Dead Deer

March 29, 2007

When I first saw the tan patch on the hill south of my parents house, I knew something was wrong, dead wrong. It was a dead deer. There were more, I found another, and another - at least five. I tried to swallow – this was bad. They had all been shot, killed on our property, but it wasn’t any of us. My parents lived in the mountains, and we had legally harvested deer on our property in the past, but this was not deer season. We knew we had to report this and make sure suspicion did not fall on us. Division of Wildlife agreed to send someone the next day.

Next day, I got up early, right at dawn. I walked outside and froze – shocked to see an old brown Chevy truck half-hidden in the trees. It was an early 60’s model, tailgate was smashed in, sides dented and rusted and the door falling off. There was a man inside, sliding a rifle into a case, it must have had some kind of silencer. The truck lurched awake and started moving. I started running toward the truck, trying to get a look at the man inside.

As I sprinted toward it, I looked in the driver side window, but there was no steering wheel. The steering wheel was on the right side like a British car. I saw a man driving.
He was an older man with wispy white hair, thinning on top. He had a small frame and thin shoulders. He wore small round glasses and a trimmed gray beard.

It wasn’t hard to find out information about the old Chevy truck with the steering wheel on the right – we found out it belonged to a man named Hayes. We found out he was a trouble maker that lived right in town. My dad and I went down to an auto store to ask some questions and we dug a little too deep. His brother owned the shop and found out we were asking about his brother. Then it started to get ugly, his brother was drunk and started yelling. We quickly realized we were in the wrong place asking the wrong questions. People moved in the shadows, cars drove away behind the shop.

We quickly got in the truck and drove away. Suddenly the old brown truck was behind us with the two Hayes brothers in it – following us. What would they do? We crossed the railroad tracks and stopped. The car stopped, and they got out holding something. Guns!

We had two rifles in the truck from hunting season. We grabbed some cartridges and shoved them in. They were drunk, it was obvious. They started firing and yelling and coming towards our vehicle. Another car and two more people got out. We hid behind the seat, now we had no choice. They were only giving us one choice, it was us or them.

We were hunters – I was born and raised with a rifle or a shotgun in my hand. I could shoot quickly from any position and hit an 8 inch target at 200 yards every time.

They were drunk and angry and outnumbered us. They did not have a chance.

Timing my shots and making sure every shot counted, I turned and fired through the back window of the truck... one down…my dad fired, another one down… I fired, third down… my dad fired again, last man down and the shooting stopped. Our ears rang and the gunfire hung in the air like a thick fog. I slumped in the seat and nausea overcame me. I threw up.