Chapter Fifteen:
Moments of Deliverance
1999 was a continuation of 1998 and the “Inner War” raged on. I continued studying at the University of Saskatchewan, and I continued to have obsessions and compulsions. Even though it had been recent, my AIDS test, that is, I continued to experience the same nagging doubts and terrors surrounding HIV (AIDS). 1999 stands out to me in a couple of ways. I remember my oldest sister's wedding and how I felt at that time, and I remember being increasingly angry. Everything upset me. Everything offended me. I felt like I was in a war everyday, but in my war instead of worrying about stepping on a landmine I worried about stepping on a needle, causing a catastrophe, or losing my mind or both. Simultaneously, I strove to live my war in complete and total secrecy, shame, and anger. I dreaded waking up to consciousness itself, as just being conscious was the gateway to experiencing obsessions and their terrorizing effects. I was demoralized by my own mind and life was beyond exhausting….
There was no relationship between me and my mind. For the most part, I acted from the position of the thinker,... or as the mind itself. This was a problem. This was THE problem! I became increasingly resentful toward family members and friends. I was in pain. I didn’t tell many people about my situation,..., and when I did, I would often get the advice of “Don’t worry about it!” or “just relax…!” and I found that impossible. It was impossible because I was caught in the snare of mind, with an illness, and then I was caught in the snare of mind because I was trying to fix my predicament by moving my mind, that is by thinking more, which only tightened the snare around my mind…. I resented many of those close to me who had no idea of what was happening to me and who seemed to me to be unapproachable for one reason or another….. I also resented those in whom I confided, and who had no answers or who were unkind or disrespectful…! It is important to point out that resentment is something that I got a sense of satisfaction from in a way. Because it was easy to do and it was reassuring and comforting. I didn’t like my life. I didn’t like people who didn’t act the way I thought they were supposed to…I was sick with a mental illness…. It was easy to judge people. I was in a battle and still I was trying hard to be polite but others were rude,… and, I was offended. Everything offended me. OCD offended me. I would reflect on a remark someone had made to me years ago and how “I would never say something like that to somebody” and then I would think and think and think about how that person had made me feel, how their words had cut me, and how they were able to dish out insult with no hesitation or apology, and how they had been wrong and I hated them. I would, just in reliving those events, feel ghastly and disempowered, right there and then,... right in that present moment. I would think about those resentments often and I would often feel hopeless, anxious and then sad and furious and discombobulated. I would dwell and relive the conversations that had taken place and how those conversations made me feel. It was a destructive cycle that I was engaging in. I loathed my life, and I had little patience for it and I hated that I cared so much about everything: about rules and laws and morality…. I would feel anxious, and then I would get angry. Mine was a downward abysmal spiral of fear, anger, sadness, frustration that fed itself and by itself grew larger and more sinister with each passing year. I was determined to beat this chaos, to figure out a way into the calm…. I was dead-set on solving all problems and worries. I was determined to answer all questions. My mind, with OCD, asked questions, and it felt compelled to answer all the questions. Why? Because the questions came with a blast of anxiety that just stayed and lingered. That is OCD….
I attended my classes at University and had an idea that I was going to “get a degree.” That had been the propagated narrative at home since day one. I was always told that I was going to go to University, by my parents, and I accepted that….. I had chosen English Literature because it was the easiest subject for me. I felt pressure from my family to go to University and complete a degree. I felt pressure to be (materially) successful, and that just added fuel to the OCD fire. Going to the library made me anxious, in fact, academia itself, was a source of stress. When I went to the library I had trouble finding books. Everybody seemed so calm and normal, and there I was, trying to answer the questions that my mind continued to ask. While researching for an essay I would think among other things:
“What if I have Aids? But,.... that’s impossible, …
You know the answer Jesse, you got tested!!
You’re such a fucking LOSER!
I’ll never get married!.... I can’t even do research in a library without panicking!!
For Fuck’s Sakes,..., I can’t wait to finish this essay,...
