The Life and Times of the Plume

Something I thought about while on this elk hunt is how much hunting has taught me about my own limitations, which is to say, I’m not sure I have many. Oh sure, I have limitations when it comes to how many hours are in a day but if I had all the time in the world and two legs to stand on I would get a lot done. I might live one hundred lives in the span of one lifetime. Let me explain:

When I want to quit because I am struggling to catch my breath, when I have a 90lb pack on my back and I don’t think my legs can hold me upright on a steep slope for another minute, I just grit my teeth and I don’t allow my legs to fail me. I carry on because my mind can order my body around. Hunting has taught me I can do mostly anything as long as I don’t quit trying.

From camp I look to the top of the Ridgeline, to the place we must go. Dawn is breaking and it will be a while before the sun crests the sharp peaks of the basin. It is cold, but not unbearably so. I have not eaten. I begin walking in the dark, through the last of the moonlight, through the luminous glow of snow.

Halfway up the spur I am out of breath and overheating. I tell my legs to keep moving. Little by little we make our way to the summit. We stop and drink water and find a spot to sit while we pull our binoculars from our chest packs. The wind is heavy handed and we pull our hoods over our heads and snuggle our chins down lower on our necks, corking the body heat we have trapped in our layers of clothing. We place our elbows on our knees to steady our magnified sight and we look at the country through our binoculars. We look for minutes or hours. We relocate to the top of a different spur which affords us a slightly different view. The country shifts and changes, in and out of shadow and light as the sun rises and sweeps across the sky, timber and ravines open and close and open again to our view. We warm up with a fire and cups of tea, rest, keep looking. This isn’t hard work, once we’re up top, but it isn’t easy work. It’s mostly about seeing and not stopping until the moon comes up.

When is the last time you refused to give up?

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On the way into the country we stopped to fuel the truck and I jogged over to a little coffee stand to buy Robbie a chai latte and a decaf Americano for myself. I struck up a conversation with the coffee gal and we wound up discussing her plans after her senior year at high school whereupon she told me:

“Honestly, I’d prefer to become famous on Instagram and not work a day in my life.”

I felt so sad when she told me this. I’m sure my emotions flickered across my face. It was such a casual and tragic confession of an absolute lack of ambition. It made me wonder where all the dreamers and doers have gone.

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Stay safe? No.

Stay joyful.
Stay courageous.
Stay observant.
Stay thoughtful.
Stay hopeful.
Stay honest.
Stay smart.
Stay hardworking.
Stay disciplined.
Stay faithful.
Stay compassionate.

All of these things may lead to danger.
Prepare yourself accordingly.

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I walk the contours of the land which is upright and rugged and righteous and ancient. I make note of the springs (good for archery next September). I recognize landmarks up close because I have glassed them from afar, sometimes for hours: the yellow stump, the split-trunk grandfather fir, the unexpected wallow on agate spur, the sanctuary where no woman dare crawl (except for me, and crawl I did, on my hands and knees, it was so dreadfully vertical), the grassy bench, the shadow cliff. I give everything a name. I name it because I know it.

To know a place is to be in relationship with a place is to value a place…is to love it, cherish it, care for it…and perhaps this is the very heart of stewardship. The heart of which is conservation. The heart of which is hunting. A split heart. A three-chambered heart. To know this place is to love this place — to hunt it, to fight for it, to have a role here, to actively participate in the food chain, to see everything in it thrive (including myself) so it might last my lifetime and into forever.

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“I feel the nights stretching away
thousands long behind the days
till they reach the darkness where
all of me is ancestor.”
[Annie Finch]

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We packed up camp and saddled the horses in wind and sleet. We were soaked before we had all our gear buttoned up and I said, “Thank you Lord for this raingear.” The horses had been parked in camp for a few days doing nothing but eating and standing high-lined and they started down the trail real spicy like which was more spicy than I had energy for. I remember hoping the wind didn’t come up. Riding through the burns, through standing black timber, is nerve wracking in a gale. Trees fall over, left and right, and the horses grow edgy. We would find out the wind was howling when we hit the ridge top 3 miles from the trailhead but on the valley floor it was breezy and pouring rain.

We rode and night came and turned the mountain pitch black and I sat deep in my saddle and let Coulee go at her own pace. Behind me Hawk and Canyon were chugging along. I couldn’t see Robbie anymore but I stopped every once and a while to check in. His hands were going cold. Mine too. We gained the ridge to home and were pummeled by the wind, hunched in our saddles and praying for every other switchback to take the sleet out of our faces. Then our two mile landmark. Then the last mile home, with a sheer cliff on one side and a steep slope to the other side. I find the darkness on horseback discombobulating and I began to lose my balance in the saddle. I could no longer feel my fingers. I dismounted and suggested Robbie do the same. He removed the lead from our packhorse so he could follow us down freely and unhurried. We turned on our headlamps and led our critters the last mile to the trailhead, stumbling in the darkness over roots and rocks, watching the illuminated precipitation falling sideways, changing between rain, sleet and snow, making us feel high as kites and dizzy as hell. When the trail flattened out at the bottom I sighed with relief.

The rule is:

Take care of your horses.
Take care of your guns.
Then take care of yourselves.

We followed the rule. Horses were untacked and tied up for the night with rations of hay. I hopped in the camper, fired up the heater, and put the guns up by the bed to dry out, then I pulled a glorious batch of elk spaghetti sauce from the fridge, lit the stove and began to cook up some dinner for us while stripping off wet layers.

We ate. We checked our stock once more. We fell into bed and slept. The next day we drove home to the farm. Empty handed. It was a great hunt.