The archer swung his leg over the fallen tree. He grabbed a small spruce within easy reach and used it to leverage his upper body forward and over his foot planted on the other side. In one smooth motion he was over. He was following the slope down at a very slight angle. He had time and wanted to hunt smart with the day he had left. As he began to move away from the blow-down the archer froze almost as soon as he started forward. From his left and ahead a long faint bugle rolled down the mountain to him. Maybe a quarter mile away. Maybe less. He waited, silent, all his faculties brought to focus like a bullet. After a few minutes another bull note floated to him and the archer took a bearing on it with his compass. He immediately started straight up, now unconcerned with hunting across the afternoon thermals running up the slopes of Bull Mountain. He wanted to get above the elks location right here and right now. He would then hunt forward and down to them, into the wind. It was his best chance and he wasted no time moving through the forest. He leaned forward and his strides devoured the topography he knew he must cover quickly. His body responded to the demand given and he was glad he had trained hard over the summer. Yet the pace he set was taxing his physical limits.
Images played across his mind like a movie as the archer climbed. It was as if his whole adult life were playing its story before his vague attentiveness. He saw images of his daughter through the years as she changed from a lumpy bundle in his arms to respected and sought after high school athlete. He saw the wedding cake as if it was before him, then the divorce contest in all its tension, one particular office, a room divided by his lawyers and hers like crouching linemen in a football game. He saw Husky, the arrows and he saw his own face reflected in a mirror and noted with surprise at how much his father he looked. Or was it his father in the mirror? He couldn't be sure...
After a while the archer knew he had climbed above the elks last location bugle. He slowed his pace and moved along the contour of the slope. He wanted time to let his body recover. It was a good place to move quietly and he used game trails when he could. He linked these traces with the open areas free of blown over trees into a long and continuously productive avenue forward. Finally he stopped and let the surrounding forest massage its inexorably profound peacefulness into him. The archer listened. He began to feel the rhyme of the forest within himself. He slowly became a part of its fabric and its rhythm. Slowly, the archer became invisible.
Another bugle came to him and it was close. He was less anxious now and knew he must choose his approach carefully. He knew he had time. The archer thought he could hear cow talk- soft mews and answering whines. Above him the crowns of the tall firs sifted the wind. Ahead he could see a change in color that he knew must mean an aspen break between the dark timber ribs of Bull Mountain.
The archer slowly worked forward and down toward the elk he could hear ahead of him. He was careful to keep in cover now. Any route that offered easy stalking, but nothing to mask his approach he disregarded, even if the alternative meant difficult going. A slight breeze pushed into his face from his right. He could smell the elk now. The archer removed his pack. He took off his boots. He carefully checked the bow quiver, the string and he checked the nock tied onto it. The archer was ready. He crouched low and placed each step with care. The herd was there and moving into him and he could see several cows grazing forward. He waited, wondering his next move. The archer did not want to use a call. He was almost in the herd and he decided it best to remain unknown. A small yellow caterpillar moved across the damp rotting bark of a laid over tree in front of him. Another bugle and he soon could make out the form of a very large bull off to the lower side of him and behind the cows that were now grazing past him. The archers heart began to increase its rhythm despite his efforts to remain calm. The bull was a giant and he could not imagine any elk this large but for the Monarch. The cows seemed intent on the lush forage and only raised their heads to choose another spot on which to feed. Soon they would feed past him but the wind would not bring them its warning as the archer hid above them.
The bull was standing closer now and a thick stand of young understory partially blocked him from the mans view. The archer used this stand of trees to stalk the big animal. He closed the distance between him and the giant to less than 20 yards. He dared not move any closer. The bulls massive rack seemed overwhelming at this short distance and the archer fought to get control of his racing heart. He realized his breathing was rapid and shallow. He fought for control. The herd bull turned toward the archers hiding place walking forward at an angle that would bring him almost on top of the crouching man. The bull seemed overwhelming to him and in all his years hunting the archer had never been in such awe of an animal. The big bull seemed to dominate everything. Closer he came and his smell was pungent and the archer could not smell anything but bull. He nocked an arrow and turned his body ready for the shot. The bull stopped to worry a small spruce and in moments the long green limbs were in tatters, the top broken cleanly off eight feet above the ground. The archer tensioned the string hooked in the fingers of his right hand. The bull walked around the tree he had just destroyed and came broadside to the archer at 10 yards. The man was on his knees and he brought slowly up the bow held loosely in his off hand and in one fluid motion put full weight to the string. Its taught geometry felt right and the archer felt a calmness wash over him. The giant bull was there and the archer sensed the arrow and the surrounding forest the bull its massive rack his back muscles closing the hooked fingers relaxing and in the most perfect thing the archer had ever seen the arrow floating spinning on its center the whole world stopped silent and motionless except the arrow on a string to its target reaching out to the bulls right flank and disappearing into the crease back and above the magnificent animals leg.
The bull erupted and launched his giant body, his muscles bunching under his fantastic coat of tan as he turned away. He ran out of the archers view, the forest closing in around him.
"Nice shot son" his father said "I am proud of you."
The archer felt his fathers hand on his shoulder and he turned to accept the congratulatory hug he knew was coming.
But the place he thought his father had been standing was empty and the hand he felt, only a spruce bough. The wind blew across and through the vacant stand of mixed timber recently full of grazing elk. It had all seemed real. His fathers calm voice. The reassuring touch of his large hand.
The archer waited for awhile, mentally exhausted and unable to think about what had happened. A hawk screamed over in the next draw on the mountainside, starting the archer out of his fog. He finally got up and went back to where he had left his boots and pack. He put them on and started to follow the bulls trail away from the shot...
Topic: The Monarch of Bull Mountain --DONE!-- (Read 10137 times)
