I drew a late season archery elk tag this winter, and decided to backpack hunt. It turned into quite an adventure, and the usual 'Campfire post turned into something like a short story in my notes, so I decided to post it as it lay. Photos were challenging, because I stashed my better camera in a gear cache that, as it turned out, was never used. And at the critical moment my cell phone sat in the pack far down the mountain. So I did the best I could.





The trail marker caught brightly in my headlamp. It was 4:50 the first morning of a backpack hunt in an Arizona Wilderness Area, and the stars were brilliant in the black sky. I avoided the loose rock as best I could for half a mile to the stand. The bow was freezing my hand but it didn't matter.

The stand was 33 yards uphill from a pothole bobbing with broken ice, one of a series of waterholes strung like pearls by a rocky little wash. The stand overlooked it, a superb ambush point found 6 months earlier, in the summer when dues are paid. It was late November now, and I had a bull tag.

Elk were destroying the trail, socked into deep cover far away from roads, quads, stock tanks and binoculars. Where the big boys go to chill in winter. I ranged the trail again; 33, 35 and 40 yards. Stood and drew the bow, stood and drew again, judging the cover where I would stand, where I would draw, as the bull came to water. My vantage was perfect. His vision was blocked by small trees in two places. I liked the odds.

Well, that was a short story alright.

Where is the rest of it?

I know there is more- I have been there, seen the deed and and photos...C'mon, Jeff.

You think an American Lion got Talus?

Where'd he go?

Sorry, had to take care of a few things. Be Right back.

There was a time in the young dawn when everything lay still and fresh in that hidden place and it was why I had come. At exactly then a rock rolled over a hundred yards up the wash. The sound was clarion and far away so I stood up. Something was walking down the wash in a hurry, stepping on stones and clacking them into others, pushing rocks aside. But whatever it was didn�t have hooves.

In my head the possibilities played out within the halfsecond, but there was some protest because bears never make noise. They are the most soundless animals in the woods, except maybe lions. I couldn�t imagine how quiet a lion must be. With the sound of plowing rocks, a rasp of heavy breathing flowed down the wash. Rapid and harsh and huffing like, well, an old man with a heavy pack trying to make the ridge. Coming fast and not giving a damn. Late for some appointment coveted by big boars.

The boar passed in front of me huffing, freely swinging his big head in time with his footfalls. He was the biggest bear I had ever seen in Arizona. This was the bear with the great foot, the bear looking into my trail camera like he knew. This was the bear I thought about in my sleeping bag, in his country.

It was too dark for peep sights and abundantly light to see he was enormous and fast, heading straight down the trail, into the bush and into my fresh footprint. There was a day when I knew what a boar would do when he came to my fresh footprint but that day had gone and would never be again, gone with bears that never make noise. The boar made my scent line and stopped. Thirty-five yards.

I waited for crushing leaves and springing brush, which would mean the boar hit my scent and hurried away up the opposite mountainside. There was no sound. I opened the pack and felt for the pistol. The pack was black inside and deep up to my shoulder and somewhere in that expanding universe was � flashlight. Was � rangefinder.

I could not see the bear in the brush but there was the sound of him stepping on rock and the rock was in the wash on my side of the trail. He was arcing the scent, looking for whatever had made it. Coming up the hill. He took a couple steps in the wash. The opposite way from away. My thick hand found the bag of almonds.

Skinning knife.

Water bottle.

The stippled grip in Glory. The pistol slid out of the bag and I pointed it at the brush. Where he would come. There was no light for sighting but it didn�t matter and it took a long time before I realized the bear was gone.

Came the full morning, bowsights sharp as a razor and soft wind in my favor.

The wash below seemed even steeper, my advantage greater. Warm enough to take off the hood. After 5 hours on stand it still felt prime. I stood and drew a couple times to freshen up. The woods had begun normal operations and I could look around and enjoy it in perfect position, giving nothing away. It was all profit.

A kind of rhythm had developed and I don�t know where it comes from except there�s a hunter inside who makes it and with that rhythm one looks left and right, up and down as needed, missing nothing. A wren inspecting boulders 35 yards away, a junco in the bush aside, a raven at half a mile. A strong look to left pulled on my jaw. Up the wash. Small and black rising, black falling. Its twin rising and falling beside. Alternating in time two blacks and a blackness of face and far, far behind a tiny black from side to side. The paws and face and tail took form within a lion. On the trail.

She came as if from the actual soil and made no sound at all. A singular lack of sound and there should have been �There�s a lion!� in thought but that did not come either. She looked made of power tightly bound in perfection. Somewhere far an awareness �Look at her how could this be.�

She passed the oak bush and I stood. Another and the bow was drawn. At 33 yards the arrow struck rock under her belly and she leapt, without gathering herself or speed, six feet straight up then 90 degrees to left. Leapt for some 20 feet. She flew a kind of cat flight and came to earth and tore up the mountain. I heard her plow through brush and throw leaves and stone. I should have seen her but I cannot see that fast. I sat down and shook for a long time.

Two hours later I was still lost in the thrill of it and there was a little sadness about the miss and, pretty much as a matter of course, I went down to find the arrow. It had come to rest in a blowdown after skipping off rock and from 10 feet away there was clearly something wrong with the color.

