Me and L and C - ii

Sunday, these six deer crossed the land behind our house, going west toward the woods along the river. They're running here, but they took their good natured time, as if they knew it was the Sabbath. That they only loped along and sometimes even stood still was unusual, and right neighborly of them. 

Not long after, four of them crossed the field going back east, then up and over the road into the trees on the other side. We see deer around here far more often in the winter--the corn is gone and the world is white with snow. We see them more often because they're visible more often, not necessarily because, suddenly, there's more.

Truth be told, for us at least they're always a thrill. They'd be less so, I'm sure, if they decided to feast in our garden come July and August, but they rarely come that close. Every time we get new snow I march out into our acre to see if there's anything other than rabbit tracks. Haven't seen any at all these year, and we've had more than our share of snow. 

These prints, made by what my nephews, deer hunters all, might call a "nice buck," are from the woods beside the river, where that bunch up top were headed. 

Once long ago, we stayed overnight at a hunting lodge along the Missouri River, just south of Chamberlain, SD,--Thunderstick, I think the name was. I got up early, in great part because, if you ask me (and I know you didn't) the Missouri River valley can be--and is, around Chamberlain--among the most beautiful places on the continent. I know, I know--I'll get a fight a minute for that kind of claim, but there's no accounting for taste.

I got up early and sat up on the top of a hill to greet the dawn. There were deer, dozens of them in the wide-open, grassy spaces above the river, and they put on a show. Once or twice a day, our cat decides to touch every corner of the house in a fanatic race that assures him he's not getting as old as he is. 

That morning south of Chamberlain, I saw a dozen deer doing what appeared to be the same thing, racing up and down those grassy hills as if making sure every last muscle in their bodies was fine-tuned. Had I been closer, I would have seen them smile. I couldn't help humming "Home on the Range" out there, not because that's where I was, but because I had been right there where "the deer and the antelope play." I'd never seen deer play, but that's what they were doing. 

On June 30, 1804, Lewis and Clark and company made ten miles up river in 96-degree heat, putting ashore finally in the vicinity of what is today Walcott, Kansas. The deer, Clark reported, employing a bit of hyperbole maybe, were thick as hogs on a farm. They took nine. Everyone ate well.

 We don't get anywhere near that, even on an exceptional day like last Sunday. Sometimes people say here that the population of white-tailed deer is vastly greater than it was when the first Euros set foot on the state land. Why? Guess. Corn. 

I don't know that that's true, but I like the game-y comparison, and it's somehow almost Edenic to think about deer thick as hogs on a farm, and no cars, only hungry men to take 'em. I'm guessing around the fires there was a good deal of smiling that late June day.