Fuck, I hate my life,...,”
I had never imagined there was a disorder like OCD, but now I had it, and I didn’t know who to turn to, if anybody, or what to do, so,... I went to University…. I mean let’s face it, University classes are hard enough when a person is feeling well,....But, I had no guidance and I was unable to speak up,..., so,... I took classes at University and I WAS SOOOOO obsessed with my obsessions, and there were so many— to never cheat or risk any type of disciplinary action over plagiarism, (writing essays was extremely anxiety provoking) and to get at least 80% as a final mark– plus all of the other obsessions and compulsions–yes,... no,...!
The university setting wasn’t a setting that was conducive to relaxation or any kind of peace. This, coupled with the fact that I was never working— so money was really tight, It was easy to obsess about getting in some kind of trouble for something. I was always extremely careful with quoting academic sources because I worried about the extremely unlikely event where I would be kicked out of University. The whole thing was so exhausting…! I over-thought everything,.... English literature didn’t require much in the way of researching, and that was a huge (inherent) benefit to studying it. English consisted of reading and analyzing various novels. It was my first choice as an academic discipline, also, because I loved good stories. I particularly enjoyed and admired the works of Emmerson, Thoreau, Aldous Huxley, Edward Bellamy, and Sinclair Lewis, all of whose works I read while taking classes with professor Terrence Matheson.
In 1999 I finished University exams in May and then I went back to Prince Albert for the summer. I got a job, and I went to it with my already incredibly busy mind and tried to look normal. That’s all I really did. Pretend. Pretending to be okay was just another task that really added to the exhaustion of mental illness.
My sister got married that summer and I went to her wedding. I played the bagpipes and the guitar at the wedding, and I was very nervous. I had terrible performance anxiety. I so desperately wanted to relax. I still wanted to meet a woman, and I also wanted to feel relaxed. I drank a lot, to relax. It worked too….
I wanted female companionship to relax,.... I craved the companionship that might lie in an intimate relationship. Just having someone to talk to about my real, honest mental-state, ohhhh, how I longed for that! I wanted the carnal pleasures of sex too, and why wouldn’t I? Of course I did. I make no apologies for that. But If only I could relax,.... Intimate Relationships were unlikely to happen seeing that I was still scared of the fear that would likely happen if I had any kind of sexual encounter. After my sister’s wedding I was “partying” with an acquaintance, drinking heavily at a local pub, and as I sat and got drunker, my thoughts on HIV, and the accompanying anxiety got louder and less tolerable. I decided to try challenging my OCD, with regard to HIV fears, and so I walked into the restroom with no socks or shoes on! (I was obsessed with HIV thoughts and checking for needles was the compulsion) It was so horriffic,... standing there in the washroom,... looking at the floor,... words racing through my mind, shame and terror coursing through my veins,.... For months afterwards, I anxiously tried to recall exactly how the floor of the bathroom had looked, whether there were any hypodermic needles anywhere,..., and I would have a panic attack while I did more mental compulsions, trying to remember, even though I was painfully aware that these thoughts didn’t really make any kind of sense….
I would also do the very same thing, except with conversations and relationships that had happened in the past. I would try to recall conversations and I would go over past events and friendships,... I would mentally review my life,... all day everyday, whenever I had free time…, and I did this for years– I started doing it in 1996 while I was unemployed, but it continued into the 2000s for many years— I would sit and try to remember times I had been alone with other people, times I had been with younger kids, times I had been in a position where I could have possibly done something bad…. I spent weeks and then months and years, secretly reviewing times and days and memories,.... It is so important that you understand exactly what it is that I am saying here,.... I spent nearly all of my free time checking and reviewing relationships, in my mind, and time periods of my life, for any kind of wrongdoing or even any hint of wrongdoing. Those were compulsions. I know it. That was an undeniably horrific time period of my life…..I had friendships as a young boy with other boys and sometimes with boys who were younger than I was and I was terrified of obsessions of abuse, or any immoral behavior, so, I would sit and rack my brain, trying so hard to remember– in a state of pure angst— if I had done anything wrong…. My mind would ask the question “What if you abused a child?” And then, I would feel the anxiety surge, and then I would think…. And try so hard to be absolutely sure…. I would think all kinds of things…. I would have a thought or an image or an idea flash across my mind,... and I would react thinking things like:
“Why did I just think that!?
What was that thought?
Where did that thought come from?
