Coming Home

 

Coming Home

I arrive close to midnight after more than six hours of driving.  My trip began in the late afternoon glare of commuter traffic and came to an end as my truck followed the well-known winding curves of county highway through foggy blackness.

The last quarter mile down the logging road had always been the best part of this trip. Familiar trees crowded the road and soon I would see the inviting warmth of light emanating from the log house.  Then, I felt that I was almost home.  Stepping outside my truck on the gravel driveway, the comforting smell of woodsmoke would at once reach me and outside lights would blink on, helping light my way as I unloaded my truck.

The  screen door leading to the second floor deck would slide open and hearty greetings would shower down upon me.  Once inside, my welcome would be made complete with delicious aromas like baked chocolate chip cookies or roast venison, and hugs and kisses all around.

Tonight no light greets me.  Truck tires crunch gravel and snow, grinding to a halt in the driveway below the house. I step outside and am greeted only by the chill and hushed darkness of late night.  The wind is up tonight and tosses the treetops; brown leaves cartwheel across the driveway and yard.

I fight the house key into the unfamiliar door lock. In over 20 years of coming here this is perhaps the second or third time I’ve needed to unlock this door. I push through into the garage and switch on the light.  Everything is in its place, just as it always has been.  The reliable 6 horse outboard on its stand.  Yard tools line one wall, each one hanging by its own nail.

The smell of gun oil hangs in the air and fleeting bits of memories of past hunts run through my mind like a fleeing buck.  I open the fridge and a variety of Leinenkugels beer is chilling.

There is an order and familiarity here I find comforting.  For only a moment I catch myself thinking “nothing’s changed”.

The upstairs is dark and chilly: my first order of business is to turn on lamps and crank up the thermostat.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  I can’t find anything to be thankful for. How sad. How selfish.

I am alone on what used to be my favorite Holiday. I have my reasons. Recently divorced, my daughter away at school, my brother at home with his family. My parents, both dead.

I carry a dead weight in my head and heart, and try to push it off. It’s late. I need to get to bed. Despite my immersion in self-pity, I find myself in the middle of Wisconsin’s Gun Deer Season. Tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, I will hunt.

A night’s troubled sleep passes and I am up at 4am preparing for the hunt.

Stepping outside I breathe deeply of the pre-dawn chilled air. A few stars shine through rents in the cloud cover, and a soft West wind promises a good hunt.

Ghostly light falling from above reflects off of the blue-tinged snow, making it easy to see, even though the sun remains an hour and a half to the east. The wind strengthens: I look up and see patches of clear dark space as it leaks through the torn sky. The world is cold. Clean. Honest. I feel as if in space.

 I enjoy a rebirth here in the stands of popple, pine and oak; I feel a deep connection with the land, fully appreciating the gift of truth wild animals deliver. These very trees, the familiar grove of ancient red pines I pass through on the way to my stand, have been part of my life longer than any thing living or dead. I know this land best.

I walk, thinking, nothing in this world is as honest as hunting.  I can’t imagine a life as a non-hunter; I lament how far from nature man’s modern world has moved. I am not a man of my time.

I walk slowly so as to not overheat. I reach the tree where my stand is perched, and climb up to begin my hunt.

No deer move during the morning. I have too much time to think, all alone, up in these treetops, waiting. The dark empty morning advances, and on the edge of hearing the Monday Lake fire department siren blares, signaling noon.

I hear occasional gunshots and think of hunters bringing down their deer. I see the happy smiles, steaming gut piles a wet splash of dying colors spreading across the purity of snow, broad antlers comfortable, solid in a hunter’s grateful hand. I am with these men and women in spirit, rejoicing in the hunt, and reveling in the deep pull of blood ties. I hunt alone but remember other times.

He would bundle me all up in too-big warm clothes and we would sit in that old ground blind of his. That one year above the river, we got cold, we weren’t seeing any deer anyway, so we took a walk to warm up. He found the carcass of a button buck—just the hindquarters missing. “Look”, he said, smiling, pulling the heart from the little deer, “They left the best part.” He had a fire roaring in minutes. I sharpened two sticks with my new knife and he stuck frozen pieces of the little buck’s heart on the sharp end of our sticks. We moved the sticks over the flame. We ate the heart with our hands. We sat on the highest point of the ridge, in the sun; the blue snow stretched forever, the black water of the river slid past below us…

I snap back to the present, and focus my attention on spotting a deer.  I scan the hardwood ridges and search the popple thickets for deer, but still thinking of what’s been lost.

The woods are getting darker by the minute, but a movement off to my left catches my attention.  A flicker, then a horizontal shape moving through the thick cover. Finally.  Deer. It stops and disappears.  I stare a hole through the woods. Minutes pass, then the deer continues picking its way through deadfalls and tangles, on a path that will place it fifty yards in front of me.

A glint of white bone and I know it’s a buck.  He walks cautiously, not in a hurry.  His frame is big, his antlers a modest basket.

My gun is up and as he steps over a downed tree I touch off the trigger.

The buck drops at the report, kicking snow and leaves, then quickly still.

It’s over. Just like that.

He’s a fine buck. I kneel beside him and pat his side and neck.  I hold his antlers in my hand.  I give silent thanks.  I feel good and bad at the same time.

I look around our woods and gaze up into the dark cloudy November sky. I think about the work ahead of me, getting this buck out of the woods.  Alone.  I think, too, about the backstraps I will have for my Thanksgiving dinner.

“Dad would have liked this,” I say quietly.  “Mom, too.”

Night has almost fallen as I pull the buck through the woods towards home.

The night falls as my mood lifts.  I am not alone, after all.

My father, Mike Jelak, 1992.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[MIke]

Well told, JJ. I can feel the weight of your arrival and its lifting as you go through what has come to be familiar and good. Having lived the through similar times, I appreciate your sharing, and know it isn't easy.

Good luck in the contest.

Mike

[HLYH]

Wow. Nice to see that my experience wasn't solitary. Nothing beats hunting. I can't image my life without it. Beautiful.

[Mark]

Bravo. I can relate as well. Seems to be a common chord in those of us who have replied.

Good luck with the contest...this one is a contender!

[Ken Hall]

There's a line somewhere (Robert Traver?) about "solitude without loneliness". I think it was written about fishing but it applies here, too, and you captured it.

[Owl Jones]

Great post! I often fish alone and never feel lonely when I'm standing in the river, a part of the trout's world. ( whether he likes it or not! :) )

[JJ]

Hey Owl! Please don't make me choose who I love most-- trout or deer. Thanks for your comment. Fishing or hunting alone is never for me a lonely pursuit. Getting in the world is the whole idea, as you said....man it's so cold up here I may never soft water fish again.