The archer and his daughter hunted hard the next day. The hike in the night before had leaned heavily on their stamina, while a steady rain made upslope hunting difficult. They tried a couple of set ups, but no elk responded. They walked one very promising meadow on a narrow bench to the west of camp. There was plenty of recent sign, and a very rutted up wallow at its low end, but the elk had moved on. In the afternoon the archers daughter bumped a big bear. She had only a moment. In one smooth, graceful motion, she nocked an arrow and had full tension on the string. The arrow flew true, but the bear was the faster. The heavy thwack of the broad head sinking into an aspen told the story. She looked up at her Dad and shrugged her shoulders. He stood on a height of ground just above her, laughing. That was a very lucky bear, he thought.
His daughter was the most gifted physical person the archer had ever experienced in his life. She rarely missed. She never took a shot she didn't fully expect to make. A long time ago, the archer had stopped trying to take credit for his daughters skills. It was obvious to everyone that her gift came from someplace special.
Back in camp, the archer was careful to make a good dinner and even went to the trouble of hot cocoa, something he almost never did for himself. Wet and tired, they ate mostly in silence. It was already dark by the time they had gotten back. The rain continued to fall softly, but the larger drops off the trees above them made an unsteady drumming on the tarp. It had been a good day. They found their sleeping bags under the open shelter and slept the contented slumber of woodsmen. Totally at ease and comfortable, deep in the raw wilderness, there on the rugged slopes of Bull Mountain.
The second day found them up on the high top. The rain had let up, but the mountain was wrapped in a heavy veil of cloud. The colors of the aspen leaves seemed to vibrate in the muted light, their saturated yellow almost unbearably perfect. The archers daughter found an incredible group of rubs, all well over her head. Only a giant could have made rubs like this. They both felt the keen focus of the hunter when prey seemed near. Were these the sign posts left by the Monarch? They stalked forward through a series of linked parks, separated only by narrow bands of timber, always playing the wind. Elk sign was everywhere. It was obvious that the herd had used these parks heavily in the days leading up to the rain.
The wind suddenly sawed around on the pair of bowhunters as they moved silently forward. It pushed into them now from behind their left quarter, taking their scent ahead and at angle into a thick stand of spruce. They both instinctively stopped, but it was too late. The sound of elk making distance through the thick grown forest was enough to tell them what they already knew. They had been winded. A large group of cow elk filtered through a sloped opening above the heavy timber they had been resting in. The archer and his daughter watched them through the mist, tan ghosts floating over the rugged ground. There must have been 30 or more. Finally, no more crossed the glade. A bank of heavy fog closed in over their heads, shutting off any view of the slope above them. The archer had turned away when a cry from his daughter brought him back around. The fog had cleared, opening like a curtain. He followed his daughters intent stare and there standing broadside just above them was the biggest bull elk the archer had ever seen. His massive body was in vague relief against the gray ground, while his fantastic antlers melted into the shifting fog above his head like the limbs of some isolated and lonesome tree. The archer could see the long scars on the bulls left side. He knew it was the Monarch. Another heavy cloud drifted in front of the staring hunters like smoke. The blocking wall of grey passed quickly, but when it cleared the slope above them was empty. The mighty bull was gone.
"Did you see that! Dad! Did you see HIM!
His daughter was jumping up and down.
"Oh Dad! That had to be the MONARCH! I KNOW it!"
She kept her eyes on the empty slope, hoping for another glimpse of the mighty stag.
"He's gone now. You won't be seeing him again today" The archer wiped the wet off the riser of his bow, but his hands were shaking.
His daughter wasn't going to be swayed.
"Lets get him Dad."
She said this with a gravity in her voice that implied she had already made up her mind. She had a hard, intense set in her eyes. The archer knew that look. He had seen it when she was about to put away the championship game...
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Topic: The Monarch of Bull Mountain --DONE!-- (Read 10126 times)
