‘Things won are done, Joys soul lies in the doing.’ Wm Shakespeare.

*

THIS HUNT, ALTHOUGH just beginning, has a history. Two years earlier, while hunting elk in Nevada, I found a world-class typical mule deer. This type of discovery is most precious and is not to be shared without careful consideration. Thus, I entrusted this information to only one person I deemed worthy, my long time hunting companion, Greg Krogh.

Since neither of us had a Nevada archery deer tag that year, we could only wait and hope the buck would survive the winter. The following year we put in separately for the drawing to increase the odds that one of us would receive a tag. Greg drew; I did not.

Shortly before the archery season, Greg found the buck, and he killed him on the second day of the season. We were not disappointed. The buck had an official net Pope and Young measurement of 202 2/8, making him one of the largest mule deer ever taken by a bow hunter.

Greg owed me.

Later that year, as if by providence, while scouting for his rifle deer hunters, Greg found a great nontypical deer. He and his hunters pursued the deer hard during the rifle season, but the buck eluded them.

The following year, when I obtained an archery tag, Greg returned the previous year’s favor – he told me where to find the big nontypical. He even offered to help me on the hunt, an offer I quickly accepted. Absolutely no one is more qualified to help on a mule deer than Greg Krogh.

After telling me where the deer lived, he said, “If you shoot this deer, we are even.”

ARRIVING IN OUR UNIT four days before the archery season, we set up camp and split up to search for the buck. I make the long climb onto a lonely plateau.

As I settle in to glass, I feel a familiar stirring, the same stirring I feel each year when I first venture into the wild. It is a powerful feeling of connectedness and peace.

I believe at some primordial level, I nourish my spirit from the wilderness. These open spaces seem to be a vital nutrient my soul yearns for and will perish without. Tonight, sitting on this desert mountain alone, watching the sun set and the sky change, the old, good feelings return. I feel I am home.

Wresting myself from my meditation, I make the hike out in the darkness. I arrive back at camp to good news: Greg has spotted the big non typical, and the buck has grown substantially since last year. I look at his video footage. The buck is a giant. He is well over 30 inches wide with beams as thick as my forearm, and many extra points sprout laterally. We exchange high fives and dance around camp like children.

I’VE HAD A DREAM, since I started hunting some 35 years ago, to bag a mule deer of immense proportions. This imaginary buck carries wide, heavy antlers and 10 or more points a side. As is true for most dreams, I knew this one would probably not come to fruition. But the dream has held firm and each August I leave for the mountains, dream very much alive, looking and feeling the same as when I was 16 years old.

Tonight though, my dream is here; palpable, fleshy and bedded on a mountain a few miles away. Every time I look at the video image, the massive, velvety rack reminds me that my dream, right now, is very real.

What odd thoughts and emotions attack you when a dream seems within reach. Deep within I feel my success or failure is predetermined by fate. I fear disappointment. I struggle to defeat this fatalistic thinking, but it persists, like fibers of doubt woven into the fabric of my being.

To fight the doubts, I tell myself the outcome of this hunt must be partially determined by my actions. I remind myself: you aren’t really alive if you don’t have the power to alter the future.

The next morning, we glass the buck at a distance, and do a little reconnaissance before the hunt starts. He and his companions have chosen their home well. He lives on the lee side of a mountain that acts like a boulder in a stream. As the wind passed over and around the land mass, eddies of wind whirl and collide. Never does the wind blow the same direction for more than a few moments. Lying there, he is unapproachable

For three long, hot days, we watch the buck and wait for the season to begin. Greg and I and plan our attack.

OPENING MORNING I climb through the sage and rocks in the dark, taking the long route to prevent detection. I want to be in position to strike at first light– if the conditions are right.

It is clear that I will not stalk this buck where he lives. He must move a quarter mile in any direction: then I can close on him.

Unfortunately, I can’t simply watch from afar and then make a stalk, because the terrain will not allow it. He will see me. My only chance is to position myself before daylight, a few hundred yards from the buck — close enough to his bed to capitalize on any mistake he might make, but far enough to avoid detection by his nose. In short, I must live on the mountain with him.

There is scant cover where I must lay, just a few wispy bushes. I settle in under the largest bush to watch and wait. The August sun is relentless.

To some people, lying flat out all day in the sun would be incomprehensible, but not to me. Life, as I live it, is lacking in discomfort. My life gives me little opportunity to be still, little opportunity for nonproductive thought and observation. My time, outside of hunting, must be filled with production, accomplishment. If other time is available, I have been led to believe I must fill it with entertainment.

