It wasn't barefoot weather anymore, but I was in a barefoot mood. Off visiting, at the top of the morning, I padded out to the back deck for a smoke.

I like the woodland view from that place, and I've always felt it was neglected by the natives. Quietly swinging the door closed behind me, I turned in place to survey it again - hills rising away from me, trunks of youthful trees, carpeting made from scattering years of many kinds of leaves in all directions.

I saw the remnants of half-abandoned projects, and the general infrastructure busy people leave strewn about in the parts of their places no one ever looks upon. All, or most, was just as it had been months before when last I'd looked upon it.

That time, I'd been alone. This time, I saw eyes.

I suppose, truth be told, I saw an eye - I was on the starboard broadside of the deer as she stood halfway up the nearest hill. With the leaves down, she had gotten herself exposed among the trees; how could she have known there would be something as different there as me, visiting at the top of a morning? I found myself freezing in place just to keep seeing her, from my toes on up, and it seemed to me that she did just the same.

Seconds passed as we took each others' measure. She was indeed a pretty one - looking as if she'd been taking good enough care of herself, well-fleshed-out, though God only knows what she was thinking. Me - well, I looked like me, except with morning hair and without shoes. She seemed curious about me - evaluative, perhaps - nonetheless.

I resolved to remain motionless, and simply let her do what she would do. She knew I was there, clearly enough; I decided to take no strange action, emit no unusual pheromones, and see if I would get clues to her as we went along.

After a time, she extended her right foreleg, and placed her hoof delicately in a new spot. She paused before shifting her weight forward, and paused again. Her left foreleg repeated the action. She moved like this, perpendicular to my line of sight, for half a minute, covering almost no ground. I moved nothing, except for my eyes.

Off her left flank, farther up the hill, I noticed then a younger deer. More adolescent than newborn, I suppose, given the time of the year. It managed to appear awkward without moving in any way. It stayed still, simply watching the deer I'd noticed first handle the situation that was me. As the distance between them grew, I hypothesized about why the moving one was moving the way that she did, but honestly, I had no idea.

She arrived, step by step and at last, in the middle of a disused trail that winds up over that hill, and slowly wheeled to her right until she faced me. No trees stood between her and me any longer, and I could see both of her eyes quite clearly; I suppose that's why I remember two eyes when I think back on what I saw. We stood together forever, just like that - me unmoving, still faced in a direction that now was between her and the young one.

I am not in this place to hunt, I thought, or felt, or somehow tried to express to her without twitching so much as a muscle. I am no threat to you or yours. I simply find you of interest. Show me more.

Deliberately, she raised her right foreleg, and brought it down in the same spot, less delicately than before. Her eyes were on me then, from some twenty-five yards away; there could be no mistaking that move was for me. Motionless we both remained then, for a time.

Her left foreleg came up, and then she distinctly stamped that hoof, back in its place. She knew I could not avoid noticing her, and indeed I was noticing her. I once would see deer often, before I moved to the city, but the movement of those muscles, the shape of her, was so rare and lovely a sight for me these days. I strove to make my scent carry my appreciation and benign intent to her across all the gaps between us. I did not move from my spot, however. I did not turn toward her, nor away from the other, wondering as the seconds filed past if perhaps I should.

Suddenly, she shook her head and snorted - the loudest sound of the day thus far. I locked my body into place against my reaction, perhaps a moment too late.

Bitch was callin' me out, and that enraged me. I had been so careful to do nothing to her.

I began to wonder what the collision would be like, when her nerve finally snapped or mine did, and we charged forth to meet midway. She was built for this place, with the advantage of position, but I was a tool-using carnivore with capabilities she could not even imagine. Without willing it, my lips drew back from my teeth, and my empty hands flexed ever so slightly. C'mon, dammit, let's make this interesting.

I realized what I was doing after a moment, and was ashamed. If I understood what was going on at all, that was not how I should pursue what was appearing before me. Best to try to communicate, to work with what I'd seen to perhaps see more. I made myself act, rather than react.

I raised my right foot, and brought it down firmly right where it had been. The wooden deck made a thud that sounded unnatural there among the trees. Perhaps there was a twitch from her, perhaps not. Either way, yet more seconds passed with us together, still motionless, and I got the sense that we had fairly begun a conversation. I did not turn toward her nor away, and she neither charged nor fled.

I raised my left foot then, and stamped as I had seen her do. The boom that bounced off those hills was quite loud then; I must have sounded more formidable than I was. Still, neither of us broke, and I know I was even more curious about what would happen next.

It was the young one, at last, that had had enough of the standoff, and needed to be someplace else. At the sound, I turned a bit, just in time to see the motion disappearing over the hill. Turning back toward the trail, I saw the last of my snorting friend as she left as well, taking a path that would place her back in front of the two of them. She made nary a glance behind as she too went over the crest and out of sight, both of them gone before I could have taken two steps to stop them. It happened at the first moment that my attention had been attracted away from the young one entirely. As permanent exits go, it was very nicely done.

I drew a long breath then, fumbling for my smokes. I thought back through what I'd seen and was glad of each picture in my mind's eye. Fleeting though the encounter was - perhaps minutes, when one counted up all the seconds - each momentary photo of her was lovely as she moved, as she thought. It seemed as though there was more than a token awareness of me in what she did. It was a good feeling, having connected with something so wild, so unexpectedly, and I smiled as I lit one more smoke.

By the time I'd ashed all the cigarette, though, I felt foolish. Ultimately, I know better than to think for a moment there was anything about me that set that off, beyond my presence. She was unique to the point of being incomprehensible in her approach, and she was certainly kind to me in what she did, but that shouldn't make me blunder about what brilliancy I'd seen from that wild creature on that day. I thanked that deer - silently, unmoving - for the lesson she'd brought back to my mind that day, the one I can never seem to learn.

Whenever a mother does anything, it's to make her baby safe. There are no other reasons for a mother, not really.

That's brilliant enough, after all; don't make of it more than it is. Move together as closely as you like, but you'll never understand what happens next unless you remember that it's not about you. Or her, for that matter.