Neither buck was particularly large, but both were stout and six pointers and in the picture of health and when their antlers clashed the bowhunter could hear the bony impact like a steel pot falling on concrete. It went on and on, the two circling on their pointed hooves. With each charge the clash brought them closer to his camo tent. Antler to antler was a clacking as they shook their heads seeking an advantage. At one point he raised his bow. He was standing and his eyes were on the bucks, and he raised his bow to get a feel for the setting and he pulled back and sighted on the closest buck as they stood for one moment and he sighted right behind the left shoulder blade, a heart shot. “I could just take him,” he thought, “No-one would know. I could drag him across the field and get him in my trunk without anyone knowing.”

But he stopped himself, of course, being a real hunter and retired military, he would not break the rules and early season was just for does, to reduce the breeding population, not to fill his freezer with buck venison and provide horns to hang. He lowered his bow and watched in heightened fascination as the battle progressed until the engagement broke off on its own exhaustion, the real rut season not yet upon them. He let them leave the field and then, after closing up the tent, he walked the damp grass under the darkening sky.

It was weeks before he could get back and when he did it was the regular bowhunting season now and he climbed the north tree stand and settled as best he could on the narrow metal seat.

On this bright day with a clear blue sky the bowhunter was soon joined in hunting by a broadwing hawk. The broadwing is a master of the hunt and the bowhunter watched the agile bird gliding low above the grass, not more than ten feet from the ground, sometimes just a few feet above the wispy grass, and it could spin on a wingtip like a ballerina on hard-toed slippers. The bird had a wingspan nearly equal to a yard stick and its aerobics were like a dance, a few beats of the long-pointed wings, a low glide, a sharp pirouette, and then a sudden plunge at what for him, the bowhunter, was completely invisible prey. A miss. The bird was soon in the air again. “How could it possibly see through the tight knit grass?” he wondered. “What does it see?”

The hawk used the entire width of the field to hunt and recrossed certain areas it held in high regard but searched methodically like on a search grid known only to its own mind, its own predatory logic.

The bowhunter watched it gliding and it lifted slightly, turned on the point of its right wing and plunged the four feet to the ground with what appeared to be much more speed than gravity alone could provide. The bird nestled in the grass, facing the hunter, and it adjusted its feet like walking, and the bird looked down at its feet before emerging from the grass like a leaf in a breeze and the bowhunter could see the prey in its talons, whatever it was, shrew, mole or mouse. The broadwing disappeared over the hill and into the tree line to the north.

It was the time of day he had been waiting for, late afternoon, and he could catch a glimpse of the deer coming from the hidden field behind the big oaks and they lingered there eating the acorns and soaking up the last of the sun. They came across the field now, scattered like seed from a planter’s hand.

Read part 2 of  "Bowhunter"...