What kind of a person thinks that?
What do these thoughts mean?!”
And every thought/obsession/question that happened was treated as if it were answerable, and that it was really important, and that it was valid, and that if I could just answer the question, then I would be able to relax…. Some people call it the OCD lie. If you could just be sure about this one thing,…. A thought occurred to me, a question, and another thought, in response to the first thought occurred, a response to the question,.... Then, a comment occurred about the first question and the answer, then another question about the answer, and then a comment about the comment. I would spend hours, then days, then months, and then decades doing that! Lost in an abyss of thought and feelings,.... I thought that I had to know and understand the answers to all the questions that OCD asked of me!
I went back to school in September and then dropped out later in the fall. I couldn’t keep going…. I would check things all day, and I would ruminate also, all day! I had very little mental bandwidth left at all– to attend lectures –let alone write essays! I dropped the classes that I hated and stayed in one or two that I could tolerate or perhaps, to be more precise I stayed in the classes within which I felt I owed the professors my presence.
That September my Granny Hryhor was very ill with cancer. She passed away and her Funeral was on the 1st of October, 1999. I’ll always remember going on a goose hunt that morning and worrying in an obsessive (irrational) way that my pellets from my shotgun might hit something far away in the background even though I knew that it was impossible. Later, after the hunting, I was driving to Prince Albert and I went over a bump and I was flooded with panic that I wouldn’t ever be able to be calm again, unless, (here is the OCD lie) I was sure that I hadn’t hit anybody. I did a u-turn and drove over to the spot to check. Of course, there was nothing there. That was my life. It had happened by that time, so many times before, would it continue forever? I hoped not.
The fall of 1999 found me out hunting a lot. Even though I had all that anxiety, and all that mental movement, I felt great, sometimes, when I would go out hunting. The wilds had a healing quality to them, and I spent every moment I could out of doors in search of wild game.
One day I decided to skip classes and head out toward Prince Albert in search of ducks and geese. I used to drive a 1980 Chevette, blue- gray in color. That day was cloudy and windy, and it was about the 20th of October, 1999. I will tell you about that day, as it was important to me and important to my story….
I approached, in my car, the towns of Domremey and Hoey, Saskatchewan, and then I drove further North toward St. Louis, a town located right on the South side of the South Saskatchewan River. I had driven up from Saskatoon early that morning. I had classes, but I had decided to skip them. I needed to survive, and this was instrumental in my survival.
From there I headed West. I found a spot along the river, where geese were flying all around. The geese were honking, and in many directions flocks of geese flew into the river valley, along the river valley and off the river and out into the farmland. The leaves, or what few leaves remained on the poplar and willow along the river, were a fierce-crimson golden-yellow color…. The October air was cool, the temperature about plus one. The wind was gusty, and with the wind the temperature it felt closer to minus two or three degrees.
The car I drove, a 1980 Chevette, was small, a four door automatic, and it was a good enough car….. It had a cassette player in it and I used to play various music in it while I drove through the countryside, examining the fields and sloughs and skylines for signs of Mallard ducks or geese. I loved a particular instrumental type of fiddle music,..., That, or I really liked the recordings of Gordon Lightfoot. His voice was soothing and pleasant and his lyrics were poignant,.... I’d cruise down the gravel roads near St. Louis, the little cars’ heater blasting hot air out at me,the speakers softly chiming Gordon lightfoot singing:
“Is the home team still on fire,
Do they still win all the games
and by the way,
Did she mention my name,...?”
Lot’s of times I would park the car just off the road and get out of the car, to look all around, in each direction. The colder the wind, the better, as it invigorated me! The geese and ducks were fine in temps around minus one to maybe minus 5,... the ducks would go South for the winter, as soon as the still waters froze solid, but they usually stayed around the country until the first hard freeze. October 20th was the time when anything could happen in terms of weather. In that year, on that day, the winds howled “win ter” and the grasses shook in the gusts– ducks were congregating into great flocks of several hundred and then feeding on grain much of the day to fatten up for their long migratory flight, it was rare to find them though, in great numbers that is,... but on that day, find them—- I did!
