The archer post holed across the slope, the snow from last winters drifts still 20 feet deep. The refracted sun felt like a torch on his face and he tilted the wide brim on the old straw he favored to vainly block at least some of the suns power.
He cussed himself for the late start and the firm going he would have had crossing the snow fields if he had reached them earlier in the cool of the day.
As it was the snow was soft and there was little he could do to change that fact by griping. The archer tucked his chin and pushed on, finding at least some comfort in the fact that, after all, he was in the high country again, scouting elk. So what if the going was hard. He was where he wanted to be and knew where he wanted to go...
:coffee: Been waiting a while for this one.
It surely had been one hell of a winter.
Part of the archers mind went over some of it as the monotony of the climb and the fatigue in his thighs numbed him into a trance. But enough of him stayed present that he kept his balance and saw the slight changes in the snow surface that could send him sliding or worse, break his leg.
He let his instinct guide him. The archer was certain of one thing at least: the fact that this innate part of himself, this primitive "other" that had been a part of him since he could remember, was as trustworthy as anything he could rely on, even his conscious self. And so in his toil he found himself glancing upward into the bright sky to tally the building thunderheads one drainage over, calculating the time to cross the snow field and enter the timber and drop down into the drainage he knew would give shelter.
I like how this is starting! :campfire: :coffee:
When the rain came it hit like birdshot. Horizontal slashes of pellets stung the archers face and he was glad to be in the timber. A tremendous concussion of thunder exploded the air above him and he instinctively dropped to the ground knowing it would do no good if the bolt struck nearby. He had seen shards of spruce as big as his arm 80 yards from a shattered tree that had been blasted by lightening. Those shards would be like shrapnel. Two feet of spinning splinter splitting the air like a giant lawn mower blade
The archer kept going. He was already wet so what did it matter? The black clouds above him were running by, insanely driven by a wind that seemed bent on destruction. He crossed a small saddle on the ridge and almost immediatley lost elevation into an other-world of old growth timber, moss and eerie shadows. The wind was much less here. It seemed to the archer like he had entered a kind of wilderness shrine, where no tempest could follow.
It was this dark and brooding place he had climbed so long to reach.
This was the place he knew he could find the Monarch of Bull Mountain...
This is going to be good.....
:campfire:
ALRIGHT!!! I've been wondering off and on for sometime about this continuing.
I'm in!
:coffee:
Bisch
Count me in. I got my coffee cup filled and I'm ready for a good story.
Sounds good to me too.
For sure another great story is coming.
Almost like poetry...bring it on!!
Why are these not published? This is good writing!
Can't wait to read this one to the finish.
Glad to see a sequel. This is good.
Probably we should provide a link to part one for those who are new to the Monarch story. Can someone do that for me?
Thanks,
Joshua
Maybe this will help
http://tradgang.com/noncgi/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=104817#000000
The last one was so good I'm in for the duration on this one!
:campfire:
AAArrg! I just deleted the page I just wrote. Dang it!
The snow was crusted here in the shadows. It was easier going. Shedings from the giant firs that towered over the drifts gave the snow a mottled, variegated appearance. It always amazed the archer each time he saw the shear volume of bits trapped within these drifts. Needles, buds, bough tips and pieces of bark all intermingled and suspended within the changing snow- the drifting winter flake long ago changing form, morphing into ice, each freeze/thaw cycle welding molecules of water to a near particle of dust again and again until a BB. An ice pearl, among millions of other, similar pearls.
The archer stabbed his arm deep into a dense drift and closed his fist. He pulled out a handfull of snow. Holding it out into the muted light of the old forest, it was a lighter texture than the crust nearer the surface. It smelled faintly of fir, the snow infused with the scent of the ragged trees above it.
He looked far up into the crowns of the giants and the clearing sky beyond them. He shouldered his pack, then picked his way through the ancient maze of forest until it began to bench out and the drifts had been left above him.
He wanted to find a dry place to make camp. To eat, drink some tea and rest his tired legs...
Alright, it is on! Thank you so much for another great story.
Don't know how I missed the first story back in 2011 but read it all last night and was on the edge of my seat. Holy moly you are quite the wordsmith. Thanks for taking us along again.
jhg, I hope you are giving some serious thought to publishing some of these works if you haven't already.
Having never published a single sentence in my life, I know I'm not an authority on the subject, but I understand you can now "self publish" for relatively little cost and if it "catches on" on the internet, a publisher might be interested.
