Sparagmos

As the sun peeks over the southern mountains, it's attractive and gentle rays leisurely massage the morning mist from the sultry fingers of the lodge-pole pines in the western valley. A terse autumn morning in Montana is like nothing else on this planet. Everything seems stationary but alive at the same time; an inexpressible notion that only the truly auspicious get to start off their day with such vigor and beauty. The porch creeks as my right leg swings over the left simultaneously letting my shoulder fall to its resting spot upon the doorframe. Holding my coffee in my right hand with my elbow at almost a perfect right angle, I can smell the Folgers in my cup as I survey the limitless wilderness. Not the best coffee in the world, I know, but it gets the job done and it’s cheap. For these big long hunting trips, it’s important to balance taste with price to find the perfect equilibrium for your wallet, as well as your stomach.
The outfitting for these trips are often what I enjoy the most. The exhilaration of being at Costco with you list in hand, pushing your cart down each and every aisle making sure you haven’t forgotten anything. Then off to Sportsman’s Warehouse for ammo; maybe even a new dressing-knife or if im feeling spendy, but usually just the ammo. “Two boxes of the .300 Winchester’s please, im gonna bag myself a Buck.”
Then there’s the Cabin; the definition of separation and clarity. In the car for several hours you start to lose a corporeal tie to the land and your acuity of connectedness is severed by the sound of rubber against asphalt. Maybe you doze off for a few minutes or you concentrate on a magazine, but the moment your eyes wander away from the window you become entranced by the journey. You don’t know where you are, or what’s happening in the world around, but you know the destination and what waits there. Finally, rounding the last tree, there sits the deer cabin.
A few of my friends and I built the bastard when we were all back in college together, and it only cost us about 1500 bucks! (No pun intended.) No electricity, that’s a given. No refrigeration; but a nice wood stove that we discovered in the contiguous woods and cleaned up. One main room encompassed by bunk beds and a card table with a kerosene lamp as its centerpiece. No bathroom, and no out-house either; we squat in the woods at this deer camp. If you thought the interior was exciting, take 10 steps unswervingly away from the front door and spin 180 degrees. A spectacle that makes the heart drop with an unbounded echo; the small cabin appears dwarfed by the eastern mountains with two distinct peaks that give the roof of the cabin its own set of antlers. We named the two peaks Castor and Pollux. The mountains, which tower over our abode, seem to be kept at a distance by a vast sea of green that encompasses us, trees as far as the eye can see…
While the Folgers slowly crept into my nose then up into my brain, I could see that the dawn mist had almost completely faded. The orange-yellow glow created by the sun colliding with the mist had turned into green as the ground began to warm; I began to plan my hunt. I like to hunt alone; the feeling of one man against nature, the primordial idea of becoming a part of the environment, the knowledge that if the twig snaps and startles the stag, I know it will have been my foot, and not the step of an aloof friend.
I would head southwest towards the southern mountains, I know of a small lake that nestles against the foothills of the steep Alps, Lake Demeter. That is where I would find my trophy.


I set off from the cabin almost due south.
“You sure you don’t want me to come with?” as I faced the trail, I looked over my shoulder to see my good friend Max standing on the front steps.
“ I wasn’t born yesterday Max, relax, enjoy your hunt and I will see you tonight.” The words were promptly brushed away by the morning breeze. “Zues! Zues! Here boy!!” I called into the sky.
I could hear his thunderous paws slam the path behind me and soon my loyal dog was along side of me. I never bought Zeus or even wanted a dog for that matter, but he wanted me. I woke up 3 years ago to the hum of whimpers and claws upon my screen door, opening it to stumble upon my manifestation in a pair of beady black puppy eyes. From that moment we became a team. I took Zeus on his first hunt when he was about a year old and he was astonishing to observe. The hunt surged through his veins; as he pursued, his instincts conquered his intellect and his body became harmonized like an instrument to the melody of the innate order. The concentration and devotion he displayed to me was a clear-cut indication that this dog was a predator. Zeus understood how to function in the wilderness; a dexterity that astonishingly most dogs have become numb to. I have witnessed beauty in my life; but I have never seen anything so gorgeous as Zeus stalking prey through the forest. His body is on edge but wholly peaceful and every advance seems calculated, premeditated by an intellect that was not in his head. As soon as his nostrils flared with the aroma of living flesh, it is almost as if he is not my dog anymore, he is a wild animal. For Zeus, these hunts were his proudest moments, and it was not hard to tell. The instant my boots were laced I would lift my head up from my knee to be met by a big slobbery tongue bombarding my face and then a flash of black through the open door. I would emerge all geared up to find my four-legged friend watching patiently for my sign to begin the hunt.
I gave him the head nod, and we were off.