The spring slowly drifted into summer, the seven bulls grazing along the ascending bloom of tender shoots and protein laden grasses just below the snow line. Their four-chambered stomachs broke down and made use of every calorie available, sponging up the nutrients to put on the stores that would see them through the exertions of fall. They bedded often, reworking the forage stored in one of their stomachs into finer pieces. Better yet to absorb whatever nutrients could be found in them. They never exerted themselves without reason, and in general only moved about to eat and to drink.
The Bull stayed with the bachelor group for awhile, feeding with the others until one day he was gone.
The archer waited for the Bull to show himself again. Each scout he found the bachelor group expecting to find the Bull back among them. But he had disappeared.
The archer began to scout farther away from the range the bulls favored. An elk as massive as the Monarch could not just vanish into thin air he reasoned. But after several weeks of determined bushwacking he found nothing.
He studied his maps and continued to call his daughter with updates. She was as anxious as he was to hunt the Monarch now and it looked like a three day hunt together was falling into place.
The archer was excited about going after the Monarch with his daughter, though he was becoming concerned that if he didn't find where this crafty giant had gone they would never even have the chance. He almost regretted building this thing up. He hated to disappoint her so.
The week they confirmed their plans, he found it hard to concentrate at work. He had to find where the Bull was hiding. He drove home early, first stopping at the grocery to pick up some things and then without thinking found himself at the edge of town. He parked in a pull out, a sawtooth horizon of spruce against the sky, and beyond that, he the could just see the tops of the humped up peaks that held Bull Mountain. The sun set, its last rays infusing the sky in alpenglow.
The archer turned the truck around and drove aimlessly. He tried to clear his thinking about the Bull and approach finding him from a new perspective. It didn't work. The truck bumped down a long dirt track and the archer, lost in thought, almost hit a bull moose walking across the road in front of him. He looked for a place to turn around but the track was narrow and sided with beaver pools and swale. It was getting dark. Finally, the truck bumping over a small rise and down into a hollow. The dirt track abruptly ended.
Off to one side of a small turnaround sat an old one ton flat bed, long ago up on blocks. Behind that was what you could call a shed and beyond the shed was a tilted dwelling, half log, part plywood and a little bit tar paper. It tilted into the hillside like an old boat.
Inside that husk of wood and log and paper lived Old Husky.
The archer turned off his truck and got out. What the hell, he thought, maybe Husky knew where this big Bull was hiding. Even if they said he was half crazy. Maybe he was an old hermit. But maybe he knew where to find the Monarch of Bull Mountain. Old Husky had lived up there before the fire took his cabin and the winters took his mind, or at least thats what they said had driven him off the high top country.
Topic: The Monarch of Bull Mountain --DONE!-- (Read 4644 times)
