by Dylan Dozier
Thirty minutes before sunrise, he slid his kayak off the mud-slick bank of the Sabine River and watched it disappear into the kind of darkness that swallows even a grown man’s confidence. The Old Sabine Bottoms sat around him like a sleeping giant — towering hardwoods, creeping fog, and a silence so complete he could hear his own uncertainty tapping behind his ribs. He was alone, save for the cackle of a wood duck somewhere upriver and the complaint of the hull scraping over roots and debris.
He had hunted whitetails his whole life, but never like this — never from a kayak, never in a place where getting lost felt less like a possibility and more like an inevitability. He told people he chose the kayak because it offered “quiet access to the inaccessible,” but the truth was simpler: he wanted to feel small again. He wanted to earn the deer in a way that felt older than himself.
And so here he was, pushing off from the bank like a man late to his own awakening.
The river’s initial calm was deceptive. Fifty yards downstream, the kayak spun once, twice, then straightened as though the Sabine had decided he could stay. He paddled slowly, the bow carving through the fog in steady half-moons. Cypress knees rose from the water like the arthritic fingers of something ancient. Every sound — his breathing, the drip off his paddle, the shuffle of unseen animals on the bank — felt magnified.
He wasn’t sure whether to feel brave or idiotic. He settled on both.
By the time the first streak of orange split the treetops, he had drifted into the deep quiet of the Bottoms — that messy, mysterious country where the river seems to move in all directions and the trees grow with a kind of stubborn, ancestral pride. Somewhere under his seat, a dry bag held his bow, release, and a lunch that would inevitably be eaten before 10 a.m. if his nerves didn’t settle.
He paddled another quarter mile before pulling onto a sliver of sandbar. He stepped out carefully, knowing the Sabine mud would happily swallow a boot if given the chance. From there, he dragged the kayak into a thicket of buttonbush and felt a familiar anxiety prick the back of his neck — that moment when the river is no longer an escape route but something behind you, something you’ve committed to outrunning.
It didn’t help that the trail ahead of him seemed specifically designed to test the faith of men who pretend not to be claustrophobic.
The Bottoms weren’t exactly built for walking. The ground alternated between gumbo clay and leaf-littered muck, and every deer trail seemed determined to lead him into the most inhospitable clusters of greenbrier and palmetto. He ducked under limbs, stepped over roots, wiped cobwebs from his face, and muttered curses so quiet they sounded like prayers.
He thought of his father — the man who taught him to bow his neck and push forward, even when forward looked like the wrong direction. It was his father who put a rifle in his hands, who taught him that hunting wasn’t about killing but about knowing. Knowing the land. Knowing the habits of animals. Knowing the sound of your own breath when something worth shooting steps into view.
But today was different. Today was a conversation with a river.
He walked until the sky brightened, until the fog burned off and the light slanted through the hardwoods with the kind of golden softness that makes you forget you haven’t seen a deer. He set up near a fallen oak, its roots exposed like the spine of a whale, and waited.
Waiting had never been his strong suit, but hunting demanded it, and he had spent years learning how to sit still long enough for the world to reveal itself. The forest woke around him — squirrels arguing about nothing, woodpeckers tapping like they were fixing something important, a distant hog grunting its displeasure with the universe.
Hours passed. He glassed the edges of a slough thick with smartweed and swamp privet. He saw movement twice, neither of which belonged to a deer: first a raccoon waddling with the confidence of a creature certain he owned the place, then a pair of teal cutting low across the water.
The lack of deer didn’t surprise him. The Bottoms weren’t the kind of place that rewarded impatience. They were a proving ground. A reminder that nature didn’t care about your plans, your optimism, or the stories you intended to tell.
By noon, he had eaten his lunch — early, as expected — and questioned every decision that had led him to that exact patch of ground. He imagined easier mornings: ladder stands on familiar leases, coffee in an actual thermos instead of a dented metal bottle, roads that didn’t require paddles or prayers.
But easier wasn’t why he came.
He came because something about the Sabine, with its slow bends and stubborn mystery, felt like the childhood he’d outgrown too quickly. He came because the river reminded him of the old stories his father told — stories about days when men waded through swamps before sunrise and came home muddy, cold, hungry, and triumphant.
He came because every hunter eventually returns to the place that makes him feel small.
And that is where the deer found him — not in a moment of readiness but in a moment of reflection, just as he was wondering whether a kayak hunt was nothing more than a foolish attempt at nostalgia.
A flicker. A step. A brown body slipping through the understory like a rumor.
He froze. The doe materialized first, then another behind her, and last — exactly as he hoped, prayed, and half-expected — the buck: gray-faced, thick-necked, moving with the deliberate grace of an animal that owns nothing and fears nothing.
His breath steadied. His mind quieted. Time shrank to the space between his heartbeat and the deer’s next step.
He didn’t shoot.
The moment wasn’t meant for that.
The deer crossed the slough and disappeared into the timber as silently as they came, leaving him with a full chest, steady hands, and a knowing smile. Some days the river gave. Some days it only taught.
By late afternoon, he walked back to the kayak with tired legs and an easier heart. The Sabine drifted him downstream, carrying the weight of his gear and the lightness of his thoughts.
He returned to the bank empty-handed but fuller than when he left — which, to him, meant the hunt had been enough.
The kayaks. The river. The Bottoms. The deer.
They had all done their part.
And he would be back.
