It was a cool fall day and the opening day for archery. My brother and I woke up early and hiked three miles from base camp to find a tall tree that overlooked the meadow. My brother and I had been sitting there for three hours on the edge of a line of trees, sitting on a tree stand almost fifteen feet up a pine tree. There was a meadow with a lot of tall grasses that the deer liked to munch on.
Then, finally, it was there, the perfect deer walking across the meadow. It was a four-by-four deer that looked pretty big. It was “the shot” I had to take.
You could hear the grass that crumpled when its feet landed on the ground. The distant gurgling of the stream on the other side of the meadow. I raised the bow into shooting stance. I nocked the arrow into the nock. I aimed at the deer, getting the green dot on the sight to line up with the deer’s big chest. The air was cool as the breeze tickled the hairs on my neck. My breathing was in slow deep breaths, trying to be as still as I could be. You could smell the pine wood. My finger twitched the trigger. The trigger release popped back into its open position. You could see and feel the bowstring moving towards the body of the bow and hear its whir. The arrow was moving towards the deer. The deer turned its head, looking at the arrow so close to his body. He could hear the hum of the arrow zipping through the air. His reaction was just too slow. The shot went straight at his heart.
As the body collapsed to the ground, the blood oozed drop by drop. He was breathing his last little bit of air. You could see the chest rising and falling with each gasp and then there was a long sigh and it was over.
Weiser, Idaho
Springfield, Oregon