I know I sure enjoyed the first iteration of "The Monarch" and I will definitely be hanging on for the end of this one.
I too will be following the story! I have lost enough posts to often type what I want out on a word doc or sticky and then copy and paste into the post. That way I don't lose all that effort. I truly enjoyed your first one and can't wait for this one to play out. Thanks for your efforts to entertain "the gang"
Husky sat his porch and looked across the turnout that had been his yard for so long. A lot had changed in the last couple years. The blocked up truck was gone, taken for scrap and with it went a lot of old, unfinished business. The archer had brought in his Bobcat and borrowed a small dozer. With a lot of fill and some roadbase he had made Husky's almost welcoming. The house still had its course and ramshackled patina, but they had taken the sag out of it, replacing the old rotted sill joists with new, set on two courses of cinder block laid straight and true over a square and solid footing. Yeah it was work. A lot of hard work if he let his mind dwell on it.
But Husky simply let the satisfaction of a job well done prevail.
So he sat his porch and the sun filtered through the boughs of the timber that softened the edges of the yard, beams of light laid across the porch floor boards and climbed the hewn chair next to Husky. He preferred to be near the sun but didn't like it hot on his skin and sat a little aside its heat. A self bow lay across his lap. It was his favorite, an amber limbed wand with a linen wrapped grip that long ago had been bright vermilion. He looked down and even without his glasses knew the inscription on the belly. And well he should, having split the stave himself. Then on to the shaving horse bringing it down to form with the draw knife, removing the stave often to eye grain and judge character. Then came the spoke shave, the rasp, and the card scraper. Until finally the bow had been coaxed from the wood stave and lay in his strong hands like a quivering bird, ready to take flight.
Husky considered his options, with the bow he loved across his legs. They had made a short but sweet 3D wander behind the house and he often kept sharp making one shots on the difficult targets. The archers daughter held the best score on both sides of the course, she could score just as well on the coming back when the targets often were below and slightly quartering to the shooter instead of away and above. Her focus under pressure was uncanny. Heckles and craftily delivered coughs at the shot by the others never seemed to affect her arrow. The archers daughter had no equal in this regard, except Husky, who in his younger days might have stood level with her. His old body sometimes betrayed him even if his focus was true.
He had her to thank for the change that had swept down onto the little house in the timber and he was thankful. The two of them had formed a quick and solid bond. Even the archer's could not equal it. Husky was a proud man. When the daughter began to spend more time at his broken down home, asking her questions and trying to beat him on the cribbage board he felt the quiet needle of pride that would not allow him to remain complacent while being able to offer better.
So the improvements began, starting with the unwashed dishes in the sink, the broken down couch, the dust balls in the corners and one at a time they added up to a big difference.
The old warrior had finally found some peace. It was plain wrote in love and in laughter with his new friends...
:campfire:
:coffee:
The thing that I most appreciate about your writings is the quarries side of the story.
Not an aspect usually dwelled on to much by other authors but I enjoy it immensely!!!!!
Hunter and quarry, two separate lives till they meet one day :clapper:
I figured this might be coming! Thanks in advance for taking us on another journey.
The archer found dawn had already bloomed into morning when he finally opened his eyes. A goshawk studied him from its perch on the edge of the small camp as he considered breakfast from the warmth of the sleeping bag. The goshawk tilted his head for a better look at the man shedding what must have looked to the bird to be peeling skin when he sat up and shucked his sleeping bag. Seeing enough the hawk glided off its branch and silently disappeared into the lightening gloom of the dark timber below them, a grey and white predator wanting a meal of its own.
The archer ate a cold breakfast, cinched the straps on his pack and was on his way. He stopped to look back at where he had spent the night. The camp had been nothing more than a tarp and a hat sized fire. The soft forest dander built up for a bed seemed like any other mound of duff and the flat rock that held the fire off the ground was gone.
From long habit the archer took a reading from his compass, and set the bezel. He knew where he was going, but the woodsman in him knew better than to assume anything in the back country. Cold fronts with their veiling fogs, darkness, and one timbered slope so like another confused even the seasoned woodsman. Taken together, only the compass and its magnetic allegiance to North was infallible. It was wise to remain in its care, even when it seemed unnecessary.
