There was too long a stretch of open ground to be covered before Tim could get within spear throwing range. He strung his bow instead, and laid aside his crutch. His ankle might give way, but he had to take the chance. Moving laterally, he got directly behind the deer, then began to advance. His ankle sent a shock of pain through him each time it hit the ground. He carried the bow in shooting position, ready to draw and release the moment the muley became alarmed.

To his amazement, the deer did not become aware of him. He advanced slowly, footfalls silenced by the thin layer of snow, to within fifty feet of the animal. It still sat quietly, looking down the slope.

Tim paused. If he did not shoot soon, his chance would be lost. Drawing back his bow, he sighted on the deer’s side just behind the shoulders and released.

The arrow flashed, flying true. There was a thuck on impact and the mule deer erupted from the ground. For a fraction of a second it stared at Tim; then it was gone, bounding away in great leaps, using all four feet in its haste.

Tim stood holding his empty bow, frozen in superstitious terror. For a moment the deer’s eyes had seemed to hold an almost human intelligence. Was this a spirit deer after all – one that could not be killed?

The deer was gone. Only his tracks remained.

Tim staggered forward to where the deer had lain. His arrow was buried head deep in a thumb sized branch of whitethorn, and its shaft had shattered on impact. It was a chance in a thousand with such a large target and such a skimpy bush, but Tim’s arrow had been stopped short.

Tim’s scream of frustration rebounded from the mountainside.

Chapter 10

Tim squatted before his fire. In this exposed position at the edge of a small meadow, the constant wind had stunted the growth of a mountain hemlock, twisting it into a whorling shrub that backed against a granite outcropping. Tim had built a fire against the rock so that it reflected heat into the space beneath the hemlock. He had made that space more snug by interweaving branches from nearby shrubs and banking snow against the outer branches.

It was snowing again. The scattered flakes had given way to a steady fall of snow with the coming of night. They did not dance as they had the night before. Now there was no wind and they floated purposefully downward, filling the night with a curtain of white and steadily building up a layer on the trees and ground.

Tim paid little attention to his surroundings. He sat silently, caught up in the rumblings of his empty stomach and the throbbing of his ankle. Today had nearly defeated him. The long stalk in the cold and wind had been bad enough, but it was the waiting, not moving while he searched the brush with his eyes, that had left him chilled through and exhausted.

The fire was dying, but it seemed just too much trouble to put on more wood. Tim’s head dropped to his chest. He really should have saved that arrow, but instead he had taken the already shattered shaft and had broken it again and again, then ground it underfoot in his rage.

If he had hit the deer, would it have died? Or had the deer’s spirit put the branch in the way? more tomorrow

The muley’s trail switchbacked up the valley as he browsed. Tim remained under cover as he followed so he could not be seen from above. He knew that a mule deer will browse for an hour or so as the day begins, then lie down looking downslope. This gives the deer the advantage of rising winds moving up the canyons in the morning. Tim could do nothing to disguise his scent, but he could stay out of sight.

From time to time, Tim could see freshly nipped branches of serviceberry and manzanita. Then he came upon a peculiar sign. The deer had torn up a large patch of snow and it was visibly yellow from his urine. A nearby willow was bruised and its bark was torn loose near the ground.

The deer was going into rut despite his wound! Tim would never have believed it. Perhaps this would make him careless.  Certainly it would make him dangerous. A muley in rut with freshly sharpened antlers will not hesitate to attack

* * *

In another part of the mountains, the black bear was leaving the foothills. His nose had begun to heal, but his sense of smell was mostly gone. His eye where the buckshot had lodged was swelling and the infection was spreading. He could not hunt properly with only his weak eyes to guide him. He was hungry and angry, and he was heading for the section of the mountains where Tim was lost.

* * *

Eventually, Tim decided that he had followed the deer’s tracks far enough. By now, it should have gone to earth, so he worked his way up the side of the valley and continued upslope parallel to the muley’s trail. After half a mile he dropped down into the valley again to check and, sure enough, the tracks were gone.

If his reasoning was correct, the deer was below him now, so he began a slow downslope stalk into the wind. The trees grew closer together here, and that made it hard for him to see.

The clouds were a boiling sea of gray and charcoal hanging just above the treetops. It was nearing noon, but the day just grew colder. Tim leaned against the bole of a mountain hemlock to rest his aching ankle and consider his next move. As long as he stayed still and upright, he would probably remain unseen against the trees, but he would have to look carefully before he made each move.

He moved diagonally to the right and stopped again against the bole of a lodgepole pine. He stood there with only his eyes moving for a long time, looking particularly at a likely clump of bitter cherry. Then he moved again, going about twenty feet and stopping.

