We left the lodge the next morning an hour and a half before sunrise, heading back up into the high country. The night was sharp and clear and brutally cold. The sky was studded with stars, and our senses and souls were vital and alive and brimming with hope. It promised to be a perfect morning for photographs, so at the last minute, Chuck decided to join us with his camera.
At first light we caught sight of them—a small group of late season bachelor bulls far to the southwest above Iron Springs Lake. We immediately began our move, dropping into the canyon and then climbing out the other side before circling into the high valley below the herd. We spotted them again 300 yards above, all of them big but one truly outstanding, his mighty rack looking very much like the great bull from yesterday evening. For one fleeting moment I had him in my crosshairs; but the entire group began to suspect that something was amiss and started moving again.
We moved parallel with them from below, up the canyon through foot-deep snow. Again they paused and again I momentarily caught the big bull in my scope. But by now they seemed to sense that something was wrong and turned south along the ridge.
Jaime and I continued to move with them as we bore up the valley, but Chuck dropped down to be in position to cut them off should they double back.
We finally halted 250 yards below the spur where the ridgeline fell away. We could see them there above us in the low light of dawn as they milled about in the sparse cedar and scrub oak, first moving briefly back north in the direction they had just come, then dropping away over the crest and disappearing altogether.
There was no possibility for us to head them off, so we tucked into the shadows, scanning the spur above and hoping they would circle back, me sitting with my rifle resting lightly on the shooting sticks as I covered the skyline while Jaime knelt close beside me glassing the ridge above.
Then, from around the eastern flank came three big bulls, clearly on alert, peering back to the north. A moment later three or four more topped out 80 yards above them. I examined each as they came, searching for that one majestic herd bull we hoped was still with them.
The tall cedars and fragmented sprigs of oak brush that separated them seemed vast and empty.
And then there was movement.
At first it was just the tips of his antlers I saw, then his entire rack growing to fill my scope as the morning parted and the great bull crested the ridge. He moved as I had always imagined he would, looming grand and elegant, slowly turning his head from side to side as he studied the scene, huge, bigger than any elk I had ever beheld.
The entire universe now existed only in my riflescope as I watched him. I knew this elk—I had known him for nineteen years, confident that one day he would come, growing into my vision until he was complete.
And now he was complete, fluid in his every movement, royal in his demeanor, framed against the sky and the softly shaded ridge, turning slightly to the left as he began quartering downhill.
And on he came, step by step by resplendent step, his nose held high and forward into the swirling wind, his great headdress flung back over his massive shoulders as he surveyed his last domain, turning fully broadside as I eased my rifle and myself off safety, the crosshairs probing his broad chest, searching for that lovely crease that I knew existed just behind his shoulder, distance certain, angle uphill, steady, steady, breathe, don’t breathe, hold for him to clear, there, there . . . wait . . . wait . . .
The recoil was firm and controlled, and it lifted the muzzle of my rifle as I racked the bolt and rechambered. Pulling the scope back down, I saw him stumble and fall, then try to regain his feet, both of us knowing full well that he could not.
Immediately I sent another round flying up the mountain and into his chest to end it for him, and his noble head turned slightly and settled to earth as he surrendered to the Eternal. And still I watched him, my last round chambered, my finger on the trigger, his great motionless shoulder covered by my crosshairs, I alert for any sign that might require this one final cartridge.
The trembling air was icy and alive on my stubbled face, the rifle hot in my ungloved hands, the smooth oil-finished walnut warm and reassuring as it pressed firmly into my face. The silence was palpable and nearly overwhelming as the muffled echoes of my shots coursed the canyon walls and came circling back into the focused reality that for the past few moments had been centered in my scope, and from some far realm I could hear Jaime’s distant voice.
I lifted my head and peered over the top of the rifle at our elk, then turned to Jaime, still kneeling close beside me, and he smiled his grandest smile and flung his arm around my shoulders and shook me, and I was back from the killing.
It is a holy thing, walking up to a creature you have just slain by your own intent, and for my part it is something I can never quite bring myself to fully share.
I climbed the ridge alone that morning, rising solo from the snow and the deep blue shadows of dawn, easing up the long slope into the first quivering shimmer of sunrise, and as I neared the old bull I paused. He lay above me on his side, his noble head angled downhill in my direction, his great antlers rising into the quickening sky, his vacant amber eye still shining as it stared lifeless into my soul.
I knelt there below him and made words to him, and it took a minute or so before I could bring myself to touch him, whispering a fervent prayer of thanks as I laid my bare hand against his still-warm shoulder.
The cold December sun bathed us in the first full rays of dawn as I looked out on the world awakening below us, shrouded in shadow except for this single ridge lifting its blood-stained crest into the sharp, side-shearing light of new morning.
We waited there together, the old elk and me, until Chuck and Jaime finally joined us. I thanked Jaime in his own language and he responded in kind, and by noon we were all back at the lodge where Frank and his good dog Crockett were standing in the warm light of day to greet us.
We had waited long to share this moment, Frank and I, and only we truly understood what it meant.
Just as we’d known we would for nineteen years.
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