The most beautiful six-point stag ran out in front of me tonight. We were perhaps ten feet apart. He must have weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, and perhaps three hundred pounds. He was moving with all the speed his magnificent frame could supply. We came around a corner, where a pickup truck had been parked by the road -- poachers, probably.
What a fine day today was. It was warm and wet, and the autumn colors were fantastic. My wife has become an excellent rider. We were taking those country back roads at a good speed. She has learned to ride at speed in formation, taking the curves along that ridge road with ease and grace.
The buck was a brush with death, and those are very welcome. They are half the reason to ride. It refreshes the sense of wonder, and of the beauty of the world.
That stag got away, I am sure of it. A few feet beyond the road he was cutting across, if he had turned left he would be headed toward a small pond located in the deep woods. Long before he got there he would be in bramble men cross only with great effort, though deer seem to do it with great ease.
Good luck to him. He did me no harm, and much good.
I'll skip the brushes with death if I can get away with it - but on my one near-death experience with a moose, I've always been happy with myself for driving slowly enough that I could make the right judgment to keep her alive. (The signs around Alaska all say, "Give Moose a Brake.")
ReplyDeleteOnce driving in Anchorage I saw a jogger have an experience you'd appreciate - he was jogging uphill. The moose galloping along the sidewalk beside me was about to be going downhill. I put on the brakes because I anticipated he might want to be jumping out into the road when he saw it - as indeed was the case. (But the moose, I'm glad to say, simultaneously broke the other way; so there was really no way those two were going to collide.) That man and you could compare notes for sure.
Well, right. I wouldn't have wanted to hurt such a beautiful animal. If I had survived the impact, though, I would have put him in my freezer -- and any poachers could stand clear.
ReplyDeleteIf you had hit the deer, would your wife have distance to clear the wreckage? I tend to be guilty of riding too close and have to consciously back off. It is so much fun to ride close at speed.....
ReplyDeleteShe is often guilty of that as well, but on this occasion she happened to be further back. She was never in any danger.
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