Horsekeeping (8 page)

“Is it dead?”

“Yes. Are you all alright?” the neighbor asked.

“Thankfully, yes. It was pretty scary.”

“This happens all the time here. At least twice a month we hear tires squealing. I'll call the police so they can get it picked up.”

I took a last glance at the largish doe, trunk scraped up and legs tangled, her strong neck and head gracefully arched. I wondered why their long tongues always loll out, a last indignity. With nothing left to do, we retreated home.

Paula and I tucked Elliot into bed and bemoaned our fate and raised a glass of tranquilizing whiskey to any and all guardian angels. The car sustained a broken headlight but otherwise seemed unscathed. Yet two days later, as Paula gassed up, the traumatized Honda refused to start, debilitated by a slow leak of fluids. Now when I travel that stretch of road, I remember that deer. Still tender to that spot, I beg Scott to slow down, as if our chances of a run-in are higher there than anywhere else in town.

The next time, Scott was behind the wheel. Elliot and Jane slept peacefully in the back of the Suburban, but Elliot's friend Max, an inner city kid with little country experience, was too excited to sleep. He sat in the middle of the back seat with big eyes staring out the front windshield as we plowed over a fawn following behind his running mother who we had just barely missed. The creature rumbled gingerly under the chassis, front to back, and sick gathered in my stomach. A baby! Our high beams torch-lit the entire scene—a ghastly movie set. My distress grew realizing that Max was alert to every second of his country adventure. Worrying that it might not be dead, I persuaded Scott to turn around to check, and also to make sure that the doe did not hang around endangering herself, and, if necessary, warn other drivers. An image of a mother nosing around her dead fawn had me on the brink of tears, held back only for Max's sake.

“Did you see what happened, Max?” I asked, keeping my cool.

“Yeah. We ran over that animal.”

“It was a deer, Max. Unfortunately it happens in these parts because there are so many. I'm sorry you had to see it.”

He remained silent as we circled and saw the fawn dead-still with the mother nowhere in sight, though I imagined her big doe eyes accusing from the dark woods. As Bambi's mother whispered: “
Man
was in the forest.” I wish Walt had spared us that film.

Being a fairly young fawn made it more like hitting a raccoon than a deer, but we sustained some front-end damage nevertheless. Unfairly, I took my helplessness out on Scott.

“You shouldn't have been driving so fast. You
always
drive too fast.”

“I wasn't driving too fast. They just came out of nowhere. Anybody would have hit them. Don't make me feel worse than I do already.”

He was right, and we had Max to consider.

“Are you alright, Max?”

“Yeah.”

 

 

DEER ACCIDENTS cement in your mind forever. It's like remembering where you were when Kennedy was shot or when the Twin Towers crashed down. Like the one we helped get euthanized on New Year's Eve; and another time, on our return to the city, when I spied a downed deer just short of the village.

“Oh no,” I cried. “Scott, did you see that?”

“What?” Elliot asked.

“An injured deer.”

“Yeah, I saw it,” said Scott wearily, knowing what he was in for.

The young deer sat oddly collapsed, upright on its torso, head up and alert and eyes perplexed, in no obvious distress. But all four legs were splayed outward in a double split. My eyes welled.

“Pull into The White Hart so I can ask Larry to call a trooper.”

Exiting the inn I passed a man striding in with purpose.

“Did you see that deer, too?” he asked.

“Yes, I just asked the desk manager to call it in.”

“That's good,” he said, turning back to his own potential assassin of
a vehicle. “He's paralyzed for sure, and there's no sense in his panicking for very long.”

“It's so horribly sad,” I couldn't help saying, hoping for a humane trooper. I had heard many don't like to discharge their weapons because of the paperwork.

“Yeah, but it happens. They come out of nowhere,” he said, repeating the common refrain from anyone who has hit a deer.

