The wind whispered through the dark, empty trees like a warning in a foreign language. Winter was coming, and with winter came the hunters. My mother warned me about the hunters from a young age. From the time I was a fawn, I can remember her telling me that as soon as the air became cool and the leaves began to brown that they would come for us. Some came with long narrow sticks that were very sharp at the end. They'd throw them somehow, I suppose sort of how a porcupine would throw its quills, but from a further distance. We often wouldn't even seen them. We'd be in a gathering eating and suddenly one of us would shout out in pain. In a panic we'd look around to see one of our friends drop with stick in their chest or in their stomach. You'd want to help, but as more sticks flew through the air, all you could do was run. Pleading along the way, that you too would not be hit by one.
Other hunters would use what my father referred to as the "sound killer." None of us were exactly sure how it worked. Their would be a loud, deafening noise. A sound so loud that it seemed to fill the entire forest. You'd feel an awful pain, begin to bleed and then begin to die. Some would drop dead before the noise even cleared.
I asked my parents why the hunters came and why the only came when it was cold.
"Do they eat us?" I asked. I knew when the coyotes came after us they did so for food.
"I imagine they might." My mother answered.
What didn't make sense to me was why the didn't eat us right after killing us. That I didn't get. Unlike the coyotes who began to feast as soon as we were dead (and sometimes even before) the hunters would instead drag us away. No one knows for sure where they'd take us, although my sister says that she saw them put one of us into some sort of creature once. Her description was so terrifying and horrific that I'm not sure I believe it. I'd rather think she was lying to me. I'd hate to think something as hideous as what she described truly exist. She said they went up and opened the creature's mouth from both ends. One took the top of its jaw and lifted it up while the other took the bottom of its jaw and lowered it down. They then lifted him up and shoved him inside, closing both ends of the jaw. At first she thought they were feeding this creature, but then the most absurd thing happened. The hunters went to the side of whatever this creature was and grabbed hold of it as if they were going to rip its arms and its legs off. As the arms dangled from the sides, they crawled inside of the creature.
"It then began to make noises." She described. "Smoke came out of it like fire."
Then she said that it made light, like that of the sun on the ground and took off. She had never seen a creature move that fast before. It's the only time she's ever seen it. None of the rest of us have ever seen one.
As to the cold, my mother didn't have an answer. No one did. All we knew was that when the air began to warm and green replaced the white, they no longer came for us. We'd spot them once in a while. We'd see them on the banks of rivers, their sticks in hands, even longer than the ones they used to kill us. We'd see them put long black extensions on their eyes. Some would come into the forest and pick the mushrooms. I always wondered if maybe they were afraid of the birds. If maybe the birds who returned every spring were our protectors. It seemed peculiar to me that no bigger than they were that the hunters would fear them. Some were the size of my hoof. Some not even that big. I suppose it's a silly idea but to a young buck eager to make sense of a question without answers, it is the best I could come up with.
One of the elders once said that one of them came into the forest and left food. Put a mess of acorns, berries and nuts on the ground. At first they were terrified to touch, wondering if they might be poison. Yet one began to eat and upon their being no reaction other than an empty belly being filled, others joined in. The only conclusion that the elder could come up with is that it might be an apology or some sort of a peace offering. They'd take one of us in the winter and then come back in the spring as a way of saying they were sorry or in some way thankful for the sacrifice that had been made. Either that or he thought that perhaps not all of them were our enemies. Not all of them wanted to harm us.
The hunters haven't gotten me yet. And thankfully they haven't gotten my mother, my father or my sister yet either. I sense it though. We talk about it often. Preparing to a point to where I sometimes feel as if it's already happened. I've pictured life without my parents. Without my sister. I've put myself into such a mental state of absolute despair on the thought alone that I can't see the reality being any worse of a depression. The thought of death terrifies me. One of their sticks or the sound they use finally getting me. I fear the pain and selfishly hope that I'm one of those who are dead before I even realize that they got me.
