This is a long story about my recent elk hunt on my reservation. I have posted it mainly for my family and friends so I can share this experience. Thanks in advance for reading it.
"There is something on your glasses," he said to me.
I walked Ehren to the lonely, puny cholla cactus I crouched behind on the south side as the two cows with the bull elk behind them as they exited the small draw right towards me. I had originally planned to crouch behind a nice, human-hiding, square rock at least 2.5ft x 2.5 feet but I had a "see through" cholla cactus about 3 feet high to deal with because they came back to the mouth of the drainage without warning.
I have said this before but like all good things in life, they happen too quickly. Like my first elk hunt at Laguna that in some cases seemed like eternity also existed within no more than 20 seconds time. These are the moments in life that we savor and hold so closely to our hearts. We cherish these events so much so that we can repeat them over in our heads every day. These are moments we remember so dearly with our families, our friends, our loved ones. Each one of us has these moments. Perhaps it was the last time you saw them and remember the way they moved, the things they said, what the weather was like. This is how I remember my moments with this elk and several other moments in my life. Clearly time stops. Our friend, my dad's best friend since they were kids getting Ridgecrest sand in their hair having adventures in the desert, Greg Clark, who has enough life stories to fill the Pacific Ocean, says that time literally slows down in these moments. This was his thesis in life. As you experience these things your brain is on hyper-alert and you are taking in 'frames' very vividly and those moments are engrained in you without fail. Greg's memorial was the morning before the day I harvested my elk. My dad read a poem "I am free" at his grave. Although I wasn't there in person I was flying down a dirt road on the eastern edge of my unit with dirt trails following me, thinking motoX Greg would probably be flying 80mph in front of me down this same dirt road and I'd be "eating his rocks". Greg's thesis is right, time does slow down and it is up to us to remember and share them as he always did.
I love rocks. I love them so much my brother and I used to eat them. I ate a few while we hunted this week and craved them as we drove along the iron-rich rock outcrops with dust clouds trailing. My mouth literally starts to water. I know, that's very weird but so Indian right??
Anyway, enough about Indians eating rocks. On the 4th day, at 4mins to 4am (I looked at my watch and it said 2:56 which was still on AZ time) we heard a bugle that must have been only 1/4 miles away from our camp. Then at 4am another bugle, even closer. Then at 4:04 am a bugle that was practically at our mountain hardware tent window and Bella started growling, very low. When she growls like this I even get scared. Did I mention Bella, my lab-akita mix, was with us? Mainly to keep us resting every now and then because if it were up to me we'd hike all day, every day while there was light out. Trying to move in a plastic tent in a plastic lined sleeping bag, on a plastic sleeping pad to hush your dog as elk move through your camp is no small feat. Yah, she kept growing, but very low and I hoped the elk would think it was another rez dog making their presence known. Kinda like a morning nod but with a sense of confidence. Bella does good at keeping me safe. She has scared boogie men and sasquatch away from our BIA bunkhouse at Mescalero and I have a theory that she is going to save my life one day, maybe everyday.
Did I mention four is an important number to Indian people? Four directions, four stages of life, four seasons, four fingers (just kidding). Four days after my first elk harvest in 2013 was when aunt Iris passed away at Laguna, and four days after that it rained in Laguna, which never ever happens. No, but really, this was the fourth day of my bull elk hunt and at 4 am all this happens, man, is that a sign or what? I felt about as Indian as a 1/4 blood Indian can feel at 4am that fourth day.
So the elk were in our camp but precisely 2.5 hours before the sun came up. They were saying: get ready. Don't give up. We are here. I couldn't sleep for about an hour, contemplated trying to quickly and quietly (by some force of Indian magic) put on my hunting gear, load my rifle and leave the tent and just sit and wait at a nearby juniper to tell them I "wasn't going to give up" but alas I knew they would smell me and they would be gone.
I somehow slept from 5:15-5:45 and in that time I dreamed of dreading waking up. I was with my mom, my dad and my brother and I was begging them to come out with me because I didn't want to do this alone. I dreaded hunting. I dreaded the idea of taking something's life, alone. In my dream I didn't want to wake up because I knew once I woke up that would be the time. I didn't want to go alone. I didn't want to do this in my dream. Then the alarm went off and it was time to get ready. I couldn't give up. I had to be out in the juniper stand an hour before the sun came up. A' stand', in this context can have several meanings but I'm using it to define an area of trees with approximately the same density and structure within the unit. My juniper stand was a good one to be in because it had several large juniper trees per acre that would provide me with good hiding. Ok, enough Forestry 101 but let me be clear by saying I don't sit in a tree stand. We hike and move with the animals.