High on a bench not far from the archer a meadow graced the timber with its greening softness. Grasses and tender forbes pushed out of the loamed soil and elk beds lay above the meadow on a darkly timbered false ridge. This hidden place, with its plenty and its solitude, this mountain oasis, was where the old lead cow had chosen for her younger sisters and daughters to calf. In this safe place many generations of elk had come into the world. Here had been born all manner of elk, herd bulls and satellites, lead cows and subordinate sisters. The old lead cow herself had been dropped here. A cold early spring day, the sun shaded by snow squalls and the wind a cold knife that meant death to any calf without a careful mother to shield it. Here too, on that same day, the Monarch of Bull Mountain himself had been born, in the snow and the wind, an unremarkable calf that in his infancy showed nothing of the greatness that in time would be his...
:clapper: So far........so good!!
The legend of Monarch. Everyone who hunted elk in the state had heard about this giant and many had tried to claim his legend as their own by taking him by any means, fair or foul. And somehow the mighty bull had prevailed and the legend grew until most thought him nearly impossible to kill, without dumb luck anyway, and many good hunters that had given him their best gave up and all the rest just never even tried.
In the bars that filled with hunters at night, some of them wind burned and tired from hard hunting, others bored by another day spent near the security of camp, they all gathered to eat a hot meal sent down with a beer. Braggarts who had never seen the Monarch scoffed at those who had tried and failed to kill the bull, but always had reasons ready why they had not themselves seen the great one. They grew louder and tested the good will of their friends. But when someone who had really seen the mighty Monarch told his tale even the loud mouths shut up for a change, the table hushed, the story told and received in reverence.
The giant bull ghosting through the timber, his incredible rack floating above him like a bone halo. Head on at ten paces in a stare down, then gone. The mountain mists opening to reveal, king of it all, the mighty Monarch. Trembling hands, weak knees, shortness of breath.
One poor bow hunter had the Monarch standing broadside. Twelve yards. He drew to anchor, released. At the shot the bow exploded into two pieces, the big bull pivoted, a few crashes going away, then silence. A memory welded into the skull of the hunter never to be forgotten. In the excitement of the moment the man had simply failed to nock an arrow.
The mighty Monarch. Ghost herd bull. King of the high tops...
Here we go again, Josh. :)
I started cutting and pasting into a word document like before...
These are just too good... made good progress up to this point...
I'm going to enjoy this one too!
You are an awesome author!
I can wait for more!
Bisch
Everyone, the encouragement means a lot. Thanks for posting the kind words.
More tomorrow, then I scout elk over the weekend and gather more material for the rest of the story.
Joshua
Very good story Joshua. Again thank you for sharing it with us.
Good luck scouting this weekend. If you do happen to catch a glimpse of the Monarch, well cherish it while it last!
The rest of us will be waiting to read more when you return.
:campfire: :coffee:
What a great escape! Thank you for your well-rounded prose.
Killdeer :clapper:
ttt!
Bueller?
Bueller??
Anyone, Bueller?!?
:biglaugh:
:campfire:
Great Read!!!! Thanks Joshua, hope you have a great Weekend to keep the fuel!
My computers down, but sit tight. I will be back with more and the hunt of The Archer's lifetime is about to begin...
Joshua, himself gunning for the Monarch this fall.
TTT
:campfire:
Patience my friends. Let our fellow hunter meditate and prepare himself as well as us for the adventure.
Talent takes time. Creativity takes contemplation.
And computers take an act of God! :scared: :eek: :saywhat:
:campfire:
:campfire:
Sorry everyone- my access is limited right now. Not trying to jack with anyone. I can't write here- its a library and I can't take enough time. The story is ready though. Be glad to get it out so I can think about other things... ;)
J-
Not impatient just showing our interest :saywhat:
:campfire:
:thumbsup: :coffee:
:shaka:
:pray:
Anyone know what happened to JHG
I'm itching for a good Elk Tail!!!!!
When I saw this back up, I was hopeful Ben got lined back out... his writing is quite good...
Sent him an email but if he's lost his computer then he likely quit his email provider. Last was Aug 2014.
I hope he's ok. He has talent...
