It was a hunt to remember. Ken Ralston and I had muzzle loader permits for elk on the North Rim. Ken had been my companion for many adventures through the years and I looked forward to his company and the scenery almost as much as the hunt. I was not familiar with this territory, but Ken assured me he knew the deep canyons and ridges like his own mama’s kitchen and that his scouting had revealed plenty of elk sign. The dusty rutted road was long and our progress was slow. We reached our campsite at setting of sun and paused for a moment to breathe in the glory of the nameless fretted canyons and muted color that spread away at our feet. In the time it took me to roll out my soogans, Ken had set up a camp kitchen from a couple of his clever grub boxes and the smell of his fried tacos perfumed the air.
After dinner we contented ourselves with the campfires popping and the Milky Way’s jeweled arch overhead and a little soft conversation and then it was time for sleep. “What time do you want to get up?” Ken asked.
“It should be light enough to see the trail by 6; let’s get up at 5.” I replied.
Ken walked to the edge of blackness and seemed to take a directional reading. He adjusted his stance and cupping his mouth he shouted “Tony! Get up!”
We slept the sleep of well-fed exhausted pilgrims until the next morning when the echo of Ken’s voice came rumbling up the canyon “TONY, GET UP! Get up! Get up get up get up.” After a fine breakfast we agreed to meet at camp at day’s end.
I headed down a twisting trail that lead into a narrow canyon with vertical red rock walls. The going was rough for awhile with brush choking the path and fox grape vines snagging my rifle barrel. The way opened into a little meadow with the ruins of an old homestead. A few logs rotted by a coarse stone foundation and a gnarled cherry tree loaded with fruit stood by a seep spring. I lay on my belly and drank deeply of the cool water. I sat beneath the tree and ate my sandwich. I finished my lunch with a handful of the perfectly ripe cherries. I lined up the pits on a flat stone and glanced up from my feast to see a huge bull elk stride into the meadow and begin to browse.
The bull’s massive shoulders and neck supported an enormous rack. I took a deep breath and looked to the priming of my rifle. It wasn’t loaded! I poured a measure of powder from the horn down the barrel. I felt for the shot pouch on my hip. It was gone. Somewhere along the trail a branch had torn it free. I selected a stained cherry pit and pushed it down the barrel of my rifle. The bull lifted his heavily antlered head as I aimed. I fired and the cherry pit hit him squarely between the eyes. The bull dropped in his tracks.
I drew my hunting knife as I ran to the downed elk. I straddled its shoulders and pulled up on its antlers so I could cut its throat and bleed it. At the first touch of the knife the elk sprang to its feet and leapt forward. I grabbed tightly to the antlers with both hands and tried hard not to be dislodged by the juniper branches as we cut a new path through the brush. The strength and power of the creature was incredible as it sailed over fallen logs and ravines. I was looking for a soft place to land when the receding horizon informed me of the approaching edge of the Grand Canyon. There was no time to dismount and the elk did not hesitate, but launched into blue tinged atmosphere.
The End … almost. For eight-and-a-half minutes by my gold Elgin railroad watch we fell. I passed eagles and clouds. I felt the elk tensing its muscles as the floor of the canyon rushed up toward us. I was wearing a new John B Stetson hat with a braided horse hair stampede string knotted under my chin. About 20 feet before we landed my hat popped up like a parachute and I bobbed back and forth like a bell ringer and touched down softly on a sand bar just in time to see the majestic bull bounding off into the trees. It took me the rest of the day to backtrack and collect my gear. I made camp at sunset. Ken didn’t believe my story. He made great sport of my day’s experience, asking what I would “pit” myself against the next day, a lion perhaps? We completed our hunt without sighting another elk.
Fifteen years passed before Ken and I got drawn again for the same hunt. We had fried tacos on the old campground and Ken set the alarm clock as was his practice. As I headed out next morning I couldn’t help but think of the last time I’d seen the hidden meadow. Who had lived here? A prospector looking for silver or gold? A cowboy keeping watch over a remote herd? The cherry tree suggested a woman’s touch, but it would have been a lonely life for a woman. When I stepped into the meadow I was surprised to find the grass brown and only a trickle of moisture from the seep spring. The once fruitful cherry tree was reduced to a dead broken stub by a decade of drought. In the litter of dead leaves beneath the tree I saw polished pits like molded bullets.
My peripheral vision caught movement at the edge of the meadow. A true monarch of the forest strode into view—a massive bull elk with the greatest spread of antlers I had ever seen, and between those antlers grew a vigorous cherry tree perhaps eight foot tall, heavily laden with ripe fruit. For just a moment I stared incredulously then I raised my rifle. I fired a lead ball into the heart of the elk.
That night we dined on Dutch oven elk roast with Ken’s famous sourdough biscuits and cherry cobbler for dessert. I know you may have trouble believing this story, but I can show you a pit from one of the cherries.