I saw geese flying toward the river at one spot and it was in a place with a gradual slope of river-bank, so I parked my car out of sight, off the gravel road, and grabbed my shotgun and a handful of shells. I hurried down, through the bush, down to the river’s edge to the bank and shore of the river. In that spot it would be ideal to shoot geese because the water's edge was gradually sloped and there were no trees for several meters between the water's edge and the bush along the river. Most of the rivers in that area were the same in that they usually had trees and brush on each side of them on the banks that sloped down from the farmland. In this case, there was a good opening in between the brush and the river and if I shot any birds at the right time, there was a good chance they would land on the bare ground along the river. I wouldn’t shoot anything unless I was quite certain I could retrieve it after the shot….
I had my gun in hand, loaded and ready, and I heard some geese coming in toward me,... from the South. Moments later, through the trees I saw them up above, their silhouettes clearly visible,... their wings zipping in the air. When they got to exactly the right spot, I raised up my shotgun, chose a goose and fired, once,... missed, and then fired twice more… and on the third shot, the goose plummeted down at an angle toward the river and landed with a thud on the grass. I had got one! My blood pumped hard and fast and I was filled with warmth and positivity! The goose was big and well feathered. I would pluck it later on! I would cherish every ounce of its meat,..., I would make it through my plight of doubt and despair….
Filled with elation, I retrieved the goose and walked back to my car. I placed everything in the car, and then I slowly began to drive to the East along the river. About a kilometer and a half later, I noticed a string of ducks, further down the river bank, over the trees…. hurtling, low, and fast through the skyline and then dropping out of sight. My heartbeat rushed faster, and I was instantly flooded with energy. I had to find those ducks…. I cautiously drove ahead accelerating smoothly, my eyes trained steadfastly, on the skyline,.... A few moments later, more ducks,... and then still more ... . I stopped the car and watched that spot. There were ducks going into something,... landing along the river somewhere, and, given the morning’s heavy winds, I knew that there was a chance that I could possibly pull a “sneak” on them. Usually, when my dad and I pulled a sneak, we would crawl up to the edge of the slough where the ducks were sitting and then shoot once, while the birds were sitting, to kill more birds, and then twice more when they lifted off,....
I drove closer and came to a road leading toward the river,... I drove down the road. That road narrowed to a cart trail and I drove down it, the grass in the centerline of the cart trail scraping the undercarriage of the car,....
What if there was a big boulder on the ground, and I smashed the undercarriage or oil pan of my car? I thought ….and I drove carefully, scanning the road and watching for ducks and other hunters, and rocks,..., but, no one was around….I drove down that road and I realized I had the whole place to myself!
The South Saskatchewan river gurgled along quickly and the wind gusted, and many folk would probably walk outside that day and remark on how bad the weather was, how cold it was, how terrible it was,..., but I was just the opposite! I loved the day, in its bitterness, and its rawness, in its pure, … realness! A formidable cold was coming in the near future that would freeze the river solid with several inches of ice and lock up every lake, river, and pond for thousands of kilometers Northward. The Universe was going to do as it always did,... whether I liked it or not. But I liked it, sometimes,....
I came to the trail's end and there was a flat place about 20 meters by twenty meters , made of gravel, where I could turn my car around. About 100 meters away it looked as though there was a small slough separate from, but directly adjacent to the river. Ducks whistled over my car, and swooped down out of sight into what appeared to be the slough. Now my heart was pounding quickly and strongly. I knew what I would do. I would strike while the iron was hot. I would pull a sneak!
I shut my car heater off, and quietly put it in park and then turned off the engine. The wind whistled and blasted outside my window and I looked through the glass of the car at the scene before me. I was in a good situation….
I got out of the car and uncased my Winchester pump 12 gauge. The wind whistled wildly but I could hear the din of the ducks! I grabbed a handful of shells and I pulled my cap brim down low. I loaded my gun and began to hunch over as I looked at my line of approach on the slough. Ducks, all the while, kept whipping over me and buzzing down into the pocket in the bullrushes. I had to hurry, because anything could happen and the ducks could get scared off. You could never count your quarry until you had it dead, and hanging in the shop. That was for sure. Only after the kill could you relax and count your winnings!
