'I couldn’t make it out on my own'
A hunter's plight and the helping hands of Bozeman
I’m typing through sore muscles, as this weekend my hands were asked to help someone in need, and in that moment I could have walked on. I thought about walking on. But I stopped.
I grew up in a hunting family. My father brought deer meat home for many years. So when I saw a hunter dragging a four-point buck down the trail, I had some context. The hunter’s eyes pleaded with me first, then he asked if I would help him. At that point, he had been hauling the deer out of Bear Trap Canyon for hours. After gutting the animal, he pulled the body down the ridge — estimated to still weigh 200 lbs after being gutted — and was making his way along a popular hiking trail that skirts the Madison River in the the Lee Metcalf Wilderness area. The canyon lacks cell phone coverage, and the hunter did not bring along anyone to help him. It was unusually warm that day, and he knew if he left the deer to get help, his efforts would be spoiled.
I first sensed his desperation, and then his exhaustion. Then I smelled a bitter tang of adrenaline, blood and sweat. He was sticky with entrails; the deer’s blood and death seeped into his hands. The body was cooling, legs starting to become rigid.
The man’s name is Justen, and I share this story with his permission. He told me he’d been hunting the area for many years, usually coming with his brother. Yet, that day, his brother was busy, and he decided to head out anyway.
“That’s usually when it happens,” he laughed, sharing the uncanny luck of killing the biggest buck of his hunting life while having no one to help. He said that he should have quartered it when he gutted it, but it was too late for that.
I took a few gentle jabs at him, telling him that a woman can never head out into the wilderness alone unprepared. I’ve been walking the backcountry most of my life, often with just my dog as company. This is a place where I feel most at home, but I also know I am a visitor.
I’ve also bitten off more than I could chew on a trail. Around mile 10, I began to beg for the end, pray to that glorious trailhead to show itself to me, my legs turning to jelly, my knees screaming, my feet throbbing. Yet, when I stopped to look around, I realized that I was so lucky to be there. I began to utter a different prayer, one that my dear friend Alaina Buffalo Spirit of the Northern Cheyenne Nation taught me. It is a song she sings to the creator Ma' Heo' o, thanking them for this place, the life that is in all things that makes us kin to all beings and to the earthly Mother from where we came.
When I asked Justen if I could write about his misadventure, he said, “Absolutely. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, except that I couldn’t make it out on my own.”
I’ve been trying to make it out on my own, to be in the backcountry alone, to feel confident that I am as safe as I can be away from everyone and everything but nature. I carry bear spray, and I’m always cognizant of my surroundings, but I’ve often thought about carrying a gun. Safety for a woman is always a concern, as predators — not just bears — are always around.
My father was the one who carried the gun. It would rest in his holster as we hiked, then by his side in the tent. When our family was young, we backpacked deep into the wilderness, hiking for several days. At night in our carried tent, my younger brother slept at my side, then my mother, flanked by my father.
Years later, when I asked my father if he had a handgun I could have, he told me that if you carry a gun, you have to be prepared to shoot it. I don’t believe that I am, so instead I talk to the dog. I converse with the squirrels and birds, call into the darkest parts of the forest, and clap my hands at the glory. I am loud, as to not surprise anyone.
Upon each step deeper into a place that is unknown to me, I wonder, will I ever see a bear? What will I do? Will I have been loud enough, fast enough, wise enough, aware enough to keep this parade going without a gun?
In truth, there are far more dangerous situations than being a woman alone in the woods with bears. I’ve walked into the backcountry with my own version of a loaded gun. That’s what I called him, as being with him was like playing roulette. You never knew how he would be in the mornings, if his fists were bunched and ready for the fight, if the drink would take him early or if his guard was down and he wanted to hold me in that consuming and expansive way that keeps a person returning to their abuser.
Every place I put my foot now is a place toward a new relationship with myself. It’s confusing to love a dangerous person — someone who would break you so they could bring you back to life. I think I’ll take my chances with the Bears.
Many hands make light work
The hunter, Justen, exuded a kind heart, telling me about his daughter and how he uses the meat to feed her and his family organically, and that the liver is coveted in his house to support his daughter’s vitamin deficiencies. He offered me part of the deer in exchange for helping pull the body out of the canyon. We pulled the carcass over the bouldered trail for about a half mile before a father and son came along, and I asked them to help us as well. They were happy to help. Many hands made lighter work.
They were from California, the son having relocated to Bozeman years ago to escape the urban landscape, his father told me. I acknowledged that urbanization is coming for us all. I’ve seen #boycottcalifornia spray painted in bathrooms and have heard stories of friends who have come here to work being tailgated and harassed for their out-of-state license plates. I am embarrassed that the advice I had to give a new hire in an arts organization in Bozeman was to change her license plates, immediately.
Both men were happy to help, and both had no hesitation in jumping in to pull the deer down the trail, each of us taking turns. Isn’t that the spirit of Montana? That when it is time to harvest, we all come together? There is no doubt that when somebody is in need, Montanas will come together. It’s a beautiful thing that I’ve experienced my entire life out West. When you are in need on a trail, somebody will stop to ask if you need help. When your dog is lost in the wilderness, people will show up if you ask for help. I have been the recipient of the kindness of strangers, and I am always in awe at the capacity people have to care for people they don’t even know.
There’s a darker spirit here, too, one of land grabs and privatization, of the reservation system and the subjugation of entire nations of Indigenous people. The American Holocaust played out on this land, and we are all responsible for the relationships we have with one another today.
We are all navigating a changing West, one has been changing since the first explorers came to this place, saw its vast wildness, and brought that story back to others who wanted to see it for themselves. How can you blame anyone wanting to enjoy the splendor of this place? There’s far more complexities in gentrification and urban sprawl and the impacts to Montana’s housing prices than I have time to get into here and now, but we all came here from somewhere. Our families came here from somewhere. Can we fault others for doing the same?
When I’m alone in the wild, it’s the most Real I think I’ve been. My breath is heavy and my lungs keep up with my thoughts. It’s the only place where this happens, where there’s a syncing between my thoughts and my body. Being here is being in love. It’s being part of everything and and returning to nothing all at once. I am so small and so organically part of this world, I could melt into this place. I feel its stillness and majesty so loudly because I feel it inside me. It is inside us all.
Great stuff my friend.
So beautiful, Anna.