3rd Prize
Mark XXII Rifles (5 awarded)
Jerry Smith, Texas
“It’s 4:00 a.m. and the alarm goes off. The glow of archery season has risen and set upon the Montana skyline, and the opening of rifle season is just moments away. Dad wakes to the alarm and wipes the sleep from his eyes. His muscles groan and his bones creak under the strain of donning his boots. Quietly slipping downstairs, he grabs a quick bite and a shot of cold milk, then heads out the door. But what awaits Dad is not the sweet aroma of an Aspen thicket, not the pungent sense of a sage-covered hill. It’s not the majestic bugle of a herd bull or the rattling of antlers. At 4:00 a.m., what greets Dad is another day of backbreaking labor. He walks into the back door of the butcher shop as the odors of Clorox bleach, furnace fuel, and the hum of freezer compressors greet him for another day_a far cry from the symphony of hormone-driven bulls. In a matter of hours, with smiles on their faces, and tales to tell, hunters by the dozens will be returning from the hills and not-too-far-away plains, loaded down with the successes of their hunts. Dad’s moment of glory will just have to wait ’til another day.
Such was my boyhood growing up one of four butcher’s sons along with our sweet sister in Moore, Montana. Hunting season was the only time Dad made any money, so nearly our entire year hinged upon the success of the hunters. Days were long and labor-filled, often near 100 hours a week with a knife in hand_100 hours of processing somebody else’s dreams. Occasionally, Dad found time to tear himself away from a Saturday morning at the shop and take us ‘hunting’. Usually, we’d have just enough time to drive around a few select spots, flush a few coulees, and then head home to work the rest of the day. We simply never had time to really hunt, to really ‘do it right.’
Twenty years later, the memories still reign in our hearts. We loved the land, we grew up strong, and we knew the value of hard work. But even as rich as our lives have been, something is still missing. There is an emptiness in our hearts. Dad, nearing 70 years, is still cutting meat part-time in Colorado, and his sons have all moved away, taking jobs that manage to pay the bills, but not much more—having neither the time nor the money nor the opportunity to hunt—to hunt the way it’s supposed to be.
I grew up at the foot of the Big Snowy Mountains in Montana, and, to this day, I have never heard the majestic bugle of the great wapiti. I’ve never held one in my sights. I’ve butchered so many I could do it blind-folded, yet I’ve never sought one from the hunter’s eye. My sons are 8 and 13 now. And their love for the outdoors and the mountains is gnawing a hole in their heart. Already they are developing a longing for the high country. Already their spirits yearn to know and experience the wilds of the Rocky Mountains, and, though they don’t know it yet, make lasting memories of their own. Oh, how I hunger to hunt those Rockies with my dad, how I thirst to bask in the glow of his hunter’s passion, and to share this passion with my sons. And if my brothers could join me, oh, how much richer it would be.
One time in my life, just once is all I crave: To stalk the great Rocky Mountain Elk, behind the heel of my dad, and my boys at my side. For us to go with my dad to the Colorado Rockies of his youth, would be a dream come true.
Well, it’s 6:00 a.m. and it’s time to get up and go to school. Dad should be getting up about now and heading off to work. He has animals to butcher, and I have students to teach. But, somewhere, in the back of my mind as I look into their hungry faces, and try to fill their hearts with knowledge and passion, I’ll be sitting on a far away hillside, gorging on the aroma of aspens and admiring the majestic Rocky Mountain elk, bugling from the valley below.”