Lime green lichen grew between the hooves, shreds of faded hair and rawhide still clung to them and gnaw marks from mice and grizzlies had long ago turned gray against the white bone. I was surprised that the elk hoof bundle was still there. Time had changed the forest, and through the falling snow, I had taken a while to find the tree in which it hung. The old No. 9 lookout phone wire had held tight though and there it was. I remembered back to the day I’d hung it up, was it really almost 40 years ago?
The bull had known I was on his trail. I was not the first predator to follow him and he knew some tricks. But that day must have been his day off because he wasn’t in a hurry and he made two mistakes: he bedded upwind and too close to the old logging road where I tracked him. For the last half mile his meandering tracks had told me he was thinking of laying down and when he got close to the little knoll where I knew bulls had bedded before, I started tasting elk steaks.
His tracks left the road and snuck into the thick forest. The snow was quieter on the road though, so I stayed on it a little longer. With my finger on the trigger, I inched forward. Then like a rocket the bull was up and changing address fast. Seconds before, I had subliminally noted a narrow window through the brush. As he moved, my sights were on the opening a split second before he was -- just long enough for the 30-06 180 gr. Nosler to find his heart as he passed through. After preparing the quarters for pack out, I cut the four hooves off at the knee joints. Drops of dark blood fell as I tied them up together as high as I could reach.
I thought back to when I was a kid hiking with my grandfather in the foothills behind East Glacier, Montana. Hidden just off the trail, I had found an old bundle of elk hooves hanging in an aspen tree. When I asked Grandpa what it was he said cautiously, “I think it’s a way that some of the Blackfeet still say thanks, a way to show that they tried to use it all.” Something about the find and his reply stayed with me. After my father taught me how to hunt, hoof bundles often marked the kills on my backtrail.
It was snowing harder now. I watched the big flakes weave down through the pine branches, past the beards of black moss, taking their time to find the ground. One of them spiraled lazily around the bundle, pulling me back through the years...
Part II of Hoof Bundles will continue next week
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