The archer walked up onto the small porch tenuously attached to the shanty. A good sized stump of spruce served as a side table next to an old chair. There was firewood along the wall next to the door. In the middle of the door hung a broken off cut of lumber with the warning:

SOLICITORS WILL BE SHOT

This guy IS crazy the archer thought, as he raised his knuckles to rap on the door, not knowing what to expect...


High on a slope along Bull Mountains back the Giant slowly picked his way through the knotted timber.
Many blow downs blocked his progress, but he knew the way and threaded his path around them. A slight breeze came up the slope behind him. He didn't like that, but it could not be helped.
The Monarch ghosted his way through the nearly impenetrable snarl, always up and always careful, stopping to listen for long minutes. His native senses focused to a razors edge.
Finally he came onto a small bench surrounded by cliff and so tightly sheltered it seemed a roof over it. Aspen shaded the thick growth of grasses and forbs that grew so high as to brush the big bulls belly. He drank long from a small seep bubbling clear cold water and laid down to rest, safe at last.

The small canyon and even smaller bench was the Monarchs secret. He had found it a long time ago after his first battle with the Black Bull of Deadman Gulch had left him so wounded he almost died. The Black Bull had driven him off the open parks and back into the timber, until only the worst and most rugged trail could save him. It was luck that he found  this special place. But luck figures largely in the wild and the Bull took advantage of his. He rested and he mended until that time he could return.

You spin a fine yarn. On my first Elk hunt this fall I know this will be in the back of my mind.....  

Just as the archer started to knock a voice startled him. "Go on in son, you're welcome here"

Husky stood off aways. How he got there and behind him the archer could only guess. Husky had appeared out of nowhere, as if a ghost.
There was a lot of talk in town about Husky. Whack job. Cabin crazy. Weird. But there was other stuff too. One of only a handful to survive in his platoon. So handsome, once, all the girls as far as two counties over tried to make him their own. Never the same after the war. Kept going back to pull them all to safety...
Inside the archer waited for the older man to settle into his chair, hand hewn from aspen. The archer sat down too, on a stuffed sofa he was none too sure about.
"Your daughter, shes the one that led her team to States her sophomore year?" The archer was a little troubled hearing this. It must have shown  on his face for Husky added "I read the papers son. There was a big article on her. Remember?"
The archer relaxed.
He looked around, and in the dim light let his eyes rest on an incredible elk shed laid over on the top of a side table. Husky must have noticed the interest.
"Pretty big shed that one."

"Where did you find it?" The tines on the royal was at least as long as his arm and maybe longer.

"Why don't you tell me?"

"I didn't come here for games Husky"

Husky chuckled. He packed an old briar pipe and lit a match.
"That shed came from up on the high top. On Bull Mountain."

"I saw a bull growing a rack much like that one just this spring" the archer said, and realizing he was almost whispering, tried to cover his embarassment with a cough.

"Anything else you see? A lot of bulls on that mountain have big racks. Its so damn hard to get in there hunters just don't pressure it much."

"This one had some bad scars. Never seen anything like it to be honest."

"Scars you say?""

"Three raking scars right along his left flank."

Husky pulled on his pipe and a cloud of smoke drifted off him only to disappear into the shadowed corners of the shanty. He looked up into the rafters for a moment.
"Thats no regular bull elk you saw son. He's not anything like any bull before, or ever will be."
Husky nested his pipe into the deep ashtray nearby.

"That, son, was the Monarch of Bull Mountain. Only one like him, ever.
When I lived up there and before the fire took the cabin, I watched the young Monarch many times. He favored the small park that was the cabins view. I watched him from the washbasin window."

The old mountain man crossed and uncrossed his legs, shifted himself in his chair and continued.

"The first year the Monarch was big enough to have his own group of gals was a dry year. A lot of elk had come up to the high top to find forage and it was the luck of the young Bull to have so many. He thought he was pretty big stuff and marched around like he was King of the World. He had thrashed about every bull this side of the high top, so I can't blame him the error."

The archer leaned toward the old man, hanging on every word.

"Now, a big fire had burned that summer over in Deadman. The forage was poor there from both fire and drought and most of the cow elk had come over from there to the high top and onto Bull Mountain.

"And after those cows, came looking the Black Bull..."

   No! Don't stop now!    

O come on you have me hanging on every word. Dont stop  

Just so you all know, this may or may not be a story, lotsa facts in here, spent alot of time on Bull and Deadman...listen close...I sure am

Ahhhh, yeas... a student of the infamous Charlie Lamb style of story-telling!

Met a few such folks as ole Husky in the years I lived in MT... what national treasures some of them are if you could get them to share all....

Waiting patiently.........  

Me too  

Great story! Chapters are a little short though     Keep em coming!

Sorry folks and thanks for being patient. It takes time to write and I don't have a lot of that.

Besides, we have all summer...

Joshua

all summer.......oh come on now, dont know if I can take that kind of suspense! Hire out the honey do list, send the kids to grandmas, and lock the doors!

you write a good story....looking forward to it

Got me hooked, love the inclusion of the daughter.

Gee, too bad Joshua dind't start this well before the St. Jude's Auction...after he got us all hooked, he could've raised a bunch of cash for the kids SELLING us the Paul Harvey, "Rest of the Story!"   :D  

I'll quote someone of yore on here (their's was a reference to waiting 2 yrs for a custom bow, but it fits) and I'll say, "when it comes to waiting for the story to unfold thru the summer: "I'm too old to wait, I won't even buy green bananas anymore!"      

QuoteOriginally posted by Doc Nock:
Gee, too bad Joshua dind't start this well before the St. Jude's Auction...after he got us all hooked, he could've raised a bunch of cash for the kids ...

I never thought of that. The outline and general idea of this story was conjured up while elk hunting last year, so it has pretty much been ready to be written since the season ended. I honestly never thought anyone would be that interested/hooked on anything I wrote, so never considered the auction.

Joshua

Great stuff,

Take your time, the best thins in life are worth waiting for.  However, if you wait too long for one thing life passes you by    


I see a lot of similarities between the hermit and the Monarch.  Both on top in their day, both handsome at their prime, and both know the mountain they call home...

Somebody pull this hook out of my mouth.

         

I can't believe you are writing as it goes along, that is quite a natural talent. I thought you had it done and you were copying little sections as you let the story fold.  I am even more impressed.  This is "Gray's Sporting Journal" level so far.  I could see a book of short stories in your future.  I would certainly love to red it.