The Tent Flap

The tent flap, wet and clammy with condensation, brushes a damp chill across the hunter’s stubbly face as he fumbles out of his tent in the frosty early morning darkness.  With his thickly woolen feet finally snug inside of the well broken in soft leather Bean boots, he struggles by headlamp in finger-less tattered surplus glove liners to get the lighter to finally catch his already prepared camp stove.  There is no need for an alarm despite weary legs and sore back from 4 days of clamoring over rocky ridges and thickly woven valleys in search of elk sign.  After stuffing a granola bar and some jerky into his pockets and cursing the rudeness of the manufacturer’s noisy packaging, the hunter chugs down the bitter coffee scolding his lips on the hot metal of the titanium cup in a cloud of rising condensation.  Tossing the wayward grounds, he stashes his cup and quietly and briskly weaves past his companion’s tent lines and exits camp.  There shelters tremble as they too are slowly rousing themselves from the stupor of exhaustion induced sleep.  He knows the long steep climb ahead, and the necessary haste he must undertake to get into a position ahead of the well-fed elk heading for their beds. 

                After the struggle of clamoring up the hillside as quickly and quietly as possible, the hunter curses his decision to wear that extra sweater that seemed like a necessity back at camp.  It was shed on the first quarter of the trek uphill.  With beads of sweat now rolling down from his sideburns and the feel of a soaked shirt back under his well beaten back quiver, the man slinks across the crest of the ridge as the first rays of morning sun begin to filter through the surrounding terrain.  

                With no time to reflect on the beauty and glow that surrounds him, he reaches the uphill side of a well-worn trail, clears away the dank and musty smelling pine litter, and takes care to extricate any branches that may interfere with his longbow’s limbs.  Finally, his demeanor can switch from hurried anticipation, to one of peaceful contemplation as he slowly becomes one with the mountain, that feeling that only the hunter knows.  The yellow tinted rods of morning sun beam down between clouds like fat lasers, then filter through the foliage giving the ground a mottled pattern.  The now rising thermals are given away by whatever dust particles are highlighted by the light’s path.   

While listening to the deep throaty “CAAWL” and swishing wing beats of a passing raven, he is violently snapped out of his trance by some muffled – yet approaching sounds.  Without any animation from years of conditioning, and only the shifting pupils of the eye, he catches brown movement 50 yards below his hide.  Instant telemetry calculations are performed unconsciously by the brain telling him that the animals will pass to his right out of range unless he moves.  He is suddenly keenly aware of his heart now thumping in his eardrums like big bass drum.  Attempting to convince his body to move against all his senses, he crouches and swiftly scurries 15 yards behind the eight-foot-tall trunk of a rotted and broken off woodpecker riddled pine trunk.  It is the only substantial cover left between him and the path of the now looming lead cow.  He pulled it off!  Introspectively bearing down now on his mind, he talks to his consciousness…” this is it…. concentrate…..pick a spot…. keep pulling….”.  Fingers tense on the string…. hands beginning to shake slightly…. Abruptly, like a slap across the face, in his peripheral vision he catches a huge grey form moving toward his uphill side and only 8 scant yards away!  Spinning and smoothly swinging his slender bamboo bow up into position instinctively, the huge bull catches the movement and turns to flee, but it is too late.  The wood arrow slices into the bull’s chest burying up to the orange fletch.  The panic stricken herd seems to explode in all directions as the sounds of snapping limbs, thundering hooves, and grinding rock quickly ends leaving the hunter to attempt to regain his breathing as he watches the still moving foliage slowly stop swaying.

By now he is shaking violently, everything happened so quickly.  He feels himself there now…one hand in the cool soft soil keeping his balance…. the other on his bow grip with an arrow he never remembers pulling and nocking on the string. 

It is over…..  or has it just begun?