4 AM. Eyes open. I stumble off to the bathroom, then hurry back to bed for that last hour of sleep. No dice.

I pick up my phone and a pair of glasses. Scroll, scroll. Put the phone back down, close my eyes. Roll, roll.

Up at five. Put the dogs out and water on for coffee. Let the dogs in. Drink my coffee. I’m feeling ill from lack of sleep.

It’s my day off. The plan was to take the ghillie suit for a walk, be at the access at first light, but I’m feeling so ill I don’t go down to feed the horses until the sun is rising.

Yesterday I was talking to a customer on her back porch when a doe stepped across the backyard. The doe squatted and peed, then stood there waiting. Sure enough, an 8 or ten point buck was following her. This gave me hope for my day off.

But that day is here, and now I’m late. Doesn’t matter.

At the access there’s a car already parked. Black, sun-faded, some dents, a late 90’s Chevrolet sedan. I’m guessing he’s hunting the power line. I take the maintenance road. I can hear small arms fire in the distance, I think from private property across the river. A quarter mile in I jump a deer. It’s time to slow down.

A few hundred yards further I hear more shots, hear the whir of the .22 caliber bullets burning through the air. I’m not in danger, but now I know the car at the lot is a pair of squirrel hunters, one with a .22, the other with a .410 shotgun. No sense continuing forward.

I retrace my steps considering what to do. Considering just going home, but I wanted the walk, needed the exercise. So I cut up a deep ravine that leads to the power line. I glass the shadows, take in the beauty of the fall colors. Enjoy the breeze cooling my sweat-soaked back. It’s going to be a warm day.

I proceed stealthily down the steep ridges, down to the tiny creeks where the hogs have rooted in the soft earth. Then stagger 200 feet back up the next ridge. Take a break. Cool off. Continue.

I do this twice before making it to the next trail, which I follow to where another ravine cuts a gash through a long ridge down to a bigger creek bottom. I pause to put my face mask and ghillie hood back on. I move more slowly. There’s wet ground here, churned by the feral hogs into mud wallows.

A hundred yards into the bottom I get to the creek crossing. I stand in the cool water and look around, taking in the foraging squirrels, the colorful leaves cascading down from the freshening breeze, the deer and hog tracks in the gray mud.

There’s a cellular trail camera mounted to a tree at chest height. I cross the creek, mug for the camera. My plan was to stand in the brush here, wait stream side for something to come through. It’s 11 AM. I’ll give it an hour. I position myself behind the camera, where I can watch for deer coming off the ridge.

After twenty minutes I’m impatient, fidgeting. But then I remember this is what I needed- to be outside, to hear the jays calling through the trees, smell the sun- warmed leaves, soak in the waning days of the warm season, to go on a long, quiet walk. I wait an hour.

On the way back home I stop in town at the local meat-and-three for lunch. Fried chicken, black-eyed peas, mac and cheese, a cornbread roll. Pecan pie.

I go home, check the horses. In the house I greet the dogs, and we head back to bed. I lay down and fall into a deep and blissful sleep.