It's hard to concentrate on anything subtle in the woods when the gray squirrels are conducting their own NASCAR race in a sea of fallen oak leaves.

Around and around and around they go, one after another, a high-speed, two-squirrel race that starts on the ground and ends 50 feet overhead. It looks like a cross between oval-track Olympic cycling and off-road rally racing.

Eventually -- mercifully? -- I find a way to block out their invasive sounds, and my heart stops pounding with the onset of "Buck Fever" every time I hear the shuffling of dry, dead leaves below the feet of the squirrels. Soon I hear only the breeze as it whooshes its way through bare tree limbs and the occasional drumming of partridge wings in the distance.

When I finally do see her, she takes my breath away.

Like I've been told a hundred times over, and like I've read more times than that in journals and in print, it's very much like the appearance of a ghost. No sign, no purposeful footsteps becoming louder as they inch closer. No blurry object on the horizon coming into focus as it walks toward me.

In fact, the mature doe made no sound at all. I'm not even sure how I saw her. It takes every ounce of my being to remain completely still as I sit on the ground, nestled in a stack of fallen tree limbs. I have a mental checklist that I run through, aware that I'm as fidgety as a 5-year-old hopped up on half a bucket of Halloween candy. And that's before the morning coffee. I concentrate on my legs, my arms, my head -- trying not to move anymore than I have to.

To some, scanning the woods with only their eyes is a gift. For me, it's virtually impossible, and I know every time I hear the liner of my hunting jacket brush against the bottom of my ear or scrape against the back of my neck, I'm working too hard. Too hard to remain undetected by deer.

But when I peer to my right, her body is so close that I swear I could reach out and touch it. I move only my eyes to watch her, seeing just the body and not her head, which has been obscured by two small trees standing between us. She takes two gentle steps, and I'm shocked by disbelief when I see that she has no antlers given how big she is.

And I'm sure that there are no antlers, too, because she is less than 20 yards away.

It's like something from a DiMillo's commercial -- remember the "halftime at DiMillo's" ads on local television years ago, where you only saw half of the narrator's face? She and I look at each other, one eye to one eye. I slowly move my head to the other side of the trees, and I'm just as surprised when she moves hers, too. We look at each other with our other eyes for a moment.

I slide my head back across to the other side of the trees, and she does, too. And now we're staring at each other, her ears spread so far in search of a giveaway on my behalf that she looks almost alien. I do not move an inch -- my heart pumping out of my chest as I try not to blink, or breathe, or sweat. The 30 seconds seems an interminable amount of time.

There is no doe permit in my pocket; I never entered the lottery. After not seeing a deer all of last season, I figured -- now infamously -- that it wasn't necessary. Now I'm less than 90 minutes into this season and laughing at myself for my naivety.

Scent must give me away, or else the doe is simply no longer curious. With a start, the white of her tail flashes into the air and she bounds off, covering the 40 yards to the edge of the clearing with ease. But she stops.

She turns her body back to face me, though I still have not moved. She pounds her front hoof to the ground and lets out a vicious snort. Again she snorts.

And again. Followed by another hoof-pound.

I feel like I'm 10 years old again, being scolded by somebody else's mother for tracking mud through their living room after tromping in out of the rain. The doe continues to snort, so much so that I stop counting when she gets to a dozen.

Finally, defiantly, she stares me down one final time. One second, two seconds ... five seconds.

Her tail flashes in the air and she's gone again, bouncing off down a trail that leads into the deep woods.

Soon, my heart rate drops to a normal level. I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. I close my eyes to replay the scene and, when I open them, all is as it was before I saw the doe.

I look to the right, knowing already that there won't be another deer there. Like a ghost she appeared, and like a ghost she was gone.

And the squirrels resume their racing.

Travis Barrett -- 621-5648

tbarrett@centralmaine.com