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Show Deer Hunt 5 I stared back. Frozen in a moment's communion. We climbed creeping over rocks, rocks rough and fine under my fresh spring hands. The deer stared stupidly, I thought, and did she even see us stalking? Surely the eyes saw something. The reels of my world had dragged to slow motion, suspended in the sight. The unsleek, not quite grey fur, the unraised head, the thin unmoving legs. Her mouth, not quite open or closed, dribbled a long thin spittle line down to the rocks. We climbed and Dog said, "Let's go around, up to the cliffs." "Yeah!" We climbed. I looked at the deer. She turned slowly her head until we disappeared behind her, and that's the last look at that almost alive deer I looked. We climbed up around the east of the edge of the rocks of the cliffs. Clambered through scrub oak and around and over large and solid sandstone rocks. We stood above, somewhere, the deer, she hidden by a cover of scrub oak and jutting, ragged rocks. The deer. We glanced at each a moment seeming many moments, but in that brief communion our eyes gave birth to thoughts. Unspoken and tenuous they hovered gently like a morning fog conflicting with the dazzling air then, victorious, settled smugly as a smile around us three. We looked at Dog and knew we knew why he lifted the basketball-sized rock. Not a basketball. He strained, disturbed it slightly from its primeval place. Harry with his hands scooped out some rich, dark dirt from underneath, and then in one large pull, Bog raised the rock from out the earth. Dirt around the edges of the hole rolled like a sigh to the bottom. But Dog to show his might pushed the rock above his head then over the cliff. It crashed from his triumphant arms, clashed and clattered through scrub oak breaking, |