The Deer I’ll Never Shoot

jessie leitzel

“This is the Pennsylvania Game Commission, what can we do for you?”

I put down my coffee, press the receiver to my mouth. I can’t tell if her accent is north or west of Schuylkill Haven—there’s a tilt of the tongue, a dip in the vowels, as if with each word her voice is bending under the weight of loam. “Hello, I’m looking for information on getting a hunting license. Nonresident.”

“How old are you?” Keys clack somewhere beyond the receiver. I’ve forgotten to ask her name, and I curse myself for it.

“Eighteen.”

“Junior license number?”

“Never had one.”

There's sequential backspacing, like she’s erasing an assumption. I wait for a breath. “Was that a prerequisite?”

“No. State of birth?”

“Pennsylvania, near Allentown.”

“I have a cousin in Allentown.” Her voice is distant, like this was a connection she was making with a neighbor and not someone eight hundred miles south.

“Everyone I meet seems to have a cousin in Allentown.”

She blows air through her nose, briefly and forcefully, and I can’t tell if I’ve crossed a line. I try to imagine her—how she’s sitting, the color of the mug to her right. I picture a ranger desk near the entrance of the forest, one with light wooden walls that smell of pine cones. I wonder if there’s a window above her desk. I wonder if each morning she notes the flies in the overhead light, their husks the size of a thumbnail. Maybe the sky has woken, or maybe it hasn't. I wonder if she enjoys her job, if there are hunters that pass by her window each season, carrying metal jugs and airtight thermal blankets and camo, so much camo that if she wasn’t used to this specific line of trees they would be unnoticeable. If they walk by and raise a hand to her, and if she salutes back. I hope she loves this. I hope she opens the front door, especially on colder days; listens to the critters in the crawl space beneath her office, the trees as they rustle around her.

I’ve never been hunting. I’ve never been camping, either; though there was one Girl Scout trip where I set up other people’s tents, sticking the metal joints into each other like I knew what I was doing, like it was something that should’ve come naturally. That doesn’t count, though. My father has told me stories of how our family camped, and each time, it’s a series of silent things: waking before the sun, walking through the forest when the ground is damp and the world is cool from night. The pack along his spine, how the fabric spoons around the bone. Each step echoing through his boots, but to the forest, he is just one of thousands making his way between the trees, breathing out clouds of white, leaving a trace of his body in the morning frost.

My dad grew up hunting, brought his guns down south when we moved. He’s the luckier one, in this way: for eighteen sweet years, stumbling into the morning with the trees just past his window. I imagine him noting the white frost forming along the sidewalk, a sure sign of winter coming. He had a place in that forest; knew that there was game just past the treeline and all he had to do was wait until deer season began and it would be his. He had the right to be there as if holding the wilderness in his palms, as if feeling his belonging curl into him.

“You said nonresident?”

“Yes, ma’am.” There’s a scratchy cough on her end, and I tense, hearing my mistake. “We moved.”

“There’s an extra fee for nonresidents.”

“I know.” I could see it, the window in front of her, like it was my life and not hers. “I don’t mind.”

One fall turkey tag, one spring. One antlered deer. At the opening of buck season, I can imagine all the boys coming to school and complaining about the bristle of the hunt. How their fathers shook them from bed, the radio in the truck glowing an army green against the dark road ahead of them. They would complain about the cold, how the early morning slaps them across the face. But secretly, these boys have waited twelve years for this—counting the seconds until their fathers were permitted by law to take them into the woods, the national forests, acres and acres of untouched land that belongs to them simply because their laminated cards say so. They love this feeling most because it’s a place they have a right to love. There are hunting perches built in the trees, game markers placed in the ground. This is what my father has gifted me, in a sense—a vinyl memory of the hunting grounds north of Philadelphia, all of the warmth and silence they held. He knew that somewhere in those woods, there was a clearing that was his. Somewhere, there was a buck who would wear his tags, who would fall to him with the motion of a bow.

