Excitement in the neighborhood

Like the next door neighborhood.

I had just sat down by the fire to read when I heard what sounded like gunfire. Was it my chimney popping after so long with no use? Pretty loud for that.

Then I heard it again. Still, I thought it unlikely that someone would be firing a gun right here in this quiet southeast Boise community. At the third shot I was up and out my front door. Two uniformed men, one holding what looked like a rifle, sort of, were in my neighbor's yard, looking at an animal in the snow. Clearly, whatever it was, the one officer had shot it.

"Is that a raccoon?" I asked. "No," said the smaller officer, the one without the gun, "it's a deer."

Sad, I thought. Out loud I said, "Too bad it's not a raccoon."

The smaller man said, speaking to the other officer, "It's still breathing. But it's bleeding out of its eye."

"Are my neighbors not home?"

"They're home," said the big guy.

"Is this why their dog has been barking so much?"

"I wouldn't know," he said, a bit rudely.

I figured the deer was injured or they wouldn't have shot it. We have deer in the yards from time to time without incident, so I said, "Okay, I have just one more question. Why did you shoot it?"

The smaller man answered, "Because its intestines were hanging out, and one of its front legs is broken."

Just then my neighbor came into his yard, but I don't think the officers saw him.

"Ma'am," said the big guy, "you'd better go in the house now. I'm going to shoot it one more time, and I don't want you over here."

You know how it is, some people you like immediately, and some you don't. Him I didn't.

I didn't move, because I was on my own porch. And I don't like being told what to do, especially on my own property, and especially by people I don't think I like very much. Under my breath I muttered, "Are you going to aim it at me?"

"Go in the house now, ma'am."

I went in, and he fired another shot.

All is quiet out there now. No one is in the yard, except the dead deer, lying crumpled in the snow by my neighbor's front fence. I wonder whose job it is remove the dead deer. And when.