Murder, She Wrote
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Sorry for the title, but I couldn’t resist.  And don’t even waste your time scrolling down, looking for pictures, because there aren’t any.  For those of you who like to think Mother Nature is a kind and gentle soul, you might not want to read any further.

Last evening I was just sitting here, minding my own business, doing I know not what - something useful like brushing a dog, or vacuuming dog hair off the carpet, or picking up dog bowls, when I caught a familiar sound that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.  It was dusk, and the evening air was beginning to cool so I had opened all the windows.  Amazingly, none of these useless dogs heard a thing. 

“Stay!” I ordered to the sleeping pack of watchdogs, as I headed for the back deck.  None of them moved a muscle.  They are so well trained.

Sure enough, I heard it again.  The human-like scream that pierces your very soul.  In fact, when I first heard it over 20 years ago, I was convinced it was human.  Being home alone at the time with a 4-year-old, out here in the middle of nowhere, I called the sheriff’s department.

“I’m pretty sure a woman’s being murdered!” I told them.

“Where?” they asked.

I explained where I lived and where I suspected the dastardly deed had taken place.

They dutifully sent officers out to investigate, but found nothing.  Of course they found nothing!  I’m next to 5,000 acres of nothing!  What I had heard was a deer being killed by a mountain lion or coyotes.

Over the years I have often heard the sound and I will never grow used to it.  I know the predators have to eat, too, and I of all people would never begrudge them that right.  But still, it makes my heart hurt to hear the dying cries of the deer.  Do they have to sound so human?

So the other night when I heard, again, the all too familiar sound, I had to investigate.  Not that I would interfere with the cycle of life going on all around me, but what if I could see something interesting?  And what if there was a Kodak moment?

From the back deck I could see down to the creek-bed that runs behind our house.  You can’t actually see the creek for the most part, because the growth of trees, grapevines, and blackberries is so thick. The area is wildlife central.  And right now, it was the site of a life and death struggle.

I could hear the screams, growing fainter, of what I assumed was a fawn.  Since June is the deer birthing season here, it had to be a very tiny fawn, maybe a newborn.  There were sounds of thrashing in the brush and I could see saplings waving, blackberry bushes swaying, and animals crashing through brush.

Suddenly I caught a glimpse of a large deer bounding out of the creek-bed, up the hillside on the far side of our property.  The faint bleats from the fawn were almost finished.  I assumed it was the mother who finally gave up the fight for her baby’s life that I had seen running away.

I called Butterfly and said, “Just so you know, there’s a killing going on down at the creek and I’m taking my camera to see what I can see.”

“You shouldn’t go down there!” she cautioned.

“It’s too noisy to be a lion, I think, so I’m going!”  I said, and took off. 

She came down to my house to be on point.  We could maintain voice contact in case of emergency.  I guess she could call 911 in case I was wrong and there really was a lion who decided to eat me instead of a measly little fawn.

A game warden once told me that the noisy kills are not lions – they’re bobcats.  But what he meant was the cat noises, not necessarily all the other noises.  I thought about this after the fact.  At the time, I was thinking there were too many animals involved for it to be a lion. I didn’t think they hunted in packs.

I ran down through the pasture gate and crossed the creek.  I could still hear a lot of thrashing in the brush, but no more sounds from the deer victim.  I tried to move quietly, although Butterfly was calling questions to me.

Suddenly a coyote shot out of the blackberry bushes and bolted up the hill away from me, looking over his shoulder as he ran away.  I could hear another animal running downstream in the creek, splashing in the water.  Maybe the deer wasn’t dead after all?  One could hope.  Although if the screams were any indication, it had to be in pretty bad shape.  Or maybe it was simply another coyote running down the creek.

One more coyote shot out of the brush.  It stopped and looked at me as if to say, “What do you want?” 

I raised my camera to try to get a shot, but it took off before I could manage even a blurry picture.  Sorry.

There was still more rustling going on in the brush, so I just backed away and made my way back to the house. The remaining coyotes finished their job and all was quiet once again.

Yes, it is beautiful where we live.  Calm.  Peaceful.  Serene.  For the most part.  But every once in a while I’m reminded that while we sleep, there is a life and death struggle going on right outside our house, on an even grander scale than the one that goes on during the daylight hours.

We watch the hawk that soars gracefully on the winds.  He looks so beautiful and so regal.  Don’t forget that he’s hunting.

We laugh at the lizards racing through the gardens, stopping to do their push-ups on the hot rocks.  Don’t forget, they’re hunting.

We stop our car to let the doe and her fawn cross the road safely, admiring their beauty.  Don’t forget, they are hunted.

Butterfly once said to me, when I was complaining about a family of raccoons waking me up at night, while noisily harvesting plums in the tree outside our bedroom window, “How would you like to have to worry about foraging for your dinner every night?”

She had a point.  I should just thank my lucky stars that I’m at the top of the food chain.