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Deer Departed

Five deer leap to their death
off parking garage

The morning edition of the
Chicago Sun Times, December 8^th, 2005.

I had bought the newspaper on my way through
O’Hare Airport as I waited for the next leg of my flight back to Des
Moines. As I read the article, I feared
that I knew what had happened.

Six of us went hunting on Sunday. No it was
not in season but in the hills of West Virginia not much is noticed. We had just been released from the Army and were
spending a week at Mark’s home in Ranson.

As we worked to flush more game, Mark told me
of the sacred white deer that the few local Indians worshiped. I was surprised
to hear that he and the other four had seen one of deer and had shot at it.

No, he did not know what had happened or if
they had even hit it, but they found no carcass and no blood trail.

Monday morning, we broke fast at the local
waffle house. Mark and my other four companions looked hung-over. Mark denied that he had been drinking as the
others replied the same.

Strangely enough, they all had the same
nightmare. Mark explained that it had started as an otherworldly chanting
noise. Dreams of a white doe and buck had flashed again and again amongst a surreal
history of the area. Words could not be understood but visions of Indians
hunting, ships sailing on the waters of the Cohongorooton (“a river of geese”
also known as the Pethomak, now the Potomac, “meeting place”). Peaceful meetings with white men were
followed by images of Indians and white
deer, hunted and driven into the Western mountains.

I left them to make my arrangements for the
rest of my trip home. First, by bus to Leesburg, then to D.C. and a day of
flying with a long lay over in Chicago.

We met again for supper, looking no better,
Mark related to me that they still could hear chanting. No one else but the
five of them could hear it and to hear him tell it was driving him batty. After supper I packed and we all climbed into
the van. After a short drive down to the bus station, we parked in the nearby
parking structure, even at this hour there were no spots open below the fifth
floor. We hauled my cases down to the station and said our goodbyes. Mark said
to me that we would not see each other again and wished me a good life.

And so as I read,

“For reasons that mystify authorities, five
deer that made their way onto the top of a five-story parking garage suddenly
leaped to their deaths. Police Cpl. Steve Cox found the does'
bodies..."They took the plunge," he said. "It was just
absolutely weird." A woman called
police Sunday when she saw the deer falling, and Cox said he found scratches
and animal hair on the fifth floor, indicating that's where they had been. It's
unclear how the deer got into the garage, but Cox said they may have become
frightened after getting trapped. Cars moving through the garage may have
spooked them, he said. ...The carcasses were given to passersby for butchering.”

I wonder if the van is still on the fifth
floor…

Dreammaker