An Elk Hunt

I spent last Sunday cooking until noon.

That might be a record for me.

Enchiladas, spaghetti, cinnamon rolls, breakfast burritos – all of it went into freezer bags.

They would be meals for my brother, Roger, my cousin, Neil, and me as we seek elk in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

As I cook, I remind myself to bring butter and salt and silverware. I’m not known for my expertise at the stove – my kids are skinny – so I need to try hard.

I try to prepare for every contingency within the confines of space and weight in the horses’ packs. I mentally toss everything I can leave behind if we need to pack out an elk. Or two. I have no idea what we will do if we get three elk.

Actually, I do.

We all will walk.

I throw in more energy bars.

As I gather my sleeping bag, tent, headlamp and first aid kit, I think about what I hope this trip will be.

Smoke fills the air right now. I truly hope it clears before we jump on our horses and head up the trail.

I really want Neil and Roger to bask in those magnificent mountains, understand the humility that comes from immersing oneself in such a powerful place and hopefully, knock down a bull elk.

I’d like to bring a cow elk home, too.

I have the week after I get home cleared of all except the basic necessary appointments so I can spend the week trimming meat and stuffing it into quart jars, adding onions, garlic, salt and pepper and popping them into the pressure cooker so my daughter, Abby, and I will have fast food at our fingertips for the next year or so.

I hope Neil and Roger will appreciate how well the horses take care of us. Neither of them rides often. Neil can’t remember the last time he saddled a horse. Possibly, neither man knows how much I depend on these horses because they will take such good care of us that nothing will happen.

Something will happen. I just don’t know when or what.

Both men are capable and confident.

I hope they compensate for a few of my inabilities.

I hope we enjoy the golden fall sunlight gleaming through the quaking aspen leaves, as if it comes straight out of each leaf. I’ve never seen that color anywhere except through aspens in September.

Mostly, I hope to get to know Neil better.

As kids, Neil and I either ignored or antagonized one another. My most vivid memory of our childhood is chasing him through the neighborhood in the dark. I was fat and he was skinny. I must have cornered him and then sat on him.  When I finally let him up, he swung his fist at me, but missed. My arms were just long enough to hold his shoulder away so he could not reach me.

As adults, we have spent about a grand total of two hours together.

I’ve never met his wife.

It’s the price I paid for moving 800 miles from the center of my family.

But something happens around a campfire.

Maybe it is the vulnerability of being surrounded by black night, a million stars and wolves howling on the hill.

Competition melts.

Stories illustrate common bonds.

Historical gaps fill in.

Long-unspoken words finally whisper into the flames.

If we bring elk antlers out of the mountains, they will be souvenirs of the effort each of us is making to spend time together.

I hope our time together will last the rest of our lives.