The deer we have in Charleston aren't the same. Down here, they are everywhere: in between houses, in front of cars. My family and I live in one of those gated communities that imitate the woods; because suburbia is sprawling into the Lowcountry’s forests, entire herds are forced to shelter here, in the open. It’s a biologist's dream, how close you can come to them, how unafraid they are, sleeping on the coverless hills of the golf course. I haven’t heard stories of people shooting them; they would probably shoot right into someone’s kitchen. But on a more abstract level, I feel it’s because there’s no ritual to it. Part of hunting, I know, is the mastery of the hunt. Knowing which leaves to step on, how to place a hideout downwind. Memorizing the body language of the game who’ve sensed danger, and how to convince them they’re wrong. In Charleston, we drive with our brights on, and the does stare at us with unimpressed eyes.

My brother is very into shooting things—was obsessed, for a time, with airsoft guns and the feeling of assembling a rifle. He and my father went as far as West Virginia for an Op, and on the way home they called and talked about the empty house they hid in, how all the ex-military wanted Jake on their teams because no one expected a thirteen-year-old to shoot with the precision he did. I still think about the image they gave me: these men running through the skeleton of a living room, the thrill of the chase hot under their coats.

Once, in one of those spring break mornings when we were out of ways to entertain ourselves, I watched Jake point his pistol at a doe in our yard. They were everywhere that spring, the babies grown and no longer skittish, and they gathered in clusters along the road, stuck their mouths into the flowerpots on our porch. On the lawn, Jake stretched out his arm, closed an eye. His shoulders formed an arc, one graceful swoop from his spine to his pointer finger, where it danced with the temptation of the trigger. In that position half of his face was obscured by his bicep, and for a second, I didn’t recognize him, and stared at this stranger who would dare to break Spring’s silence. He was completely still, then; he was only twelve at the time. In the end, he lowered the airsoft gun, walked away. A few of the deer stared back at him, their faces sleepy and bored, unbothered. I walked away from our front door and tried to shake the intimacy that moment held. But that lingering, that “what-if” that radiated from his stillness—that is what sticks with me. The entire image is about inaction, is about what he could have done but never would have dared to do. Shooting those deer would’ve been too unsatisfactory for him. It would’ve been too unsatisfactory for anyone; where’s the thrill of the chase? Where’s the thin sweat blooming from the weight of the rifle, the strain of holding one’s breath for longer, longer still?

“Have you looked online at our website?” The typing has stopped, but only briefly, and then it is back again.

“I have, yes. It’s nice.”

“Do you have any licenses anywhere else?”

“I don’t, no.”

“You don’t know?”

“No, I don’t have any, I mean.” My nails pick at a spot on the countertop where the sealant has chipped, and it’s like looking down through a shallow river, at those stones that are too close to dry land to be disturbed by the velocity of the water, and yet are so brightly colored, freckles covering the sand underneath. I think about tossing one back and forth in my mouth, the saltiness pooling under my tongue.

My dad and I took a trip to North Carolina a few months ago, up near Davidson College where the land dips down into Lake Norman. The weather was gorgeous; brisk mornings without the onslaught of snow. We were on the cabin porch one of these mornings, listening to the birds prod the forest awake, each of us with a coffee in our hands and the earth under us thawing from night. I remember the way my dad was sitting just as much as I remember our environment. He was transfixed on the lake, on the rustle of leaves as fall arrived in the South. What’s wonderful about North Carolina, what has continued to stick with me each time we visit up there, is how closely it resembles Schuylkill County. It isn’t simply one thing—it’s an amalgamation, small little details peeking through the trees that add a layer of nostalgia to the scenery and convince us both that we are standing on the concrete ledge overlooking our backyard in Pottsville, staring at the brown leaves falling from the neighbor’s poplar. At that moment, North Carolina had transported my father and I back to our house on Mahantongo St, and I could see it in his eyes, in his silent peace.