Two days earlier we ran into a group of 7 elk with a 7x7 bull near the southern end of my unit. I was on another ridge and they were to my south. Our two ridges came together about 0.5 miles to my east and they were moving that direction. I moved quickly and quietly to the point where we could meet. Staying on the radio with Ehren and coordinating my movements with their feeding. After ~15 mins I had caught up to them and the bull was moving into a clearing. I put my hearing protection in and got ready for potentially making a shot when all of a sudden one of the calves towards the rear came full sprint running towards the rest of the group. Immediately they all started running towards the top of the saddle and were going to bust and completely disappear off the top of the saddle to another area I wouldn't be able to get to in time. I knew this was it, I hunkered down, he paused, I got him in my sights and pulled the trigger.
"I think I got him!" I yelled over the radio. He took 5 strides and immediately he and the herd moved over the saddle as expected. I only got 3 seconds to watch his movements and couldn't see anything too indicative of me successfully hitting him. Fear, doubt, pain set in about as quick as the worst punch in the stomach can happen. Did I really hit him? We got on their tracks and scanned the entire saddle for blood. Nothing. We followed their tracks for 0.75 miles and didn't see any blood, scanned the area from high points and exactly 45 minutes after my shot we heard a gunshot at the top of the mesa at 6:10pm in the direction the tracks led us. I didn't sleep well that night, needless to say. If I missed, should I quit and go home? If I didn't, did I wound him (worst feeling in the world)? Did I hit him and will we find him in the morning? Did somebody else shoot that bull 45 mins later?
Somehow the world has a way of working out when your heart is in the right place as my aunt reminds me. I had missed, which in a way was the best and worst relief in the world. We drove to the top of the mesa first thing in the morning and sure enough, we looked down over the lava rocks and there they were butchering the 7X7 elk. We came to find out that it was shot by a 14 year old girl from Laguna and her dad and uncle were out there that morning because she was in school that day. She had been hunting for less than 40 mins at the top of the mesa when he presented her with an opportunity. That was her bull and I'm proud there is a younger generation of Laguna women hunting on our reservation.
I thought a lot that day about what to do and I decided to stick it out. I am not really clear on why but it felt ok to stay out there and keep trying. We did everything we could. I double checked my shot that afternoon and had only 1.5 inches between my shots at 150 yards on a make-shift target. Admittedly this was something I didn't want to talk about but it is important to remember this reality and possibility. It's a reminder that hunting is never easy, there are so many factors that come into play and it is probably one of the most challenging things I've tried to do. It felt like that elk was in a good place so I continued on.
continued...
"There is something on your glasses," he said to me.
I walked Ehren to the lonely, puny cholla cactus I crouched behind on the south side as the two cows with the bull elk behind them as they exited the small draw right towards me. I had originally planned to crouch behind a nice, human-hiding, square rock at least 2.5ft x 2.5 feet but I had a "see through" cholla cactus about 3 feet high to deal with because they came back to the mouth of the drainage without warning.
I have said this before but like all good things in life, they happen too quickly. Like my first elk hunt at Laguna that in some cases seemed like eternity also existed within no more than 20 seconds time. These are the moments in life that we savor and hold so closely to our hearts. We cherish these events so much so that we can repeat them over in our heads every day. These are moments we remember so dearly with our families, our friends, our loved ones. Each one of us has these moments. Perhaps it was the last time you saw them and remember the way they moved, the things they said, what the weather was like. This is how I remember my moments with this elk and several other moments in my life. Clearly time stops. Our friend, my dad's best friend since they were kids getting Ridgecrest sand in their hair having adventures in the desert, Greg Clark, who has enough life stories to fill the Pacific Ocean, says that time literally slows down in these moments. This was his thesis in life. As you experience these things your brain is on hyper-alert and you are taking in 'frames' very vividly and those moments are engrained in you without fail. Greg's memorial was the morning before the day I harvested my elk. My dad read a poem "I am free" at his grave. Although I wasn't there in person I was flying down a dirt road on the eastern edge of my unit with dirt trails following me, thinking motoX Greg would probably be flying 80mph in front of me down this same dirt road and I'd be "eating his rocks". Greg's thesis is right, time does slow down and it is up to us to remember and share them as he always did.
I love rocks. I love them so much my brother and I used to eat them. I ate a few while we hunted this week and craved them as we drove along the iron-rich rock outcrops with dust clouds trailing. My mouth literally starts to water. I know, that's very weird but so Indian right??