He worked his way along for two hours, moving briefly and standing long to search with his eyes. The cold was getting to him, but he tried to ignore it. Eventually, he came to an opening in the trees, almost a meadow, but with a scattering of Jeffrey pines and low bushes of manzanita and whitethorn – just the kind of resting spot his father had taught him to look for.

Tim settled back against a pine and slid down so that he was hidden by a light screen of gooseberry. He scanned the area. It took almost ten minutes before Tim’s eyes could separate the deer from its cover. The deer had chosen a spot commanding a view of his trail. If Tim had blundered along following his tracks, the deer would have been long gone. more tomorrow

Since the chase, the deer had laid up and had eaten heavily. His wound was mostly healed now and much of his strength had returned, but the bone of his foreleg was chipped and he could not put weight on it without pain.

Now something out of the ordinary was happening in the night. There was a suggestion of light low in the valley where there should be no light. The deer had watched it for nearly two hours, not alarmed because it was at a distance. Then, just after the snow began to fall, the human that had hurt him so badly and chased him so relentlessly appeared in the faint light. The deer froze, watching. After a while the human disappeared and the deer slipped away, moving as rapidly a his damaged foreleg would allow.

* * *

The snow had left its mark lightly on the land, with a few drifts beneath the trees and about an inch on the ground. When he smothered his fire with snow and started out, Tim found that his ankle had not stiffened with use. He felt better than he had since his adventure began.

The sky had cleared briefly about sunrise, and Tim had taken advantage of his opportunity to look for landmarks. He could see far across the slopes, but there was nothing in sight that he recognized. That puzzled him. He could not imagine being so far from the place he had set out to hunt.

He would have built up a signal fire in hopes of being seen by some ranger on fire watch, but the clouds closed in tight again within a few minutes.

Tim studied the high valley with care and wished for a pair of binoculars. Or a rifle. Or a helicopter. Or just a cell phone. He circled the valley, staying in the cover of the stunted trees, but all he found of his deer was a single frozen track, pointing upslope.

Why? Why, at the obvious beginning of winter, with snow already on the ground, was the muley going further into the mountains and away from its winter feeding grounds in the valley below? Had it seen him? If it had, it must have been last night when he walked out into the snow storm.

Tim stood irresolute, staring at the single track and feeling really scared for the first time. He had seen far enough down the mountain to know that it would take him days to walk out in his crippled condition. Hunger was already grinding at him. He could concentrate on the task at hand only by a major effort of will. His bare forearms were chapped and reddened by exposure, and corded with loss of weight. He was in real trouble.

He really had no choice. Without any hope of rescue, he had to save himself, and he could not hope to walk out without food. He was already weak and he would only become weaker.

He turned upslope, in the direction that single track pointed.

From time to time Tim found tracks. He did not need many, because the deer kept to the valley of the creek. About mid-morning, Tim came across a complete row of tracks that stood out clear in the fresh snow. These had been laid down since the storm. The deer’s injured foreleg had never touched the ground. That injury was Tim’s only advantage.

His disadvantage was his own ankle. This morning he was putting more weight on it and ignoring the ache. He hoped that he would be able to manage a hobbling run if it came to that, but he wasn’t sure. more next week

The Deer saw all this from his place concealed at the edge of the forest. The First Man was becoming weaker as he hunted. He could not make a kill while his arms had not the strength to draw his bow properly, and while his legs did not have the strength to stalk properly. The Deer saw that the First Men would soon perish. Then the Deer changed his form so the man would not know him.

The First Man saw a dark animal at the edge of the forest, bigger than the Squirrel or the Towhee, and standing still and close. It took the last of his strength to pull back his bow and shoot. The animal fell, and only when the First Man came close did he see that it was his friend and teacher the Deer.

The First Man was terribly frightened and sad, but the Deer was a Spirit Deer and he answered the Man’s fear and sadness by saying, “As long as you eat my meat with reverence and kill only for need, my children and your children will inhabit these hills in peace forever.”

Tim felt much like a First Man as his memories slipped away into sleep. But this deer was unlikely to give himself up so that he could eat.

* * *

Like the puffy down of cottonwood they came, rolling on invisible currents of air, settling on Tim’s clothing and instantly disappearing into the fabric. He had awakened to feed the dying fire only to find the ground already white with snow. Tim had known that it was coming, but still he was not ready for it.

He left the shelter of the cutbank and stepped out into the swirling mass. A slight wind funnelled down the creek, sucking warmth from his exposed arms and finding its way through the many rips in his clothing.

He threw back his head in wonder at the delicate beauty of the snowfall. The flakes fell harmlessly into his eyes and mouth and collected on his clothing. He knew that he should be scared; it surprised him that he wasn’t.