It is good for modern man to be uncomfortable. It is good for him to be still.

Paradoxically, discomfort brings me peace. Lying here alone, away from the drone of the world, I find contentment. God is here.

As the hours pass slowly, I try, in vain, to ration my water for the 16 hours I will spend here.

I lay face up and watch the clouds build.

Occasionally I lift my binoculars to study the velvet antler tips above the brush, and each time, I experience a small surge of adrenaline. Good, I think, maybe it will be used up by the time the shot finally comes.

I roll over and lay face down in the rocks and watch the ants work.

By mid-afternoon my water is gone, and I feel the malaise of dehydration. This condition helps me to understand why people fast. My thirst makes my senses keener, feelings stronger.

In this enlightened state, I seem to understand that as my body now thirsts for water my soul has thirsted for nature. From this mountain hiding place I drink in vast creation; the valley, the mountains, the sky. This summer evening sky is luscious with color. My eyes are awed by the filtered beams, intense blue sky and pure, brilliant white clouds. I give thanks.

I wait for the moon to rise before moving off the mountain. Laying on my back and looking at the stars, intense in the thin, clean air, I feel overwhelmed by the vastness of the universe. I find my troubles less important than I believed.

Sun burnt, dusty and dry; I make the long hike to the trail. Reaching it I see Greg’s smiling face in the moon light. “He grew another half inch today while you were loafing. You keep dawdling and he’s going to get real big” Greg said.

The next day proves to be a repeat of the first. I find the buck in the same place. I lay on the same hillside. The sun is just as hot.

Today though, at last light, the buck moves. I make a lightning fast stalk, and blow the opportunity. I mentally whip myself. Patience! I silently scream to myself. Miraculously, the buck is still unaware of my existence. I am given a second chance.

On the third day, I spend another 16 hours painfully close to the buck. Being so close to him, unable to move, I imagine how a prisoner must feel as he looks out the window to freedom–and wishes. During the long hours of waiting, I pull together the scattered thoughts from the past year and try to sort them out. This time alone becomes my personal journey of discovery, a time for reflection and renewal. It would be perfect if I weren’t away from my family. They are the only reason I want to go home.

Long periods alone and away make me question myself, especially my ability as a father and husband. I miss my sons, Jacob and Levi. Does every father feel inadequate, not quite worthy to mold the lives God has given him, or am I unique in this feeling? Are all other fathers as self confident and competent as they seem?

I realize how much I love my wife, Tammy. Why do I love her more when I’m away than when I’m with her? I commit to being a better husband and father when I return.

The afternoon sky is cloudless, but I hear thunder behind the mountain. Suddenly, a rush of wind and water sweeps low over the ridge. I sneak to a boulder pile, out of sight of the bucks. I wedge myself under an overhanging rock. Lightning strikes so close I hear it as I see it. The boulders tremble. I shiver.

The Navajos call this a male rain; strong, bold and quickly spent. I lay face down and smell the wet earth. Goose bumps tell me I have gone from hot to cold in a moment.

The storm ends as suddenly as it appears. Hiding in my den, I watch it sweep across the plain towards the horizon, pulling a rainbow in its wake. I listen to water dripping from the rocks and smell the wet sage and juniper.

I have hunted this buck for three days now, and watched him for three more. He seems to have grown. He is still unaware of my existence, and I am doing everything possible to keep it that way. But will the opportunity ever come. Self-doubt begins to whisper inside me. Am I hunting well or just wasting time? I don’t know.

I would like to see all things future and past, the way God sees them, so I could truly enjoy the hunt instead of fretting over the outcome. But then, I tell myself, the anticipation is part of the hunt. If I knew the outcome, the essence of the hunt would be gone. The possibility, the not knowing, is the hunt.

If nothing else, maturity has taught me patience. Ten years ago, waiting days in the sun for a buck would have been unthinkable. What has changed in me over the years? I wonder. Analyzing my behavior, I conclude it is the contentment to be in the moment, the enjoyment of the journey rather than the headlong rush to reach the goal, the end.

The next morning, two hours before dawn, we hear a pickup idling on the little road beside our camp. Jealous and possessive of our buck, like a hound dog with a bone, we suspect foul play. Is someone going to try to follow us to our deer?