Anyway, enough about Indians eating rocks. On the 4th day, at 4mins to 4am (I looked at my watch and it said 2:56 which was still on AZ time) we heard a bugle that must have been only 1/4 miles away from our camp. Then at 4am another bugle, even closer. Then at 4:04 am a bugle that was practically at our mountain hardware tent window and Bella started growling, very low. When she growls like this I even get scared. Did I mention Bella, my lab-akita mix, was with us? Mainly to keep us resting every now and then because if it were up to me we'd hike all day, every day while there was light out. Trying to move in a plastic tent in a plastic lined sleeping bag, on a plastic sleeping pad to hush your dog as elk move through your camp is no small feat. Yah, she kept growing, but very low and I hoped the elk would think it was another rez dog making their presence known. Kinda like a morning nod but with a sense of confidence. Bella does good at keeping me safe. She has scared boogie men and sasquatch away from our BIA bunkhouse at Mescalero and I have a theory that she is going to save my life one day, maybe everyday.
Did I mention four is an important number to Indian people? Four directions, four stages of life, four seasons, four fingers (just kidding). Four days after my first elk harvest in 2013 was when aunt Iris passed away at Laguna, and four days after that it rained in Laguna, which never ever happens. No, but really, this was the fourth day of my bull elk hunt and at 4 am all this happens, man, is that a sign or what? I felt about as Indian as a 1/4 blood Indian can feel at 4am that fourth day.
So the elk were in our camp but precisely 2.5 hours before the sun came up. They were saying: get ready. Don't give up. We are here. I couldn't sleep for about an hour, contemplated trying to quickly and quietly (by some force of Indian magic) put on my hunting gear, load my rifle and leave the tent and just sit and wait at a nearby juniper to tell them I "wasn't going to give up" but alas I knew they would smell me and they would be gone.
I somehow slept from 5:15-5:45 and in that time I dreamed of dreading waking up. I was with my mom, my dad and my brother and I was begging them to come out with me because I didn't want to do this alone. I dreaded hunting. I dreaded the idea of taking something's life, alone. In my dream I didn't want to wake up because I knew once I woke up that would be the time. I didn't want to go alone. I didn't want to do this in my dream. Then the alarm went off and it was time to get ready. I couldn't give up. I had to be out in the juniper stand an hour before the sun came up. A' stand', in this context can have several meanings but I'm using it to define an area of trees with approximately the same density and structure within the unit. My juniper stand was a good one to be in because it had several large juniper trees per acre that would provide me with good hiding. Ok, enough Forestry 101 but let me be clear by saying I don't sit in a tree stand. We hike and move with the animals.
Two days earlier we ran into a group of 7 elk with a 7x7 bull near the southern end of my unit. I was on another ridge and they were to my south. Our two ridges came together about 0.5 miles to my east and they were moving that direction. I moved quickly and quietly to the point where we could meet. Staying on the radio with Ehren and coordinating my movements with their feeding. After ~15 mins I had caught up to them and the bull was moving into a clearing. I put my hearing protection in and got ready for potentially making a shot when all of a sudden one of the calves towards the rear came full sprint running towards the rest of the group. Immediately they all started running towards the top of the saddle and were going to bust and completely disappear off the top of the saddle to another area I wouldn't be able to get to in time. I knew this was it, I hunkered down, he paused, I got him in my sights and pulled the trigger.
"I think I got him!" I yelled over the radio. He took 5 strides and immediately he and the herd moved over the saddle as expected. I only got 3 seconds to watch his movements and couldn't see anything too indicative of me successfully hitting him. Fear, doubt, pain set in about as quick as the worst punch in the stomach can happen. Did I really hit him? We got on their tracks and scanned the entire saddle for blood. Nothing. We followed their tracks for 0.75 miles and didn't see any blood, scanned the area from high points and exactly 45 minutes after my shot we heard a gunshot at the top of the mesa at 6:10pm in the direction the tracks led us. I didn't sleep well that night, needless to say. If I missed, should I quit and go home? If I didn't, did I wound him (worst feeling in the world)? Did I hit him and will we find him in the morning? Did somebody else shoot that bull 45 mins later?
Somehow the world has a way of working out when your heart is in the right place as my aunt reminds me. I had missed, which in a way was the best and worst relief in the world. We drove to the top of the mesa first thing in the morning and sure enough, we looked down over the lava rocks and there they were butchering the 7X7 elk. We came to find out that it was shot by a 14 year old girl from Laguna and her dad and uncle were out there that morning because she was in school that day. She had been hunting for less than 40 mins at the top of the mesa when he presented her with an opportunity. That was her bull and I'm proud there is a younger generation of Laguna women hunting on our reservation.
I thought a lot that day about what to do and I decided to stick it out. I am not really clear on why but it felt ok to stay out there and keep trying. We did everything we could. I double checked my shot that afternoon and had only 1.5 inches between my shots at 150 yards on a make-shift target. Admittedly this was something I didn't want to talk about but it is important to remember this reality and possibility. It's a reminder that hunting is never easy, there are so many factors that come into play and it is probably one of the most challenging things I've tried to do. It felt like that elk was in a good place so I continued on.
continued...
