What would aliveness look like?

Walking composition

“I don’t like planets. There’s dust and weather, and something always wants to eat the humans.” —The Murderbot Diaries: Exit Strategy, Martha Wells

I had the most beautiful hunting day recently, just before the season ended with my tags unclipped. I got out just before dawn to a place I haven’t been to in two or three years and it was so gorgeous and full of deer I chided myself for not going earlier in the season. I’d been hunting smaller parcels closer to home with no luck—one bit of state land in particular is my favorite spot to go hunting, even though I’ve literally never seen a deer in there in any season. Plenty of fresh sign, but no deer. I think I just go for the larches and chickadees.

The day before the American Thanksgiving holiday, a few inches of fresh snowfall overnight had me following several sets of fox tracks, two to dens, and tiny little rabbit hops leading across hillsides and under trees. And a lot of deer.

Shortly after turning from the old logging road (pictured above) into the hills, I spotted a doe through the woods. This is not a doe-hunting time of year in this place—bucks only—so all I could do was watch, and that was a gift all its own. The doe turned out to be two does, and they spotted me after a few moments. I stood as still as I could for over half an hour while they took turns stamping their front hooves and huffing warnings about my presence.

Deer alarm snorts, with a snow-crunch as my foot shifted and an airplane passing overhead.

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My feet grew tired and cold-numb, but I watched the sunlight move through the woods and old man’s beard lichen wave in a barely-felt breeze and it was one of those days where I didn’t mind being chilled and stiff and wishing my knees were younger. Eventually, the does wandered up over a hill, and I sat on a fallen tree and took my hat off and watched the light for a while longer.

About an hour and a half and a couple of hills later, I had been sitting on a stump for a while watching a small gully that showed evidence of a lot of recent hoof traffic and finally decided it was time to make my way toward the car so I could go home and get started on Thanksgiving dinner preparations. I stood up, turned around, and just up the hill from me was another deer with—I thought I could make out from its head rising from a dip in the ground—short antlers.

I lifted my binoculars, slowly slowly, and sure enough, it was a young buck. I stood there staring at it for a few moments, heart racing, before remembering that there was a purpose to my being out there standing calf-deep in snow wishing I’d brought more hot tea with me. I lowered the binoculars, raised my rifle, breathed, aimed carefully.

And missed.

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