Hunters

When I lived in New Mexico, my Hispanic friend, Roman, went on an annual deer hunt with his brothers and their sons. “It is a social thing,” his wife said, “They hunt and drink beer for a week.” They also hope to kill enough animals to provide meat for the family to last all winter.

One year my neighbor, Leroy Martinez, killed an elk. I went next door to see the huge carcass hanging in his garage. He also gave me a chunk of venison. I braised it in a big pot. The deer meat was tender and delicious.

My New Mexico psychiatrist also was a hunter. He went every year with his teenage son.

My psychiatrist was the most patient man I have known. No matter what I told him, he remained calm and reassuring. He was a geriatric specialist, and many of his patients were old people, confused and suffering from dementia. I said to him, “You deal with crazy people every day. I wonder if you go hunting to work off your frustrations by killing things.”

“I don’t think so,” he said calmly. “I am a Nebraska farm boy. I’ve hunted all my life.”

The doctor said he was teaching his son how to use a gun, but he hunted with a bow and arrow. He explained, “When you shoot a deer with a gun, if the animal is not killed, the sound of the gun firing will frighten it, and it will run for miles before it collapses from loss of blood. An arrow is silent. When the animal starts to bleed, it will lie down and quietly die. The doctor felt this was the more humane way to kill.