Bucky's Back

A grizzly old fella rode home with us a couple of days ago after hanging out in my son’s pole barn for the last nine years.  He was a bit bedraggled, but cleaned up fairly well. Now he hangs on the wall in our storage room next to a rack of rifles.

One long-ago day, deep in a Canadian forest, my dad followed Bucky visually through his gun site.  Taking careful aim, he pulled the trigger and shot the buck in the neck. 

Not long after, he drove into our driveway with his trophy deer tied to the top of our station wagon.  I remember watching from the porch, wondering if the animal was really dead or just pretending to be asleep.  Soon Bucky's head went to the taxidermist and his flesh to our chest freezer.  I was probably around six years old at the time (circa 1955).  This all seemed surreal to me.

Bucky was exhibited above the fireplace mantel in our rustic log cabin at the lake.  As a child, I repeatedly pulled a chair onto the hearth so I could climb up and stroke his soft neck, especially the rough spot where the bullet entered.  The only picture I have of him in this original setting (minus his antlers) was taken when I was a teenager.  Friends and I had braved the lake for a very early morning ski run at dawn, and we came back to the cottage to sit by the fire and enjoy my mom’s waffles and bacon.

Bucky has become legendary here in his new location beside another lake. He is mine now, split and peeling nose and all - a treasure, if only because his story mingles with my own to communicate something about the passing of time and the mystery of life.