The Promise

The boy told his grandmother that he would keep venison on her table that winter.

Sitting in the deer stand, looking down on the October woods, only to a trained eye could he be separated from the tangled colors of the leaves. As he settled in for the long wait, he slid his hand inside his hunting pants pocket, reassuring himself that his brand-new license was safe. He patted it, feeling a powerful surge of pride.

He felt the sharp cold, as the bitter wind touched on the back of his neck. But memories of the "Hunters Safety Course" that he and his Dad had attended for several years, and the lessons learned, held him still.

The anticipation of knowing it was time for the deer to start moving in the woods was the essence of the hunt. He held his compound bow motionless, knowing that when the time came he would have to pull his own weight on the string of the weapon.

The muscles of his arm were jumping against his camouflage jacket, wanting to be used, making him tremble. Trying to calm himself, he allowed his attention to wander over the woods below, and he watched a small brown rabbit hop across a clearing and into the brambled vines of safety. He could hear a raven somewhere off in the distance and an owl's subtle whooing. The boy was relaxing somewhat and allowed his weight to shift.

Suddenly his fine-tuned ears came alive. Out of nowhere, into the clearing with a crunching and rustling, a creature came and stood.

In all of the boy's thirteen years his eyes had not seen so great a thing. All of his senses stood at attention. A buck. He counted ten points on those magnificent antlers. It would be a trophy earning respect for many years. His Dad would proudly hang that stuffed head by his own big game
collection in the den.

Using every muscle in his young body to pull taut the bow, he readied himself as he felt his heart trying to jump from his body, and his mouth so dry that all of his adrenaline had to be on overload.

It was time. As he focused and began the pull, the creature slowly raised its beautiful head and looked dead into the boy's eyes. The buck's eyes were so golden and huge that they were all pupil.

It was an eternity of looking, and as the boy and the creature's eyes locked, it seemed that they became one.

Slowly the boy's hands loosened on the bow and dropped by his side. As they did, the buck turned away, then paused, and with one last backward look, raised its eyes up to the treetops again.

Blinking, the boy looked and the creature was gone, just as it had appeared. For a long time he sat still in the stand, thinking of the way things had happened. After a while he started climbing down to head back home.

The boy thought as he walked that he had promised something he could not deliver.

Life was not a promise that he could give or take.

For Jason