‘Come Back Around’ by Sarina Bosco

When the deer starts talking, it’s too far gone.

The ankles are tied, hanging from a pine tree dead from the bottom up, and the blood in the bucket below where the body hangs is steaming in the evening air. He’s even sliced the stomach open, all of the organs wet and exposed, but that doesn’t stop the voice that comes out of that long, lithe throat covered in tawny hair: 

“I just wanted to go to the hickory tree.” Said so quietly that the Hunter almost doesn’t hear. 

He pauses momentarily in wiping off the tool he’d used to gut the animal, before continuing on as if it hadn’t said a word. 

The Hunter knows exactly what hickory tree the deer is talking about. Half a mile to the south there is a clearing — he knows a man who had a stand there, on the outskirts — and just off-centre in that clearing is an old hickory tree, its bark curling down in thick patches. 

The leaves whisper and skitter beneath the Hunter’s knees as he stands and presses a palm tight against the spot on his back that feels close to giving out. The deer’s body twists slowly on the orange rope he’s strung it up with. As it comes around again, a few drops of blood patter into the bucket. 

He knows men who cut their deer on the ground, but he likes to see them hanging like this. It makes bleeding the animal easier, too, and he wants a good cupful to attract the coyotes that have been moving in on his property. The rest he will freeze and cube and give to the old woman who takes it daily to fortify her own blood. Half-native and half-crazed, she is, but she pays for it.

He turns back to the deer and, after a glance, reaches inside the gaping cavity, stopping the slow spin. The body jerks with his movements. With a few slices and a grunt, the liver comes free. The sound of it slapping down into the pan he has nearby is loud and ugly.

The deer shivers in a long spasm and seems to come alive again momentarily, though he misses it. He is turned back toward the small clearing he’s made in the leaves, working on starting a fire. The Hunter always eats the liver and a piece of the heart before he leaves. It’s a tradition his father taught him, and he has carried on with it long after the old man has gone.

“This isn’t the season that we see men in the forest,” the deer comments quietly. As it comes around again once more, its large eyes seem to be on the Hunter, who avoids the gaze. 

The deer is right.