Coyotes

Coyotes

It was the last day of deer season. Dalton had not hunted all year and he questioned the point of going when the alarm sounded. Yet his wife rousted him from bed.  “Go. It’s what your dad would have wanted,” she said. Dalton’s father had died the week before. A man...

September’s Lessons

September’s Lessons

It was the kind of heat that has weight—like an enormous hand pressing down. Every so often a puffy cloud would pass, obscuring the sun and providing a few moments of blessed relief. But then the sky would clear, the sun’s unblinking gaze would hammer down once again,...

Home Coming Whitetails

Home Coming Whitetails

The rustle of fallen white oak leaves littering the ground 30 feet below demanded my immediate attention. There, patches of brown moved. A deer! Heartbeat racing! Breathing? I am not certain I even took a breath.  A solid hour before first light and under the cover of...

Down On the Border: Mearns’ Quail

Down On the Border: Mearns’ Quail

I’d been following my Brittany, Tess, through the steep, rocky canyons of southeastern Arizona’s Coronado National Forest for the better part of an hour when her bell fell silent. I found her upslope—bug-eyed, trembling and stretched out on point—at the base of a live...