Man in the Moon: Essays on Fathers and Fatherhood

The Slashing

128 Matthew Ferrence the slashing two deer emerged out of the thick upper woods of my parents’ farm, a place my father and brother called the Slashing. For two weeks, I had waited for this moment. Since the cold opening morning of deer season—always the Monday after Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania—I had climbed into one of three tree stands my father and brother had built from scrap lumber and pallets. For six years Greg had been hunting with our father, and in the winter of 1987 my time had come. When the two deer appeared, the numb of cold and waiting disappeared instantly in a thrum of adrenaline. I raised my rifle, a .32 Special my father had handpicked from his collection because of its low kick and decent stopping power. I remember laying my cheek to the stock, trying to fix the muzzle’s bead in the fork of the rear sight, but unable to keep the barrel from vibrating across the clearing in front of me. I aimed for the dark spot behind one of the deer’s front shoulders, or tried to. I looked for the hollow my father had taught me would lead to a quick kill, the bullet driving through the lungs, heart, through meat and bone. But I never found the spot, nor even picked either of the deer as my target. Instead, the gun seemed to go off on its own, long before I’d settled my heartbeat, or thought to hold my breath, or do more than point the gun in the general direction of the deer. 129 the slashing One fell immediately, a sack of dead venison. Later, we discovered a neat hole through the spine, just below the head: a lucky shot. In the quiet that followed the echo of the gun’s blast, I watched the smaller deer stand confused, staring toward the fallen doe. I hadn’t yet considered the kinship, doe and fawn, or that the younger animal was now alone in the Slashing, likely doomed as well, easy prey for a coyote, a bobcat, even a loose dog. In the days after the shot, my father kidded me about my choice of deer, about taking the tougher meat over the tender animal, a joke I sometimes even initiated. But in the silence that followed the shot, in the silence before my father’s deep, proud voice asked if I’d gotten one, I started to wonder about luck, and choices, and connection. As I watched the confused fawn, hardly old enough to have lost its spots, I foolishly gave thanks that I hadn’t hit the young animal. I thought the shot had been lucky on two accounts: that it had hit anything at all and that it hadn’t found fresh flesh. Fifteen years later, my father and I stood on the top of a mountain and stared out across a different open field, the flatlands of northern Sonora. I lived then in southern Arizona with my wife, who had agreed to relocate so I could follow the academic path I now think of as the family business. Professorships run in the family: my father in biology, my brother in chemistry. I had originally come to Arizona to follow suit. But on the day my father and I stood at the top of Montezuma Pass and looked out across the dry Mexican plains, I’d given up. The Pass stands at the edge of Arizona, the last high point before the Huachuca Mountains descend into the desert, cross under a few strands of barbed wire, and become Mexico. As mountains go, it’s an easy climb. A dirt road winds upward from the grasslands below, hugging the rock face of the pass. From there, the peak is only a tenminute hike, a pleasant stroll along a steady grade. My father and I walked it easily, in an awkward silence that he 130 Matthew Ferrence probably never noticed. I’d resigned a few weeks before, but had yet to tell him. As we walked, I worried, expecting disappointment and, likely, advice to reconsider. Advice came easily from my father, frequently as unwelcome as it was well-intentioned. Growing up, I’d recognized how the paths I desired weren’t always the same as his, and his advice often grated, particularly when it sought to nudge me back to the course he knew. I...