We hear a voice in the darkness. “Anybody home?” It turns out to be a lost hunter looking for his partner’s camp. We invite him to breakfast.

As he leaves, I joke “If you don’t find him by dark, come by for dinner.”

“I just might” he says “What are you having?”

“Back straps.” I yell prophetically into the darkness.

For three days, the buck and I have lain in the sun, never more than an arrow’s flight apart. Surely, the fourth day will bring more of the same.

But the buck is gone.

I try to reign in my emotions. Did he detect me? Has he moved into the thick cover? Will we find him again?

We expand our search.

We find him later that morning, a mile away, with his companions, bedded at the base of a pinyon tree. He appears as if in a painting, velvet antlers framed tan on green, timeless, and massive. Majestic.

He should not have moved. Instinct must have told him as much. But he has, and for this I have been waiting these many days, patiently. Relief flows over me.

Then acute anticipation strikes. My time has come. The next 2 hours will fulfill my 35 year dream. Or crush it.

DROPPING INTO THE BASIN where the buck now beds, I make a two-mile loop that brings me to the lee side of the small ridge where he lies. Shoeless, moving without visible motion, I crest the ridge while telling myself, with each step: you cannot make another mistake with this buck.

I spot a bedded buck through the trees 50 yards to my left. Though he does not see me, he has me pinned down.

I stand motionless for a long time, the buck finally rises. Three more bucks, including the big nontypical, materialize out of the grass and start feeding towards me. I am unable to draw my bow for fear of detection. All eyes face me. Now they are close, very close.

Being near a big buck never gets easy, the feeling is so intense that during the experience I want it over with quickly. Yet it is this feeling that draws me to hunt with a bow. You can’t fully appreciate a heavy-beamed mule deer buck at rifle range, you must experience him within bow range, close enough to hear him chew. It is the difference between seeing a woman and touching her.

The bucks turn and slowly move away. I creep along behind like a cat stalking a bird. I watch the 4 bobbing velvet racks intensely, when one stops moving, I freeze. If all are bobbing, I creep forward.

Slowly, I close the distance. I wait for the big buck to turn broadside. When all eyes are hidden, I draw. I do not shake. All those days spent close to the buck have depleted my adrenaline.

As the arrow strikes, the buck jumps, but unaware of the direction of the danger he trots towards me. Then, as if bedding, he slowly collapses. The other bucks, only momentarily disturbed, feed on.

He lies at my feet. The cloud filtered sunlight haloes his velvety antlers, tall, heavy and handsome; the tips are still blunt, soft, unfinished. Twelve heavy points grace each antler. Is this a dream? I kneel down and touch him and try to believe.

Arriving from his rocky vantage point, Greg joins me a half hour later. He has watched it all through the scope and is still visibly shaken. Without a word I offer my hand. He grabs it, pulls me close and wraps me up in a bear hug.

He backs away, looks me in the eye and says, “We’re even.”

Even we are, I just a little more even than he.

Notes: My buck’s nontypical antlers unofficially measure 242 gross inches, 234 net. I want to thank, once again, everyone who hunted with me: Greg Krogh; Greg’s wife, Debbie; fellow hunters Jim Rufh and Jerry Dollard; and buddies Todd George, Darin Cooper, and Doug Bodhaine.

I hunted with a Hoyt Ultratec equipped with Simms Vibration Lab Accessories; Easton AC Super Slims arrows; Winner’s Choice Bowstring made from BCY 8125 material; Golden Key-Futura Mirage arrow rest; FUSE sight, stabilizer, and quiver; Cabela’s Microfleece clothing; and Rocky Mountain Extreme Broad heads.

Time. That is the essence of a successful Nevada bowhunt: time not measured in minutes, hours, or days, but time measured in weeks.

To do well as a bowhunter in Nevada you must have patience, and patience requires time. I know this well. I’ve drawn several tags in that state and each hunt has been an experience in endurance.

Take my desert bighorn hunt, for example. On the 21st day of the hunt I pulled myself up a red sandstone cliff, eased my exhausted carcass onto a ledge and peeked over the top, 15 yards from a feeding sheep. I rose up with violently shaking limbs and arrowed that ancient ram.

I have also hunted deer there. After being consistently outsmarted by a buck whose giant rack was only outsized by his eerie intelligence, I tagged a lesser deer on day 17.

I thought my elk hunt would be different.

I was wrong.