 

 

WE HAVE ALSO RESCUED SOME ANIMALS or tried to anyway. We returned a baby bluebird to the house from which it tumbled, relieved to see the mama still bringing food. A few weeks later we watched the youngsters' first flights, taught incrementally by their parents until one day they vanished. An empty nest: w
hat will it be like when my kids leave
? Another summer the four of us were playing baseball in the back yard. The sunny day revved our endorphins, and even Elliot was kind about Jane's swinging misses with the bat. As Scott pitched and I played outfield we noticed a hawk circling low and lower over our heads. Its crazy pattern chased us together and set us thinking Alfred Hitchcock. With our eight eyes staring, it crashed straight into the side of the house, just alongside the window of a gable, bounced off and fell to the roof motionless; two thumps.

“What the heck?” Elliot asked, his hands shielding his eyes from the glare.

“I don't know,” replied Scott. “Maybe he planned on going through the window.”

“What's the matter with that birdie?” Jane asked.

“I don't know, sweetie. Maybe it saw the sky's reflection on the glass and got confused,” I said.

Many small birds have crashed into our paned windows over the years, even though we've made window art to deflect them. Usually, after a bewildered rest they autopilot away. But I was already anticipating the
damage control Scott and I could deploy about this large dead flyer that had not aimed for the window.

To our surprise, the hawk resurrected. It flew off and returned, circling haphazardly and, with all our eyes glued, it dove straight into the side of the same dormer, knocking itself again into stillness on the slanted roof.

“Oh no,” cried Elliot. “Not again.”

“There is definitely something wrong with that bird,” I said.

We watched for a long time, fully expecting Lazarus to fly again.

“Will he be alright again, Daddy?” Jane asked.

“Maybe Janie, but I think we'll have to leave him alone for awhile and give him some time.”

“Shouldn't we try to help him?” Elliot asked.

“I don't know much about birds, El, and that one may be sick in a way that we don't want to touch it,” I said.

West Nile virus had been reported among birds in the area. Later I heard a theory that birds commit suicide in this manner when unwell. That is certainly how this appeared, but I generally curb my anthropomorphic tendencies.

“He may need a good long rest,” I said, giving Scott the nod which means the deep sleep, and we better think fast how to handle this.

“I hope he'll be okay,” Elliot said. “Here, Mom, catch.” He threw me the baseball.

Our continuing glances did not work any miracles. We headed in for lunch and planned a funeral for the bird should it fail to fly again. Sure enough, the next day it remained, stiffening, until our caretaker George climbed a tall ladder to retrieve it with gloved hands. He dug a hole in the tall grass at the edge of our yard, and we buried the beautiful bird.

“You were a good birdie, but now you're dead,” Jane said, her voice sad, her lip pouting, a dramatic little mourner.

“I hope you had a good life,” Elliot rejoined. “I wish you could've lived longer.”

Jane sang a made-up-on-the-spot song, Elliot sprinkled a handful of torn grass over the mound, and that was that. No tears. No existential angst. But the bird funeral proved popular. When next a smaller bird hit a window and didn't revive we staged another, more elaborate burial. We took turns holding the little sparrow and admired its intricate design—rubbery clawed feet, patterned feathers etched in infinite shades of brown, silky white breast—so delicate, soft, perfect.

Jane sang more songs, a stone marked the plot, flowers were picked and laid in memoriam, and stories illustrating the bird's imagined life and family were concocted. I wished I remembered my Tennyson. Both kids repeatedly visited the grave that day and tried to dig it up the next, but I put the kibosh on that, citing respect for the dead. In a few days it was completely forgotten.

Bird trauma dogged us. The next summer a game of badminton edged us from the lawn toward the tall grass. A movement caught my eye, only about ten yards to my left.

“What's that?” I asked Scott, moving slowly toward it.

“Is it a cat?” He thought of the feral opportunists that hide in the bushes under our birdfeeders.

“I think it's a turkey.” I motioned the kids to keep back.

It is unusual to get this close to a turkey. They have keen eyesight and are swifter of foot than you might guess for such large, awkward fliers. When we moved to Salisbury sixteen years ago, turkeys were rare. The few released onto Canaan Mountain twenty years ago slowly multiplied, and now a large group often crosses our yard, nervously bobbing and weaving through their reclaimed territory. They espy every movement, even our still, barely breathing bodies through the glass in the house as we watch them, and our fast little dog Velvet doesn't have a chance even when she happens to be lying in wait in the grass.

