Blood Trail

heard with cautious and stoic superiority. I followed the track through the meadow, and the still dark and dripping timber, until it opened up on the rocky crest of a ridge that overlooks the grassy hillside. I walk along the edge of the meadow, keeping the track of my prey to my right, so I can read it with a simple downward glance, like a driver checking a road map. But in this case, the route I am following, filled with rushes, pauses, and contemplation, takes me across the high wooded terrain of the eastern slope of the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming. Like my prey, I stop often to listen, to look, to draw the pine and dust-scented air deep into my lungs, and to taste it, savor it, let it enter me. I become a part of the whole, not a visitor. In the timber, I do my best to control my breathing, to keep it soft and rhythmic. I don't hike and climb too fast or too clumsily, so I get out of breath. In the dawn-October chill, my breath is ephemeral, condensating into a cloud from my nose and mouth and whipping away into nothingness. If my prey suspects I am on it, if it hears my labored breathing, it might stop in the thick forest to wait and observe. If I blunder into him, I might never get the shot, or get a poor shot that results in a wound. I don't want that to happen. I almost lose the track when the rising terrain turns rocky and becomes plates of granite. The sun has not yet entered this part of the forest, so the light is dull and fused. Morning mist hangs as if sleeping in the trees, making the rise of the terrain ahead of me seem as if I observe it through a smudged window. Although I know the general direction we are headed, I stop and observe, letting my breath return to a whisper, letting my senses drink in the scene and tell me things I can't just see. Slowly, slowly, as I stand there and make myself not look at the hillside, or the trees, or anything in particular, make the scene in front of me all peripheral, the story is revealed as if the ground itself provides the narration. My prey paused where I pause, when it was even darker. It looked for a better route to the top of the rise so as not to have to scramble up the surface of solid granite, not only because of the slickness of the rock, but because the surface is covered with dry pockets of pine needles and untethered stones, each of which, if stepped on directly or dislodged, would signal the presence of an intruder. But it couldn't see a better way, so it stepped up onto the ledge and continued on a few feet. I now see the disturbance caused by a tentative step in a pile of pine needles, where a quarter-sized spot of moisture has been revealed. The disturbed pine needles themselves, no more than a dozen of them, are scattered on the bare rock like a child's pick-up sticks. Ten feet to the right of the pocket of pine needles, a small, egg-shaped stone lies upturned with clean white granite exposed to the sky. I know the stone has been dislodged, turned upside down by an errant step or stumble, because the exposed side is too clean to have been there long. Which means my prey realized scrambling up the rock face was too loud, so he doubled back and returned to where it started. I guess he would skirt the exposed granite to find a better, softer place to climb. I find where my prey stopped to urinate, leaving a dark stain in the soil. I find it by the smell, which is salty and pungent. Pulling off a glove, I touch the moist ground with the tips of my fingers, and it is a few degrees warmer than the dirt or air. It is close. And I can see a clear track where it turned back again toward the southeast, toward the ridge. On the other side of the ridge will be the elk. I will likely smell them before I see them. Elk have a particular odor, earthy like potting soil laced with musk, especially in the morning when the sun warms and dries out their damp hides. Quietly, deliberately, I put my glove back on and work the bolt on my rifle. I catch a glimpse of the bright, clean brass of the cartridge as it seats in the chamber.