True Story: Never Try To Rope A Deer
By Doug Hiser
June 7, 2009
I didn’t see Rae Kimmings very much in the next few weeks because I was busy playing sports and she was back to her usual reclusive status. Finally on a crisp Saturday morning I saw her walking out into the cow pastures behind her house. Rae was the prettiest girl I knew and the only freshmen out my high school that I had eyes for. I was only sixteen years old but I knew Rae was pretty even if she wasn’t very approachable. I was on the barn roof with my bird book spotting red-tailed hawks and turkey vultures soaring on the air currents in a cloudless sky. I remember that day being the most solid blue sky I had ever seen. If it weren’t for the hawks and vultures soaring like distant black silhouettes the sky would have been sheer and spotless blue. Rae walked delicately through the tall brown grass, making her way around the bull nettles and sticker brush. I heard someone shout behind me, “Hey! Come here!”It was Kenny Bulbear and Terry, my friends from across the street. Terry said, “C’mon down and lets go hiking. I heard from Mikey Mack that a herd of white-tailed deer is moving over near Cemetery Road .”
I rolled my eyes as I began to climb down from the barn roof. I jumped off the tin of the barn roof and tumbled on the ground scattering about a dozen of my dad’s chickens. I hated that these guys were interrupting my visions of Rae. When I stood up I said, “Mikey Mack? You believe anything Mikey Mack says? C’mon Terry, remember last time Mikey Mack told you about that guy had an African Cape buffalo in a pen at his house over on the other side of the rice canal. We rode our bikes forever and it took us all day to get there just to see this huge buffalo. Just ‘cuz you believed Mikey Mack. We got to the place and it was a dump. It was a rusty old broken down trailer house with a muddy corral out back. Remember that big African Cape buffalo standing there in mud up to his knees. Yeah buffalo! Hah! Mikey Mack lied again! We spent our whole day journeying to see a buffalo and we end up looking at a mistreated black Mexican steer.”
Terry laughed but he agreed, saying, “Yeah, you’re right, Mikey Mack tells stories but hey what if there is a lost herd of white-tailed deer back up in those pastures? I think we could go catch us one and raise it with the cows. Catching a deer would be cool. We could do it too. I got a plan.”
Kenny Bulbear asked, “Plan? What kind of plan? Heck, I bet your plan is stupid like you. You probably think we can get a big shrimp net and hold it out while you chase the deer right into it.”
I laughed and said, “Okay, Terry, what kind of plan?”
He gave Kenny a mean look but got excited as he started his explanation, “The plan is this, we get some ropes and surround the deer. Then we throw the ropes on a buck with antlers. If we get three ropes on a big buck we can pull in different directions and control it. We then tire it out and drag it back to the barn and tie it up in a stall.”
I didn’t have a better plan and I was sure Mikey Mack was lying anyway so I just shrugged my shoulders and said, “I’m in.”
In a short time, equipped with three ropes and Terry had insisted on bringing his twenty-two rifle, we headed out north towards the pastures near Cemetery Road. I glanced out towards where Rae had been walking but she was gone.
An hour later we were in the Jannik’s vast pasture only about a few miles from Cemetery Road . The abandoned old cemetery, overgrown with weeds and brush, was still two miles north of here near the Dickinson Bayou. We sat down under a stand of tallow trees in a pasture dotted with huge ten-foot tall clumps of thorn bushes. We had seen a few cattle but didn’t get any trouble from range bulls. We hadn’t seen any deer yet. I had been searching the ground for their tracks but there was no sign to be found. While we were resting and thinking about a herd of white-tailed deer I heard something running towards us. Looking up, we were surprised as Kenny’s dog, Grizzly, came running towards us. That dog must have been following our trail all day. We all stood up as the German Shepherd ran up but he didn’t stop and started barking. He ran past us and our eyes followed him.
Our eyes opened wide as we saw the dog barking at a herd of deer. The deer almost immediately turned and leapt, running off in all directions. One big buck with huge wicked antlers turned and faced Grizzly. The buck deer lowered its head and thrashed its antlers at the growling, barking dog. Terry got up and said, “C’mon, now’s our chance. Circle the deer and get your ropes ready!”