RURAL NEVADA, OR, MORE accurately, Outback Nevada, has been left behind. Geographically speaking, 99 percent of Nevada lies outside the clutches of the sin cities, Reno and Las Vegas. In the rural, things haven’t changed much in 30 years. Life moves slowly and people are friendly. Out there, it is as if you’ve entered a time machine and been shot backwards. Out there, if you are lucky, you will find yourself settling into Nevada time.

You’ll know you are on Nevada time when your mind quits racing, your pulse slows, and your breathing becomes steady. You’ll take the time to sit down after the sun sets and watch the moon rise. You’ll lie down after a morning hunt and take a nap under a juniper tree. You’ll skip an evening hunt and sit around camp eating elk steaks and watermelon. Elk steaks cooked over a real bed of coals. Then you are on Nevada time.

I sense this change each time I pass through Las Vegas, because the line of demarcation is so distinct. Time slows down. This trip was no different.

When Greg Krogh and I first drove into my elk area in August, the desert was oozing moisture. We looked at the top of the mountain in my hunting area and saw snow. At least it looked like snow. It later proved to be hail, huge nuggets of ice, nearly a half foot of it stacked up. Huge swaths of trees and brush were denuded of leaves, twigs and bark. The roads to the mountain had been washed out by a torrential flood.

“This seems like something out of the Old Testament” Greg said. How could any living creature have survived? we wondered

Greg is a good friend of mine. He is a guide by profession, one of the best. He looks like a cowboy and usually dresses like one. He is accepted into this lonely country as though he were born here. Greg and I have hunted together many times. I help him, he helps me.

But Greg was different on this trip, not his usual carefree, happy-go-lucky self. He was the father of brand new twin girls, and he worshipped them. I could sense some deep angst flowing through him.

We set up camp in a little patch of stunted juniper trees on the edge of antelope country. When we’d finished we sat back and watched the sunset. Greg was uncharacteristically silent as the last of the colors faded to black.

“Miss your girls?” I asked.

He kicked the ground. “I can’t explain it,” he muttered, almost embarrassed. “Leaving on this first trip of the year was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”

“It won’t get any easier,” I said.

“I think I’m going to have to get a new profession, something that keeps me closer to home,” he said, seriously.

Greg had volunteered to help me look for elk while scouting for his rifle deer hunts. Then he would be off to Arizona to attend to his paying clients — and his family. Because his help is always indispensable, I wanted to make the most of his time here. We had several days before the season opened. Our plan was to split up and glass, looking for a concentration of elk to hunt. The day before the opener Greg found a good bull.

“What do you think?” he said.

After some thought, I replied, “I think we can do better.” With the entire season to hunt, I wasn’t anxious for my elk season to end.

Greg grinned. “You’re taking this trophy hunting pretty seriously, aren’t you?

I looked down a while before speaking. “This is a tough tag to come by, and I want to make the most of it.”

“Well, suit yourself,” Greg said. “But I seem to recall the last time you passed up an animal early in the hunt, you nearly went home empty handed.”

“I’m willing to take that chance,” I said, sounding more sure of myself than I felt.

Elk hunting in Nevada is not unlike sheep hunting, as you move and glass, move and glass. With elk so spread out, the traditional method of moving and calling would be frustrating. It might take a week to get an answer.

One afternoon while glassing from a vantage in what appeared to be poor elk range, Greg spotted a big bull walking alone below him. The bull had two huge nontypical points off the main beam just behind the fourth points. Greg knew this was a shooter.

So we returned there the next morning to get a better look at the bull. We heard him bugle a few times in the distance, but he vanished completely.

A FEW DAYS LATER, Greg had to leave. I watched him drive away across the broad valley. His dust cloud was like a contrail, marking his progress long after the truck was out of sight. I was alone.

When younger I dreaded being alone in the wilderness, but with age I’ve come to embrace loneliness. Yes, it’s uncomfortable, but it can make an experience far more powerful. Few places make you feel as lonely as the high desert of Nevada, especially when the time is long — as it always is in Nevada. With two weeks remaining, this hunt could be a powerful experience.

Over the next week I saw perhaps 2 dozen bulls, mostly from a distance. None seemed large enough to justify a closer look.

One afternoon, as time drug on, I was feeling unusually lonely. Tired of my own cooking, I drove 20 miles across the short grass prairie to the nearest commercial establishment, 10 miles from any pavement. It was an interesting place, a combination general store/cafe surrounded by items billed as antiques. To my untrained eye, they looked like junk.

