Myra Greer waved from her front porch as the Jordans bumped up the gravel road past her house. Emily Jordan leaned across her husband, Dan, to toot the horn. Their boys, Hank and Todd, waved wildly from the back seat, clearly excited by the prospect of fall break and a Disney cruise.

Emily had sounded almost apologetic about the trip. “I know how independent you are, Myra, but we hate to be away for a whole week and leave you alone in the boonies with no one close by to help.”

“I’ve lived in the boonies 74 years,” Myra said. “I’ll be fine.” She ignored the word alone. Myra’s husband, Jimmy, had died in March, seven months back. Since then, Myra had to ask Dan’s help only once, to fetch an awkwardly large bin of summer linens from the attic. She could handle most everything she needed herself.

Barely five feet tall and stocky, Myra exuded strength of character. Her square-jawed face had seen too much sun, and her bright, watchful blue eyes flashed sparks when she got riled. Jimmy used to quote Shakespeare about her, proud to tell anybody they met, “‘Though she be but little, she is fierce.’” He’d bought her a sweatshirt with that very quote on it, and how he had laughed when she unwrapped it and shook it out. “That’s you, Hot Shot,” he said, because she had a sharp tongue and didn’t mind giving him hell, big and solid as he was.

Myra went inside, picking at the dried oatmeal she’d dropped on her shirt. At the kitchen sink, she watched through the back window as three small birds, probably sparrows, fluttered in the birdbath. The second week in October. The hummingbirds had flown south a week earlier.

Myra’s house felt unusually insulated that afternoon. Even when the ATVs stayed parked on the weekend, there would usually be a lawn mower or weed-eater or leaf-blower operating at the Jordans’, nearly always mixed with the sound of shouting boys. Much as she liked the Jordans and enjoyed the boys—surrogates for the children and grandchildren she and Jimmy never had—Myra looked forward to a peaceful week.  

She and Jimmy had owned 35 acres before he retired from farming. They had sold off the bulk of the acreage, retaining only a two-acre island bounded on the east by the Jordans’ kitchen garden and on the west by a wide, patchy stand of pines and scrub that screened the house from the main road. Behind the red brick ranch on the south, a narrow tract of woodland separated the yard from what had once been their largest field. The Greers kept the woods as a buffer and sold the rest to Paul Stafford, a Virginia Beach man. Jimmy said Stafford had patched together nearly 100 acres as a hunting preserve.

“He’s welcome to it,” Jimmy said after the closing. “My days on a tractor are done.”

Myra approved of his retirement. Even the healthiest young farmers sometimes died when a tractor tipped over, a cable snapped, or a chainsaw struck a knot in a downed tree. Jimmy, at 70, was neither young nor particularly healthy. Watching him climb down from the John Deere, visibly less able than he’d been the year before, had tested Myra’s patience. The breaking point came on a spring day two years back, when she returned home from a haircut and looked out the back window to see what Jimmy was up to. As she feared, the tractor barn door stood open, and the tractor was gone.

She’d walked outside to get a view of the field and saw Jimmy’s bright yellow feed store cap on top of a furrow. She froze, scanning the field for the tractor, and finally spied it puttering along the far end. Jimmy saw her, waving with his usual cheerfulness, and mimed how the wind had blown the cap off.

Myra walked out to fetch it, and when Jimmy came in for lunch, she said, “I don’t care if you keel over out there, since it looks like that’s your plan, but don’t think I’m going to keep messing up my good shoes walking in the mucky field to collect your belongings.”

Jimmy had laughed and given his stock response. “I don’t mind dying with my boots on.”  

Myra had often wondered what she’d do if Jimmy did die with his boots on, in the yard or field, or walking to the mailbox. Ought she hold his hand until the EMTs came, or better to fetch a bedsheet and cover him? Some nights she thought through these scenarios (should she run to the house to call 911, or set up a yell to get the Jordans to call?). Myra never could decide on the right course of action or in what order things should be done, but she began charging her cell phone religiously and remembered to keep it in her pocket.

One day, she told Jimmy, “If you get yourself killed out there in the field through your own pig-headedness, I’m not even going to blink. Going to shovel dirt on you where you land and dust off my hands.”

“Better shovel lime on me, Myra, else the stench will drive you from home.”

No matter how many times Myra told him she wouldn’t care if he got himself killed doing something stupid, it never appeared to hurt his feelings. And in the end, Jimmy had died quietly in his sleep on a cold, dark morning in March—a death she couldn’t have foreseen, nor blame on recklessness.  

***

Myra had first noticed the deer in the weeks following Jimmy’s death. Two mamas and three younger ones emerged from the edge of the woods near dusk, venturing into the flower beds.