Husky worked over the rope with his tired hands, breaking open the strands to accept the fid. He fed the strands, milking down the standing part carefully, wanting a nice transition. He finished the eye splice with a small whip of waxed string. He looked out over his porch rail, beyond the firs and up into the mountain slopes, dark in their own shadow. The dark timber there was a cool, dank, moody place. Husky remembered climbing into its embrace, a long time ago when he was still young and before he had gone to fight. He had stood on the bottom near his truck, parked only half off the dirt trace and even then almost high centered already. Maybe there was enough room for a good driver to get by. And if they couldn't get by, he had thought, maybe they shouldn't be driving in these mountains anyway. Husky turned to the mountain, stepped into the timber, and disappeared. He went up. He did not stop. He wasn't going to stop until something, he didn't exactly know what, stopped him. What he did know was he would keep going until he got into the deep timber. The deep timber. Because that was where he wanted to be. It was that simple. He wanted to see it. Husky couldn't exactly remember the last time anything had been easy like that, physically, or in his mind. It is easy to climb high when you are young, he thought, and you carry nothing on your shoulders.
Up on the high top summer was a fitful mistress, moody, often cool and temperamental. But she was beautiful. The archer sat a grayed fallen tree. He could see across a meadow not big enough to be called a park. It sloped away from him undulating like ocean swell. The archer knew that in the troughs could be hidden secrets. His eye traveled across the grasses waving in the breezes and he could even see the flowers, hidden almost, low amoung them. But he knew he couldn't see down into the low places. He wasn't even sure where they were, but he knew they would be there and in them, maybe, an elk, or a deer. Even bear.
The archer wasn't in a particular hurry. He liked to sit and hear the country. He didn't adjust so much as let go. He simply was. A part of its collective sigh. The sun was soft on him but even here under its warm hand the archer could feel the thicker, cooler air behind him in the timber. It pushed to the meadow edges, then paused like a heavy, secretive beast, invisible, but there. The deep timber. Heavy trunked, tall, magnificent moss laden branches, shy flowers and timid seeps that burbled under root elbows or from miniature rock gardens. Away, up the slope behind the archer this dark timber stretched, almost silent, always brooding. Behind him it held its ground, the defining feature but for the mountain itself. Here, above the archer, in this forest of giants, lay the Monarch, half his huge body under the same sun, warming the nagging scars he had earned long ago at the deadly tines of the Black Bull of Deadman gulch...
Deadman Gulch. Some of the worst hell terrain any man might navigate after game. It had rock. It had narrowing canyons that ended in dead fall traps with no way out but back. There were avalanche chutes piled with rubble, back tracking game trails, hanging buttresses, scree, tangled timber stands and the most aweful kind of wind. Elk here tended to be smaller, but heavy bodied, their frames muscled, flesh annealed by an unforgiving country. But elk there were, and they were healthy.
Deadmans Gulch had made the Black Bull, perhaps the fiercest herd bull known but for the Monarch himself. A tough place in which to grow, a tougher place to prosper, Deadmans stunted, or it tempered. An animal thrived or it withered. There was no middle ground.
When the archers daughter faced the Monarch of Bull Mountain at six feet, the mighty Monarch, boss bull no one could kill, ghost of the high top, giant and myth and legend all wrapped into one, she had also faced something inside herself. As if a door had swung open, the wind roared through her soul and for the first time she was free and forever never to be the same. She was changed and the archer knew it, for it had changed him too. Between them the bond that was father/daughter had been welded even stronger. A respect between them had begun to grow that no map could have plotted or compass found. In life they had been so alone, only to find they were not alone, but only apart. No gift is so precious as the one we each hold in our soul. To share ourselves is the highest expression of love. So they planned another hunt together up on the high top. And although no one said it, they both knew where they were going. They were going to Bull Mountain. They were going after the Monarch...
Oh ya, here we go!!!!!! :campfire:
Glad to see ya back :clapper:
The archer scouted when he could. His summer fell into a routine, mostly work, but he always made it out to Husky's every week. At first it had been to check on the old man, or to forward the projects started there- the new roof, the foundation, a new well. Spending time with Husky had long ago stopped being a gesture of good will and become a part of the archers life. The truth was, the archer was fond of the old man.
And of course the archery range. It wasn't often Husky's little turn around didn't have a truck or two parked there. It was a good range and challenging. It brought in the areas best archers. There was even talk of holding a regional there. Husky seemed to roll with the changes, to the surprise of everyone, except maybe the archers daughter, who from the start decided he was pretty much capable of anything. When she was on the range the two of them were usually together, and they always were making shots from crazy places- off the ground, blocked sight lines, impossibly tight quarters for a decent draw and release. Let alone limb clearance and second anchors. They loved it and few would have believed the shots those two made, the states most talked about high school athlete and the old mountain man back from the dead. In this way the summer passed.
