red dawn rose from behind the tree-line across the swamp. as the big buck walked out carefully into an open space, he wondered if he would feel pain when he died.
he remembered how it felt when a coyote tore away a piece of his right ear in his third year. he thought about how he drove his antler-tine into its eye socket and through its brain to the back of its skull. he could still hear the terrible final sound the coyote made. that was the sound of pain.
he crumpled and fell silently to the ground when the bullet passed through him. there was a sharp pain, like a bee 