A Body in the Trunk or Oh Lucy VI

Every year my husband and I went deer hunting on a family farm about 4 hours from home.  One year he got a doe on Sunday afternoon.  The processor near the farm was not open on Sunday so we had to bring the deer home on the roof of our Suburban.  It was unseasonably warm that year so we covered it with a tarp packed with ice.  That night he hung it in the garage and we planned to transport it to our local processor when he got home from work the next day.

Monday afternoon he called and told me that he had to work late and since it was so hot we would probably end up paying for its disposal.  Our family loved venison and the meat would really help keep the grocery bills down for the winter so I decided I had to try and save it.

It was hanging right above our chest freezer in the garage so I put a tarp over the freezer and tried to release the pulley rope slowly to gently lay it down.  I should have stopped right after several hundred pounds of dead weight crashed down onto the freezer but I was determined.

 The next step was to back the car up and pull the tarp and deer into the trunk.  Unbelievably, it worked but suddenly I knew it had all been too easy.  The deer was lying in the trunk with its legs sticking straight up.  I grabbed a leg to fold it down but it was then I realized that rigor mortis applied to deer too.  I could not close the trunk and I wasn’t about to drive to the processor like that.  I literally had to climb in with the dead body and push with all my strength to wedge its legs beneath the back of the trunk.  The legs were so stiff that the deer was locked into position by the tension.

 Game usually appeared at the processors in the back of pick-up trucks so when I told them it was in the trunk they seemed amused, until it took 3 of them to get it out because it was wedged in so tightly.  The best part was trying to convince my husband that I had actually managed to get it there by myself.  I don’t think he believes it to this day.