He stood out far longer than he should have, and when he returned to the fire it took a long time to stop shivering.

Chapter 9

Animals are more predictable than people. Very little of their behavior is learned; most of it is born in them.

Mule deer are not the intellectuals of the animal world, nor are they cursed with an excess of curiosity. Their first reaction to any new object or event is to walk wide around it, then study it from afar. They are creatures of the open forest and plains, thriving best where underbrush is scarce and visibility is high; they place faith in distance. This is often the death of them. They will sometimes stare openly at a hunter while he knocks them down from 300 yards away with a high powered rifle.

Tim’s deer was more cautious than normal because he had been wounded and because the area he was in was entirely new to him. And there was more. 

When Tim had fallen into the stream and hit his head, he had not been knocked unconscious. He had been swept downstream only a few hundred yards and had come out dazed and maddened by pain. He had run after the wounded deer, bleeding from his head wound, dripping water, and screaming. The chase lasted for hours, and when Tim finally collapsed, he remembered none of it.

That was why he was so badly lost, and why the deer feared him with an almost human fear. more tomorrow

Sometimes he had gone camping with his father alone; other times his grandfather had come along.

When his grandfather had come along, he had always told stories. Sometimes these were Miwuk legends – and sometimes Tim thought he made up stories, and called them Miwuk legends.

Lying back in the cold and struggling to shift his body deeper into the pile of pine needles that were his only cover, Tim remembered the legend of the Spirit Deer.

* * *

Once, long ago when the world was newly formed, the First Men lived on berries and roots and were very poor. They did not have bows and arrows, or any tools. They wandered through the forest, hungry all the time and very cold when winter came. They didn’t even know how to make fires or shelter.

The Beaver saw the First Men walking by his pond one day, and took pity on them. He called out to the First Men and showed them how to cut wood and pile it together to make shelters and the First Men made their first umucha. They thanked the Beaver and he returned to his pond.

Many years later, the first umucha fell down in a wind storm and the First Men could not build another because they did not have teeth like the Beaver to cut wood. Then the Hawk showed them how to strike stones together to make sharp tools so that they could repair their umucha. The First Men thanked the Hawk and he flew away.

Now the First Men could take shelter from the rain once again, but still they were cold and hungry all the time. So the Woodpecker took pity on them and showed them how to make fire. The First Men thanked the Woodpecker, and stayed close to their fires in winter, and were warm.

Still they were hungry, until the Squirrel showed them how to harvest acorns, and the West Wind showed them how to leach them so that they were good to eat. The First Men thanked the Squirrel and the West Wind and boiled their acorn flour in fine baskets the Towhee had taught them to weave, and now they were warm and dry and fed.

You would think that the First Men had everything they needed, and certainly they were better off than they had ever been. But as time passed they became weaker and weaker until they could barely stand up to go out and gather acorns, or cut wood, or make fires. They did not understand this weakness, so they asked the Great Spirit for guidance. But the Great Spirit did not answer them.

Instead, the Great Spirit went to the Deer and said, “You have seen these First Men. They have food and fire and shelter, and still they grow weaker. Can you tell me why this is?”

“Of course,” the Deer answered. “They have gone to the Beaver and the Towhee and the Squirrel for help, but none of them know all of Men’s needs. The Hawk knew, but he would not tell. Being Men, they need meat or they become weak.”

The Great Spirit said, “Will you tell the First Men this?”

The Deer replied, “You are asking much of me!”

The Great Spirit was silent, and the Deer bowed to his wisdom. He went to the First Men. He taught them how to make bows and arrows, and fish traps, and woodpecker traps, and how to use all the parts of the animals they would kill.

Then the Deer went back into the woods and one of the First Men started out with his new weapons. He shot an arrow at the Woodpecker, but the Woodpecker only laughed at him, for he had not had enough practice to shoot well. The First Man shot at the Squirrel, but the Squirrel only threw acorns back at him in scorn. more tomorrow

The tracks led to a cut where some shift in the landscape was starting a new stream. It was dry now, but Tim could see that water had come rushing in a muddy torrent down the bank of the ravine, cutting and gouging among the rocks, uprooting one stunted juniper and carving a channel. Everything was knife edged in its newness. Obviously this waterfall had only seen one or two major rains. The deer’s tracks stood out clearly where it had gone up.

Tim gave a low whistle of admiration. Despite his injury, the deer still had stamina. And guts, for it had certainly fallen at least twice during the ascent. Tim tossed both spears over the lip of the bank above, then tossed up his unstrung bow the same way. Bracing his feet, he grasped his crutch-club by its tip and spun it up over the lip. The atlatl went into his quiver. It was a rough climb with only one good leg, but there were handholds.

