And then, when the woods went still again, he was there... I know it.

November 21, 2015, just my second winter out west.



I had spent all morning on a block of public land hunting through bitter cold, blowing snow and wind that ripped through every layer I wore. The first few hours were utter misery; my feet burned from being so cold, my eyes watered so tears ran down my cheeks and I’d wiped at my nose so much, there was snot dried and crusted all over it.


Finally, the sun rose, the snow and wind stopped, and I started to warm up.

Gorgeous, isn’t it?

Then, as I crested a hill deep in the trees, I spotted them – a small herd of deer, the first I’d seen all day. I immediately dropped to the ground and carefully began to slide the rifle, a borrowed.308, off my shoulder.


It all happened so fast, but in the moment, time seemed to stand still. I shouldered my gun, and picked out a doe that was broadside with her head down, slowly walking as she ate.



“Just stop, just stop… stop moving,” I silently urged. The doe, of course, continued to walk and graze, walk and graze. Then, in my head, I heard my father’s voice.



“You’ve gotta quit waiting for things to be perfect, stop trying to force them to be. Sometimes you just get what you get, things are what they are and just go with it.”



He was right, of course, the man always was. The perfect shot I was waiting for was something that would never come. So, I took a few deep breaths and slowly pulled the trigger. The recoil knocked my rifle from the shooting sticks, and left me on my elbows in the snow. When I looked up, the deer were on the move.



I hit her… right?


There’s no way I didn’t hit her.



Quickly gathering myself, and my gear, I gave chase down a hill, up another and into another patch of trees. That’s where I found her, 40 yards from where she’d previously stood. Despite the hole I’d punched through both of her lungs she’d bolted, climbing one hill and making it partway up another until finally, she fell. The snow above me was compressed and stained with blood. I could see where her body had given in, and she’d fallen and slid to stop in the spot she lay resting now.

The author with her 2015 antlerless mule deer, taken on public land in Western Nebraska.

I realized I was holding my left hand pressed against my chest, and my vision was growing more and more blurry.
 


Amazing.


Beautiful.  


She was so, so beautiful.  



“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”



And as I knelt beside her there in the valley, removing my pack, slipping off my gloves and opening my knife, the wind began to blow again. A young buck showed. He stared at me and began to move closer. Then, I felt it.

The spike that appeared as the author was saying her thanks to the doe she’d just harvested.

My dad, who’d passed five months earlier, was there with me. The spike and I just sat there, minute after minute, each staring at the other.  



“That you, Ronnie?”

Silly as most of you probably think it sounds, the author knows this buck was her father’s way of showing her his love, support and pride in the harvest she’d just made.

He stared a moment longer then turned and bounded back into the trees without a sound. 

Tears welled again, falling this time, freezing in my bottom lashes. He was there. I felt his love and his support there in those trees and I knew he was proud.

Several weeks later, the author returned to the same piece of public land in hopes of filling her remaining archery tag before the season ended for good. This is what remained of her muley doe.