In the beginning there were deer and wolves and a natural ecological balance was obtained. Somewhat later good business practice sought to maximize forest productivity by humanely exterminating the wolves, allowing the deer to humanely starve each winter when their numbers exceeded the carrying capacity of the land. How lucky we were that there were hunters willing to invest their personal financial and temporal resources in an effort to down a few six packs, hoist the old rifle, and close the population gap, hunting the deer to near extinction. Enter the bow hunter, a skilled soul who hunted the deer on more natural, and somewhat fairer, terms.
What a pile of hooey. Bambi is out there somewhere, and we are eating venison tonight. Fuel the chainsaws!
It was morning, the ruddy sun slowly rising through the ground mist to glint off the dew beaded on our chainsaws. We each had a gallon of high test in our backpacks, the guides' loincloths were secured, and our little women were back at home mink oiling their deerskin garter belts and perfectly stacking mesquite charcoal in the backyard grill. Today was an echelon hunt, and there was going to be meat in the air.
The chainsaw deer hunter is powerfully constrained by hunting laws, assuring a fair hunt to man and animal alike. Slowing your once and future dinner's flight via self-powered ordnance like rocket launched grenades and claymore mines may compromise the quality of the meat, scattering it beyond easy retrieval or even identification. Gunpowder, composition explosives, and laser-guided munitions are strictly forbidden, and should not be used.
The chainsaw must remain in physical contact with the hunter at all times. The recent practice of bungee yo-yo chainsaw tossing, grabbing a piece of the action as it runs past at high speed on three or four legs, is not allowed. The deer may not be beaned with the chainsaw by a hunter short on gasoline but long on imagination. A sapling, a short rope, a tripwire, and a chainsaw poised for action will get the ranger on your case every time. Dozens of chainsaw hunters are stopped each year with guilty smiles on their faces and nine foot sling shots in their back pockets. Don't you be one of them.
The guide swiftly fled into the forest, his body smeared with natural substances to mask his odor downwind. His job was to locate the deer herd and direct it toward us, ultimately stampeding it through our echelon and past the perfect fury of our weapons. We were buried in the underbrush, sweat slowly trickling down our foreheads and noses, fingers flexing about the pull cords of our chainsaws.
"Yah yah yah" echoed through the forest, closely followed by the crescendoing thrumming of stampeding hooves. "YAH!" burst forth from the right flank and, then much more closely, from the left. The thunderous snapping of brush and branches was overwhelming. Three deer in full flight burst into our camp.
We rose as one and plunged toward them, knuckles white, as starter cords sang under explosive tension. "BARROOOOOM!" "BARROOOOOM!" Eleven chainsaws gasped alive. Eleven chainsaws gulped air and screamed. Eleven chainsaws met rawhide and gorged, drinking deeply of meat, fascia, bone, blood, and guts. Red mist fountained and spewed. Quivering gobbets hot with life splattered our cammies. We danced and screamed, echoing the song of our weapons. Surely heaven could not be any better than this.
In the excitement of the moment that first deer was reduced to garden mulch as Fred and Arthur at the far end of the echelon lost all control in a frenzy of chainsaw omnipotence. The other two deer, staggered by the sight of their leader being simultaneously disassembled and vaporized, were clean kills - Four legs and the neck drifting off into space, freed by the elegant sweep of humming metal. The forest rang with silence.
We hooted and laughed, squeegeeing the red jelly off our clothes and out of our eyes and hair. The kills had to be gutted and properly dressed for transportation out of the forest, and our weapons polished and honed for the next hunt. A man can take pride in this work, providing for his family and caring for his weapon, defending what is his and reaching out for what is other's.
I quiver with anticipation and my saliva abundantly flows. Mama will have red meat for the groaning board tonight. I hoist my burden of manhood and, with shoulders square and eyes focussed toward the horizon, proudly stride into infinity.