The place seemed deserted. I sat at the only table, wedged between shelves drooping with old candy bars, mason jars full of rocks, antique irons, and 30-year-old comic books. The waitress/cook/proprietor materialized suddenly and quietly — as if my wishing alone had made her so.

The smells and the sight of her cooking with a cast-iron skillet brought back memories of my grandmother. Then the lady placed an immense hamburger in front of me. The burger was nearly buried under home made, unpeeled French fries. It was all delicious.

Later, walking out the door, my gut bursting, I looked to the mountains in the west and noticed the aspens leaves had turned gold. A lot of time had passed since I’d first arrived in Nevada.

NO MATTER HOW MUCH I love to chase elk, a time comes each season when an animal must fall and the hunt must end. I love elk meat above any other, and to come home empty would negate my justification for hunting. By now I’d been in Nevada for nearly three weeks and the season was winding down.

Taking mental inventory of all the bulls we’d seen, I decided the best of the bunch was the big nontypical with drop tines Greg had seen. I decided to hunt him.

Well before sunrise, I walked into the area where we’d last heard that bull and lay on my back. The ground was still damp from a recent rain. I stared at the countless stars in the black sky and saw the sage outlined by distant lighting.

Above all I smelled the sage. A person might not notice that smell at other times, but after a rain, especially at night, you cannot ignore the potent fragrance of sage. It is earthy, comforting, western.

Somewhere in the distant darkness, a bull bugled. It sounded like the nontypical Greg had seen.

I’VE LONG HELD a theory that some truly dominant bulls don’t hold a harem. It’s too much effort and is biologically inefficient. These elk let other, lesser bulls expend the energy necessary to gather and maintain a herd, a task that is all-consuming for the better part of a month. Why manage a cow for a month when she’s only in heat for a day?

I believe such a dominant bull makes his rounds each night, going from one bugling herd bull to the next, checking each cow along the way. He may check several herds each night. If a cow is in heat or about to come into heat, he either cuts her out of the herd or boots the other bull. More than likely he has already established his dominance over the lesser bull and doesn’t face much of a fight.

If he finds no cow in estrus, he leaves the other elk and spends the day alone.

This morning’s activities seemed to lend credence to my theory. I knew at least three herds lived in this area, and as I lay there listening in the hours before first light, the distant, lone bull seemed to be going from herd to herd. Then, just before daylight, he headed south, alone, while all the other elk headed north.

Because he bugled infrequently, while all the other bulls were now bugling regularly, it took all my will power to follow him and not the herds.

After following him for some distance, I finally saw him moving through dense pinion/juniper across a swale, 200 yards away. In my binoculars, he seemed larger than life. I wanted him.

Now it was a cat-and-mouse game as I tried to stay within striking distance without bumping him. My ally was time, always time, and I would take as much as was needed. The game continued all morning, and twice I unknowingly passed him, only to hear him behind me, moving through the trees.

Then he moaned softly, 100 yards ahead. He was about to bed.

Stalking through the thick growth, I searched for a patch of tan, an antler tip, legs beneath the tree limbs, anything. Suddenly he was there, very close, only his head and neck exposed, his great antlers swaying gently as he fed. I could hear him chewing.

Moving slower than the hands on a clock, I nocked an arrow and remained motionless, heart thumping. Time. I had to take time. Each cardiac pump hammered in my ears. The minutes struggled by.

The bull took one tentative step, then another, exposing his chest. As his head turned away, I lifted my well-worn Hoyt and eased the string to my face and held the pin shockingly steady. The few days left in the season didn’t enter my mind, nor did the thought of missing, nor did the outsized rack. My entire focus was on the sight pin and the exact spot I wanted the arrow to strike. I took a full breath, let it half out, and squeezed, doing everything right, just as I teach–but rarely implement.

As the arrow struck, the bull crash pell-mell through the trees. As the sounds of his crashing died out, I collapsed to the ground, full on my back, and looked up through the pinion boughs into the cloudless blue sky, muttering out loud, “I did it.”

Even though the morning chill was long past, I was shivering.

THE BEAUTIFUL bull lay on his side, long, curving, white-tipped points half buried in the earth. He smelled of battle, pungent and wild.

I knelt and touched his antlers, unbelieving. Their width and length and mass were disproportionate to his body. At the bases, they were as big around as my arms. I closed my eyes and thanked God for my good fortune and added thanks and apologies to the elk. He would feed my family.

