Shoulder Season

Reflections on a Valentine's Day Elk Hunt

I stumbled out of my 70s singlewide cradling a rifle and a hot cup of coffee in the same arm, an old Army skill, into the dark, cold air. I take my rifle with my free hand, look up at the stars between naked cottonwood branches, and lift the mug to my face, feeling the steam on my nose and eyelashes before I sip. I hadn’t spilled a drop. I listen to the nearby Yellowstone River. It’s 6:15am, Livingston, MT, Valentine’s Day.

My alarm had gone off at 4:15 but I’d changed my mind:  no time to hunt, too much going on. I was behind on everything, and I needed to get down to the Wagon Box in time to help with Valentine’s stuff. Just before 6am JB called and said he saw elk. I was going to say something about my change of plans, but I said “I’ll be right there.” 

Montana Elk ends in November but ranchers got an extended “antlerless” season to mid-February to reduce crop damage. They call it Shoulder Season, not sure why.

Rolling south, the mountains loom marbled dark and white. I feel that surge being on the move before others are awake. It feels good, and overcomes the nag of stuff not getting done, taxes and schedules: laptop stuff. I thought of the title “Homesteader at Large” I’d put on my Facebook profile about ten years ago. Not sure that makes sense.

JB’s the real thing, guided in Alaska thirty years, now lives off-grid at the end of a long, rough dirt drive that drops down steep into a broad, shallow bowl of dirt and rocks and tufts of dry grass protruding from the crusted snow. He lives in a shed with a sink and wood heat, around it old cars, a greenhouse, gardens, a shop and shooting range. He appears from the shadows. 

“Morning,” he whispers, and launches right into where the elk are and where I should go and hide and watch. He speaks calm, urgent, confident. At 61, he can do twenty pull ups, he can fix any engine, fly an airplane, talk constitutional law. His wife left three years ago and he prays for reconciliation. 

“Yes sir, got it,” and I move out toward the corral and old camper now a wind break, which I get into and peak out the window. It’s light already, a late start, but I see them moving my way. Through the scope the cross hairs move around like a mosquito trying to land. The oddest thoughts come through my mind just as I’m trying to focus, like the time I was in Morgantown looking at a trailer park to buy with all abandoned trailers. That was Valentine’s day too, and I got there late and, with nowhere else to go, spent the night in one of them, on a nest of empty grocery bags. It must have been that old camper smell.

JB appeared. “Well?” he asked  at normal volume. The elk were gone. He had the half smile a guide must learn when their hunter shoots all his ammo.

“I was a belt-fed guy in the Army, carried 800 rounds,” I said.

His smile broadened into a real one. “I see.”

We walk toward where they’d been and at a distance saw one laying down. We crouched too late, she got up and ran, and JB took after her, pistol drawn, looping to the left to try to head her off. I ran too, a good deal behind him. He took three shots.

We stood beside the cow elk catching our breath. She was dead but you could feel her warmth. I looked out on the panorama of mountains, a palate of amber and slate with sunlight moving down the peaks to the west. A little breeze was kicking up. We went to get my truck and rope to drag her back onto his property. On his count we leaned far forward and with little hard fought steps made six or eight feet before a rest. I didn’t know if I’d make it but we did, after which I could barely walk.

JB advises as I gutted her out. We put the heart and liver on cardboard he found. I poked at a white sack. “That’s the baby” he said, and I nodded and tried to look away, but saw it move. We got the carcass up into the bed, it wasn’t easy, and drove back.

“Think about the pioneers,” I said, just getting my breath back. “Two guys, a truck, and still a lot of work. Imagine back then.”

“Yeah, for sure,” he replied, looking down, pensive. “I think about a lot of things.”

We walked into the cozy hut and I took in the stacks of Army manuals and devotionals and the picture of a couple on his desk.

“Something about killing a cow this late in the season. Today.” I said.

“I guess that’s why they call it Shoulder Season.” He held open the bag and I realized I was holding the heart, and gently place it in.

I put the bag in the truck bed, on some snow. Broad daylight now, we both were nervous to get going but we talked. I told him I wanted to move to Alaska. He understood. Before I left he lifted his arms and said a prayer of thanksgiving. I, too, lifted my arms up, tense and high, then letting off. It felt good to be alive. I took in a breath let it out with a sigh of thanks as my arms dropped down, and looked up to see JB smiling. 

As he was out of sight I was scrolling on my phone. Already texts and emails piling up. I still had to hang that heavy elk somewhere in the shade, then drive south. I tossed the phone into the passenger seat, and thought of the pioneers, visualizing a homestead on the other side of the river to my right. Was their life so much harder? They had way more time, more space. I sped up, rolled down my window and leaned into the cold rushing air.