A Cry For Help

Today I followed my dog out into the forest just outside my house.
She had been frequenting a specific area among the trees, spending more time than usual out there, and I wanted to know why.
I imagined a dead deer, half torn apart in those woods, that she may have been eating.
That thought made me sick, so I followed her, to dispel my fears.
After entering a thick copse, I lost sight of my dog, and called her name.
A high-pitched bugle answered my call, and I knew, my dog was not the animal answering.
I neared the hillside where the eerie cry came from, but I couldn’t see any animals, just trees, rocks and bushes.
I crept closer. The weird call sounded once again, and it seemed that it came from the earth.
As I swept a branch from my path, I finally saw where the sound was coming from.
A fawn, no bigger than my 20-pound dog, was lying on its side among sharp rocks and rotting branches.
The little thing looked dead, but it opened its mouth slightly and let out its bugling cry for help again.
I got closer to inspect the animal, to assess the situation.
It looked crushed, as if a stone had rolled down onto its soft newborn body.
It didn’t move, but its eyes slowly rolled in agony.
Its small chest rose and fell quickly, with a panic quality.
My dog arrived and observed the fawn cautiously, taking small steps closer.
I told her to stay back.
I had the feeling that the death, which clouded the fawn’s eyes, was contagious and if my dog got too close…
I thought of a gun. I don’t own a gun.
I was torn between the decision of allowing the fawn to suffer and putting it out of its misery.
Leaving the animal there would weigh upon my conscience: how would I like to lie on the ground, unable to move, waiting for the pain to stop?
Putting it out of its misery meant doing it without a gun, and that could get messy and ugly.
I wondered how many times I would have to bring a rock down on its head until the fawn’s brain stopped telling its heart to beat.
I had a shovel; I could try and bring it down hard enough to sever the neck.
But what if I didn’t hit it straight on?
I really didn’t want to try more than once with a shovel.
The thoughts that I entertained, or rather suffered, scared me.
I was frightened of the power I was considering: killing another living thing that was bigger than an insect.
The frightened look in the fawn’s eyes reflected in mine, and I grabbed my dog and ran up the hill to clear my head and come up with a better plan than rock bashing or shovel chopping.
Actually, I ran to the house to try and make the fawn someone else’s problem.
My father was sitting in the front room as I entered.
I said there was a baby deer down the hill and that it was crying out and that I wanted to do something to stop its suffering.
He told me to leave it be.
I couldn’t. I needed to rid my mind of the thought of taking the deer’s life into my hands.
I half hoped my father would go out there and do something, but I knew whatever he would do would probably be much more brutal than what I would do.
Perhaps he would simply use his boot heel.
I couldn’t stand the thoughts, and then my father suggested calling Wildlife Resources.
Yes, I thought, the Wildlife Resources employees are professionals in these matters. They would know how to humanely end an animal’s life.
I called Wildlife Resources. The office hours ended at 6 pm.
It was 7:56 pm.
I wasn’t going to wait until the next day to do something, allowing the fawn to cry out to deaf ears all that time.
Still not knowing what to do, I went back outside.
I was hoping that I could do something to get the deer on its feet, if that were possible.
I was hoping for a miracle.
As I neared the fawn, I was struck by the stillness.
Its chest was not moving; its eyes were fixed.
Right then and there I thanked God that I did not have to torture myself any further.
The fawn was spared the horrid thoughts that slowly dissipated within my mind.
I ran back to the house and told my father that the tiny deer was already gone.
But I still couldn’t just leave that fawn out there exposed, even though it couldn’t suffer anymore.
I recruited my younger brother and we both walked outside with shovels in our hands.
The ground was hard and full of jagged rocks, but we dug a grave just deep enough to place the fawn’s body in.
I kept expecting the chest to suddenly start rising and falling again as we lowered it into the earth.
We pushed the limbs close to the fawn’s body, so it looked like it was sleeping, snuggled up to its mother.
As I buried the baby deer in soil, the last thing I saw was its head, with one eye staring out at me, and it seemed it was still wildly seeking help.
Sometimes there are coyotes and cougars that roam the forests outside my house, so we placed large rocks on top of the soil over the fawn, and then placed large rotting branches over the rocks, protecting it from more suffering that it would not feel anyway.
I don’t know why, but I just kept thinking that I would hope somebody would at least do that for me, if I had died out there in the woods, after crying out for help and finally receiving it.