Maybe the deer had always come like that. In the past, she didn’t stare out the kitchen window like she did now. When Jimmy was farming and later when he was mowing or doing outdoor work, she mostly looked out to see where he was, what he was up to, and whether she should go look for him. After he died, her window-watching had no definite purpose, and often she stood there long enough to see the deer step carefully from the tree shadows, like young girls in their first high-heeled shoes, looking and looking, before finally dropping their heads to graze. Myra learned not to look at the deer directly. They seemed to sense her attention and bolt back to the cover of the woods. She became adept at watching them so delicately that they remained unaware of her presence.

***

Sunday morning. Myra drove to Poplar Grove Friends Meeting. This was her favorite season for coming to meetings, when the square white meetinghouse stood in a soft golden haze of autumn poplar trees. She sat next to Betsy, a traveling nurse, and joined the usual loud buzz of catching-up.

“What do you hear from your brother?” Betsy asked. She had met Myra’s brother, who lived in Oregon, when he traveled home for Jimmy’s memorial. Myra suspected Betsy had taken a shine to him, and sure enough, Betsy added, “Hasn’t he ever thought about moving back this way?”

“He’s doing fine. At least, I haven’t heard different, and there’s no need for him to come back here on my account.” Her younger brother was the last family she had in the world, but Myra preferred him at a distance. She didn’t want to know about every health scare, preferred not to witness signs of memory loss or feebleness. Out of sight, she could assume all was well until informed otherwise.  

The volume in the meetinghouse faded to quiet. Myra closed her eyes and sank into silent worship like easing into a warm tub of Epsom salts. No roomful of people could maintain complete silence, and Myra appreciated the rustle of shifting bodies, sniffs, and throat-clearings—signs of life that demanded neither her attention nor concern.

***

Monday midday. Myra put away her groceries and ate a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich before walking out back to check on her wandflowers. Walking after a meal, Betsy said, helped regulate blood sugar. Myra had planted the flowers early in the fall, loving their whimsical flung-out wands with dancing petals on the ends, for all the world like pink fairies on a mobile. The fairy petals had dropped now, but the plants seemed hearty. She straightened, taking a deep breath of the mild, sweet air, scented with damp leaves and woodsmoke.

Tuesday morning. Myra awoke to a cool morning, with mist entangled in the tree branches. She raised the shades in the living room, surprised to see the Jordan boys had raked up a pile of leaves on her front lawn. No, the Jordans weren’t home. Slowly, the illusion of a leaf-pile became the reality of a dead white-tailed doe, one despairing eye glazed and fixed on the sky.

Myra threw a cardigan over her nightgown and walked down the driveway, stepping carefully on the gravel in her thin-soled slippers. This time of year, deer were often hit by cars. Myra lived in dread of hitting one herself. With the Jordans away, there’d been no traffic, and she worried the deer might be diseased.

Call Betsy. As a nurse, Betsy might know what to do. But that was silly. The deer didn’t need a nurse, Myra thought, it needed a hearse. Who provided hearses for large animals? Myra looked at the tawny body of the doe from a few yards away, then turned back toward the house. A breeze, colder than any she’d felt since the previous winter, snapped her hair into a flag against her brow. Oh, why must the Jordans be gone now? Dan could have carted the deer away in the front-end loader of his small tractor.

Back inside, Myra smoothed her disarranged hair as she walked from room to room. She needed to comb her hair properly, drink her coffee, eat breakfast. Instead, she looked out the kitchen window. As if to prove all was well, two cardinals shared space at the bird feeder. Beyond the yard, the increasingly leafless trees gave glimpses into the field and the top of a deer stand on the opposite side.

She pulled the state Wildlife Commission calendar from the kitchen drawer. Jimmy had sent off for one each year since Paul Stafford had set up his hunting preserve, so they’d know when they could expect to hear gunshots. There: Archery season ran until the end of October. An ill-placed arrow might have sent the panicked animal running until it collapsed in Myra’s yard.

Maybe she should send a message to Stafford. He had given Jimmy his number and usually sent word when he arrived. She pulled out her phone and picked out a text message. A whooshing sound sent the message flying. Possibly, Stafford had gone hunting early and might still want to claim the deer.

Myra ate breakfast and washed her dishes before starting a load of laundry. She scarcely had enough clothes to bother, but she wanted to keep busy and avoid the front windows. Her phone remained silent. Well, she’d drive to the library. If she didn’t hear from Stafford in the next hour or so, she’d ask the librarian to help her find information on carcass removal. As she headed out, Myra turned her head away from the still form on the lawn. Pretend it’s a leaf-pile.

She summoned up her so-called fierceness and resolve. After all, this was nature, not a calamity, nothing to get all torn up about. Deer got shot and hit by cars every day at this time of year. If she cared about a single deer, where would it end? Would she stop setting traps for the mouse in the garage? She couldn’t care about every creature on earth.

The branch library, small and familiar, lifted Myra’s spirits as soon as she walked through the door. She sank into a comfortable chair to read the latest issue of Southern Gardener and let the sound of computers, a copy machine, the shuffling of books on and off shelves, and low voices wash over her in a pleasant hum.

