A Life Wasted

Morning of 9/11

For many years it had been my practice to not use a tent when I camp, but a tarp. Were I to march out my back door to spend the night in the woods I would pick a tarp over a tent. Under these conditions, where I am carrying a heavy pack over a great distance, a situation where every ounce matters, a tarp is far superior. There is also the issue of being on the run and needing to hide. For this my camouflage tarp is far superior to any tent. Not only is the tarp more versatile and adaptable to the terrain, but I am also able to leave whichever side open that I want to be able to roll out if in need of a quick exit.

A tarp is also easy to set up and far faster than the best of tents. On the previous night, when I was so exhausted that I could hardly take my boots off, the tarp proved its worth. I was too exhausted to set up a tent in the dark, but the tarp was simple with the aid of 550 cord, which is the U.S. Army's nomenclature for their wonderful parachute cord. 550 cord is thin, light, green, and will support 550 pounds. I carry a spool of 550 cord as an essential part of my survival gear. To every eyelet on the tarp I had already tied several feet of 550 cord, so all I had to do was tie the appropriate cord to one tree, stretch the tarp to another tree, pull it tight and tie it off the other side of the tarp. I did this so that the roof of my shelter was two foot off the ground, then pulled each side out and let it lay on the ground. Were it raining or were the wind blowing I would either tie the ends down, or weight them down with rocks. But it was a nice night with no wind and I was tired so all I did was spread the tarp out for the sole purpose of keeping the morning dew off me.

For those of you who have never spent an unsheltered night outdoors, even on a warm and dry night, you will wake in the morning wet from dew. This is generally a bad thing as it saps your body heat enough that you wake exhausted and shivering from the wet cold. So even on dry nights it is critical that you have something over you to keep the dew off.

This is how I slept and I slept hard. A few days earlier I'd had a bad traffic accident, a narrow escape and a stressful trip out of the area. That was all followed by three days of hard forced march through the woods while working hard not to be seen by anyone. So this night, far off the trail, was my first opportunity to relax and let go of my constant state of being on hyper-alert. For these reasons I dropped into a deep sleep.

That morning, just before daybreak, I was awakened by either a sound or an impact near my head. Possibly both. At first my mind couldn't sort out what woke me, but when the event repeated itself I was instantly alert. The sound was the angry snort of an animal and the impact near my head was a hoof pounding the ground. I opened my eyes and saw a large buck deer standing over me. My pistol came up a moment later, pointed at the deer's head. The buck seemed unimpressed by my pistol since his hoof pounded the ground inches from my head and snorted, this time blowing snot in my face. I'm still amazed that I didn't shoot him. Between my groggy waking state, my fear, and the very real danger of being killed by that sharp hoof, shooting him would have been justified. At least in my mind.

In my sleep my head had moved a few inches outside of the protective cover of the tarp (no protection from the buck) so I pulled back in a little and half sat up. The buck snorted again, but this time his snot missed my face. "What?" I said. That sounds like an odd response now, but it seemed appropriate at the time. Deer do not attack people. They do everything they can to stay away from people. I have never heard of one acting like this one was acting, so I figured he wanted something. At the sound of my voice he backed off a few steps, but still looked down at me. I repeated my question. This time he just turned and walked off. Didn't run off like any sane deer would do, but slowly walked away as if I was nothing more than a fly to be swatted.

While the deer was still walking away I stood and cleaned my face using water from my canteen. What happened made no sense at all. The woods were just beginning to lighten up with morning so I took a good look at my surroundings. It was then that I noticed the deer scrapings on the tree I'd tied my tarp off too. During the rut a buck deer will rub his antler's on select trees, one of which I had used to secure my tarp. I'm not a hunter so I don't know when the rut occurs or even if a buck will use the same tree for his rub. The only thing I really understood was that I'd trespassed on his spot and he was pissed about it. Being a guy who always tries to respect nature. I untied my tarp and moved my camp fifty feet away, making sure there were no antler scraped trees nearby. With this done, I set up my tarp again and went back to sleep.