The dog & the deer

Fear and joy

I rode early, at dawn, to see what I would find. I found deer, skunks, turkeys and for three days in a row, snapping turtles backing up to piles of turned sand, laying their eggs. I rose earlier and earlier, finding that if I got up with the sun, I saw so much more. And on the return ride home, passing through neighborhoods, I was treated to bacon and coffee in the morning air. It reminded me of my grandmother waking up my cousins and me from our blanket forts in the living room with clanking frying pans when we visited the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Every morning I passed a farm and every morning horses trotted out to the fence to watch me. I thought each day to bring them carrots and each tomorrow I forgot.

The fawns arrived after the cool nights dissipated. Their mothers watched my approach and I watched back, hoping they would allow me to get close. If I stopped, a doe would lose her nerve and bolt, the fawn trying to keep up. But if I maintained my cadence, the deer stood still in the woods and waited to see what I would do. Often I could pass close enough to see the different caramel colors in their coats, thick and full from the bounty of spring.

One morning, I came upon a mother and fawn crossing a quiet back road far ahead of me. I stopped the moment I saw them, afraid to separate them as they left the woods and walked the pavement. But, I was too late. The fawn saw me and panicked. She turned back, her mother on the far side of the road.

I waited several minutes, stopped on my bike, but the fawn had gone into hiding, instinct kicking in. I knew she would not move until her momma came for her. So I decided to bike through, trying not to click a gear or squeak a brake, passing quietly between the fawn and her mother, now out of sight, on opposite sides of the road.

I thought I was in the clear, but - as I passed - I heard the light clickety clack of hooves on the asphalt. I turned to see that the fawn had seen me and was confused. She was chasing me! On my black bike, roughly as tall as her momma, I must have been a fair representation. I laughed out loud — this fawn I would not adopt! Taking only one more glance to admire her clumsy pursuit and thin pencil legs, I picked up my speed to outpace her, hoping she would soon give up and her real momma would come get her.

However.

I was not planning on the Irish wolfhound that appeared next.

He was tall, gray and shaggy, making huge bounds in no time at all. A fearsome sight to see come roaring out of the front yard of a small house tucked in the woods. First, I feared for my nice intact ankles, but then I feared for the fawn being seen and run down to exhaustion and death by the dog.

Good (and bad) news: He was intent on me and didn't see the fawn. There was only one thing to do: Coax the gigantic dog to keep chasing me.

“Come on, boy!” I called, even as fear came over me. He was barking and running next to me, his back as high as my bike frame, so close, so focused. For a full 5 seconds, it was me, then the dog, then the fawn - in a parade.

I could hear the click of the hooves continue behind us.

And then, the dog picked up on the sound, too. He wheeled around and saw the fawn, and the fawn recognized her mistake in the same moment.

She scrambled to free herself from momentum, falling on the pavement, sliding toward us. Then, she got back up and ran the other way. The dog took off after her. I turned my bike around as quickly as I could and pursued them both. The parade continued in the opposite direction - now the fawn in the lead, the dog, then me.

Down the road we went, all three of us in the middle of it all this time. The dog quickly gained on the fawn and forced her to veer hard and bolt off into the woods. The dog went, and I did, too. I rode down through the ditch and into the tall grass and ferns along the edge of the woods. I screamed, calling the huge dog repeatedly - trying to sound friendly and like a good target at the same time.

They were both out of sight in an instant and my heart hammered, fear and dread of what I would find as I slowed and stopped my bike in the rough terrain and started hiking it through the woods.

In a moment, maybe two, the dog’s head appeared above the ferns. I couldn't believe it. I had stopped him! The fawn was out of sight (yay!), and I had a huge, dew-wet dog coming for me again.

What had I done?