I quickly began the sneak, hunched over, walking quickly toward the grasses surrounding the slough, and arrived at the beginnings of reeds and grasses. The ducks’ monotonous din was becoming clearer and louder as I snuck closer to them. The wind kept steadily blowing, and it was a great strong wind—. The crackling of the dried up slough grasses and bullrushes underfoot was buried in the wind. It was the perfect storm!
I went slow. I timed my movements with the wind and I concentrated on only being quiet. All the world vanished,....My mind got empty and clear. There was nothing anymore, except to listen to the wind and move carefully, and listen to the ducks, and then the wind and moving and listening and moving all simultaneously,.... There was only this stage of sneaking. It didn’t matter if it took an hour or two. I waited. Then I moved, then I waited,....
After a good while I was close to the ducks. But I couldn’t see them. The reeds were too thick. The ducks were close- maybe 5 meters away, maybe less…, but I was reluctant to move much closer as I didn't want to spook the ducks off and not get a shot! I was in a dilemma. I wanted to shoot the ducks, but I couldn’t see them! I could only hear them and the odd one would whip overhead and land in front of me somewhere, out of sight. I sat there and thought,... what to do? I knew I could just shoot where I thought the ducks were. I wasn’t supposed to do that though,.... It was a rule in hunter’s safety. Never shoot at something you couldn’t see. But, I didn’t want to scare the ducks away…. Then I thought,... who else is here? Hunters? There were no cars or signs of any human beings on the only road into the place….. There was nobody shooting. There was nobody around the ducks scaring them,.... There was nobody there. But what if!? …. I decided to make a decision. I would shoot through the reeds, and accept the consequences!!!!
I prepared to shoot and flicked off the safety. I aimed for the center of the quacking sound. Ka —-Boom! Shuck shuck- Boom! Boom!-- I did it!! My heart raced wildly and I was filled with enough energy to lift a bus! The ducks burst into flight and I rushed wildly through the bulrushes till I broke through the other side onto the mud of the small slough, perfectly round and with nothing but a few feathers and 8 fat green heads floating gently in the water, stone dead,... warm to the touch!
I couldn’t believe it! There was duck shit all over the mud of the slough shore, and there were ripples on the water. I had bagged my limit (8 mallard ducks) in only three shots, without even seeing where I was shooting!! I frantically searched the grasses and bulrushes that I had shot through to be sure there was no one in there and that I hadn’t accidentally killed someone!.... (I couldn’t stop the thoughts that would come…) But I had killed these nice late season mallards, and I didn’t feel like such a failure! I had realized some success, and couldn’t I do the same with my OCD?! I was filled with hope!! I would beat this OCD problem, I would redeem myself, I would be successful,... I vowed this to myself as I got my chest waders and retrieved the birds. I placed them in a cardboard box that I kept in my car and I drove into Prince Albert, to my sister, Kama’s house. I was so proud of my ducks and one goose. It was a win for me and I needed it. Kama was excited for me too and she grabbed her camera and came out to her front lawn where she snapped a photo of me. (see attached photo)
I had some more good hunting that year. Ducks were great…. And white tailed deer was excellent too. We had found some more good duck hunting over to the North of Prince Albert, and while I was out hunting ducks with Dad, I noticed some good white tailed deer signs.
The North Saskatchewan river had lots of ducks at one spot toward Cecil ferry. Dad and I had a nice morning shoot one time, out there, and at that time I noticed that a white tailed buck had been rubbing a poplar sapling that was about three inches in diameter. Generally, in my experience, the thicker the sapling is, that the deer is rubbing with its antlers, the larger the deer is. This was happening on the edge of a pea field adjacent to the North Saskatchewan river. The river had an island very close to the mainland and it was separated only by a shallow channel of water maybe 6 inches deep, and in some places it was dry and you could cross mud and dry sand over onto the island. I explored that island thoroughly that fall, on later scouting expeditions, and, I realized that deer were feeding and resting on the island and sometimes going over to the adjacent pea field, presumably to feed.
