Alan Liere: All creatures deserve some dignity at the end

It was foggy and the highway was covered with slush – the stuff that grabs your tires and won’t let go until it has pulled you to where you don’t want to be. But the ice fishing trip had been in the works for several days though, and you don’t call off a fishing expedition just because you fear for your life – especially in February when there is so little else to do.

I babied the truck along the back roads, and when I got to Brian’s house I was glad I hadn’t canceled. Perhaps to get a rise out of the neighbors, but more likely for my benefit, he’d “drilled” a hole with his ice auger through the two feet of wet snow in his front yard and was standing over it with his rod as if expecting a bite.

“Doin’ any good?” I called.

Brian smiled and jigged his rod a couple times. “Nothin’ but grass pickerel so far,” he said.

“Well, let’s get over to Eloika,” I said. “The perch are biting.”

Ten minutes later we were on Highway 2, creeping north. Eloika Lake isn’t known for big perch, but in late winter, a fellow is liable to try just about anything to soothe a bad case of cabin fever.

We were just past Riverside, heading up the hill when I saw the whitetail doe lying there behind the snow berm made by the plows. Her head was up, but her feet were splayed out and contorted and I knew she’d been hit. I touched the brake and the car fishtailed slightly.

“Whaddaya doin’?” Brian asked, gripping the dash.

“There’s a deer back there,” I said. “She’s hurt. My foot was off the gas and the truck behind me was coming up fast.

“You’re not going to stop are you?” Brian shrieked. “We’ll get creamed!”

“I’ve got a pistol under the seat,” I told him. “I should put her out of her misery.” We were now a quarter mile past the deer, and the guy behind me was on my bumper.

“Let someone else do it!” Brian exclaimed. “Isn’t that what game wardens are for?”

I wavered. It would be an ugly thing to shoot her and probably illegal besides. Why did I think I had to do it?

For another mile or so, I searched half-heartedly for a safe place to turn around. Brian tried to make small talk, but my sudden grimness shut him off and made him uncomfortable. “Screw it,” I said at last to myself. “It’s too dangerous.” There was relief, then guilt, then bitterness I could taste.

Later, I stood on the ice and jigged a small silver spoon tipped with two maggots and thought about the doe. In hunting season with a proper tag, she was fair game. In hunting season her death would serve a purpose; there would be a degree of dignity, a solemn celebration. All creatures deserved some dignity at the end.

Brian caught a small sunfish – a “trash fish” he called it – and tossed it onto the ice. Then he quickly caught another and tossed that one too. The act irritated me.

“You keepin’ those things?” I asked.

“Getting ’em out of the lake,” Brian said. “No good for anything.”

For a moment, I watched the small sunnies open and close their mouths and occasionally swap ends and cover themselves with snow. But I was thinking about the doomed doe as I sloshed over and nudged them back into the water.