I was on my daily pilgrimage to the ocean, driving north along the bluff above the water in Wellfleet. It was the dimming end of a silver-skied November day, and I had my windows closed tight against the chill, the heat blowing a loud steady gust onto my feet. The Shins were on the radio, and I sang along in a voice that seemed to me harmonious — as long as I had the volume way up. That’s when I saw him.
He emerged past that crest of Gross Hill, just before Ocean View Drive drops steeply into Newcomb Hollow. There’s a stop sign there that at this time of year I interpret to mean “slow down a little.” Today, I pushed a warm foot on the brake pedal and came to a full stop, letting my eyes wander through the purple lacework of huckleberry underbrush.
I saw how the trunks of oaks and pines, in gently curving lines, wove a forest background through which slivers of sky shone through. And just at the edge of it, a slight movement, then a piece of the winter fabric shifted, and the deer stepped onto the gray asphalt.
He was large, but he walked weightlessly on taut, delicate legs, sniffing the air with his velvet nostrils. He was aware of me, but he did not seem afraid. His body was the color of the woods; each hair of his coat a fiber pulled from the forest and sewn into a living collage. He seemed made of the rusty brown of dry, curled oak leaves, the black of furrowed pine bark, the gold of twisting blades of sedge, the maroon of the huckleberry. He paused mid-crossing and looked at me, his eyes black and still as kettle ponds.
The sounds of my truck felt unbearably jarring now. I shut the engine off. The music and heat went silent. I rolled down the windows, let the cold air sweep in, and watched him in the newfound quiet.
He turned back toward the woods, and in three graceful steps reached the far edge of the road and returned soundlessly into his surroundings, rejoining the image he had broken through moments before. My eyes strained to follow him as he moved deeper into the tapestry of the woods, stirring nothing as he passed.
Alone again, I sat still, looking out the window, my eyes resting on the place where the deer had disappeared. I wanted to stay in this fragile place but felt my pulse move within my body and reached for the key.
The clutch pedal sank with a squeak, and the engine exploded to life. No longer in the woods, I was back in the glass and plastic and metal of my truck. Gears spun, pistons fired, the music roared from the speakers, and a hot gust of air filled the cab. I turned the music and the heat off to try to preserve some fragment of the stillness. Suddenly, I felt self-conscious, embarrassed, even, by my separateness from the world of the deer — a piece torn long ago from the forest fabric.