Dad and I began hunting deer together in 1999 around the 5th of November and we often went out to various spots along the farmland to the East of Prince Albert. We went out to this field we had found, out toward the Cecil ferry and we discovered a good deal of deer sign. Sign included deer scat, deer tracks, deer scrapes, and deer rubs. One day we went out for a day of hunting deer and I shot a beautiful heavily antlered white tail. The circumstances of the hunt were quite memorable and uncanny,... auspicious even,.... This is what happened on that day:
I had dropped all of my classes at University, and I was living with my parents in Prince Albert. Dad and I had made a plan to go hunting out by the island on the river, out by the Cecil Ferry. We woke up early that day, and it was about the 20th of November. We packed up a lunch and gathered our rifles and hunting supplies and we headed out.
In the morning we checked out the river bank for deer or signs of deer, and at one point we heard shots from across the river and then spotted a deer swimming across the river. I hadn’t ever seen that, but now I knew that it was an occurrence, a possibility…. We poked around, looking for deer and the day wore on. We anticipated a good evening hunt, because in our experience the evening always proved to be the time when deer really began to move. During the day they seemed to stay in the thick bush where they were very difficult to approach.
So, we decided on our respective spots for our evening posts. We would split up and take up our positions, in strategic locations where we thought there was a good chance that deer would come by. I took a spot along the river bank where the deer had been going up and down the steep bank to access the pea field. Peas were a crop that deer loved to eat, like geese and ducks, and the field near to which the island was located, was the very field that we had enjoyed great duck hunting on a couple of weeks prior.
That day was overcast and about -10 degrees celsius. I arrived at my spot at about 4pm and I had about one and a quarter hours of legal hunting time remaining. I looked to the South at the island on the river, and it was only about 30 meters away, if that. Directly to my right, about 2 or 3 meters away, was a pathway that the deer had been using to go up the river bank, and the bank was quite steep right at that particular spot. I was counting on a nice buck showing itself on the island and then walking out into the open as it made its way across the channel toward the trail up the bank. The channel was pretty and quaint like a little spot out of a movie….the island was peaceful with willows and openings of space between various elements of vegetation- a small spruce tree here, and different medium-sized poplars over there….. There were sections of thick vegetation on the island (gnarly willows and thick underbrush). I counted on there being a deer or two, in that dense bush. I sat down on a plastic bag to keep myself dry and began to watch and wait. I had learned my lesson in previous years and I made sure to sit on my rear with my heels dug into the ground and my knees up in the position that would allow me to rest my elbows on top of them, to create a rock-solid platform for aiming my rifle. I got comfortable and ready. I placed one cartridge in my rifle magazine and then one more,..., I shouldn’t need more than one shot, or at least that’s what I told myself…..
I was all set up in my spot, and the wind was just right, blowing from the North East. The wind was pushing my scent to the island but my scent was hitting the spot on the island that was West of where I thought the deer to be. It was ideal. The deer would have to walk into the channel about half way across it in order to catch wind of me. I would shoot them before that. I waited. The wind picked up slightly and daylight faded a little. The first few flakes of a snowfall began to fall and they continued to fall steadily,... Conditions were becoming even better. In my experience, animals tended to move to a feeding area more predictably when the weather was more severe. I welcomed the snow, as it was dry and cold enough to keep the conditions optimal and I hunkered down and waited.
The snow fell quietly and steadily in the moderate wind, and had been falling for about 10 minutes when there came a sound from the island- like the sound of something rubbing on something- like a kind of “shwee shwee shwee shwee shwee,” like the sound of nylon track pants rubbing together. “Now” I thought to myself,... “this is strange,.... It’s either a man wearing track pants or a deer rubbing its antlers on something…!”
I was beyond excited. To witness a deer rub its antlers on a tree is something most people will never experience. It requires too much research, planning and patience. I sat and listened…. Again I heard the sound “Shwee shwee shwee shwee shwee.” A while later I heard some twigs snap and the sound of movement,.... Next, I saw a poplar sapling shake and heard more twigs snap and then I began to see a dark silhouette. It was a deer! I watched as the shape of a buck with a rack of antlers manifested in the willows…. He put his head down against a sapling and began to rub the small tree with his antlers- his main beam of his antlers was noticeably wide, the tree dancing back and forth in rhythm with his movements. I flicked the safety “off” on my rifle. I wanted to shoot, but there were many willows blocking my shot, and to send a bullet through the willows was to take a serious gamble, because those willows could deflect the bullet, and what I wanted was to place a bullet directly into the heart and lungs of the buck. If I did that, there was a good chance I could retrieve it, promptly,.... If I shot and the bullet deflected and it hit the non-vital body parts of the deer, well, I could as much kiss it goodbye. Deer are tough animals. You could shoot the front leg off of one or put a bullet through its stomach and it would easily run a couple of miles before it ever stiffened up. I did not want that.