This turkey sensed me and ran a few paces. At each sound of my creeping it raised and cocked its head in my direction.

“It can hear but I don't think it can see me,” I reported.

A crust covered the top of its head, including its eyes. I inched within two feet, and it scurried only slightly away. This was a blinded turkey.

“What do we do now?” I queried.

“I guess we just let nature take its course,” Scott hit the badminton birdie back to the impatient kids. WHACK. “You know the animal control people” WHACK “aren't particularly interested in helping.” WHACK. “You'll never get anywhere” WHACK “with them.”

He was right. Once we called about a limping, mangy coyote staggering around our field in the middle of the day. We started with the police and chased a long sequence of phone numbers from the EPA to local animal control. No “authority” could help. I remembered John Bottass, our neighboring farmer telling us, “You're best off just shootin' it yourself.”

We do not own any firearms, but occasionally we hear a few shots go off nearby. Our next door neighbor, Mrs. Kilner, was known to prowl nocturnally, aiming an ancient rifle at coyotes who menaced her rescued greyhounds. I am not in favor of guns in most circumstances, but the one good argument for weaponry is to be able to put down, quickly and efficiently, an injured and suffering creature. That we euthanize animals is one way we are more humane to them than to ourselves.

We left the turkey alone, allowing some space to avoid stressing it. But later that afternoon it remained, having scarcely moved. I thought of the possible nighttime scenarios. It could be quickly dispatched by a couple of coyotes. That would be the best. Or it could make it through the night, and the next and the next, panicky and ill until it starved to death. Either way, I knew I couldn't rest with inaction. We eventually trapped the turkey with an overturned recycling bin and transported it thirty minutes to the Sharon Audubon Center where they examined and euthanized it. Our adventure had taken about three hours, and I hoped Elliot had learned something from it. A sad outcome, but we did our best and alleviated some suffering. Dying animals are tough for most people, and as my kids increasingly cozy up to our pets, from our wonderful seven-year-old poodle Velvet to the menagerie at the farm, they
will suffer too. I hope they will agree, beyond the illnesses witnessed and losses keenly felt, that the presence of animals, their unconditional love and companionship, is well worth it.

My husband Scott, however, has steadfastly kept his distance from our pet canines, and though he now denotes the first dog of our married life his favorite, this affection latently bloomed after “Peanut's” demise. My stepmother surprised newly wed Scott and me with this shih-tzu puppy straight from a puppy mill in New Jersey. Only four months after graduation from college, two months of marriage, and two months of law school for Scott and work for me, we were already parents. Scott bristled at his mother-in-law's imprudence, but I secretly delighted, and our little “Nutter,” inbred and crazy, barked and chewed her way through our new teak furniture and the baseboard moldings of a series of rental apartments for the ten years it took her to outgrow her puppyhood.

Peanut never learned a thing: would not come, sit or stay and ran just out of reach every time we needed to catch her. Never fully trained, I scrubbed a lot of carpet, and my impatient father almost killed her several times—she was that infuriating. She craved water and would leap from my dad's speedboat at forty miles an hour to take a swim: we would scoop her up in a fish net, eventually outfitting her in a tiny doggie life jacket with a handle on the back for easier retrieval. What she lacked in brains she made up for in kooky charm, and she saw us through the first sixteen years of our marriage, surviving six months of quarantine during our move to London, my first pregnancy, and the first two years of Elliot's life. Putting her down was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.

It took five pet-less years for me to realize I was not as happy a person without a dog in my life. More careful this time, through a breeder I found our current Velvet, a smart and slavishly affectionate poodle. Meek and sweet, she lacks Peanut's high-octane personality, but is much easier to live with. Whereas Peanut would inevitably vomit in the car, Velvet dreams peacefully as we stop and start through New York traffic,
sticks to me like glue, comes whenever I call her, and as the quintessential lap dog, contentedly drapes her black furry body across my thighs, resting her head on the armrest of my desk chair to keep me warm while I write. But Scott focuses on her only fault: she begs at the dinner table. Scott
always
sees the bright side, so how does he only see the bad in Velvet, I wondered?