Touch

As I walked into the woods last spring, the lush, green understory of brambles, rose bushes, and honeysuckle made my going difficult. I plodded through the pathless wood, lifting my knees and my feet high over the brush, pulling my clothes against the tug of stickers, moving deeper into the thick verdure that rose up from ground that had been frozen a month earlier. 

Suddenly, I came upon a small, newborn fawn, red-coated and speckled with dots of white along its back. It was curled in a tight ball, small enough to fit inside a baking dish, a basketball, or the womb of its mother. It kept its upturned eye closed, and a cluster of ticks had come to suck blood from beneath its eyelid, just two days old. So new to be born. So new to be preyed upon. 

I was overwhelmed by the everything of it, and I wanted to touch it, to feel it next. To see was not enough. I stooped, bending my knees, allowing my body to come nearer to the ground where it had made its bed, hiding from red-tailed hawks, coyotes, bobcats, dogs, and other predators, like those who go on two feet. I moved slowly, and I stretched out my hand to touch its soft fur, gently, intentionally, willfully, bringing union between the tips of my outstretched fingers and the infinite softness of its newborn coat.

In one instant, it rose to its feet, standing wobbly on four legs fourteen inches tall, from tip of tiny hoof to top of tiny head. Then it bleated loud and long. It bleated over and over and over his song, a call for his mother to come, to save him from whatever this wickedness was. This whiteness that hovered over him to take away his rest. 

I heard the crash of doe through the understory. She came and did not wait. I heard the snorting of her nostrils, as the spirit rose within her and she, with only one mind, with only one will, with only one desire to save her offspring, ran toward me, her strong hooves beating into the ground. 

I shot a deer one time, a doe. I passed a heavy, metal slug from a twenty-gauge shotgun right through the side of her body, tunneling through her rib cage, tearing through her lungs. Her body shook when she received the bullet. Then she ran, immediately, in one direction. No destination. Only elsewhere. Elsewhere! Elsewhere! She ran, and I followed her. She ran, and I saw her drop to the ground, convulsing. 

I approached her body, not dead, but dying. She ceased movement. I stood above her as she took notice of me, one final act of consciousness before she gave up the ghost. She eyed me from below as I stood above her. Me, predator. She, prey. She made one, final kick, and a stick near her strong hooves was slung from the ground where it lay beside her body, now in the final pangs of death, and the stick few into the side of my leg. It felt as if I had been hit by a baseball, a fastball thrown from the pitcher's mound. Just a stick lying on the ground, a final wound I received from the doe whose body had received my wound. 

I stood to my feet and considered the tiny fawn. I knew the strength of his mother. I knew the strength of her legs, her hooves. I knew the strength of her will. 

I took leave of this fawn. I would not suffer her revenge for further touch.