For the better part of
a week, I’ve been driving around with the carcass of a Canada
goose in the bed of my pickup. It lies there with the spare tire,
the snow, the blue plastic box of emergency clothes, and an
assortment of crushed pop and beer cans from last summer.
Because of the recent cold weather, I haven’t been worried
about the goose’s inevitable decay, only about my own motives
in keeping it. For reasons that remain unclear, I’ve left the
carcass where it is, which is why every time I climb in or out of
the cab I see it, wings spread out three feet wide, the 18
vertebrae inside its sinuous neck curled back, twisting it like a
shank of thick rope.
It was just after first light and I
was leaving the house. From the border of my landlord’s
hayfield, two dark shapes bounded across the road. In the pale
light they looked like phantoms, hounds from the underworld
escaping on the dregs of the winter night. From the lead
dog’s mouth wheeled a fantastic shape, nearly as big as the
dog itself. With ill-concealed excitement, the dog shook the thing
in a ghostly dance and then dropped it in front of my tires.
I got out and turned it over: It was a nearly intact
Canada goose, its belly gnawed open to reveal a frozen tableau of
twisted viscera. For a moment I thought about leaving it for the
dogs, but then I changed my mind. I didn’t ask myself why; I
just put the dead bird into my pickup and then drove away.
Far from being repelled by the idea of carrying this dead
thing around with me, I remember thinking that it seemed like some
kind of gift. After all, it’s not often we get to handle the
wild creatures we share this planet with. As I write this, I
periodically go outside and look at the carcass, and except for the
unnatural twist of its neck, it looks almost like a whole bird
viewed from above in flight. And that’s a unique perspective.
Because I live on the edge of a wildlife reserve outside
of Stevensville, Mont., not a day goes by that I don’t both
see and hear geese. A flock of Canada geese honking high overhead
stirs a part of me much older than my 43 years. Whenever I see
migrating geese in their loose V-shaped formations, I imagine them
spelling out something eternal, perhaps even vital, against the
open fields of the sky. Given the beauty of these birds in motion
and the strong pull they have on the psyche, I can’t help
wondering why I’ve chosen to carry a dead one around with me
for days. It’s a question that intrigues me.
As I
look at the bird, I remember a similarly cold winter day, when I
sat, examining the carcass of a deer that had been hit by a car and
catapulted over the road bank. Then as now, I felt oddly
indifferent. The curious, scientific side of my brain took over,
and the slaughtered animal was no longer a deer, but a thing — no
different than finding a pretty stone on a beach. There’s an
unnerving Jekyll-and-Hyde aspect to this part of my character. It
shows up at other times, too, when I happily eat the venison, bear
meat or elk my friends bring over. But I don’t hunt and never
have, and so I feel as if, in one way or another, I live with
hypocrisy every day of my life.
As I touch the
bird’s long primaries and think about the navigational map in
its head, I decide to drive to the refuge and lay the carcass out
in the weeds. Let the ravens and the other scavengers find it.
Winter is a lean time of year; one kill more or less can make all
the difference. I have no idea if the dogs killed the goose or if
they simply stumbled upon it. To me it matters little. I’ll
give the bird back to those that need it most.
Charles Finn is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a
service of High Country News (hcn.org). He lives in Stevensville,
Montana.
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