There was blood on the arrow, good blood, over the fletching. I was stunned. I had held on her chest. After the leap I thought I had shot under her, but it was a through-and-through arrow. How could anything do that after an arrow through the chest? There was no stomach matter but no bubbles either. No froth. And no blood on the ground at all. Not a drop. How could a passthrough arrow leave no blood at all?

There was nothing to do but fan out. I worked out and across up the mountainside, trying to follow the memory of her sound. It took a long time. About 20 yards from the arrow, in thick brush, I found spots of blood. They were red, rich and few. I thought of big tom leopards waiting in the trees for Jim Corbett. But since this was an American lion I could almost dismiss it.

With two points the line was easier. Another 20 yards and more drops of blood. No clots, no bubbles, no froth. Just red blood. I made a small cairn. More blood in about 30 yards. Another cairn. The mountain was steep and she angled up it, shooting leaves and earth from her heaving black paws. 15 more yards and a few drops. Another cairn. I had her line but was losing the day. I had some chance of finding her the next day. But the bear had a better chance. The afternoon waned.

After about 350 yards (two hours or more for me), she changed her angle and went with the countour. I thought it was a good thing. I was still building cairns. There were Emory oak blowdowns with their short stiff twigs and on one of these I found some kind of tissue. There was a small string of it, like fat. There was more blood and before I could build another cairn I saw, through the brush, another blowdown 20 yards away. There was a small web of fat strung on it. I had never seen anything like it, but was very glad. She was in a bad, bad way, her impossible strength drained to dragging over a knee-high blowdown. I stood straight up for the first time in I didn�t remember and there was a beautiful, perfect, tawny color on the leaves and she looked to be laid out sleeping.

In death she was not reduced and I was greatly humbled. The arrow had taken her in the last rib of the right side and almost out the armpit on the left. The three blades were clear and the wounds seemed gigantic. Fat had covered the wound on the right, until the oak found it. All her blood that spilled came from the left. Kneeling there, trying to fix her some way on the slope, I skinned as best I could.

Even late in the day the shadowed potholes were skeined with ice, and I knew the night would be cold enough to keep the fur. I still had to get down the mountain to my pack, then back to camp. Tomorrow I would have to pack her out, over the nightmare ridge, heavier than I had ever been, trying to make town before the taxidermist quit for dinner.

Superb.

Turns out, Talus got the American Lion.

Good stuff Bud.

Too bad bear season had closed like 2 days before!

T n A - (huh ?)

FANTASTIC pics - gorgeous scenery, beautiful LION (ugly mug :D).....
EXCELLENT story.
Lucky Dog - great thing that you looked to retrieve your arrow.

I enjoyed and appreciated the whole thing.

Jerry

Duh - HOW could I forget the huge bear--WOW

Excellent post Talus!

Superbly written narrative.

Awesome!!!! what a memorable hunt for you.

Well done. Congrats.

Well done Talus on all accounts!

Cool deal......way, way cool. Great pics. Congrats.

Absolutely...

DF

One of the best written short stories on hunting I've read! Well Done and Congrats!!!!

Thanks a lot, guys. It was a great day and I'm a lucky hunter.

I would have checked the arrow anyway, wherever it fell. In this case I had to practically step on it to get back to camp anyway, as it was by the path. The same path/trail the bear was on.

Needless to say, I'll put in for that tag again!

Very cool.

We have a few here, seventy miles from D.C. I've never even seen a track, but both my son and my ex had one cross the road in front if their cars some years back. They're completely protected, of course, and you'd probably get in less trouble for shooting me than one of the big cats.

My cousin hunts in Charles County, Maryland, right off Rt. 301 and has seen two, one of them a few weeks ago. The DNR folk, of course deny that they are there, but it's kind of hard to confuse a big, tawny cat sporting a long, ropy tail with anything else.

Great post, congrats!

Magnificent!!! Thank you for "taking" me along and sharing your hunt!

Talus,

That's great story and pics! Thank you for "taking us along".

Beautifully written. Congratulations on your successful hunt.

Not sure what you do for a living, but you definitely have a gift as a story teller/writer...

DF

Wonderful story, Jeff! I have been traveling, and I put off reading this until I had time to savor it. Your story, with a glass of good whiskey, made for a wonderful end to the work week. Salud!

There are some real pearls of literary genius in the story - in both head and heart. I enjoyed it immensely.

Getting the cat was pretty cool too.

No doubt.

It was so well done and professional, makes me currious about Talus, who he is, what is his background.

He obviously didn't fall off a turnip truck...

DF

Well done Talus.
You captured the very essence of the woods and the hunt. Any one who has been in the woods much can live it right along with you. Well done Sir, I congratulate you on your skill with pen and paper. Why worry about an elk when you can get the ghost of the woods. Cheers NC

Good for you...beautiful trophy!

Well done and thanks for sharing.

Goes to show you always follow up any shot.

Jeff-
You are the MAN!!!!! Awesome story and congrats. I think some of that Slade luck might be wearing off on you.

Hell of a good write up, you can tell you took your time on this one.