A recent slide had dammed a small stream, shoving the waters sideways to spill over the bank of the ravine. Some water from the recent rain remained trapped there. The deer had apparently smelled it. Restraining his distaste, Tim drank from the muddy pool. The tracks led up slope away from the ravine.

Chapter 8

Tim squatted in the dimness and checked the tracks again. They continued toward the top of the hill, and Tim was sure that the deer was bedded down somewhere above him.

The deer had been browsing through this tiny, high valley. Tim could read this from his tracks, though he had not seen him. His father had taught him a lot about mule deer and their habits, and his grandfather had taught him Miwuk tales about them. Tim was sure that this deer would be up there somewhere watching the valley and trying the air for a foreign scent. In just a few minutes there would be no more light and Tim had to decide what to do. He could not make it back to his shelter now, even if he wanted to abandon the hunt. If he stayed where he was, he would be no better off in the morning than he was now. But if he could work to the ridge above under the cover of darkness, he would be in position when the muley came out from his cover tomorrow morning.

The wind decided matters for him. He simply could not stand the cold any longer.

He settled in against a cutbank, beneath a screen of firs and built a fire against a downed log. There were no aspens nearby to form a bark basket, so he skewered the squirrel he had shot that afternoon and roasted it whole. The dry, stringy meat was not nearly as satisfying as the squirrel and pine nut stew had been.

He drank from a trickle of water in the stream bed and wished for a bark basket and juniper berries to make tea. Even a pint of unflavored hot water in his stomach would have warmed him. He stretched out in the narrow space between the fire and the bank and thought of the down jacket tied to the back of his bike, hidden all too well at the campsite where he had started this hunt.

Tim did not sleep at once. He lay awake for a long time staring into the fire before the warmth finally began to soak into him, and thought about all the times he had sat beside his father or grandfather staring into other campfires. His father hunted only once a year to get a deer for the freezer, but they had spent many nights camping out for the pleasure of being outdoors. Sometimes he had gone with his father alone; other times his grandfather had come along. more tomorrow

Tim was pleased, especially when his second spear struck the same target. Gathering his weapons, he decided that his bow might not be very good, but at least the spear thrower felt natural in his hands.

He had no idea how far he had wandered, or in what direction, after his fall into the river. He could be sure that he had wandered away from civilization because he had seen no one, and had heard no deer hunter’s gunshots. It was not reasonable to believe that he could simply walk a few miles now and be out of danger.

He was considerably better off than he had been a few days ago, but he was weak and terribly hungry. He could not survive on pine nuts alone. Game was scarce, and soon it would snow. Normally, it was best to stay in one place if you were lost, but he had been in one place for days already.

The simple fact was that no one was coming to rescue him. He had put himself beyond help by not telling anyone where he was going.

While he thought it out, Tim had continued to hunt and an unexpectedly lucky shot had skewered a squirrel. As Tim bled it and tied it at his waist, he decided to check and disarm his deadfalls, and start walking out.

Then he saw the tracks of a mule deer – walking on three legs.

It gave him a strange feeling. It could not be coincidence, that this particular deer was here now.

His first shot, so many days ago, had seemed clear and true, but the deer had not fallen. When he continued the hunt, it had brought him to disaster. Had his fall into the river been clumsiness, or something more? The thought made his hair stand up along his neck as he thought of some of his grandfather’s tales. Last night the deer had haunted his dreams and now it was back with him once more.

Was it a spirit deer?

Still, he was hungry, and that deer might mean life or death for him. He had no desire to chase him further, but it was an opportunity he could not pass up.

“I’m sorry, Deer,” he whispered aloud. “I don’t want to kill you any more, but now I have to.” 

He knelt to examine the spoor. The ridge of dirt between the halves of the hooves had collapsed and the edges of the track didn’t seem fresh. He worked along the ground, closely examining a whole series of tracks. The deer was favoring his right foreleg, carrying it mostly, but stepping gingerly on it from time to time. Where the right foreleg made prints, they hardly bruised the dry ground, while the left foreleg’s prints were deep. The left forehoof was fraying under the strain. Its tracks were a bit less smooth in outline than the rear leg tracks. The good foreleg would be tender from doing more than its share.

The tracks were several hours old. They came out of the maze of brush that extended from his camp to the edge of the ravine. The deer had apparently used that cover to sneak through the ravine without coming in sight of the camp.

The tracks went straight down the ravine and into the brush. Tim followed them slowly, not wanting to overtake the deer too soon. It might be a long stalk, and he would have to be cautious and study the deer’s habits in order to get close enough for a kill.

The tracks led to a cut where some shift in the landscape was starting a new stream. more next week