Up on Bull Mountain change also had come, though there was nothing to mark it. The day waned earlier, the nights inched slowly longer, while the elk put on weight and grew fat, summer coats sleek and smooth. There was still the Monarch, as big as ever, his secretive ways as always unknown. His muscles rolled under skin in waves and his rack had grown even thicker it seemed. But this last thing was an illusion. The King of Bull Mountain was waning, like a late summer sun. His mighty crown only seemed to have added mass by having, this year as last, again grown in shorter...
Husky sat at his crester. It was a home built, using an old rotisserie motor that sounded like it was filled with pea gravel. Husky had his own crest pattern he had used for years and it became known around the range. Someone had even found one of his arrows in a thrift store. Obviously old, it had Husky's crest. How it got there no one knew. The secret life of an old arrow. It was bought for 50 cents. Now it rested on pegs above the old mans door.
Husky had sealed the shaft with two coats of shellac. He bought his shellac in flake for its superior bond. Everything adhered to shellac. It brought out the best in the woods. It was surprisingly tough and under a smart top coat was as good a finish as anything out there that didn't toxify you to death to use. He took pride in his work. He used his reading glasses, backed up by a desk mounted magnifier like gunsmiths or jewelers use. His cresting brushes where spruce limb tips, whittled to a point, the point pounded between a hammer and his anvil out in the shop. He then worked the tip using a razor knife until it was how he wanted it. They didn't last long, but Husky didn't care. They where easy to make.
Lots more to come but its almost the work week we will see if I can add to it before the next weekend.
Joshua
Your words being rejuvenation and healing Josh, Excellent!
The fire hasn't died, but may need a little stoking :campfire: :coffee:
Great read! Waiting for more... :campfire:
The archer came off the mountain leg weary. He knew what was ahead if they hunted Bull Mountain and he was pushing himself hard to build the stamina the hunt was going to take. He did deep squats at the gym using free weights to bring up the power in his legs. In his younger days this was unnecessary. He didn't dwell too much on this reality. He knew he was lucky. He had overcome and prevailed. He had his health. To measure his limitations against his younger self was human. To be nostalgic for the days the body was a coiled spring always ready always up to the task was equally human. But the archer drew the line at self-pity. It seemed to him somehow self-indulgent to try and wish away for himself a reality the whole of mankind shared.
He climbed into his truck. The archer placed a hawk feather he had found up the mountain on the dash. Left helical he thought to himself. He had thrown his boots on the passenger floor. They were dusted a light brown. It had been dry the last thousand feet of elevation. He had sealed a small cut on his hand with pitch up in the dark timber. He examined it now. It looked dirty, the pitch covered with all sort of dirt on its surface. But the archer knew that under the crust the wound was still sealed and clean. He fired the engine and pointed for home. It would be well dark by the time he got there. Tired and more than a little stiff. No matter. Archery season for elk was not far away. It had been a good day...
"How did you get your tools and gear for the cabin you built up on Bull Mountain?"
It was a simple question, but the archer felt foolish for not having been the one who asked it.
The three of them sat Husky's porch, a light mist falling, making the drawshaved handrail on the stairs glisten.
Husky looked at the archers daughter with that playful glint he got when he was pleased, or up to something, or both.
"Mules."
"Mules?" The archer wished he'd kept that one back.
"You know, the kind with legs and ears? Sorta like a horse but smaller? Sure footed?" Husky could be a tool if you left yourself open.
Bushwacking up any mountain, let alone Bull, with mules or even pegesis, seemed like a very particular kind of long term torture and the archer said so.
"Not so bad if you take the trail." Husky snuck a wink the daughters way. He was enjoying himself now. There was no known trail up the Bull. It was bushwack all the way, save game trailing when you could.
"Then there is a trail?"
"Yes"
The eves dripped and across the turnout some small birds wheeled into the scrub timber. The archer leaned back into his chair and looked over at the old man. "Whats it going to cost?"
"Oh, I don't know. How bad do you want to know?" Husky knew the archer wanted to know very badly, but he was still having his fun. Just to get up on Bull Mountain was work enough. Husky knew that. Then to hunt it, maybe bring down (if you were lucky) probably the biggest damn bull elk there ever was on your back, well, that was an incredible amount of sustained effort.
