Yesterday I went for a walk because it was sunny and clear blue skies out, and I walked to where only I can walk and that just means on my street because the water in the back has melted and there’s no more ice bridge to the back 50. I walked down the old Cow Hough to see the river down by the hydro-electric plant, and hoo boy that stuff is running high. We got lots of rain and the consequent melt on Monday, and I’ve never seen it this high, the falls this white and raging. I hiked down the little hill and the water lapped furiously, filled with every kind of tree part, from logs to sticks, swirling in odd patterns, the center roiling away. I kept scanning the dark water’s surface, always thinking I would spot death, or someone fighting death in the rapids. But all was as it was.

I walked up and over to the other view point, because it is a better view of the falls. Slushy layers of ice with tire tracks in it lingered. I caught a whiff of something rank and pulled my scarf up over my nose. Fish? Old fish guts? I stood on the vista point, gathering in the rapids, and the smell grew stronger. My glance turned down to the hilly slope in front of me, and there was the answer: at least 4 or 5 deer carcasses, lumped one on top of each other, ribs bones splayed but legs and hindquarters still fleshed out. The hunter must have taken the center cuts and dumped the rest. It was awful to see, the sun shining on the flies that swarmed the heap. The roiling water below. The horrid smell.

Death is usually there, when you are looking, just not so very obvious.