Nobody shot it

[horst]

Me, dad and my brother are late muzzleloading.today on the way to town dad seen a nice 8 pointer lay down in a fenceline with 3 does.We talked it over, decided to try a little drive and see what happened.It worked out pretty good, dad and my brother got behind the deer and spread out in a fenceline, i waited till they were in position and snuck down the fenceline the deer were in.walked right up on em lying there on the other side of the fence behind a thicket but couldnt see what got up or even attempt a shot.I stopped and waited, pretty soon heard two shots from the other fenceline.I get back up, walk over the hill and see dad and my brother, and a small buck standing right in between em.The buck staggers off and lays down on a hill in the corn.I couldnt figure out why theyd shot such a little buck but I could see it lying there so I snuck up closer to it, it jumped p, ran aways and layed back down.Now I see dad and my brother sneaking down the fenceline towards the buck.He gets up, someone shoots and misses, he runs aways and lies down.This goes on for over an hour, Im still on the far side of the deer and havent had a chance to talk to them yet.Finally I sneak in while the bucks lying on the other side of a snow drift, I get about 30 yrds from the drift, motion my brother to move closer and when the buck gets up and runs shoot him, the bullets a little high but right in the kill zone.I follow the deer towards the road, watch him lie down again, and about that a friend of mine drives by, I flag him down and get a ride the mile back to my truck.I get the truck and drive back over just in time to see dad shoot the buck one last time while it lay there to put him outta his misery.

we finally get together when I drive the truck out into the field to load the deer up.Dad asks me why I shot such a little buck?I tell him I didnt shoot it, I just seen it lay down up there and thought they had shot it.Niether one of them had a gun loaded when this buck stumbled into our drive, i thought I was chasing thier cripple, they thought I had crippled it and nobody was happy about having to tag it.Finally I said **** with it, I got the knife outta the truck and started to gut it.What came out of this deer Ive never seen the likes of, there was blood and crap and puss just boiling outta the small hole I made with the knife, I opened it a bit further and it was like an eruption, the smell was terrible and I couldnt even finish gutting it.It was 10 times worse then any gut shot deer I ever smelled.We got to looking and there wasnt any bullet holes in it, other than the two I mentioned, and he was in bad shape before either one of those shots happened.

Near as we can tell he had been hit by a car awhile ago and just happened to stumble into the middle of our drive.his guts were blown up, he had infection in them, and what came out is really impossible to describe.No idea how long he had been running around like that but needless to say he wasnt edible and we had to leave him lay where he fell.But it was pretty amusing when it finally dawned on everyone that we hadnt shot the deer to begin with, he wasnt even with the ones i chased to them, he came in after they had left from the opposite direction.So we wound up spending half a day chasing a crippled deer nobody had actually crippled

[VermontHunter]

Well horst I'm sure you feel as I do, the time wasn't a total loss atleast the deer was put down has humanly as possible.
But see your point to the humor of how this deer stumbled into your drive un-noticed and all three of you suspecting the other of the shot..
Too bad for all that wasted meat tho..but the deer is no longer in agony.