Getting LateGetting Late A starless season winds downA starless season winds down By Noah Davis This late into the second week of the firearms season, the deer climb high up the mountain, so Dad and I follow. Dad spent the first week freezing in a tree. The only deer he saw was a buck in the dark, white tail bounding away in the headlight's beam. We talked by phone, me at college finishing up fall semester at Indiana University, and he at home in Bellwood. We agreed I could finish my last paper at home. The thought of a deerless year crept into our conversation. It was something that hadn't happened in a decade; a year we'd rather forget. I arrived at home with the hope each hunter holds at the opening of the season, finding Dad beaten by the cold, weary from nights without sleep, but still pulled by the force that has led hunters into the woods for thousands of years: we need meat. All the ridges around home are parts of game lands, and we spend most of our time exploring the folds. Many of the deer already have moved up from the lowlands and into thick laurel. The sound of the stream disappears quickly as Dad and I hike up the old logging road. We know this path by DECEMBER 2021 47