The Visitors in the Field

There were three of us, and we were scattered no more than 100 yards apart on the side of a ridge. There, along the elk trail and the pungent odor of sagebrush dense and high in every direction, we searched for the bull elk that ran away just as the sun went down. In the distance, the last breath of light over the aspen trees met the bugle of an elk. It was bone-chilling and intangible.

It was dark as we searched. I heard my breath, louder than the others, and too warm to be a ghost in the air. The youngest one of our group, and the only other hunter besides myself, called from below. He found his elk. Flashlights on and weary-legged, our guide prepared the elk to return with us. Then, we hiked back to the ranch vehicle–a distance that seemed impossibly long compared to the trek we made earlier. Driving back, the arc of the moon unfolded over the lake, glossy and smooth on the prairie. Later, I would dream about the animals bedding down nearby, moving towards the water in concert, stilled and thirsty under the reflection of the sky.

That morning, we high-stepped over waist-high sage. My legs burned and caught in the chapped branches; my heart was pounding. The layers I wore were too much for the thickening air. An elk bugled close by; we watched for movement and listened for sound in the trees. Several cow elk, blonde and healthy from the summer and the grass, mingled out in the open. The bulls took cover in the trees, enigmatic and intentional. We waited.

Our guide started answering. He mimicked a cow elk expertly–it was obvious that his many years of guiding allowed his estrous mews and chirps to become second nature. The bull elk answered back, still somewhere in the depths of the woods. The back and forth continued for a while until the bull elk grew bored. We watched the woods and the meadow for a little bit longer, and then, as quietly as we could, we ducked back into the cover of wind and sage.

I discovered that when you are searching for elk, everything moves, sounds, and takes the shape of an elk. Especially in the golden hour of morning and night, shadows tease your eyes, and dusk overpopulates the imagination with the unreal. We glassed hillsides and plateaus, leaving no shadow neglected. Mule deer teased with their jumpy movements, and beef cows bellowed across the valley. We played Marco Polo with the sound of any bull elk in our vicinity, and we drew closer to where we could hear but not see. 

That night, I pictured myself shooting. Sometime between the wood stove dying down in our cozy, little room and my anxious alarm in the morning, I couldn’t yet conjure an image of myself doing what I was there to do. It seemed unfathomable that I could actually get an elk. And how would it feel? As we headed out again before sunrise, I still couldn’t pinpoint an answer, and I think that’s why I missed the first elk, at which I shot, just a couple of hours later. 

A tree fell in the forest after my shot, and we heard it. My guide and I were ninety percent sure that the bull elk that was standing with the cows on the side of a steep hill just seconds before had escaped, unscathed, over the ridge. But then something crashed. 

I gathered my legs to make the climb and followed the guide just to be sure. There was nothing. No sign of anything injured–only the mustard color of grounded leaves, and trees lying across each other like a giant game of pick-up-sticks. Gratitude comes with a missed shot and nothing wounded. I wasn’t holding the rifle tight to my shoulder, and I had jumped the gun, so to speak. That wasn’t my bull yet, and I think I knew it even as I pulled the trigger. The body follows the mind when we’re making a decision that our subconscious knows is not meant to be. I needed that reminder, and I needed that miss to be ready for what would come next.

Three O’Clock. We were out again after lunch at the lodge. The sun was dim with the promise of winter, and we crossed a new territory of familiar undulations only to arrive at another beautiful copse of Aspen. I felt something different that afternoon as I walked behind my guide, who moved lower to the ground and spotted movement in the trees. The pursuer of elk walks all paths of nature’s tidings, and in those several minutes before watching a group of cow elk emerge from the trees to feed, each path reminded me of why I was there. I thought about my mom, in my eyes one of the best women hunters outside of and within North America. She knew the immeasurable value in what I was doing and wanted the hunting legacy of her and my father to continue. I thought about Clinton. He was a soft prepper, always one to plan ahead when it came to ensuring that all of us would be okay should something ever happen. Our shelves in the basement were filled with canned goods, and he kept his finger on the details of the goings-on in the world. And when he wasn’t providing, Clinton was breathing in the clear air of the mountains in any way that he could. My father, a lifelong hunter, knew all too well the gifts of hunting, letting go, and getting out into a backcountry where the ground seldom saw the footsteps of man. Both Clinton and my dad worked hard so that they could have the freedom to spend a good portion of their lives doing more of what they loved. I didn’t know that I had been waiting for them to join me until I felt their presence that afternoon. I wanted to prove to myself that I could provide for my family in a way that felt innate and true to me, while stepping out into the beloved world of my late husband and dad. It is a beloved world for me, too, and I was ready.

The wind was in our face, and the low sun at our backs, as we left the grazing cow elk for different grounds. Something in me had shifted, and when we reached the ranch truck following what had become another afternoon hike, I didn’t feel the same fruitlessness as my guide. Instead, I carried the two men in my life who had left me too soon. I carried Clinton’s desire to provide for our children and me, and I felt the continuation of their lives with each footstep forward. 

We parked on the road and walked south. On the hillside, too far away for any viable harvesting, a large group of elk mingled and feasted on the late fall grass. A bugle, and then another bugle. Close to us. There were bulls in a herd close to us, and they were moving. The wind carried their scent in our direction, and my guide set up the sticks to shoot. I nervously rested my rifle and looked through the scope. A bull elk stood in my sights, but the shot wasn’t good enough yet. Cows shifted around him, and I tightened the gun to my shoulder.

“Shoot!” My guide whisper-yelled, and yet I waited, probably two to three more seconds, before the bull turned to face me. His neck and antlers were beautifully dark, and their color faded into his neck and torso, where his fur was lighter. I didn’t even feel the kick of the gun as I watched him go down immediately. No suffering.

When I walked towards the majestic animal, all I felt was gratitude. I thanked him for his life, and I continued to thank him silently as my guide field-dressed him and prepared him to come back with us. I’ve spent a good portion of my life knowing that hunting isn’t mean or cruel, but rather, an opportunity to see the wild and appreciate nature’s provision in a way that honors what this world has given.

It’s an experience of contradictions to love something so deeply right after you’ve ended its life, but hunting teaches us that life doesn’t end when a heart stops beating. I know this to be true because of who came to meet me out in the field that day. I can think of no other endeavor that humbles and strengthens the human spirit, and pays tribute to the living and the dead quite like hunting. And for this, I am grateful for the people before me who have planted this purpose in my life.