Chapter 9

Anna and I were both up earlier than normal; either from a good night of rest, excitement over the trip to Taos or, more likely, a combination of both. We did our standard Tai Chi and then an extended session of practice with me teaching Anna the next kata in her progression. At the rate she was going she would soon be ready to start learning Krav Maga. When we were finished, I gave Anna a big smile, pulled her into a hug before giving her a big kiss, and telling her she was doing extremely well. We stood there for a minute, cuddled together, before breaking apart to clean up and get dressed.

We walked downstairs with Anna carrying the saddle bags and me carrying all four scabbards with our rifles in them and the two shotguns all bundled up in a single bulky canvas wrapped package. Josefa and Kit joined us a few minutes later with saddle bags and two porters carrying their supplies and baggage to be packed on a mule. While the ladies went inside the restaurant, I helped Kit quickly load up the mule that was already hitched up out front with our horses. We returned to the restaurant in short order and sat down to coffee just as breakfast arrived. I smiled at Anna for ordering my breakfast and dug into the meal. I hadn’t realized just how hungry I was after a night of ‘exploring possibilities’ and a morning of kata practice.

After breakfast and a second, more leisurely, cup of coffee, we mounted up ready to start the trip. Kit thought the sawed-off shotguns on their slings were rather handy and we discussed the merits of the setup as we rode out of town. While we were talking Kit set a consistent steady travel pace that both animals and humans could maintain with minimal effort on either’s part. We rode in two pairs with the pairings switching frequently during the morning.

The further north and east we traveled, the more Anna was amazed at the trees, grass, and animal signs we saw. It was a treat watching her discover something she never knew existed or had only heard about from others. Near noon we stopped in a small glade off the side of the trail with a small stream running through the back. Anna and Josefa went to the stream and knelt down to scoop up some water to refresh themselves.

It took everything I had not to laugh, as Anna let out a small scream when she discovered first-hand how cold the water was. Her only experience with river water was the Rio Grande between Las Cruces and El Paso. While that water was cool, it was much warmer than what she’d just experienced, and she was trying to understand why there was such a difference. I explained to her that the stream was much closer to its source which was melting snow a little higher up in the mountains.

Anna, now over her surprise, returned with Josefa to the pack mule and between the two of them produced a quick lunch. I was very familiar with the lunch, but Kit looked a little askance at the bread rolls, sausages, and mustard spread until he took the first bite. Anna had also convinced Josefa to take a small jar of water loaded with tea leaves and tie it on the outside of the packs to brew while we rode. The tea jar was unnoticed until she poured a little of the strong tea into four large mugs and finished filling the mugs with ice cold water from the stream. Kit accepted the mug from Anna, but had a hard time mentally accepting he would be drinking cold tea for lunch. It was so foreign to his experience that it took over five minutes before he finally took his first drink and then only after the other three of us had taken drinks and told him how good it was. I quickly drank the mug and asked for more of the thirst quenching and refreshing drink. Josefa told Kit that the drink was extremely good, and she had added a little mint to the tea leaves which she knew he liked. Kit was a quick convert to both sausage dogs and tea, asking for more of both while shaking his head in wonder. I had a suspicion that Kit was in for a few more culinary delights during our visit to Taos.

We made good time after our lunch stop, and the longer summer days allowed us a few more hours of travel before stopping for the night. Near sundown Kit led us through a copse of woods a half mile off the trail and into a clearing with a stream running along one side. We set up camp and saw to the horses and mule, while the ladies made a fire and began working on the evening’s supper. One sniff was all it took for me to know we were having hamburgers and fries for supper. I knew Josefa had refilled the small jar with fresh water, tea leaves, and sprigs of mint before we left our lunch stop, so I fully expected cold tea with supper.

I told Kit to prepare himself for another supper surprise, and more cold tea. He shrugged and quietly said that it had been good so far, so he’d go along with whatever the ladies made. He made good on his promise, eating two burgers and a whole plate of fries all by himself.

Thankfully the ladies had made a large pot of coffee, as the nights were still cool this far north, and at this elevation, which was approaching 7,000 feet. Anna and I cuddled up together on one side of the fire with our coffee while Josefa and Kit did the same on the other side. The night was quiet, crisp, and clear with the stars of the Milky Way shining down in all their glory. We were all quiet as we watched the stars and sipped our coffee before getting into our bedrolls and quickly falling asleep.

Anna and I were up much earlier than Kit and Josefa. We got the fire going and then Anna started a pot of coffee before we began our morning of Tai Chi and kata practice. Kit and Josefa woke sometime before we were done and watched us with fascination although neither one expressed any interest in learning more about either Tai Chi or Aikido. We cleaned up and enjoyed a cup of coffee before breakfast. Anna made everyone breakfast sandwiches and Kit again expressed his surprise at how something so simple could taste so good. We finished the pot of coffee, packed up, and were on the trail just as the full light of dawn broke over the mountains.

Kit kept the same pace he’d set yesterday, and we continued to make good time. Our lunch stop was a repeat of yesterday’s, but quicker, and we were back on the trail less than a half hour after we’d stopped. A few hours later Kit pulled up sharply and told us there was a herd of antelope about 1000 yards to the west on the mountainside. I looked at Anna and she shrugged with a why not expression. I asked Kit if the deer were accessible from where we were.

“Well, that all depends on how far they run after you shoot them, but I can get us to where they are now with no real problem,” he replied.

Anna and I pulled our A700’s from their scabbards and dismounted. As we scanned the herd of antelope through our scopes, I asked Kit how many he wanted.

