The Buck

I can still remember my first kill. I was only nine. My grandfather had taken me hunting – deer hunting. My job was just to be quiet and watch, and to carry the things he couldn’t or didn’t want to. I was good at my job; watching people silently was something I did well all on my own. I had always been an odd child. I was particularly sensitive for a boy, my grandfather said. He was very much the epitome of a man's man. Since he’d only had a daughter I was his chance at raising a boy, and he was constantly disappointed. I let him down left and right, but I didn’t really care.

He scared me.

I suppose I never really loved him the way my mother wanted me to, but that’s a different story. For now, we’re out in the cold hills of the back-country, waiting for a buck to pass the blind. I shivered in the corner while my grandfather scoured the snow with his scope looking for a trophy. I could tell when he’d found one because his body tensed up and the rifle stopped moving. I saw his breath in the air, and then I didn’t. His finger cradled the trigger and he squeezed it so slowly you could barely see the movement. Bang.

He didn’t exclaim, he didn’t emote in any way. He just kept looking down that sight, following the wounded animal across the frozen hellscape it was in. Eventually, he pulled back the rifle and grunted. That was my cue. I grabbed the pack and followed him down the ladder and across the snow. The shot had scared away anything in the immediate vicinity, but we did see a creature or two on the way to the deer. Nothing my grandfather deemed worthy, though.

When we finally got to the animal I was tired – it was quite a trek for a nine-year-old. I saw clouds of hot vapor coming still from its mouth, and blood stained the white sheets around it. My grandfather had only wounded it; greatly wounded it, but still. I didn’t know what we were supposed to do at this point. I assumed he would shoot it again.

“Go on,” he said.

I simply looked at him, not knowing what he meant.

“Go on,” he repeated. “Get out a knife.”

I did as I was told, but once I had the blade unsheathed I simply stood there, shaking awkwardly in the cold.

“Get over there and kill it. Cut its throat.”

I began to cry. I didn’t want to do this.

“Don’t be such a baby!” he roared. “Just do as I say and get over there! Be a man!”

Still sobbing, I approached the beast. Its chest heaved up and down slowly in time with the puffs from its mouth. As I came closer I could see its eye – it was glazed and empty. It didn’t even see me as I stood over it with my blade, the cold steel glinting in the light reflected off the ground. I crouched down, silent by this point, afraid of it. But as I continued to gaze upon the dying animal, I felt something change. I looked deep into its eye, and for a moment I saw recognition. For a moment I could tell that it knew what I was there to do. I brought my knife to its throat and whispered an apology as I dragged it across its skin and through its fur. I put as much force as I could into it – I only wanted to have to do it once. Blood spilled from the cut and onto my hands, a sign that I’d done what needed to be done. As the light faded from the creature's eyes and the blood slowed, something else in me changed. I could feel it, a difference in me.

“Good job,” my grandfather said, startling me out of the creation of this core memory. “A bit messy, but I knew you could do it.”

I think he might’ve been proud of me for the first time in my life. But I couldn’t care less. I’d never sought his approval, and I didn’t need it now.

I just hope that deer forgave me.