Third Place: Short Fiction The Arrow Chase Cannon
Eye-level from a beast of an animal, completely silent and completely still, I was perched about to make the most crucial shot of my entire life. I had spent my entire life preparing myself for this moment, a dream was about to come true. The bugle of the bull elk pierced my ears as I tried to keep my emotions in check. With every step I took, I could hear the brush crunching beneath him, and the smell of wild animal hitting me right in the face. It was almost a surreal feeling that I was within thirty yards of this beast, because this animal knew but one thing, the same thing that his species has been doing for thousands of years, how to survive. A few days prior, I had just arrived from my hometown of Fayette, Missouri, to the town of Bozeman, Montana, one of the elk hunting capitals in the world. I had spent months preparing my gear, shooting my bow, and staying in peak physical shape to be able to withstand the unforgiving terrain of the mountains. This hunt was a bow hunter’s dream, as good as it gets, to be hunting an animal of this caliber 100% fair chase, just as our ancestors did thousands of years ago. I started my journey hiking through the mountains on that cool fall morning. Instantly, I realized I was facing more adversity than I had thought, although I had stayed in shape working out and running all summer, the altitude change and the rugged unforgiving terrain of the steep mountains had me worried. Nonetheless, I pushed forward, it wasn’t long before I had my first encounter, one that I had dreamed about my entire life. A huge 6x6 bull had answered my call and was making his way through the brush right to where I was. I began to shake and could feel myself becoming more and more anxious by the second. Within minutes, this bull had made his way to stand within fifty yards of me. I thought to myself “stay calm, do as you have all summer and just focus on the shot,” but I couldn’t. I began to draw back when the bull spotted me, at full draw this bull locked up and began a stare down, I had just a few limbs in the way between the bull and I, so I decided to move a few steps over, hoping the bull wouldn’t bust quick enough before I got the shot off. As I moved, the bull began to become uneasy, and at the second I released my arrow, the bull had seen enough, he ducked the arrow as it flew toward him and ran off out of my dreams unharmed. I was so disappointed, “I worked my whole life for this, and I blew it on the first opportunity I got,” I thought to myself. My father was the one who got me into archery hunting, over twenty years ago. I could shoot a bow the moment I was old enough to pull one back. My entire life I had looked up to my father and the amazing archery hunter that he was. He always said that we would make it out here together someday to hunt these animals together. Unfortunately, time catches all of us, and my father passed away before we ever got that opportunity. Feeling like my best chance was over, I started to doubt myself, if I would
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Inscape 2020