The archer just kept looking at Husky. He didn't have to say anything.
Finally he broke the silence: "Well, how much can it cost? I mean, what do you get a man who has everything?" and the archer looked up at the hewn rafters and out across the turnout to where a sort of forlorn pole shed stood, roll roofing and all.
The three laughed at that and the archer felt better. He had redeemed himself. Husky heaved up out of his chair and came back out of the cabin with some soiled and edge worn maps. He opened them up and weighted down the corners with pieces of junk he found laying around on the porch.
It was the river crossing that held the key. Husky had found a way to cross the river safely with pack stock that nobody knew about. It was genius, really. The archer was impressed when the three of them stood above the crossing. It looked impossible. Yet there was a way, a thin line where the riverbed and the current relented to allow a crossing.
"How the hell you find this anyway?" Husky looked over at the daughter before he answered. She was standing a little away from them in her STATES MVP hoodie and with the fast water loud below them Husky was sure she couldn't hear. "I was drunk one night and sort of ended up down there in my truck. I had to winch it out the next day and thats when I saw the crossing. Wallowing around the truck trying to get a chain purchase on the frame. I got lucky"
They talked awhile about the best way to lead the pack stock into the current and where to angle them up stream about halfway across, then back downstream to pick up the sandbar that would lead them out onto hard ground. When they were finished Husky turned back up toward the truck parked on the road shoulder. He paused for a second with a sad, faraway look down the river: "I was lucky" the old man repeated, almost to himself and the archer knew this time he wasn't talking about finding the crossing. He put his hand on his friends shoulder to comfort him. There was nothing to say. They turned from the river and together they climbed up the bank to the roadside...
Good stuff........ :thumbsup: :campfire: :coffee:
There was a lot of work to be done to ready for the hunt. The archers daughter had moved in with him earlier in the summer. Her senior year in High School finished, the agreement with her Mom had always been that she could go live with her Dad if she wanted to. It was a big change, and there were rough spots, though not many. When she had first arrived, they unloaded all her stuff and humped it up the stairs to her room. When that was done, the archer sat her down at the kitchen table. He spoke to her as an equal: "This is my home" he had said. You are welcome here and I want you here. But it is my home." He laid out the rules. "Break them and you go back."
There were only two.
Together they found a ranch that leased pack stock and with the help of Husky they picked four mules that were already mountain ready. Husky cautioned against green stock, or animals that had spent most of the summer on pasture. "You want conditioned stock or its not going to be fun for any of you, people or mules" he had said "You want animals that have been working fairly regular and fairly hard. Nothing thats been over-worked mind you. You want stock that was been smartly cared for. You want them in top shape and rested. You don't want prima donnas or hard cases. Let someone else re-invent the wheel. Calm stock is what you're after"
The rangler was a quiet man. He understood his stock. They weren't head shy because he didn't hit them or let them rule. They liked to work because he had made it seem work was easier than not working. The mules loaded easy and led without trouble. Husky was sold and that was good enough for the archer. They loaded the string into the somewhat bent trailer that came with the lease and headed for the mountain. "Better find out now what you don't know" Husky said. "Not when you're up on the mountain in the night, its raining and you lost your way".
They worked out the panners and trees from the rest of the pile in the manger: leads, pickets, feed bags and the big hemp three strand that they could use as a tie out if needed. There were also a general clutter of junk up there- old shoes, a broken axe handle, a fence puller, hay chaff and one very rusty vise bolted to a section of 6x6.
They used the last weekend before opening day for a shakedown. Nothing major. A short 5 miler in, make camp and figure out the little tricks of handling the stock, letting the mules get comfortable with them in turn. They would cross the mountain on the same general elevation second morning, make camp again and return the next day. Husky waved them off as the archer and his daughter pulled away from the turnout, the gooseneck stock trailer squeeking as it rocked over the undulations in Husky's road. Husky seemed small, the archer thought, as the man appeared in the side mirror. The archer stopped the truck. His daughter looked over at him with a question but the archer was already out of the truck and walking back to Husky. The archer hugged him. "See you in two days!" he said and then they were gone...
This is grea!!! You are talented please write a book
This boy sure can write, can't he? Dunno where he gets all his material, but it sure rings like a life story...
I copy and paste each installment into word to read thru later...
