Yesterday, after an exhaustive day of hunting without seeing any game, we saw a little muley doe on a hillside as we drove back.
“This is almost certainly not going to work,” I told my hunting partner. Then I got out of my truck and grabbed my bow.
Steep fails to describe that hill. I tested my weight before every single step, to see if my foot would stay, or if I’d come sliding down with a razor-sharp broadhead flailing around. I muscled my way up it, all the while in full view of the doe, who just watched me coming up.
I neared her level on the hill, but still many yards of horizontal distance separated us. She headed up the hill further, revealing a smaller fawn following behind her. I clambered my way towards her, slipping the whole time. She moved up with every step I took, but also toward me in the horizontal dimension.
The moment hung there like a picture.
Her: silhouetted against the skyline, perfectly broadside to me, fifty yards away. I saw the gray fur in detail. I saw the big floppy ears that make the head look small.
Me: firm footing, release hooked to the bow string, thinking and praying.
I let the bow drop to my side and didn’t take the shot. Fifty yards is an awful long shot for me. I don’t like the risk of wounding an animal, or killing it in such a way that it dies over the course of a day and gets away from me before it dies.
A whole day of sweating and climbing, scouting and tracking, peels away in an instant until all that’s left is one moment. In that moment, we find me looking at an animal, and deciding I would rather go home empty handed than risk wasting one of the animals God gave me dominion over.