La Grange

La Grange

A story for the season

Shirley and I left Modesto, California early that October morning in the autumn of 2001. Our destination was Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite where, after a drive of 140 miles, we would find the trail that would take us to our destination, lower Cathedral Lake.
 
We followed rte 132 eastward out of town, and enjoyed the feel of the Mazda Miata as it swung through the turns while we motored over the rolling grasslands that lay between our home and the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. In thirty miles we reached the small town of La Grange, still asleep at this early hour, and slowly drove along the short main drag to where the road made a hard right and traveled uphill a short distance before turning sharply left. From here, the road quickly crossed an old narrow bridge and broke out into the open as it led through a barren stretch of rolling hills below Lake Don Pedro.
 
Coming to the top of a small rise, we notice four deer standing off the road to our left. There was a buck and three doe and they stood there perfectly still in a straight line, one behind the other. They looked like ceramic deer standing in a nursery. Soon we were through Coulterville and continued east on rural rte J-132 up to its terminus at rte 120, the main road leading into the park from the northwest.
 
When we reached Crane Flat in Yosemite, we lowered the top of my small two-seater sports car and followed the Tioga Road through the park towards the meadows.
 
Reaching our trailhead, we donned our boots and headed up the trail to enjoy a fine day at the lake that stood near the base of Cathedral Peak, with its iconic spires rising sharply into the sky. After a relaxing lunch, we napped along the shore of the lake before beginning our 4-mile hike back down to the car, where we changed out of our sweaty clothes and began the drive for home. It was almost dark as we set out for Modesto.
 
In an hour, we were past Coulterville and heading through the rolling rangeland of the eastern Central Valley. Due to the evening cold, we had the top up as we listened to music and talked; the miles went by and we navigated along on the deserted roads in the dark.
 
La Grange was just ahead, and I downshifted into fourth in preparation for the narrow bridge that lay beyond the rise before me. Then, like a freeze-frame in a movie, it was there, right in front of the car. There was no gradual run or bounding into the road, the deer just appeared in front of us, its large eye black, round, and shark-like.

I hit him without touching the brakes.

There was a flash of motion as he disappeared up and over the windshield, and I heard a gentle scraping sound travel backwards along the canvas of the convertible top.
 
Shirley yelled, and I slowed the car with the brakes. “You alright?” I asked.
 
“Yes,” she said. “Pull over and stop.”
 
It was pitch black out in the range country and the road was narrow with no shoulder; cars traveled along this stretch at a high rate of speed.
 
“It’s a dangerous place right here at the top of this rise. I’m pulling into town where I can look at the front end in some light first. I don’t want to stop on the side of the road if I’ve got a foreleg sticking through my radiator or some other sort of substantive damage.”
 
We crossed the bridge and negotiated the two turns leading into town. I stopped in front of a small market, already closed for the day that cast a light down on the road through the large windows. I left it in neutral with the engine running and we both got out of the car. There was some damage in the right front and the license plate was bent in half. The lights still worked and no untoward sound emanated from the engine compartment, just the smooth hum of the little 4-cylinder power plant. I remembered the scraping sound and looked on the convertible top, nothing.
 
“We need to go back,” said Shirley.
 
“Why?” I answered. I had visions of a bloody and thrashing scene. “There’s nothing we can do.”
 
“We can’t leave it in the road,” she answered. “What if a motorcycle hits it?”
 
That was my sweetheart, always trying to do the right thing, always thinking of others.
 
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”
 
We got in the car and headed back out of town, across the narrow bridge. We drove slowly on yet saw nothing. Long after the scene of the collision, I found a safe place and did a ‘Y’ turn in the road, and headed back towards La Grange. There was no deer, on or next to the road, and nothing to indicate what had just happened. This time we continued on through the town and, thirty minutes later, pulled into our driveway in Modesto.
 
The next day I called a 1-800 number to report the claim with my insurance company, Allstate. After I reported what had happened the previous night, the woman on the phone wanted to know why I hadn’t remained at the scene and called authorities. I pictured her sitting in an office in a city somewhere, with no appreciation for what the country was like out there. I told her there was nothing to gain by me waiting for someone out in that empty blackness, someone who may or may not come. I didn’t say anything to her, but I was aware that many people try to conceal an accident by saying that they had hit a deer. I did tell her that we searched for the deer after the accident but found nothing. She gave me the names of several auto collision businesses in the area that Allstate rated well for honesty and good work. I thanked her.
 
Later that day I drove to a shop recommended by Allstate to have a damage estimate written up as part of my claim. The claim adjustor opened the hood and began to go through his inspection, stopping occasionally to write things down on a form he carried on a clipboard. He stopped writing and stood erect, then pointed down to where the right front headlights sat mounted in the body. Wedged there in the seam was a two-inch piece of animal pelt. For some reason I thought of the police blotters I had occasionally read in the newspapers that described how detectives, when investigating a hit and run, would remove “some forensic evidence” from the damaged vehicle. I felt a chill go through me as I recalled the events of the previous night on the remote and dark two-lane blacktop.
 
“This has been a dry year and the mating season for deer is just beginning. It’s a bad time of year for deer accidents throughout the valley,” the adjustor said. “You’re lucky you weren’t hurt. Your car was low enough for the deer to go over the top, and not in through the windshield.”
 
In talking with others, I learned that this was indeed true. Many had their own tales of deer collisions on roads all over the valley. I also talked with several motorcyclists who lived in areas where they chose to no longer ride at night in October and November, a decision made in deference to the deer problem on the roads.
 
I knew now what they meant. My accident happened so fast and without warning, one moment the road was clear and the next the deer was there in front of me. I shuddered when I thought of riding a motorcycle at the moment of collision.

Two memories from that accident have remained with me over the years. One is the vision of that large black shark-like eye that suddenly appeared in front of me. The other is the soft sound made by some part of the deer as it gently scraped along the canvas of the convertible top before disappearing behind us in the night.

Laudizen King
Los Angeles
November 2008