Such a great read. Don't know how I missed the first back in 2011, but I read it yesterday and caught up on this one today. :campfire: :coffee:
When the Monarch of Bull Mountain put the Snaggle Tooth Bull down for good with one fierce thunderous charge lifting him and throwing him hard into the dirt the fight was over. Badly injured, confused and demoralized, the Snaggle Tooth was done. He barely regained his feet let alone made it away. Having his wind bulldozed out of him was a big part of it. The absolute authority in which it had been done was the other.
Many a battle is won by the gladiator who has the perspective to see a bigger picture, and gain a psychological advantage over an otherwise evenly matched opponent.
The Monarch didn't reason this out of course. He had no plan. He only had an innate sense of timing. He used it well to his advantage and married with his experience, earned against many and all sort of bulls, this was a potent weapon. He saw his chance coming when the Snaggle Tooth circled his cows with no regard for positioning so near the Monarch. It was the big mistake. It cost him everything.
Somehow the Snaggle Tooth sensed this thrashing was of his own. Even though he had largely recovered physically, the following fall he just never found it in himself to step out and challenge the Monarch. He ghosted in the shadows and took his frustration out on lesser bulls beating them beyond what was required and at the smallest of provocations. The Snaggle Tooth didn't care if open cows were in the equation or not. If he saw another bull that offered a target he spent his rage against the cowing foe.
There is no glory in elk battle, only the victor.
By the time the season was over Snaggle Tooth had regained his swagger and within him an ember fanned slowly growing hotter...
Glad what ever paused the story as allowed you to continue it!
The archer looked his daughters way. She was checking the leads on the mules. He could read the back of her t-shirt as she took a pull on a panner flap strap. "I don't wear bows. I hunt with them."
She was careful to let the pack stock know where she was- a hand on a flank, a wider approach to take away the blind spot. She didn't grab halters or yank on leads. Smart.
They started up. It felt good to be on the trail, quads pumping a slow steady pace. The stock turned into the climb, blowing, then grew steady and sure as their bodies found the sweet spot that signaled their warm up.
The archer had enough experience with animals to be a good hand. He had also grown patient in his years, always a good thing with pack stock. The daughter was no stranger to horses, a more difficult breed most of the time. That experience showed now. The lead mule tested her a couple times, but the daughter was fair and sure. The string lined out and settled in.
They broke for lunch after watering and leading the string into some shade for a rest. They didn't need it, but the archer wanted to do more than walk them up and down the mountain on a trail. He wanted to know how they took to waiting while still in a string. Would they grow restless and fight the leads, or almost as bad, bray? His instinct was to give them as little chance as possible to do either. Yet he still wanted to know where the edge was, even if he was somehow able to never bump into it on the hunt. He could see the problem when the stock was waiting would be the flies. At least until they gained some elevation and then maybe the insects would thin out. Maybe during the hunt they would be blessed with cool weather. The archers mind wandered.
His daughter brought him back.
"I don't plan to accept any of the scholarships."
He looked over at her. She had been looking down and twisting some dried grass into a knot. She looked up and met his gaze.
"Okay..." the archer paused. "What is the plan then?"
The noon slowly ticked along. The archer listened and added a question now and then, but mostly he listened. He wanted to tell her what to do. He wanted to point out the flaws in her plan. But if he was honest with himself it wasn't such a bad plan. He left out the things he wanted to say that would show her he was scared. He left out saying the things that were just another version of no. He made the leap all parents someday must make. He trusted her.
The archer got up and went over to the two bows tied securely on one of the mules. He pulled the slip knots and handed his daughter her long bow. He pointed over to a lodge pole cone nestled against a rotted stump 25 yards away. "Best shot one arrow no washing dishes this trip." His daughter laughed.
Better have brought your "A" game boy, he thought to himself as he drew back his hunt scarred recurve. He had seen that look in his daughters eye before, when she dropped the hammer on the other teams chances for the game. Picking a spot, the archer relaxed his string hand...
Thanks...been twiddling my thumbs waiting for a new installment... :)
You got me wishing I knew all 3 characters personally.. sorta feel like I do in a way! Always a sign of good writing!
TTT
:campfire: :coffee:
Up for another read... :campfire:
OMG. I never finished that one.... but its in my head so maybe I will soon.
:thumbsup: That would be great!
Now I have to go back and re-read the whole thing..... :dunno:
I finally got to read the first part,(2011) and now this. Awesome.
:campfire: :coffee: :archer2: