"Our Hunters"
by Carol Lee

It had snowed furiously and, with the dawn, the world was an ice kingdom. The landscape sparkled like diamonds, looking more like a planetary set from Star Trek than a scene in my own backyard. We lost power, too, and the quiet enhanced the alien nature of the terrain.

Branches bent low, heavy with ice glistening in the rising sun, first pink, then gold, then shiny white. The chain-link fence around my garden gleamed, too, its pattern resonating like a mirage. With camera in hand, I went to document the fantasy. Trees were down across the driveway in several places; we'd never get out without help. Then, I spied two men and a young boy, dressed in camouflage, removing limbs from our driveway. I asked what they were doing, and one replied, "We're just being neighborly, ma'am, that's how we were raised." They labored the whole morning and then came inside for some coffee, hot chocolate and warmth near the fireplace.

It turned out they were sons and grandson of our landscaper. After a while, they asked how many acres we had and if anyone hunted our land. We explained that our property was posted against hunting. In our previous home, deer took shelter on our property, which contained a pond, a lawn, a stretch of woods and the cast of Bambi. Here baby fawns took their first steps, then frolicked back and forth on the lawn like little children, while their mother foraged. We enjoyed many hours just watching them play. So when we moved to Milan, we refused to allow hunting. The thought of hurting such a beautiful and innocent animal was anathema to us. That is until the deer destroyed all our landscaping. After years of fencing, spraying, planting only what we were told they wouldn't eat, we couldn't keep ahead of them. Nonetheless my husband, Marty, took me aside while I prepared coffee and hot chocolate: "Let me handle it. I'll explain that we don't allow hunting here."

An hour or so later, it had somehow been agreed that Nick, his son, Anthony, and Jack would be free to hunt our property. These men didn't just hunt for fun, they fed their families with the meat... and shared their bounty with others. If deer were a nuisance and people were hungry, then perhaps hunting made sense. Perhaps it was better than deer starving to death in the winter. I looked at Marty incredulously, not quite believing what we had agreed to, and he assured me he was comfortable with these men, that Nick would always be in charge.

Over the next few weeks, Nick and Jack and Anthony had tremendous luck, harvesting their legal share of deer. Sometimes I'd go to the woodpile and not notice them, completely invisible in their camouflage. It was unnerving to learn later that they'd seen me, but I hadn't seen them. Soon we became the happy recipients of the most tender and delicious venison steaks. Nick is such a good cook, he even taught me how to prepare the meat. The deer population did not suffer: each spring there were more fawns, usually twins, sometimes twice in a season, and each fall "our hunters" diminished the herds.

Having hunters became natural to us, and we called them "the boys." We even went to Nick's wedding, where I saw all three of them in tuxedos! Each summer they mowed and otherwise tended our property, each winter they helped out during storms and tuned our snow blower and generator. Nick visited often with vacuum-sealed bags of venison steaks, fresh wild turkey breasts, fresh trout, wrapped in newspaper.

Their presence became comfortable, and I'd feel really good, especially before sunrise, seeing their headlights coming up the driveway At one point after Nick and Anthony had been hunting for five hours with no luck and came to say goodbye little Anthony caught sight of a small deer alongside the garage and motioned to it. No one spoke as we watched the little animal, too young to fear us. Then, to my own shock I asked, "Are you gonna take him out?" Nick nodded, and Anthony took up his shotgun and aimed. He killed it with one shot — his very first deer. I photographed him with his trophy.

Then, the unthinkable happened. On December 10 of last year, a 22-year-old boy named Coleman Hagadorn was killed in a hunting accident on Turkey Hill Road in Milan. The news made me jittery, and many days passed before I saw Nick again, in town. I asked where they'd been. "Did you hear about the hunting accident?" he asked. Of course I had, I told him. He explained that he and his friends had often hunted with this group, and if they had not been busy that day would have been out hunting with them then as well. Now, they were too upset about the accident to hunt. A few days later on my driveway, he appeared very reticent, not like himself at all, and he was alone. "I'm going to see if I can hunt today. I'll come talk with you before I leave," he said, but did not come back.

A couple of months later later Nick was able to talk to me about the accident. He said that Coleman's father, Jeff Hagadorn, had taken Nick "under his wing" back in 1986, when Coleman was just two, and they had hunted together ever since. "I shot my first big buck with Jeff," Nick said. "When you drive for years, you learn which tree people are hiding behind,' Nick added. He explained that a hunting party is constructed of two parts — the drivers and the sitters, and that it's essential that every hunter be familiar with everyone else's positions. The drivers, unarmed, compel the deer toward the sitters. The sitters remain hidden behind trees or other blinds, ready to shoot. The direction the drivers take and the positions of the sitters are usually consistent year after year.

"What happened that day, said Nick, "is they were short of men, so they constructed it in a way that was not familiar to them, and they weren't exactly sure where everyone was... No one knew young Coleman was behind a particular tree," and some of the drivers were armed.

Captain Paul Piastro, of the Deputy Sheriff's office, who has hunted with these same men over the years, but not that day, told me that such tragic accidents can happen when a drive is not well planned.

Nick estimates that today, although overall the number of hunters and fishers has decreased, there are many more hunters within specific areas — 40 to 50 people hunting in a four mile radius, where ten years ago there would have been maybe one to five. "There's an unsafe feeling, not knowing who's in the woods and they don't know you're there." One of the reasons for the decrease in hunters is the threat of catching Lyme Disease since the advent of warmer winters, with little or no frost on the ground.

At the end of last January, Nick and the other members of the Gun Club raised $600 at their fundraising venison dinner and donated the money to Marist College in honor of Coleman Hagadorn. No charges were pressed in the case save for one of trespassing. Coleman Hagadorrn's parents believe his death was a tragic accident. For Nick, it's especially important to him that little Anthony not become afraid to hunt; hunting with your father and friends is a time-honored tradition. Nick, Anthony and Jack are planning to be back hunting our property again this fall.