Short Story: The Perfect Shot

Short Story: The Perfect Shot

I first spotted the animal’s tracks high up on the ridge, a few scrape marks here and there where it had tried to get a bite to eat, small plants bitten down to soil level, a sure sign. It would be a deer, perhaps a roe deer and well worth the hunt.

Although only just past five, the day was already warm with the promise of real heat later on, the air was alive with insects. It wasn’t hard to guess where the deer was heading, I saw the trace of an animal track heading downhill into the fir trees. The animal paths are well worn tracks where a variety of animals through the years had worn a line, along the side of a forest or across a field, where they felt safest to travel, not always true as they were also the best place to set snares as many a trapper will tell you.

I stood up and re-adjusted the sling across my shoulder and decided this deer was fair game and headed for the trees, as I walked I looked up at a Buzzard high in the azure sky, it’s wingtip feathers spread out like the fingers of a hand touching and sensing the warm, uplifting thermal winds on which it see-sawed lazily, like a rice paper kite. One thing for certain, it saw me, it’s eyesight better than any telescopic sight made by man… we were both hunters but after different prey today

Both light and temperature dropped as I entered the trees, sunlight mostly banished by the thick canopy of branches only here and there a shaft of persistent rays cut a diagonal path and found its way to the padded pine needle floor of the forest. The thick carpet of fallen leaves denied my footsteps sound as I walked through this eerie gloom, no bird song here to lift my spirit because this was no natural forest of haphazard tree species but a specially planted cash crop of soft woods, tomorrows’ newspaper pages or cheap flat pack furniture…no doubt a tax dodge for the local absentee landlord but what did I care, he could have all the expense of the upkeep of the land, I would still make a living from what didn’t reach the rich man’s table and make sport of avoiding his gamekeepers, who like bargain basement hit men illegally slaughtered anything that endangered the laird’s other cash crop, the game pheasant, the only bird call to hear in this artificial place, one cash crop inside another cash crop, surely the stuff of an accountants’ dreams.

I had come to the edge of the woods and was about to re-enter the world of light, I stopped to let my eyes readjust to the morning sun, gather my wondering thoughts and concentrate on stalking the animal. What I was about to do had no forgone conclusion, the deer was well armed with defensive weapons, hearing, sight and smell that had evolved over the ages in this natural prey animal to detect anything approaching from a great distance, but something else, a sixth sense when it came to predators…a feeling when something was just “wrong”. All these coupled with an impressive turn of speed that, at times, could outrun a bullet made the deer a challenging prize.

I stepped out of the forests’ welcome shade into the morning’s stifling heat and at once felt the army surplus forest camouflage jacket I wore, was perhaps made for a colder climate than this July morning but it did its job and rendered me almost invisible to the most observant of eyes, but still the sweat prickled on my shoulders and back.

I would have to be as silent as possible from here. I guessed that the creature wouldn’t be too far away and feeding, a little further on was an expanse of flat ground with lush green grass watered by a burn that flooded now and again after rainfall in the hills. If it was there it would be exposed and vulnerable and present a clear, clean shot for me. I walked quickly but quietly along the edge of the trees to my right and a bank of ferns and gorse bushes to my left, at the ready to duck into the trees if I saw any movement ahead.

After about fifty yards there it was, feeding about twenty five yards out from any cover. It was a Roe deer, a large one, perhaps three feet at the shoulders with its reddish brown summer coat, a beautiful example of the species but one thing was wrong, dam it, the lack of short, three-tined antlers, it was a doe and not a buck, and this was the breeding season, but I felt I had to take the chance, I needed that deer and after all it meant money in my pocket and food in the larder for my family. I crouched down and edged forward silently, now an animal myself on all fours, my senses and hunting instinct going back to the caveman who had hunted with spear and stones and not the high tech equipment I had slung round my back. I reached a small break in the ferns, I would have to take the shot from here. I lay still and watched my prey chewing the grass, it’s ears flicking now and again at the halo of black fly buzzing round it’s head. It kept nervously glancing in my direction, this was strange as I knew it could not have seen me or heard me behind the thick ferns. Then I saw it! Hidden in some long grass about four feet from me was her fawn, perhaps a week old. The only thing a fawn can do in a dangerous situation is to stay completely still, they do not move a muscle or even blink in the presence of a predator. It was so beautiful lying there an ornament of a fawn sculpted in fine bone china, a piece of porcelain perfection in the grass, it’s ridged and spotted coat, fine features of the face, ears folded flat back against the head, and it’s long stilt-like legs tucked underneath it, I would have to take it right after the doe, it was too good a chance to pass up now.

Moving slowly and silently I lay down in the grass to take the shot, the doe was about twenty five yards from me and presenting it’s right side. My hands, clammy with sweat now, felt the weight and the cool metal against my cheek, I closed one eye and looked at the creature now through optical glass which somehow made the creature an inanimate object. I slowed my breathing down now, slowly in, slowly out to stop the slight tremor in my hands…the third time I inhaled I held the breath in my lungs and felt the pressure build in my finger….The metallic click seemed to ring out like a gunshot through the morning still…I swung round to the fawn and squeezed again….another satisfying click from my camera. Glancing back to the doe, I saw she hadn’t even flinched. I started crawling back from that idyllic scene, I just knew I had two great shots on film, they would surely sell to a nature magazine, maybe even a calendar if I was lucky.