The call came at 09:50.

Friend on his cell phone, reporting a deer struggling in the middle of the river, at the north end of the canyon. Looks like its back end isn't working. There's heavy traffic on that road this winter, trucks hauling out gravel for next summer's highway projects. And the big haul trucks aren't going slow. They killed a four-point buck at the south end last weekend.

Got his lymph glands in the freezer.

Okay. Not much we can do for a deer in a frozen river, except shoot it so it dies quick. But I'll check it out.

Arrive at 10:18. No deer.

Naturally.

Drive the canyon three times, and no deer in the river, or on either bank. Seen deer in deep water a few times, and they don't use the hind end much. Possible this one was just dog-paddling across. Head to the north end of the canyon to get a cell signal, and call my friend back.

He's changed his cell number. The new guy at the other end says they've had this number about a month.

Crap. Leave a message on their home phone, just to let him know I found nothing. As we prepare to head home, the heelers all disappointed because there is no safe place to get out and run in this narrow stretch of road, yet another gravel truck comes rumbling by. The fifth in 20 minutes.

This one stops.

I catch up and visit with the driver. Knows exactly what I'm doing out here, gives me specific directions to where the buck was.

He reports it was definitely hit, laying there beside the guardrail for the early part of the morning.

No place to park in that part of the canyon, so I walk into the canyon. On the narrow ledge of dirt just outside the guardrail. Watching for deer tracks as I go. Finally I get near the right spot, and soon find them. Fresh scuff marks in the dirt.

Under the guardrail.

That is not good. He was hit so bad he couldn't jump over the rail, and had to crawl under. Three little grey hairs snagged on a rock where the embankment drops steeply into the river confirms it.

A deer drug itself here. I follow the drag down the near-verticle drop of rock, asphalt chunks and willow stems to the river.

Yep, he went in.

And is no where to be seen. I expect he'll wash up on shore in the reservoir next spring.

Give the heelers a break at the picnic table in the middle of the canyon, and then home we go. Too depressed to sit at the desk again, we eat lunch, and then head out north. Up into the mountains, watching healthy, undrowned big bucks walking around with their noses shoved up under does' tails. Little bucks trying to do the same, but rebuffed every time. Antelope herds busily feeding themselves, ignoring the green truck now that food has become so much more a pressing issue. Bald eagles soaring together over the canyon at dusk, headed to the night's roost. And a bright pink sunset over the Haystacks.

The drowned deer nearly forgotten.

Today at the post office, I happen to time my visit with that of another friend. Turns out he had called in about the same deer yesterday. To dispatch, who relayed the message to an out-of-town warden.

This witness was through the canyon a little later than my caller. The buck was then dragging himself up on the opposite shore. An unattainable opposite shore, the only bridge being by the interstate, and then 10-12 miles of rough roads in snow-drifted hills.

He reports the back end looked to be busted pretty bad.

But the buck wasn't on the shore when I went through. He had to have been able to climb the steep rocky bank to get out of sight, up into the willows on the island.

So now, I don't know.

Perhaps he's dead in the willows already. Being recycled into magpie, fox and eagle flesh like the roadkill at the south end of the canyon.

Perhaps he's laying there still, waiting for an end. We've got a couple inches of new white today, with more expected tomorrow. If he's going to die of the injuries, that should speed the process, and numb the pain.

And perhaps he's not hurt so bad. If he can keep from the coyotes and lions, perhaps there's a chance.

But it's no longer in our hands.