Her hour at the library did Myra good, to the point that she forgot to ask about carcass removal information. She remembered when she saw the deer, a solid heap of silence, still in her yard. Myra looked away and punched the button to open her garage door with such force that it started up, wavered, and went down again. She pressed the button a second time, and the door rose smoothly.

She knew she had to take some sort of action. If Paul Stafford were at his hunting cabin for bow season, he might not be checking his phone. Myra would go look for him. The quickest way to his cabin was across the field by foot. She’d have to wear a bright color lest she be shot herself. She changed into gardening pants and a pink sweatshirt, slipped into her oldest sneakers. On her way out the door, she took Jimmy’s bright yellow cap from its hook and popped it onto her head.

Myra walked through the boundary of woods and stepped onto the old field. Left uncultivated, the field now hosted high orchard grass, tall pokeberries, and stiff brown stalks of milkweed and goldenrod. Flattened areas among the grasses showed where deer had rested; she saw their walking trails like a maze through the grasses. Thank goodness for Jimmy’s yellow cap. Short as she was, without it, Myra feared she’d resemble the backside of a white-tailed deer.

She hadn’t walked out this way in a good two years or more, and she liked having a walk with a purpose. She’d have to tell Betsy about her hike; it would make her proud. She was always nagging Myra to get outside and walk more. Now she understood why, as her heart rose at the sight of the afternoon sun on the golden field grass. Look at me, Jimmy. I’m walking the field, she thought.  

Her pleasure was short-lived. Stafford’s Land Rover wasn’t at the cabin, and no smoke rose from the chimney. Myra banged her fist against her thigh in frustration as she turned to walk back home. The deer was her problem, and hers alone.

By the time she reached the back door, she had decided to consult the Wildlife Commission calendar again. Surely it would have a number to call for situations like this. Sure enough, she found two numbers for reporting dead animals in the county, one for private property owners and another for animals on public land. Myra dialed the first number and stated her business. Thank goodness she wouldn’t have to wait long: the company already had a truck in the vicinity. The dispatcher took her name, address, and phone number, and said, “Since it’s a full-grown deer, it will cost $150 to remove it. I can take your credit card when you’re ready.”

“Hold on.” Myra thought the fee a little steep, but she didn’t really care how much it cost when it came down to it. With the matter settled, her confidence rose. What a blessing that the truck could come right away! She could put the whole thing out of her mind, because the dispatcher had said Myra need not even come out when they arrived.

She ate a handful of cashews. She’d forgotten to eat lunch, so she’d start thinking about putting together an early dinner. Myra looked inside the refrigerator, but couldn’t focus on its contents. She closed the door and went into the living room to stand by the front window, where she looked and looked, a coil of tightness rising in her chest. Abruptly, Myra went to the garage and fetched a blue tarp.

The deer gazed blindly at the sky. Myra snapped the tarp like she was putting the top sheet on a bed, and let it settle on the body. The deer remained quiet; of course, being dead, it had no way to be but quiet.

Myra had known, before opening her eyes on that cold March morning, that Jimmy was dead by the absolute quiet. Always when she awoke in the night or first thing in the morning, she listened for his breathing. Jimmy breathed like he lived, loud and rough, a sound both familiar and comforting. She lay frozen, knowing he wasn’t up and about. Jimmy had no talent for tip-toeing or closing doors softly. Her chest tightened, and she moved her left hand under the covers until she felt the chill of his bare arm beneath layers of covers—sheet, blanket, coverlet. Only then did she open her eyes to stare at the ceiling, blindly.

After two deep breaths, Myra worked her hand beneath Jimmy’s and closed her eyes again. There was no rush to call anyone. She wanted a moment to take in what had happened, to understand how totally her world had changed.

Myra lowered herself to the ground near the deer. She regretted this move immediately. Not only was the ground cold, but getting back up would be a trick. What had she been thinking? Not like the deer cared whether she sat there or not, but Myra shook this thought away. This deer was hers, and hers alone. She would sit with it.

A truck lumbered down her road, the diesel engine rough and loud, and idled in front of Myra’s house. Two young men swung down from the cab. As they walked toward her, Myra said, “I hope it doesn’t cost extra to hoist up an old woman,” and she had to smile at their laughing faces, grateful for the gentle hands that reached down to lift her up.

---

Vicki Winslow earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. In 1995, she won the Marguerite de Angeli Prize from Bantam Doubleday Dell for her novel for middle readers, Follow the Leader, published in 1997. In 2011, her novella The Conversion of Jefferson Scotten was included in a collection of three novellas published by Short Sharp Shock. Her work has appeared in online journals and in print editions of The Amherst Review, Friends Journal, The Alaska Quarterly Review, Memphis magazine, and cotton boll/The Atlanta Review.