Yesterday, I was saying hello to Topaz upstairs when I looked past her and saw a deer across the street. I ran down the stairs, shouting for Pete to grab a camera and run for the door. He did not ask why because I play for Team Crazy and he threw open the front door, camera in hand. A doe and two fawns came running toward us across a lawn. Almost invisibly, the doe and a fawn escaped the yard and bolted for the street. As Pete and I hit the sidewalk, he was snapping pictures as one of the fawns got caught behind the fence and panicked.
The fawn ran from us and toward us, over and over, and could not figure out how to get out. I was afraid it would try to leap the fence, but it didn’t. I hesitated. The doe stood on our side of the street, two yards down, with the other fawn. I thought, ‘I have to do something here before something very bad happens,’ but I had no idea what it would be.
I stepped out of the driveway and clicked my tongue the same way I do to get my cats’ attention. The fawn was making a pretty similar noise as it ran back to the corner. I stopped walking a safe distance away in the middle of the street and clicked my tongue until the fawn locked eyes with me. It realized there was no fence between us. A second later, the fawn sprinted around the edge of the fence and toward its mother. Then Pete and I went to the farmers market for fresh vegetables and wild ideas.
Odd footnote: while I was in the street, someone behind me was talking to her dog. I turned to look and recognized the dog as the one that lives directly behind us, so the only witness to my deer-whispering besides Pete was the neighbor we don’t speak to. That was amusing. I have no explanation for how she and the large dog walked past the doe and the fawn, as they must have. But how?