Eeek – I just felt a big furry spider jump on me – and it’s dark so I can’t see where it went. Worse, I’m driving, hands at two and ten, so I can’t swat myself in a blind panic whilst trying to kill it before it kills me.
Okay, over-reaction, it’s just a spider.
Good sense prevails, I pull over and tentatively seek out the furry offender and there it is, hiding by my elbow, in the armrest. It’s no big spider, it’s my lucky rabbit’s foot and it has fallen from the sun visor where it usually keeps residence.
Eeeek – so, my lucky rabbit’s foot has abandoned its residence – it has jumped ship and deserted me – does this mean my time is up?
Okay, over-reaction, it’s just the dried front paw of the only wild rabbit I’d ever caught in a possum trap, (albeit inadvertently and temporarily). A rare blue-black coloured rabbit, he had escaped the trap but lost his hairy little foot in doing so. I dried and kept that foot, and it has been my good luck charm for three decades – it is very special to me, as it was to the unlucky rabbit!
It’s still dark when I arrive at the forest entry. At the double gates there I unlock the padlock within the steel housing, withdraw the heavy pin and push the gates wide. Hmmm, the top of one gate is wet. That’s odd, it hasn’t rained overnight and it’s far too windy for dew to have settled.
As the gate pivots on its hinges and changes angles the ute headlights illuminate its secret – possum pee – a zig zag dribble culminating in a wee pool, which has been smeared sideways by a human hand. My hand. Oh joy.
Traversing through the valley the westerly wind funnels down off the mountain tops in a howling rage. The light of dawn reveals trees whose tops bend in unison, their midriffs shimmer with silver as their needles twist and turn. Flurries of dust lift off the screes and mini tornadoes are whipped into life from the river’s surface.
Deer abhor the wind, especially a wind as strong and as cold as this. It’s bitter out there. I really don’t want to be out amongst it, but at least I can don a warm jacket, the deer can’t. They’ll be laying low, tucked amongst sheltering vegetation and geography – difficult for me to locate and stalk.
I persevere but every nook and cranny are devoid of game. The northern faces, usually so warm, are drab and cold because a towering cloud bank holds the morning sun to ransom. I really am pushing the proverbial shite uphill today and I’m tempted to turn about and go home.
Eventually my binoculars find target species and, moments later, my bare eyes find another. To the binoculars; a handful of skinny young reds far ahead. To the eyes; a secretive fallow buck nearer at hand.
The buck stands stock still and observes me. He is out of shooting range, especially in the gusty crosswind, but I register him on my radar. The reds will be near impossible to stalk in these conditions and positioned as they are. They’re young bush stags, their coats are ragged and they’re gaunt after a long hard winter.
The young buck would be first choice on the menu, but I know well enough he will only hold position till I drop from view. The moment he can vanish into the matagouri and manuka without attracting attention to himself he will. So, it proves to be.
The reds then, far away and hypervigilant as the westerly stresses their senses. Between them they have eyes aplenty and closing the gap will take skill and a lot of luck.
Luck. Yeah-nah, good luck fell from above my head and down to my elbow this morning. The only luck trailing me around the hill today is of the bad variety. So, it proves to be.
The nervous reds are alerted by a backdraft that shoots up my chute then whirls up through their flaring nostrils. They have no idea where I am but that one gust is enough to see them pack up their picnic and hike off to places safer than here.
I quit. I don’t have a picnic but I’m packing up and pissing off too. I stomp back down the gulch with the westerly riding my shoulder and licking at my ear lobe.
There are an abundance of blackberry vines lying across the track, their newly unfurled leaves all bright green, their frost-hardened barbs baying for blood. In a moment of inattention, a strong vine catches the toe of my boot, and I sprawl face first onto the track. The rifle, which had been slung over my shoulder, slams down and the suppressor cracks me on the back of the head. Skull smarting, palms grazed, knees bruised – oh happy, happy day.
But wait, there’s more.
As I’m sitting in the dirt, hurting, sulking, picking blackberry barbs from one bleeding palm, I look up to see I have an audience of one – it’s the buck from earlier, he has snuck from his hideout to watch the comedy show of which I am the sole star.
I remain sitting in the dirt, hurting, bleeding. I pick up my bottom lip and the rifle, which had just beat me on the head. Did my fall, and my thick skull just knock the scope’s zero badly? How badly?
I quietly chamber a round then prop elbows into knees, tuck the rifle butt into my shoulder, ease my eye behind the scope and caress the trigger. A crack. A thud. But the echo does not roll around the basin, no, the westerly blows it promptly toward the eastern horizon and out to sea. There will be first choice of buck on the menu after all. So, it proves to be.