I wonder if he, too, was imagining what hunting with his child could have felt like; if he was also picturing the look on my face when I spot the deer that would become my first kill. That one, that’s yours, his body language would say, pointing to the white tail across the clearing. I’ve gone through this scene many times. I’ve tried to pick out the details: the smell of wet soil, the soft smokiness of unwashed boots. But what sticks with me is never the scenery. It is the fact that, in my mind, the deer I am bound to kill is a doe.

I know this is improbable. I know, in many game ranges across the country, shooting doe is flat out illegal. I don’t want to shoot one. But every time I try to imagine my first hunt, the deer that appears in front of me is female. She is beautiful, too—a white stomach with a pelt the color of red bark, as if heated underneath by a flame. There’s a fire in her stance, too. Not a ferocity, but a knowing; a kindness of sorts. She has sensed me, in this image—she is staring directly at me, past the metal barrel that could end her and instead at the space between my eyes, the soft bend of my nose, my hair as it falls loose over my forehead. There is a tenderness in how she is refusing to run. Deer have a two-step process: one, to sense danger and assess the scene, and two, to turn and flee when unease builds. This doe, however, never reaches step two. She doesn’t need to, and I think she knows it. I think she knows that, though my dad’s hand is on my shoulder and I’m gripping the gun, she’s in no danger, and never was, not when I’m the one hunting her. If I were to ever step foot in the Pennsylvania hunting grounds, I could never bring myself to actually hunt. I would settle into a hideout like it was another’s home; I would hold the gun like it was a relative’s coat. Maybe this is because I was born a girl, and maybe it’s because I no longer live in the mountains. But it could also be that, simply, this is who I am—someone who observes, but doesn’t shoot; someone who imagines, but never acts. That is something that not even an alternate world could change. This doe, in my mind, is therefore doing me an incredible service. She is kind enough to let me linger on the feeling of the hunt without the death that comes with it.

Watching my dad in North Carolina, the image of the doe running through my mind, I wished for a whole lot of impossible things. My father is the closest link I have to the Pennsylvania I grew up in. He embodies the grown hunter, the man in which, when we visit another state and watch fall transform the world, a boy rises again. Though this isn’t Pottsville, and though I’ve never been hunting, a leaf caught on his shoulder, and I saw for a moment how quickly it reminded him of home; how, for a moment, he was a child again, running between the trees, alive as the buck he set out to hunt.

“We tend to send people through the online portal,” the woman across the line tells me. If this interaction was going how it should have, she would’ve known my hometown, would’ve known which corner of Schuylkill Haven I came from. I wish she’d tell me her name, so I can at least speak as if I’ve known her all this time, as if I’m following tradition instead of trying to learn more about it.

“I’m going to send you a quick link, and it’ll take you right to the site. Is the email you gave earlier okay?”

“Yes.” I want to halt her and ask if I could just file here, now. In the background, she’s typing, the keys huge and blocky in their clacking, and it’s almost as if she’s recording this interaction, noting all the things I forgot to say, all the things I don’t know about this ritual.

In another world, one in which we never moved down south, I am twelve, and my dad is taking me hunting for the first time. It is perfect weather—late November, the first day of game season. The night is still black, and the houses around us are dormant in their brick. He starts the car, and the engine vibrates underneath us. We start up the slope, drive down Mahantongo until we hit the graveyard, where we turn left. We pass the Dairy Queen and the diner that sells Jake’s favorite pickled beets. We take a right and are passing the car dealership, its secondhand engines shadows in the gloom, and soon we are at the intersection, to the left the Sheetz, and to the right the Dunkin’ Donuts where we will pick up a coffee and egg wraps, and straight ahead of us the mountains, quiet and dark and demanding. In this world, this morning, I am dressed in a camo shirt and in my head I am running through all of the things my dad told me about using a gun, where the safety is and how most of the day that safety should be on. In this world, our lips are warming from the heat of the eggs and we can hear the water bottles hitting each other, gently, when he presses on the gas and we pass out of Pottsville and into the morning, which is beginning to turn ice blue, the silhouette of the mountains becoming clearer, the sun yet to make the trees distinguishable but we know they are there because they always have been. The mountains loom in all directions, pooling in our rearview mirror as if melting. My dad has coffee grounds on his breath, and I love the smell of it.

