Under The Dark Cloud

Had I pitched a penny, it would have dropped beyond earshot before it struck the boulders below--or vanished in the juniper jungle. Climbing to 11,000 feet to stare down that far made sense only because you can't close on elk if they spy you coming from below.

A faint, quavering squeal of a bull rose.

"Meet you here in a couple of hours." I nodded toward the canyon, still in dawn's long shadows.

Johnny saluted. "OK." He sat then, and pulled his binocular to his brow.

Climbing down was fast, over and between boulders as big as chest freezers. The nose of the ridge took me deep. The bull had bedded on a rockslide. I slipped out of the sun like a Japanese zero and had him crosswired before he looked up.

"Don't shoot anything small," Ralph had told me. I thumbed the safety back on. It wasn't that this bull was small. He was immature. There's a difference.

Scaling that ridge took a long time. I crawled out of the hole at noon.

"Long trip," said Johnny. "Get on him?"

"A raghorn. See anything?"

"Nope," said my guide. He meant he'd seen ordinary elk in a place known for extraordinary elk.

A September storm roared in that night, then sputtered to a standstill on our mountain. It camped there for the week, spitting snow and freezing rain, cloaking the peaks in fog thick enough to stuff a mattress. The weather gave us no clear views of Goat Canyon. In the dark, bucking thirty-mile-per-hour gusts that turned sleet to birdshot, we slogged downhill to beat dawn, then struggled back up at day's end. A thousand feet and half again each way. Clouds and mist veiled the deeps where the elk had sung. They were singing no more.

A chance came late in the hunt when, through a hole in the mist, I spied a long-beamed 6-point across a chasm. Alas, he was too far.

"You can shoot him," said Johnny.

"The basin is more than 500 yards off."

Outfitters like to see animals fall, especially when time is running short and you're threatening to chop percentage points from the claims in their brochures. "That's a flat-shooting rifle." He pointed at my Model 70, one of the first in .325 WSM. It was a fine and powerful rifle.

"The rifle isn't the issue."

At my insistence we dropped into the canyon. Clawing our way up the other side in hammering rain, we scrambled forward toward the basin. At its lip, I would be just 200 yards from the bull. A chip shot. I was due for one.

Then the wind swung. I felt it on my neck. "We must hurry," I hissed. He nodded and picked up his pace. The vertical pitch kept us slow and short of breath, but at last we peeked over the rim. The basin was empty. To make sure, I plunged down its apron almost to canyon bottom. Tracks told me the animals had gone out this way. They would be on the other side now--the side we had left.