The Deer Hunt, Warning, this has religious overtones

Share your tales (tall or otherwise) of hunting adventures.

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omgb
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The Deer Hunt, Warning, this has religious overtones

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Thin Places
Def: Places were the veil that divides the heavenly and eternal from the Earthly and temporal grows thin enough to see the other side.


Deer season begins early in Montana, oft times Summer is still lingering. The fall of 1983 was like that. Hot, dry, dusty and not a hint of the coming winter freeze. I was 27 and just two years out of the Air Force. I had a young wife, two small babies and a job that paid just a hair above minimum wage.
I was in my second year in Bible College. The campus was located on an old USAF RADAR site east of Lewistown. My family and I lived in the former officers housing. Even with the almost free housing, times were tough and money tight. The wild game and fish I harvested were an important part of our annual food supply. And so it was that year, as in the previous years, I found myself hunting for deer. This time, I had two other married students with me.
As the sun broke over the horizon, we stood, ankle deep in wheat stubble as we were planning our hunt. Morning had dawned unusually hot and dry, even for the high plains. Locals were calling it an “Indian Summer”. The sky was so clear it was easy to see why Montanans referred to their state as the Big Sky Country. With no mountains to the East, West or North and only hills behind me to the South, the heavens were a cloudless expanse of blue. So deep was the color, you could still see some stars shining through even at seven AM. The aroma of purple sage and dusty wheat straw permeated the morning air. Too early for the wind that would come when the sun was overhead, the early morning light cast long, hard shadows across the mute fields.
After some discussion about who would go where and what signal we would use to signify a deer down, we headed out. One of my buddies worked the edge of the wheat field to the West, another worked his way East. I went up the middle, scanning the horizon for any sign of movement. They call this area the Northern Plains which belies the fact that the fields are anything but flat. Instead, they are an interconnected network of low, undulating hillocks separated by shallow coulees that run maybe 100 yards before rising back up onto the flat. It’s in these low areas that choke cherries grow fed by shallow springs that ooze out of the ground forming large patches of soggy earth. It's perfect cover for game of all kinds, but especially deer.
I was working my way through these coulees and across the open fields. On the rim of each new slash I would pause and wait to see if anything spooked before descending into the brush. So far, I had seen nothing but an old jackrabbit who shot out of the scrub like his scraggly tail was afire. I walked on a way further until I came to the rim of a very deep and long coulee. This one was maybe 200 yards long with a pronounced dogleg to the East about midway through. I paused for a moment, checked for sign and then slowly worked my way down the western side of the cut. I stopped about midway to the bottom and headed toward the dogleg. I began to have this sense gnawing at me that this one might be it. I slipped the safety to “fire” just in case.
As I reached the dogleg, I saw him. He was laying on the grass with a harem of does standing around in a sort of semi-circle. As I saw him, he too saw me. One of the does let out a loud snort and he began to rise. I raised my gun and in one smooth motion, settled the crosshairs on his chest and squeezed the trigger. In that moment the silence was broken by cacophony of sounds, both animal and machine, as the bullet sped to its mark at almost three times the speed of sound. In a flurry of movement, the whole coulee seemed to explode. The loud bark of the rifle reverberated in the confines of that coulee. I saw the buck fall to his side while the does scattered to the wind. I quickly chambered another round in case he was only wounded and tried to run, but I needn’t have. I walked to him, quickly I think, heart pounding with excitement, mouth dry as dust, the whole time excited that not only had I gotten my deer, but I had taken the largest deer I had ever seen. A full six points on each side. This was a magnificent animal!
When I got closer my euphoria gradually gave way to curious concern. I could see he wasn’t dead. My shot had gone high and a tad wide, maybe because he was in motion at the time, I don’t know. Instead of hitting him through the heart just behind the right leg, I had struck higher, through the top of the lungs and just below the spine. The wound would be fatal but not immediately.
When he saw me, he tried to rise, not out of fear, rather, it seemed he wanted to fight. His eyes were fixed on me and burned with defiance. It was like he was saying to me, “I will destroy you just as I have all of the others who challenged me”. He could not rise though. The 165 grain Hornady boat tail had done its job. His spine was broken, and his lungs were bleeding out. I stood over him watching the life ebb from him. Soon he could no longer raise his head. The weight of that mighty rack that had defended him in countless contests for territory and breeding rights, now pulled his head to the earth like an enormous weight. He took one deep breath and then relaxed. I saw the fire in his gaze give way first to resolve and then finally defeat. His eyes glazed over and darkened for the last time. He was gone.
As I stood there, drinking this all in, a profound sadness came over me like a heavy shroud. Instead of feeling elated over the taking of such an enormous mule deer, I was overcome with sorrow. Part of me knew I needed this animal yet part of me wished I could make him rise up and run away with his harem. I removed my cap, knelt down, and bowed my head. I gave thanks to God for letting me take such a beautiful and majestic animal. I lay my hand on his neck and vowed that I would not waste any of what he had surrendered to me.
It was then that God spoke to me, and things became very clear. Since the fall of Adam, all life is dependent upon the death of other life. All the sacrifices of the Old Testament pointed to this one inescapable truth; life is based on death. Be it plant or animal, large or small, everything feeds on the life of another. It is the price of sin and all of Creation must bear it. Just as this animal surrendered his life for my children, so too, God surrendered the life of His Son for his earthly children.

In the years following I took a lot of game. However, I have never looked at hunting or communion the same since that day. I no longer hunt big game. Not because I think it’s wrong but because where I live today, you have to be younger and tougher than I am if you want to take venison. My life now is like most Americans, urban and sanitized. I eat meat, but I don’t kill it or butcher it myself. That’s done far away and out of sight. That may be great for our appetites, and it may ease the conscience of some people, but I can’t help but feel that some real important lessons have been lost in the process. Israel knew the cost of sin. They could see the blood from the temple and smell the offering fires. By contrast, we have managed to shield ourselves from that reality. Every time I take communion though, I am reminded that this symbolizes a real death and a real shedding of blood. It was done out of love for me and the rest of mankind. Somebody had to pay the price for our sin. The only one who could, the only one who would, was Jesus. As the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans chapter 8:
“18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that[h] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. “
Reece Talley
James Madison Fellow
Cal Hunter Ed Instructor/NRA Rifle/Shotgun Inst.
Kevin
Posts: 26
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2005 8:55 pm
Location: Uncompahgre Valley, CO

Re: The Deer Hunt, Warning, this has religious overtones

Post by Kevin »

That is a nice and well-told story, thanks for sharing it. It is easy to just look around in our lifetimes and see that "all creation groans"... I thought that a lot in my years working for wildlife agencies. Grateful to have a Savior!!
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