“That depends on how big they are and they’re too far away for me to tell from here.”

I dug into my saddle bag and handed him one of the spare monoculars that Anna and I both carried. He put it to his eye and rapidly pulled it away, holding it at arm’s distance in disbelief. Kit put it back up to his eye, found the antelope, and told us three would feed us tonight and give the house some fresh meat for the next few days. Anna had given one to Josefa, so she could see what we were talking about.

We settled into the crook of a couple of trees we found with limbs low enough to steady our rifles and a clear view of the antelope before looking through the scope and picking two targets each. As we adjusted the scopes, I quietly reminded her to account for the higher elevation and up-hill slope.

We both fired almost simultaneously and bringing our rifles back on target, confirmed our shots, chambered a new round, and fired at our secondary targets.

“Well, Kit,” I said after confirming the kills through the scope. “It looks like you got four antelope instead of three. I hope that fourth one won’t go to waste.”

Kit scoffed, “That’s what the Good Lord invented smoking for. The meat will last long enough to be used. Don’t you worry. It won’t go to waste.”

Kit gave us a display of his mountain experience leading us to the antelope and then in almost no time field dressing all four antelope. We put the four antelope on the mule, rode back down the mountain, and less than two hours after we stopped, we were on the trail again. Stopping a little earlier than we had last night, Kit led us to another good camping spot in a copse of trees with water nearby.

While I took care of the horses, Kit took one antelope off the mule, skinned and butchered it, and handed the best pieces to the ladies, who had been setting up camp and starting a fire. I got done with the horses in time to help Kit string up the meat into some tall trees, thirty yards from camp.

“There aren’t near as many around as there was when I first came here years ago, but black bears, and occasionally a grizzly or two, are still active up here,” Kit said as we tied off the last of the meat high up into the trees

I have no idea what the ladies had originally planned for supper but antelope steak, fried potatoes with onions, and beans were what was served. Tonight, we skipped the tea in favor of coffee. We weren’t much further north than last night, but we were much higher in elevation and the night was much cooler. We all turned in early, with Anna and me snuggled together sharing both our blankets.

Sometime later the mule started making an unbelievable racket, and Kit was up and out of his bedroll in no time, down on one knee, scanning for whatever was upsetting the mule. Anna and I joined him a second or two later as we all tried to find the source of the trouble in the darkness, with only the reflected light of the Milky Way to see by.

A full minute later we heard rustling sounds from where the antelope were hanging. Kit muttered a curse under his breath and took ten quick and quiet steps towards the antelope, before stopping to sniff the air. Letting out a louder but still quiet curse he turned to us.

“A bear’s trying to get to the meat.” He corrected himself almost immediately. “At least one bear, maybe more.”

“Will it go away eventually, if he doesn’t get the meat?” Josefa softly asked from behind us.

“It might, love, but there’s no way to tell,” Kit replied. “He could just as easily come after us. Either way I’m not willing to sit awake all night waiting for him, or them, to decide to leave or to come after us.”

Kit helped Josefa up into the limbs of a mature tree and told her to stay there until he came back for her. I didn’t even try to tell Anna to climb a tree. I knew she’d be angrier than a wounded bear if I tried!

Holding our rifles, I quietly told Anna, “These rifles are too small of a caliber to make a one shot kill, unless we’re very lucky. I strongly recommend you use the three-round burst if you get a clear shot and aim like we’d practiced.”

Kit brushed past us as we were talking and walked to within fifteen yards of the tree where we’d hung the meat, before dropping down to one knee again. Anna and I joined him trying to find the bear we could still hear. Finally, Anna pointed to a dark shape near the tree, telling us that it was a single bear.

Kit stared hard for a minute. “I can’t tell what kind it is but it’s either a very big black bear or a young grizzly.”

He disappeared before returning a minute later with a dead branch he’d lit from the camp fire. I had Anna take up a position five yards to one side of Kit while I took up the same position on the other side. Plainly, Kit was hoping to scare the bear away.

I didn’t, for even one second, think he was going to do anything besides make a hungry bear angry. So, I was ready when the bear roared and stood up facing Kit. I fired my first burst just as the bear started to drop onto all fours and charge. Anna joined in before my burst was finished and we both fired a second burst while Kit was hauling himself up into a tree, after dropping the crude torch. We both fired a third burst. Just before it reached the torch, the bear dropped its face to the ground, and tumbled end over end before laying still.

The three of us waited a full five minutes, watching for any signs of life from the bear, before Kit dropped down from his tree, picked up the sputtering torch, and used it to poke at the bear. Kit told us it was dead, and we’d check it out in the morning when we had more light.

Back at camp we helped Josefa out of the tree telling her the bear was dead. We all got back in our bedrolls and tried to go back to sleep. It took a while for all the adrenaline to wash out of our systems, but eventually we did sleep.

The next morning, we all did our usual camp routine and had breakfast. We all enjoyed a relaxed forty-five minutes of sitting by the fire warming up and drinking coffee as we waited for enough light to see by. The sun finally rose giving us good light and we all walked over to the bear.

Kit gave a whistle. “That’s the biggest black bear I’ve seen in years!”

After looking at it for a minute Kit asked the rest of us to help him roll it over on its back. I’m not sure which shot killed the bear or which one of us fired it but most of our eighteen rounds hit the bear’s head, shoulders, and a couple rounds hit under the arms on both sides. The holes were small and hard to find except in the head.

“This will make a fine bear skin robe or bedcover for those cold winter nights,” Kit said looking at us before taking out his skinning knife and setting to work.