Then the September sun, so warm on my back, stirred anxiety. The meat required instant attention. Having done this many times, I knew what was required. I ran the 2 miles back to my quad, raced to my truck, drove to camp to get all the necessary gear, and then headed back to the elk.

The plan was flawless until, while speeding across a rocky flat in my truck, I heard a distinctive whooshing sound. Pulling over, I jumped out and discovered air escaping from both front tires through jagged rips.

Abandoning the truck, I unloaded my quad and sped back to the elk, took a few pictures, and spent the next several hours boning out elk. Time. Wonderful time.

THAT NIGHT I LAY in bed exhausted, neither asleep nor awake, looking down a long tunnel, half gray, all thoughts abbreviated, irrational. Perhaps I did not deserve this bull after all. He could have met a hundred fates: Another hunter, a lion, a harsh winter.

Why had I bagged such a great bull? Was I merely lucky? Is every successful hunt, every prized trophy taken by accident, merely a random event in time? Or is it determined by some formula only God knows?

Through the fog in my mind a lucid thought formed, and in a brief moment of intense clarity I realized God does not care who bags a big elk. He has more pressing matters. It is purely statistical, the small probability of success multiplied by time spent hunting. I had put in my time.

And that was it. The sole reason for my success on this hunt was that mine was not time measured in minutes, hours or days, but time measured in weeks. –>

Driving east from Las Vegas you’ll pass through a small range of black mountains. Once past these, say good-bye. Other than a winding bumpy road, you have left civilization behind. The next gas station is 50 miles away.

As though not to be outdone by Vegas, Mother Nature puts on a show of her own. Well beyond the lights of the Strip, the world becomes red, yellow, white, black and orange. Smooth, sculpted red rock formations give way to jagged spires of black stone and white, erosion-tortured badlands. Demarcations are distinct, as if God added separate ingredients but forgot to stir.

The world seems alien, desolate, sterile, but this is an illusion. Look closer. You will see life. It comes in many forms, but for me, right now, bighorn sheep are the most important. They live here, or so I’ve been told. Looking at the country for the first time, I have my doubts.

Pulling onto a two-track road, I nose the old Dodge down into a large sandy wash, park and make camp far enough down the bank to be protected from the wind, but not so far as to be threatened by flash floods. Evidence of old floods is everywhere—small clumps of dried flotsam cling to crevasses high up the bank.

At dawn, I climb a little hill behind camp, raise my binocular and spot a sheep, a young ram. He’s not what I’m looking for, but he’s a ram none-the-less. Buoyed by the prospects, I walk and glass more. I see no other sheep that day. I return to camp deflated. This may be tougher than I thought.

The evening before opening day I’m joined by my brother Rusty, A legend at spotting game with binoculars, and my friend Rich Egly, an ex-military man who resembles Dick Butkus. Rich is the kind of guy you’d love to have around when packing elk—or fighting Bandidos.

Before the first hint of sunrise, we climb off the valley floor onto the hulking, multicolored rock mass of Pinto Ridge. While Rich and I glass the local neighborhood, Rusty has his ‘Big Eyes’ focused on Razorback Ridge–in anther zip code. “I’ve got sheep.” He says. We pull out the spotting scope and see a band of a dozen sheep, including three rams, located about a days walk to the south. A closer look is warranted, so we descend to the flats and plan a route around the far end of Pinto Ridge. Four hours later we’re still walking. The country looks flat, but turns out to be a web of erosion. It’s like walking across giant, loose, wrinkled corduroy.

We traverse the length of Pinto Valley, aiming for a saddle we hope will give us a clear view of the sheep. A high walled dirt arroyo leads up to the saddle. We scramble hand over hand, gaining the top as a bunch. I look over, and with one word freeze the group. “Ram”.

Some150 yards away, a pair of large horns crest a small ridge. We lock into our awkward positions. The ram’s head disappears again briefly. Rusty orders “Drop”–razor sharp rocks cut into our bones and muscles as we hit the ground. The horns reappear.

“What now.” Rich whispers.

“Wait” Rusty says. And so we huddle motionless, winter sun harsh, wind cold. Long minutes later Rusty slowly eases his binoculars into position using Rich’s shoulder as a rest. “He’s definitely a shooter” Rusty whispers. “He’ll go 160. Go shoot him”

“I’ll slip down and take a closer look.” I say, torn between the desire to get a nice sheep and the desire to make the hunt last. I slide back, pull off my boots, and sneak through the loose rock.

