Tungering track after another, the bowl's trail had led me on a loop that hooked beneath the saddle I'd used at ambush the two herds of elk that morning. Over the course of minutes in a football field or so, a sickness had overtaken my spirit. And spiraling outcomes took on water with every second, weighing heavier on my shoulders, with each carefully placed step. The bowl had not stopped and bedded where I'd been certain he would.
He did not collapse or lay down and expire as I'd expected. He was not weak until the point that all he could do was ambldown hill. No. He was climbing.
Blood on the ground amounted to drops the size of split peas, maybe one every five yards or so. The best thing that I could cling to was the fact that he was now on a game trail which made the job of tracking a dash more predictable for the moment. But like all naturally occurring trails, I knew that this one only existed as a route, a predominant passage over the lip of this huge canyon, and then, as soon as it topped out into the next drainage, would likely dissipate. And I knew that once I reached the summit, tracking was going to get much, much more difficult.
And it did. The span of a long range archery shot or so later, the trail topped out into the neighboring canyon and stared back at me with a yawn. From this point, I was entering a new drainage with likely places for the bolt to bed. I had already given the 6x6 herd bowl an abundance of time.
But given how this tracking situation was materializing, I knew I'd better wait even longer. Quietly, I laid my bow on the ground, removed my pack, and sat squamishly in the September sun. Looking at my camera at the video footage, I searched for clues and tried to reassure myself that my shot was ideal, and I'd find the bowl in the sloping old growth forest ahead of me. I ate some food and fidgeted in my unsettled state, another hour passed, and it felt easily twice that long.
The blood was sparse among a checkerboard of fresh tracks. My eyes were drawn to the cover ahead of me as much as the ground below me. Even I had a sense that this was an area the bowl would be likely to bed. Heavy thumps suddenly pulsed through the air and flashes of tanned streaks through the web of conifers down the slope to my right.
My instincts were correct, the bowl had indeed stopped, if not actually bedded in this area where I thought he would. My gut was also correct, unfortunately, that he was far from expired. Even as slow and as quietly as I was moving, I could not control the shifting wind as I advanced along the bowl's blood trail. And sure enough, he had certainly been tipped off by the wind that surged forward and back like ocean waves on a rocky shore.
This was nearly four hours after the shot, and the fact that he was still on his feet was a penetrating defeat to my spirit. I recalled past tracking endeavors and how much I'd learned from each trail I'd ever followed. I knew that as long as there was blood, even the slightest amounts, I'd be able to stay on the bowl. But I also knew that if that blood stopped, it would only be a matter of time before the bowl's tracks would mix with others of the same or similar age.
And sure as dust in the dirt, I'd lose the trail. And the bowl for good. I'm pausing here in this story to address what feels like an elephant in the room, that so many of my essays contain these painstaking, overly involved tracking jobs. And I feel as if every elk I shoot, I encounter an impasse of one kind or another.
One could rightfully propose that these are the very examples of the worst of hunting. Some would suggest archery hunting in particular. And I cannot disagree. These are the worst situations for both the hunter and the animals that I from one have tremendous sympathy for in these scenarios especially.
So how do I justify it? Well a lot of ways. And in many of my podcast episodes, I go into those reasons. But one I want to highlight right now is the realization that took hold of me a few years back and I think matters most.
Nature is exceedingly cool. If we are measuring cruelty by the suffering we perceive the animals going through in both their life and their death, an animal falling victim to a hunter's bullet or arrow will likely in various scenarios experience some level of suffering. Many do not however, which is worth noting is that is the sought after objective for every shot of fire for the animal to drop dead in its tracks. But that does not always happen.
And I know for a fact that as an archery hunter, it is an absolute certainty that any shot I take will be painstakingly investigated to a micro-detailing, assuming a hit or a miss. I'm not sure the same could be said for hunters that fire rifles from long range and see the animal disappear from sight and with little more than an expletive assume that they missed and they move on. But the personal conviction of taking a shot at a living animal is as individual as the personalities of ethics, perhaps even the politics of each person. I know that I take it very seriously and for that I always do my best.
Therefore I can live with myself and my hunting ethics. I can sleep at night knowing that I do everything I can. And what a hunter-harvested animal goes through is something that I always hope is as minimal as possible and I discipline myself to follow through on that. The same cannot be said for nature and what natural outcome awaits every wild animal.
I do not believe that critters living in the wild become old and kind, then one peaceful evening softly slip off to the great unknown in their sleep under a warm and comforting starry sky. I think anyone with a realistic understanding of what happens in nature knows that the ways any and every animal passes would be considered excessively horrifying and tragic by the standards of humanity. And who am I to question what nature has been doing from mine melting number of years over the course of the entire existence of heartbeats on this earth? Countless times before I lifted the bleach cow pie, stiff as stale toast and plucked my keys from the dark root-filled soil beneath it.
I unbuckled my backpack and let it fall to the ground behind me without a care. I opened the doors of my truck and began the process of cleaning myself up. From where I'd parked I could see the entire theater where everything had transpired that day. In the failing light I could still make out the knob I'd perched first on and then beside for the calling encounters that morning.
I could see where the bull and his herd had come from, where his trail had led me, circumventing the saddle his cows had safely passed through. I could see the sparse openings where I'd crawled on my hands and knees searching for drops of his blood. I could see where I had to call it for the night and turn back, drop off the canyon wall and descend into the valley floor where my optimism and I now set. As the moon and my old man rose over the cracks in my windshield that night, I'd laid my head on a pillow of hope and I could not get comfortable.
Overnight the bull may have died in his bed wherever he laid. There was likely a trail he left leading up to that place in this pastel colored canyon scape that expanded above me like 200 year timber up close. As I hiked and warmed the fleece thermostat wrapped around my head, I felt like a scolded bird dog trying to pretend I could guess where that was. Every direction I looked seemed overflowing with likelihood.
A few hundred yards of that is enough to make anyone sick with overwhelming. The day before I'd eclipsed my most involved tracking job ever on an elk I'd shot my arrow into. I'd reached areas so dry with blood that I'd find a specked the size of a bebe perched on a pine needle and I'd set my hat there. Then I'd continue scanning ahead from practically an ant's perspective, looking for the next couple sized loo on a cinder cone volcano.
When I'd find that, I'd set my bow there, then walk back to retrieve my hat and repeat. At times I'd lose the trail completely and would rely entirely on dead reckoning to pick the lines where I thought the bull would have traveled. Now here this morning I was back on the trail, literally crawling along the ground marking each drop of blood on the forest floor. I knew that with each twinkle of red I was a few yards closer.
Closer to what, however, I could only wish. Then, as a ray of sunrise landed on the side of my face like a falling star through the forest canopy, a flash of crimson jerked my gaze. My eyes landed on a sheet of glossy red blood the size of a keyboard, pooled on the ground ahead of me. The heart and my chest skipped a beat, or ten.
My eyes glared over the surroundings, desperately grasping for a branch of hope in this flooding moment of truth. I needed to see the bull on the ground at this point if I were to have any hope left. After lingering frantic moments, my gaze eventually returned to my feet, like a beep dumpt. I never found another drop.
He was out there in front of me somewhere. Where?