Read part 1 of "Bowhunter"...

The farmer planted the last of his garlic, picked up his tools and empty buckets and left the field early, happy the garlic was in and bedded for winter.

Shortly after, the hunter arrived and walked across the ankle high grasses of the lower portion of the field. The field was quiet and in sun and in the corner a small flock of blackbirds, late in their migration, foraged in tight formation. He got to his pop-up tent nested near the oaks of the fence-line and settled in, zipping up the door behind him as he took a seat on the small bench chair. He turned his phone off. He adjusted the view-hole slit and leaned his bow against his right leg. He settled in to wait. He took a drink of water from his canteen.

Alone with himself, his mind did what we all do, filled with the baggage of life: twinge of pain from his separation, how much was he to blame, his kids were strong, do I take too much time for myself, and finally he thought of the cuts of venison he would make when his success was confirmed.

His contemplation broke when an acorn bounced off the tight canvas of his camo tent and he had to think for a minute if he had fallen asleep.

The shadows of the distant woods crept across the grass in front of him and he was fully in shadow and he could feel the temperature drop now that there was no direct sunlight hitting the front of the tent. He shivered and took out the wool skullcap from his pocket. He moved slowly in the tent and made no sound, at least nothing he himself could hear.

He sensed the deer to his right before he could see it and had already begun to move his bow into position by the time the nine-point buck came into the corner of his vision.

The buck was dark and large and, aside from the asymmetry of his rack, a perfect specimen. The buck walked one step at a time, step, stop, step, his head to the ground, eating, from the right to the left, uphill and on an angle closer and closer to the tent. The hunter was getting nervous now as the buck came into his range. He was not a great hunter by any means and every encounter with prey produced a predictable chemical, electric, he didn’t know, reaction in his body, and he was tingling everywhere as he raised the bow gently, slightly, in front of himself and got the point, the tip, out of the window slit.

His bow was fully engaged and drawn to his maximum and he shook slightly, uncontrollably, as he sighted, and he took two deep breaths, and he hesitated still and let the pressure off the bow and relaxed as best he could. He wasn’t ready. The buck came closer. The hunter was a big man and he stooped to get the arrow right and he drew back the arrow again.

His arms were aching. He was sweating on his forehead and, oddly, he noticed his left foot felt damp. He couldn’t concentrate. He was taking too much time. His heart was racing.

He pulled the bow tight and aimed behind the shoulder blade. He released. The arrow was airborn and what happened next was so fast he could not replay it in his mind’s eye, but the buck turned his head towards the hunter the microsecond the arrow was released, and the arrow hit the antler and stuck in the bone and snapped off the ninth point. Like a cat, at impact, the buck jumped straight in the air off all four feet simultaneously, and when he landed in shock, not knowing what exactly had happened, he paused, wild-eyed, before running as fast as he could for the fence-line. The arrow remained in his antlers like a trophy of survivability and in the hours to come he rubbed the arrow off by slicking his horns against a sapling.

For the hunter, bow season was over as he contemplated black powder.