That afternoon I crept into No Name Creek with stealth. My back was tender but bearable. I chose the cover of a rock and a few surrounding fir trees in the scattered timber about one hundred feet in from the sage meadow at the upper pond. The languorous warmth of the Indian summer sun filtered through the tree canopy making me heavy-eyed and lethargic.

I nodded off. The shrill shriek of a bugle startled me awake. My head snapped up as my eyelids flew wide, immediately alert. Another bugle reverberated down the canyon. Soft hues of the sun sinking below the twin peaks of Brumley Mountain cast muted light and shadows over the meadow and pond. I could see a band of cows just moving out from the timber on the opposite canyon wall. Again I heard the bugle even closer, the bull just out of sight at the upper end of the pond which was cloaked by willows and aspens.

It was some minutes later when he stepped into sight, bawling at his cows. He strutted through the wallow, mud flying from massive antlers.  The .270 echoed.  Just minutes thereafter, in the quickly gathering dusk and faded light of day’s end, he lay in the grass next to the twilight shmmering waters of the pond. I walked out to him taking the second shell, never needed, out of the chamber of the old rifle.

There was that usual flash of elation and simultaneous jolt of remorse before I focused on exactly how to move this six hundred pound animal and still strictly follow my surgeon’s orders not to lift more than thirty pounds. I guffawed a bit at the paradox, cursed myself for the daredevil antics of four decades that had created this limitation. At the same time I found myself enthralled with the challenge of the dilemma.

Making a quick decision I hiked the three quarters mile back to the ATV, drove it carefully down through the moonlit woods and across the pond dam to where the great animal lay. I was able to use the winch and get the bull on level ground. I gathered some stout sticks and with flashlight held in my teeth knelt carefully by the elk.  Pushing rather than pulling, I slowly moved his shoulder from the ground. He was finally on his back and propped up by the wood. What usually took twenty minutes consumed an hour and a half, but my back seemed all right, so the time spent was well worth it. A zillion stars were twinkling, the moon was smiling and far off down the ridge I could see the lights of approaching ATV’s. The camp had realized, when I hadn’t returned, that a bull elk and I had crossed paths once again.