“Can I ask you a question, really quickly?”

“Mhmm,” she tells me. She wasn’t expecting the call to continue, I can tell, but she sounds genuine. I breathe in the warmth of her words, like she is a couple feet from me and the boyishness of the woods is all around me.

“What got you into hunting? I mean, what brought you to it?”

I can hear the creaking of what sounds like a wooden chair. She isn’t typing anymore. It seems like she’s right there, in front of me, this nameless woman that I should know but don’t.

“I don’t hunt, actually.”

“Oh. No?”

“No, I don’t.”

There’s silence, from both of us. I feel a lot smaller than I am.

“Oh, okay.”

The chair creaks again, like she’s leaning forward. She says nothing.

I stare at the counter in front of me, all the browns that flow into each other. “Can I ask why?”

There’s a tired breath, a rustle of fabric. “I don’t know. I never wanted to go.” She sounds a lot younger all of a sudden, and my mind shifts: a kid, a high schooler, maybe my age, on a weekend job, taking phone calls from people who are wondering about the woods and all the unattainable things in it. “My brothers go a lot. A lot of my friends do, too. I just don’t get it. All that waiting, and they’re so cold, for what? They never shoot anything.”

I’m stunned. Blood is halting in my forearms where the counter is pressing up, and in my elbows, a deep ache builds.

“Oh.”

She sighs, just a bit. The sound of a few keys, and a pause. “Did you get the email?”

“Yes,” I tell her. I don’t bring the phone from my ear.

“Okay, good.” A beat. “Well, call back if you’re confused at all. I know the site’s a bit janky. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Thank you,” I say, a formality. “Thanks.”

I hang up the phone before she does. I walk out to the foyer, stare out the windows. Up north, our house had a mail slot in the door, and if you opened the golden flap with your pinkie, you could stick your nose out, feel the burn of winter as it flew through the opening. Outside, in the midday humidity of the south’s September, there is a vast emptiness—no movement, no nothing. I am pissed off, I realize. The deer are nowhere to be seen, and I’m cursing them for it. I’m cursing my brother for not taking the shot. For knowing where the safety is, knowing what it feels like to hold one’s breath, to wait for the kill. I’m cursing my father for bringing his hunting rifles down with him. I’m cursing him for buying my brother camo, for taking interest in the sport, for buying cans of compressed air and silencers and heavy-duty slings. I’m cursing him for sharing this practice with me, instilling in me a need to belong to the type of men who hunt simply to feel alive, to slow down, to connect to the mountains they call home. I’m cursing myself, for being inside, for hiding. I still don’t have my hunting license, and I know that even if I had one, I wouldn’t be able to experience the ritual that my dad did, it would never belong to me in the way it could have.

I take out my phone, find the email in my inbox. For a second, I stare at the logo of the Pennsylvania Game Commission. If I squint, it looks almost like an arrowhead, with a white-tail looking somewhere off in the distance, as if on high alert. Somewhere in those mountains, past the Dunkin’ Donuts and the car dealership and my house on Mahantongo, there’s a father teaching his son to hunt. The boy raises the gun, tilts his scope to the right. He wipes the dirt from his chin. His buck is meters from him, a breath. When he decides to pull the trigger, that feeling will be his.

Jessie Leitzel was born in the mountains of Pennsylvania and raised in Charleston, SC. They are a YoungArts Award Winner with Distinction, a 2024 Presidential Scholar in the Arts, and a gold medalist of the Scholastic Writing Awards. Leitzel’s work has been featured in Rattle, Beyond Queer Words, Lucky Jefferson, Jasper Magazine, Eucalyptus Lit, and more. Pieces from their collection The Small Hours have been recognized by YoungArts, Poetry Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The co-founding editor of Trace Fossils Review, Leitzel will study biomedical engineering at Harvard College in the fall.