Coup de Grâce 

by:  Dawn Gresko

Something made me laugh out loud when my father told me that our hunting spot this year would be a place called Pleasant Lake. I didn't think he was serious about the name, but there it was in big white lettering across the brown sign as Dad turned his old pickup onto a narrow dirt road. The night before we left home, Mama had reminded me of how strange she thought it was for a little girl to want to go hunting. She said girls weren't meant to be hunters. My father told my mother that she was right. A girl wasn't meant to be a hunter, but a huntress. He winked at me from across the table and I hid my smile with my hand, using it to stir a piece of limp broccoli on my plate. My mother stood and collected my plate without looking at my father or me, then untied her apron with slow and steady purpose at the sink. Chin high, she strode in to the other room.

The truck jerked without warning when Dad hit the brakes and my head flew forward, forcing my eyes on what had made him stop so suddenly. A fallen tree blocked the tire-worn dirt path ahead of us. Dad backed up the red truck and parked it next to the road. He was hunched over the wheel, leaning toward the dashboard to stare up at the puffy clouds, so he didn't notice the crushed cans of beer down by the dead log.

“Well, good thing it isn't snowing yet,” He shut off the engine, then looked over at me. “You'll be okay with walking from here, won't you?” 

When I nodded, he patted me on the shoulder and reached behind the seat to pull out a plaid hunter's cap with ear-warmer flaps. Without asking if I wanted it, he put the hat on my head and opened  his door so he could pull out our camouflaged backpacks and our rifles. When I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror I thought of Elmer Fudd. I think my father saw the similarity, too, because he put his finger to his lips and told me to be very, very quiet. We're hunting wabbits. 

We were really hunting deer. We could only catch one, Dad said, because Maine's state law prohibited a hunter (or huntress) from killing more than one a year. He explained that 'prohibited' was another way of saying 'you can't do that.' So when we found some hoof prints—heart-shaped and too small for a moose—we followed them northwest. Sometimes the tracks led us around in circles, and sometimes we lost track of the tracks completely. I had learned how to be patient, because it was an important part of the wilderness code Dad taught me. We would keep on the trail like this until just before the sun went down. Until it “went cold.” But it was still early afternoon and, by chance, Dad had spotted some broken twigs that led us in a new direction and it wasn't long before we saw the lake. There were other footprints in the softer soil, but I didn't think about who they belonged to—hunters or huntresses, more people just like us. 

Right now I was more worried about keeping up with the deer trail and, as I started to move out from behind the cover of brush, Dad grabbed my arm. I stopped. I looked over my shoulder. His rifle was lifted and pointed at a deer drinking from the water's edge. No antlers meant it was a doe. We both knew getting a clean shot to the head was never easy, but as the doe lifted her nose from the water my father recognized the opportunity and squeezed the trigger. The doe went down, but my father had missed what he was aiming for and was muttering to himself because he knew what had to happen next. 

The doe's suffering wasn't over, so it was our job to end it. It was just another part of the code but I didn't want to watch. We walked over to the dying animal and her glassy, black eyes were like two dark mirrors I didn't want to stare into for too long. I didn't want to see what might be staring back. The doe never blinked, not even when my father raised the end of his rifle to the back of her head. But I shut my eyes because I knew what he would do next.

There was a loud Pop! But the sound wasn't followed by silence. Instead I heard something hit the ground nearby with a hard thud. From the woods to my right, men came out roaring like grizzly bears and heavy boots were trampling through the mud toward the scene. There were voices but I couldn't understand what they were saying. There was only the sharp beep of buttons on phones and the words “mistake” and “accident” repeated over and over again. Not far from the doe, I saw that it was my father who had fallen in the snowy mud. He looked ready to make a snow angel, the way we would do it together for the holidays, but his arms weren't stretched out. His hand was covering up something on his right side and he was making strange choking noises. Unlike the doe, his eyes were blinking heavily as he looked above and beyond me. From where I stood I could see only sky. Dad tried to move, but started coughing and sunk back down. Red foam came out and bubbled at the corner of his mouth each time he tried to take a breath. He wasn't in the water, but it sounded like he was sinking under the surface of the lake.

I knew what had to happen next.