A leisurely stroll in the woods of Ellison Bay Bluffs County Park led to a distressing encounter yesterday. It all began with a lovely bluff view of Green Bay on Lake Michigan and leaving my husband alone to smoke his pipe, I set off on a meditative walk. After all, I am beginning a new life chapter and coming out of the seeming coma (okay, it was just a huge fog...) that fell upon my brain after the closing of my business, I was eager to meditate on what’s next for me while taking a quiet stroll.
Praying to my angels and goddesses and whomever else happened to be listening, who might want to chime in with their words of wisdom on this walk, thoughts filled my mind and I drifted into a wonderfully peaceful place.
About 15 minutes into my ethereal walk of late autumn dried leaves, bare branches and brownness, I happened upon the color red. Hmmm. Upon closer inspection, it looked as if an animal had been attacked; maybe a coyote or a fox kill.
Upon a much closer inspection, there was a bright red blood spill in the middle of my path and a dribble of blood as if something was dragged over to this pile of red within the dried leaves in the brown woods.
Okay, I am a city girl but I am not naïve in any way. Something had been killed in the path before me. Upon an even closer inspection, there were some internal organs carefully laid out around what appeared to be a very large rock, very little blood, and NO BODY. That’s right, NO CARCASS. What had been killed? Where was the body?
Small circular blood spill in my path, something dragged into the woods along the path, fresh organs, and no body. Nope, I am definitely NOT a naïve city girl at all. I was standing in front of a morbid murder scene! Upon closer inspection of the rock “altar” that the heart, kidneys, liver, etc. were placed upon (of course it was an altar – isn't that what sick, deranged killers do with their victims?), it started not to look like a rock at all. So I took a stick and poked at the “rock”……it was soft…….IT WAS A SET OF LUNGS!
Did I mention that my peaceful, tranquil, meditative state was completely severed? (Had to use that word – I had just entered a scene out of Dexter!) My bucolic, pristine nature walk had become a crime scene!
Where was the body? The kill spot was rather small and round, perfect size for a person of my build. And who carefully lays out innards the same way they are placed internally? And where did the blood go? And much more importantly, where was the BODY?? So I did what anyone would do in my situation. In Chicago, coming across guts in an alley would have someone speed dialing 911 as they high tailed it out of there!
Not me……I went to the extreme. This wasn’t some random, ordinary kill. This could only be the work of a witch. I had entered a scene from Blair Witch Project! Of course! That’s why there was no body or blood. That’s why the guts were carefully laid out. This was not the work of an animal. What animal would take the body and leave the innards? So I did what any city girl would do. I panicked. Blair herself HAD to be nearby. Or a crazed maniac. I looked into the trees (because of course that is where either of these folks would be – right?) I slowly started backing away up the path. I looked for the river I could follow to take me safely out of the woods. (I always wondered why those kids in Blair Witch Project kept going around in circles in the woods. All they had to do was follow the river bed and they would still be alive today!!!!) No, I wasn’t lost. And the river was actually Lake Michigan. I pulled out my phone to call my husband (Hey, it is 2011. No one will ever get lost in the woods again as long as the Verizon satellites are up and running.) to tell him of the ghastly scene I was now running from, eyes darting left, right, above to make sure no one was following me.
Okay, it is true, I am a horror freak. Have loved horror flicks all my life. Wrote some vivid tales in Mr. DeLuca’s creative writing class in 6th grade that concerned him enough to make a call home to Ma. I guess slayings with ice picks are not common themes in 6th grade essays.
I was the mother that scared the other mothers in my book club when they found out I let my young children watch scary movies. And yes, a relative of some sort pulled his daughters out of the TV room where they were sitting with my youngest son when he started talking about zombies and dead people.
Maybe a part of me wanted to have walked upon a scene from the TV serial killer Dexter. That would be way more exciting of a story to tell later. Or maybe I have been a victim of personal crime way too many times and my brain is geared for this type of reaction. Or at least some sort of maiming!
So as the fear increased, the more my brain conjured up ideas for this scene, my husband walked over to a sign in the woods that read, “Hunting Begins November 15” and called me back. Damn! It was a friggin’ deer! But I still fought it. After all, I wanted the drama of a murder scene. What a story I could tell! I said what kind of hunter neatly lays out the innards the way they are laid out in the body from top of torso to bottom? It looked like an anatomy class. Of course, he told me with such determination and authority that hunters must gut the animal, tip it over and everything spills out perfectly in place. Right….. A deer of say 200 pounds can easily be tipped upside down and emptied. I had problems trying to tip over a 70 pound calf on a cattle ranch in New Mexico.
After consulting with a local and then later with an avid hunter, I had stumbled upon what is commonly known as a “gut pile”. Normally, hunters who are deep in the woods will gut and “dress” the deer there, where city folk like me will not stumble upon their leavings. My citified hunters dressed the deer on a paved path in a county park. Lazy wimps. Amateurs. What kind of hunters were they?? City folk with shiny shotguns. Geesh…
For me, there will be no Bambi or Mama Bambi killings. The closest I ever got to both deer and death at the same time was when I was working at the Chicago Botanic Garden and almost got run over by a huge buck with a massive rack of antlers. Then I could have added impaling to my list of personal assaults. I also came across a few deer on another wooded walk. No paved path to walk upon and there she was, right in front of me, staring at me. We stood for a moment, both of us, contemplating the oddness of both of us happening upon one another, and I walked away. After all, this was her woods and I was trespassing upon her territory. Imagine that. After that confrontation, I could never consider shooting one or bowing one, “tipping it over” and spilling out its guts to feed the rest of the woodland animals. Eeewww. Yuck.
So here is my boring story of hunters and deer. When I tell my grandchildren, of course, it will become the Dexter and Blair Witch story which will scare the pants off of them. Their parents will roll their eyes. Hey, I might even add an ice pick or impaling…
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