|
|||||
|
"Le Revue de Les Refuses"
|
|||||
|
A Non-hunter's Tale It was a 3 am wakeup for the long drive through darkness into Raulings where we had our breakfast at a Subway in some truck stop. Along the way we dodged all but one of the many rabbits that were out in the roadway. Here we picked up I-80 West to the assigned hunting ground north of Rock Springs toward Eden and Fargas in semi-desert country. We turned off I-80 and made our way to the gravel road heading north in the first light of dawn. Some miles farther on I hit a pothole and received my cousin's rebuke on my driving skills. A bit further and he asked me to stop the truck. I had been looking out the left side of the truck for any sign of antelope and had missed the herd off on the right in a wash area just south of the Continental Divide. While my cousin busied himself with what hunters do I soaked in a landscape that literally stretched to the horizon with only the road to indicate human occupation of it. Within moments my cousin was ready and started east on the long stalk to the kill. I followed his progress. Twice he took aim then hunkered low and proceeded on apparently for a clearer shot. He walked on into the low sagebrush. When he was perhaps an eighth of a mile from my vantage point the first rays of the sun broke over a butte on the eastern horizon and a pack of coyotes very near to my west began greeting it with sharp yelps and whimpers. I heard many voices in that chorus with several of them sounding like pups. Their Song of Morning was done within minutes and I once again turned my attention to where I had last seen my cousin. He had by now turned toward the southeast. I marveled at how easily I could relocate him in that empty expanse. I thought to myself that this was taking longer than I had thought it might and began to think of settling down for the long haul. My cousin paused on the stalk and for a long while did not move at all. The sun continued the start of its voyage across the sky and had barely risen to a complete red orb hanging above the distant butte when I heard the shot. My cousin had told me to bring the truck on that signal but I think I thought him to be a bit overconfident. So I waited. Turning my vision more to the south I spotted the herd moving west toward the road. I waited for them to cross for long moments while the buck looked back to where they had come from. I started up the truck, turned it around in the road bed and drove to where the antelope had exited the field. I had figured on them showing me the easier path to where any fallen animal might lay and I was right. I found my cousin easily and positioned the truck for a smooth loading operation. Field dressing an animal was a new experience for me. My mindset was in the right place as I knew this animal was meant for food. Some part of me paid homage to the long history of mankind at this moment. When the stomach cavity was opened up we knew that the bullet had nicked some organ in the digestive pathway. I kind of marveled at the amount of plant fiber waiting for the quiet cud chewing that would never come. When the not altogether unpleasant stench had permeated the air we heard another coyote pack start up to our east. When the dressing operation was complete we left them plenty of food there on the desert floor. They would find it later. We pushed the tarp into the back of the truck, loaded up the antelope and made our way out of the field and back to where I had been originally parked. It was then that, now with enough light, I did my picture taking. As I was playing Ansel Adams we noticed that the antelope herd had completed a long half circle and were crossing the road to our north. I managed to get two photographs of them. The first was of a couple of the does. The last was of the trophy buck that my cousin had declined in favor of taking a doe for food. We turned around once again at about 7:30am, the whole of the hunt having taken a half hour, headed back south toward I-80. From there we made our way east to Sinclair where my cousin contracted a small company to process and package his kill for later when we would carry it home to Kentucky. We picked it up, all neatly packaged and frozen, on our way out from the cabin on the long journey home. In an email my cousin has told me "We made spaghetti sauce with some of the antelope yesterday. The wife and her grandchildren agreed that it made superb sauce, and liked the taste of the browned meat. So the demise of the antelope will not be in vain at all." Thus it is, as it should be, that the circle of life
continues on planet Earth. |