Everything was happening fast. We all ran and got positions around the deer, closing in from all sides while Grizzly cut off the buck each time it tried to run. We looped our ropes and got ready to lasso the buck’s antlers. Terry counted out loud, “One, two three…”
Terry and Kenny tossed their ropes towards the deer’s antler but both ropes fell short. I didn’t throw mine yet but I crept closer to the deer as it lowered its head and charged the barking dog. Suddenly the buck had changed its mind and wheeled in a circle away from Grizzly and charged directly at me. I raised my rope preparing to loop it over the antlers. Grizzly dashed in and bit the deer in the rear leg. The buck stopped in front of me, afraid of the rope and kicking the dog off of its leg. That is when I did a stupid thing.
I heard Kenny yell, “Grab him!”
Instead of roping the buck’s antlers I dropped the rope and grabbed the deer with both hands on both antlers. I think the deer was so surprised that at first he just stood there. It seemed like everything stopped, like time was frozen. I could hear my heart pounding and the buck’s wild eyes rolled as he looked at me. I felt the strength in the buck’s neck as he started to resist my pull on his antlers. I yelled at Terry and Kenny, “Help me!”
They charged in from both sides but that’s what startled the deer even more. Instead of resisting my pull on his antlers the buck lowered his head and charged into me. If I would have held onto those antlers another split second the buck would had transfixed my chest with a pare of sharp pointed antlers; I could easily have been killed by the deer. Remembering back I had wondered if they would have put a rack of deer antlers on my tombstone. My gravestone would have read: 1957-1973 R.I.P. This boy was stupidly killed by a deer.
When the buck charged me I let go and fell. The angered buck leapt over my falling body and I felt his rear hoof clip me on the side of the head, knocking my cap off. Grizzly barked ferociously and took off running after the fleeing deer. That’s when Terry aimed his rifle and tried to shoot the escaping deer. I hollered, “Don’t!”
He fired anyway and knocked a brown sparrow off a tree branch, snapping the branch into two pieces. The sparrow got up and flew away so I guess the bird got away lucky. Terry and Kenny ran up to me asking if I was okay. I turned to look and watched the jumping, running deer disappearing into the thick brush. I continued to hear Grizzly barking for several minutes after that. I stood up and felt my head where the deer’s hoof had hit me. I wasn’t bleeding but I had a small knot pop up and I rubbed the spot. Kenny said, “Hey, why didn’t you just get the rope on him? You must be crazy trying to wrestle a deer like a steer.”
Terry wiped some dead leaves from my back and chimed in, “Yeah, what the heck were you thinking? You wanted to become the famous deer wrangler of Santa Fe ? Thanks to your dumb deer wrestling we didn’t catch any at all. If you would have used the rope like the plan we might have caught the buck.”
I yelled back, “Yeah! Plan? The plan! I guess I forgot about the plan! Hey let’s go chase down a herd of deer and rope a buck. Next time why don’t we go rope a cougar or maybe a wolf? Oh, wait they don’t have antlers, how about a big longhorn bull? Tomorrow let’s get your plan and go rope one of Mr. Fiddion’s longhorn bulls out in his pasture. Talk about dumb, trying to shoot the deer? Even if you hit it what then? Were we going to drag the buck back to the house and make deer sausage? Oh, I get it, maybe you just wanted the antler rack? At least you missed, heck, you even missed the sparrow but at least you hit the tree branch. Look, I can’t help what happened. I thought I could hold the deer by the antlers until you two roped it. I didn’t count on it being that strong or dangerous. Who ever thought of deer as dangerous?”
They both shrugged their shoulders like Larry and Curly of the Three Stooges and Terry said, “Okay so the plan didn’t work. But C’mon, tell me it wasn’t fun.”
I said, “Okay it wasn’t fun.”
But I laughed and thought to myself that it had been fun now that I didn’t get stabbed with a deer antler. We all three walked back towards the pastures close to home. We always had great conversations on those walks in the pastures. Kenny asked, “Were you scared when the buck tried to stab you?”
Of course I wouldn’t admit fear to my buddies or anyone else, but maybe my mom, so I said, “Are you crazy? Scared? Of what? A deer? C’mon, I grab cotton-mouth snakes with my bare-hands and you think I might have been scared of a deer? Wake up boy!”
I said, “Is Tarzan scared of fighting a lion with just a knife? Is Superman scared of anything? Well, maybe Superman is a little worried about green Kryptonite but is Spiderman scared of the Green Goblin? Heck no! So I can tell you I ain’t scared of a buck deer or a cotton-mouth water moccasin!”
Kenny replied, “Well, I ain’t scared of a deer either but I ain’t gonna’ catch a cotton-mouth or a rattlesnake with my bare hands!”
