Third Place: The Arrow by Chase Cannon

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

even get another opportunity to arrow a dream bull now. Days went on, and I just couldn’t close the distance, I had hiked over ten miles each day looking for bulls, but it was to no avail. That’s when I realized that I was starting to feel sorry for myself and dwelling on what happened in that past instead of pushing forward into my future. My father always taught me that the mistakes we make do not define us, and are simply the past, and how we overcome those mistakes and become better men, truly defines who we are. So on the last day, I decided I would go back to where I had my shot on the first day to see if I could work up some magic and make it happen again. I hiked up the mountain that morning listening for bugles, when all of a sudden I heard that all too familiar sound, it was the rumbling deep growl of a bugle from the bull that I had chased on the very first day. I began to mimic another bull by scraping tree branches together and bugling back at the bull cutting him off before every bugle was finished. It was then that I heard the sound of footsteps coming through the brush again, the same bugle, the same crashing of the brush beneath the bull’s feet, and the same smell of wild game hitting me in the face as the bull closed the distance. “This time things will be different,” I mumbled under my breath as I drew my bow back as the bull emerged in front of me. I stayed steady, thinking about nothing but making a clean ethical shot to put the bull down in seconds. When I let the arrow fly, time stood still, I watched the arrow fly straight as it felt like it took forever to get to the bull, and then, it connected. The shot was placed perfectly, the arrow punctured right through the heart as the bull crashed through the brush. My adrenaline was running so high because I knew that I just harvested the bull of my dreams. I started to follow the steady blood trail of the animal, when just a few short yards after following the trail, I spotted the bull of my dreams lying on the ground in front of me. In that moment, I said to myself, “It’s over. The hard work, preparation, and endurance training has paid off.” It was in this moment, I realized that my dream of harvesting a world class animal such as this had finally come to full fruition. As I laid there in awe and took great pride in the animal that I had just harvested, I couldn’t help but think about one thing. The same thing that had been on my mind since the start of this hunt: my father. We always said that we would make it out here together someday. In that moment, a tear shed from my eye as I sat and honored not only the massive bull that I killed, but my father as well. Even though he wasn’t physically with me, I never felt alone on this hunt, and I knew that he was right there with me in that moment, telling me how proud he was that we finally got to kill a bull elk together.