GON Subscriber Exclusives

When the Cemetery Buck finished rubbing the oak, the tree was already dying. The straight, slender trunk of the turkey oak sapling had drawn the buck across a hundred yards of wiregrass prairie. It stood among other young trees and sapling stalks, but something about the one tree pulled at an instinctive cord, and the…

The Cemetery Buck drifted through the early morning September fog like a specter. It walked in smooth, silent strides and seemed to float over the dim trail without touching the earth. On its flanks and throat were the scabbed-over wounds left by the wild dogs more than a month ago, but otherwise its thickening coat…