We drove back to camp. The first thing we did when we got there was warm me up in a tent. I could barely close my hands, and I was shivering severely. Tom was concerned I was actually in the beginning stages of hypothermia, but I stopped shivering pretty quickly after I was out of the wind and next to a propane heater.

As soon as I could move my fingers completely, I went to work picking cactus needles out of my hand while it was still numb. They had been pushed in deeper since I initially sunk my hand into that damn cactus. When I was finally warm enough, we went back outside and walked to the skinning station which was 50 yards away from the camp. We met a few guys there, including some other hunters that had a small buck hanging on the skinning rack. My doe was considerably larger than the mature buck the boys had on their skinning rack. 

I requested to keep the hide and the skull, and also asked for all of the meat, so Mike sharpened a knife and went to work, starting at her rear. Before he hung my doe on the rack, Mike had to clean her rear of any and all waste. If any of that stuff gets to the meat, it could spoil it a lot quicker, and because we were at a campsite that would be gone in a few days, we had no access to a hose. 

Once he was done with that, Mike and another man picked up my doe by her legs and hung her upside down on the rack, and then hoisted her up so her whole body hovered a few inches above the ground. Mike continued to skin her starting at her thighs and working downwards. I watched intensely as the men worked on her hide, careful to not disturb or bloody the fur any further. It took 15 minutes to skin her, but once her hide was on the ground and covering her head, the men went to work on the meat. 

They were attempting the gutless method, meaning they'd leave the torso completely intact except for certain meats like the heart and liver. It took the guys another 20 minutes to cut her up enough to remove the torso. They carried the torso towards the dump truck, and Mike mentally and physically prepared himself to reach in for the liver and the heart. 

I'm not squeamish, but I stayed upwind from the torso as Mike reached inside, and I must admit I cringed and coughed a little bit. I just put my bandanna over my face and laughed to mask the discomfort. I'll spare you the details, but the torso was making some interesting noises and emitting some new smells that made Mike gag and everyone else giggle like little girls. The whole time, Mike was shouting every little thing he was experiencing, like he was some sort of video game commentator on youtube. Mike tossed me the heart and the liver, before chucking the rest of the intact torso into the dump truck. I congratulated him as he coughed and gagged some more, but he quickly recovered and went back to work on cutting up the leg meat. 

I helped to pack away the meat, hide, and skull. We managed to fit all the meat into one large game bag, surround it in ice, and close the plastic container. We did the same for the hide and the head, which I was told I'd have to work on myself. I'm just fine with doing that stuff myself. My grandpa offered everyone a mountain dew, including me, and we toasted after a long morning's work. 

We spent another 20 minutes outside talking and drinking our sodas. My grandma eventually emerged out of the heated car, which is where she had been the whole time we were butchering the doe, reading a book. She ushered our conversations to an end. We still had plenty of work to do after a two-hour drive home. So, we hugged and thanked our guides and butchers one last time, promised to return next year, and headed out on our way.