45 and followed the same ritual. This time he came back at 8:00 a.m. He said he was hungry. I think he was hungry and bored. He got a snack and went back out. I walked out to meet him an hour later. No sign of a deer.

“Maybe I should hunt at Dan’s.” he said, referring to a friend who lives down the road. “He’s seen a lot of deer.” Already the grass was greener on the other side of the fence.

At noon^, on Sunday, I headed to the woods on the tractor to bring in a load of firewood. Our two dogs were with me. I saw a flash of white. A big deer was running through the woods.

I shutoff the tractor and called the dogs. The deer stopped. I walked closer. It stood still, watching me. Then it started browsing. The deer was to the west. The wind was from the west. It couldn’t smell us. It knew we were there, but it didn’t seem concerned.

I called the dogs and walked a quarter mile back to the house. Noah was watching the Viking football game.

“There’s a big doe in the woods,” I told him.

He jumped off the bed and quickly gathered up his blaze orange sweatshirt and 30.06 rifle. He put in a clip of bullets and pumped a shell into the chamber.

We walked back to the tractor, and a little beyond. The deer had moved about 20 feet. It looked up at us, and then continued browsing.

The sun was shining its thin November light. What a beautiful sight, watching that deer move slowly through the woods.

Noah walked a bit closer. He was about 20 yards from the deer. He rested the rifle against a tree.

This is it, I thought. I had never shot a deer. Never seen one die. I knew it was going to happen now. A feeling of sadness welled up inside me. I fought it back. Time stood still.

Noah fired. The deer ran off. Noah ran after it. I ran after him. After about 50 yards, the deer lay down. It picked a nice spot, against a log. It looked like it was nestling up for a nap.

We watched it from 20 feet away. It raised its head a few times, then laid it on the ground. It thrashed and kicked for a few seconds, and was still.

I cried as I watched the deer die. I can’t explain why. We had taken its life. Maybe my tears were a way of paying respect.

When we went up to the deer, I was amazed again at what a beautiful animal it was.

I looked at its ears and mouth. I petted its thick brown coat and felt the four nipples on its warm, white belly. It was a magnificent animal.

The bullet had hit right where Noah had aimed, through the lungs. It was a good shot. The deer hadn’t suffered much.

Noah and I cleaned it together. We hoisted it into the trailer. It was heavy. When we got home I took a picture of him with it.

Then I hung the deer in the garage and skinned it. The flesh was still warm. It had a lot of fat on the back. It was ready for winter. I filled the suet feeders with the fat.

Cindy fried up a piece of the liver for supper with bacon and onions. I wanted to eat part of the deer right away. Another way of saying thanks? Who knows? It tasted good.

It may sound strange, but I think Noah was meant to shoot that deer. We had seen it twice before. It liked our woods. Sunday afternoon, it almost seemed to be waiting for us. Why didn’t it run away?

Maybe I’m romanticizing the deer hunt, or trying to ease a slightly guilty conscience. I’m no psychologist.

But I’m glad Noah got his deer.