As I reach the crest of the finger canyon, the ram senses something amiss and trots out for a look around. I load an arrow, hook the release and will myself to pull but can’t, or, more accurately, won’t. At 40 yards he stops. We stare at each other across open space. His sense of self preservation overcomes his curiosity and the ram trots over the hill. Placing the arrow back into the quiver, I walk back. “Too small?” Rusty asks incredulously “Too early.” I reply sheepishly.

“An old sheep hunter once told me…” Rusty begins. I cringe. I hate Rusty’s old sheep hunter (or old elk hunter or old deer hunter) stories. They all have a moral aimed at one of my mistakes. “…never pass up a sheep that you’d take on the last day.” He finishes.

“Good advice” I say “You should have said something before I went after him.”

If only I had God’s perspective I could examine all my opportunities at the conclusion of the hunt and select the best one. Unfortunately, I have to take each chronologically and weigh its individual merits against the time left in the hunt. Little did I know that 20 days later I would be willing to trade my truck for that one chance.

Several days later, we drive to the airport. I exchange Rich and Rusty for my long time hunting buddy Jim Rufh. If you knew Jim, you’d envy me. Jim is the good-natured hunting buddy everyone wishes they had. In 20 years I’ve never seen him angry or down. Jim is my good luck charm. When he’s with me I bag game.

Early the next morning we climb through a city of huge rectangular boulders scattered down the mountainside. It’s like San Francisco after the big earthquake. Jim bends over and picks up a long-empty desert tortoise shell, hands it to me and says “smell this.” I put my nostrils to the hole and inhale deeply. Whoah! Jim belly laughs. “Putrefaction at 110 degrees in an anaerobic environment.” He flexes his knowledge. “Never goes away. They all smell like that.”

We sight no shooters that day or the next or the next.

Thus, eight days into the hunt and all my buddies with real jobs go back to work. I am alone. Not bad really, I tell myself. Time for meditation. Communion with nature–Feeding the soul.

I’m lying: Being alone may be good for the soul, but it’s lousy for sheep hunting with a bow–No one to help spot sheep, no one to give hand signals, no one to let you know where the ram is, two hours after you start your stalk, no one to relieve your loneliness.

The next morning I swing the heavily laden backpack onto my shoulders and settle under the old familiar weight. I feel the same emotions every time I head into the wilderness alone; anticipation, adventure, determination, a touch of loneliness and hint of dread. I strike into country least likely to have seen a boot track this year. At Rusty’s request I leave a note at camp. “Draw a map of your route to make recovering your corpse a little easier.” He’d said. He’s very thoughtful.

I keep to the arroyos, a labyrinth of tunnels under a sea of rock, tortuous canals braided through the sand. Arroyos are the vascular system of the desert.

After a half mile I drop the pack, climb the loose wall of the wash and glass. I descend, walk another half mile and glass again. This is how desert bighorns are hunted. Walk and glass and walk some more. Spot them first, you have a chance, let them spot you first, you don’t. It’s that simple

On the third day out, I’m as far away from a road as is possible to get in this country. I scan an isolated, ragged, behemoth of a mountain rising solitary from the plain—an island in a desert sea. I spot a ram near the top. His horns seem as big around as my legs. He’s feeding along the base of a towering orange cliff. In order to get above him and down-wind, I’ll have to do some serious hiking.

I drop my pack and feel like I might float away, instantly 70 lbs lighter. I circle the mountain, crawl laboriously up the crumbling, rotten rock to the cornice. Slowly, head canted, so as to expose just one eye, I peak over—no sheep. Inching, head up, I glass my surroundings, no sheep. I move my shoulders up a little further. Still no sheep. Then he is standing, where nothing stood before, his intent stare burning me. He disappears as quickly as he appeared, like a mirage in the desert.

Desert sheep have a hard time making a living. They must move all day to get a full belly. While their cousins to the north eat lush grass all spring, summer and fall, desert sheep eat bitterbrush, black brush, cat claw and barrel cactus. Because they’re always hungry, they never bed down for long.

My story develops a recurring theme: Hunter spots sheep. Hunter goes around the mountain. Sheep is no longer there when hunter peaks over the crest. Substitute in the name of the mountain, the day of the month and the ram. The hunter is always the same. It is me.

I go into town for supplies. I call my wife Tammy .God love her, she’s always supportive.“You’ll get one honey, just don’t give up,” She says. Oh if I only had her confidence.