I was in a bit of a pickle. The buck wasn’t walking out of the willows- and the legal shooting time was ticking away quickly. I didn’t anticipate any conservation officers being near me or watching me, but still, even if there weren’t any, and all legalities aside, if I was going to kill this deer, I needed to do it before it was too dark to shoot. I watched the deer and he stayed in the willows.
After a few more minutes, maybe three or four, I made a decision. I decided I would shoot into the willows and take my chances on bullet deflection. I had read about it, but I had never experienced it. Maybe I would shoot and the bullet would plow through the bush like nothing, and it would do what I needed it to do. I was going to see…. I had two cartridges in my rifle, if I needed the second, but I realized it would have been wise to load my rifle with the five cartridges that it was built to carry.
I prepared to shoot. I centered the crosshairs exactly on the center of the bucks vital area and squeezed the trigger, while controlling my breath just the right way… and-. “Ka - Boom!” The rifle fired, and I barely felt the recoil- and quickly looked at the buck as he began to run,..., now everything slowed right down in my perceptions, and it was a blessing, because I needed to do exactly the right thing if I wanted to bag this deer. I had only one shot left!
I saw the buck begin to move immediately following the shot, and the blast from the rifle echoed in the river valley. The buck ran out, into the clear, and into the channel and galloped in the water directly toward the path beside which I sat. I worked a new cartridge into the rifle chamber as I watched him come– “He’s going to run right beside me,... ! I thought, incredulously! If he did run right beside me, he was going to pass within three meters of me, and he was going to be directly broadside, going so fast and so close I would have to shoot from the hip or just by instinct as I wouldn’t have time to put him in the scope,..., but just then, the buck, as he crossed the channel, crossing the wind current that carried my scent, stopped suddenly in the middle of the channel right on a sand bar and stared directly at me! Body broadside! Without thinking I instantaneously put my head down into the shooting position, saw the crosshairs on his front shoulder and crushed the trigger. It all happened so fast,...!I was filled with power and indescribable emotions and thoughts. The snowflakes continued falling and the wind stayed constant, and when I shot I looked up to see the deer fall down, his nose and mouth happening to land so that the end of his muzzle was underwater, while the rest of his body lay on the sand bar, completely still. A stream of blood flowed out into the water- from his nostrils,...I could see it from where I sat. I was close and the water was clear.The buck lay still. I sat in awe and shock and began to process the series of events that had just transpired.
I descended the steep bank and crossed the channel to the dead buck. I felt mixed emotions,... I was jubilant but sad at the same time,...I thought of all the years I had hunted deer since I was about 12,..., and all the times, and seasons I had logged in, to finally witness this one series of events. I was only 23 years old. For most hunters, this would never happen. For me, it had already happened. Twice! Both in 1998, and 1999. To see a magnificent whitetail buck, up close, in the wilds, as I had, rubbing his antlers, running through the river, at the distances that he was,..., that was such a privilege…. Furthermore, I didn’t use any baits, or trail cameras. I didn’t drive roads, in search of the careless rut-crazed bucks that became vulnerable for the week long period in the peak of the rut. I hunted on foot….
I didn’t feel like a very spiritual person during those days, as I had been constantly dealing with the tyranny of OCD, but in those moments, I was filled with spirit, and even as I write these very words, I am once more, overwhelmed with the feeling of spirit. Something was helping me,..., even in those days. Something was giving me what I needed and yearned for,..., something was blessing me with grace in the hours that I most needed it. It was and is so powerful…, looking back on it, it sends shivers down my spine and brings tears to my eyes. It was a time and a day of understanding beyond thought and words. It was pure, divine, salvation and it was absolutely glorious.