I call Jim. “Have you got anything?” He asks. “Sore feet.” I whine. “Sheep are always gone by the time I move around the mountain. The drought has made food scarce. They’re so busy getting groceries they can’t stay still. Terrain’s so cut up, I could be 40 yards from them and not know they’re there.”

“Sounds like you could use another set of eyes.” He says, reading my plea for help between the lines. “Let me see what I can do. Call me back in five minutes.” I eat a sandwich and read the paper.

I finish my dinner and call Jim. “Pick me up at the Vegas airport tomorrow night.” He says.

First day out with Jim we spot our first non-sheep mammal of the trip as a bony old jackrabbit bounds away and crosses a dusty creosote flat. We see no good rams that day or the next.

It’s the last day of Jim’s stay and my season is nearly over. Sheep hunting with a bow seems to be a series of lotteries. I won the first lottery. My odds of getting drawn as a non-resident in Nevada were 1 in 467. The odds are beginning to seem steeper against me bagging a ram. This hunt has become a race against the clock. I arrived here 25 days ago and I’m getting tired. And though tired, I’m having trouble sleeping. My head is full of self doubt. I miss my family.

I feel a deep sense of urgency—desert sheep tags rarely come around twice in a lifetime. You’d better make the most of the one you get. I tell myself it is noble to have put my heart and soul into the effort and failed, although that makes the failure no less painful.

My buddies insist I pick up a rifle and ‘just shoot one’. And though the admission may reveal weakness, the thought has drifted through my mind. But each time, resolve overcomes common sense and the rifle notion, sacrilege to this wannabe purist, is shunned.

We hike to a vantage point before dawn, where, at a distance, we can see the mountain island that held the big ram. We see no sheep. We crawl through a cut in the bluffs leading to a saddle between ranges. With only our heads exposed, we scan new territory a mile away. Jim spots a ewe and a good-sized ram on top of the mountain.

My typical stalk has been to circle the mountain, climb the far side and come down on the sheep. My typical stalk has not been working.

“Jim” I say “it’s going to take me a day just to walk around that mountain, so I’m going to attempt a frontal assault” He looks at me, unable to hide his are you an idiot? look. I try to explain: “I’ll move when they’re feeding away. When I can’t see them any longer, I’ll look back for signals.”

I wait until both sheep are feeding, then dog-trot down the wash 100 yards, stop and glass. I repeat this process for a thousand yards. Once to the base of the mountain and out of sight of the sheep, I rely entirely on Jim’s signals.

Jim guides me up a narrow rock chute, laterally under a cliff face, then along the base of a small overhang. His signals indicate I’m very close. I ease one eye up, thinking to myself: Move like the hands of a clock.

My muscles tense spasmodically as I see the ram, his underbelly bracketed by his hind legs, straight above me at 15 yards. I slowly lower my head. Hands trembling, I prepare the shot.

It is a strange feeling to have a good ram so close, especially after so much time and effort. I feel like a boy who yearns for Christmas then wakes, happy his day has arrived, yet dreads its ending. Perhaps I’ve matured as a hunter, I enjoy the hunting more than the kill. The kill means an end to the hunting.

I release the arrow. The ram is down faster than the telling of it. I give Jim the hands above the head sign for victory. He doesn’t need a signal, he has the best seat in the house. I slide and hop down to the ram.

I sit beside him, admiring his old gray muzzle and face. I hold his horns in my hands, ten dark rings mark his years. As I wait for Jim, I look out at the mountains beyond, range after range, purple into infinity. Bittersweet this success–elation laced with regret.

Desert rams are 50 percent hooves, legs, hair and bone and 50 percent horns. With Jim’s help I manage the ram to my shoulders, head like a bowling ball on a rope. I fall and slide to a stop against a boulder, the ram summersaults over rock then slides down the scree.

That night in my sleeping bag I bask in the after-glow of 11th hour success– a game pulled out at the buzzer. It seems I‘ve been away from home for years. I experience a gnawing discomfort . Other than to be with my family, I have no desire to go back. Civilization I do not want. I feel no need to be anything other than a sheep hunter, no desire to go back to talk radio, telephones, freeway–and worry. Life has become simple; wake, hunt, eat, sleep, wake. Simple is good.

I fall asleep and dream of dark canyon walls and the petroglyphs I discovered there, timeless reminders of the continuity of mans existence–ancient, crude figures of sheep and man and bow. –>