Lessons in the Clouds

The week my dad pulled me out of school to hunt the late-season G1 deer hunt in Tehama County, I thought missing class was a big deal. He didn't. "You'll catch up on school," he said, loading the truck before dawn. "There are things you can only learn out here." I didn't believe him yet. By the end of the week I did. The weather had set in the way it does late in the season up here — low clouds draped over the ridges, a fine mist dripping off the pines, visibility changing by the minute. One second we could see a hundred yards through the timber, the next the fog closed in around us. Our rain gear hissed with every step and the whole place smelled like wet bark and pine sap. It was the kind of morning that keeps most people home. It was also perfect deer weather. Blacktails disappear when conditions are easy, but give them fog and drizzle and they move longer into the morning and travel more openly. Dad knew that. He'd hunted these mountains for years. I was carrying Pop's lever-action .308 — walnut stock worn smooth, dinged up from years of honest use. Dad had handed it to me before the hunt. "Pop would've wanted you carrying this." It felt like it carried more than cartridges. We still-hunted along a timbered ridge, stopping to glass the openings, the mist swallowing our footsteps. "Don't rush," Dad whispered. That was about half his hunting instruction over the years, and honestly half his instruction on everything else. We found fresh sign everywhere — tracks pressed into the soft ground, rubs along a draw — and the hours went by. Deer move when they want to. Your job is just to be there when they do. Around midmorning the timber opened up above a foggy basin and Dad stopped cold. I almost walked into him. He pointed, and at first I saw nothing — then the shape came together. A buck, feeding through the drifting cloud, no idea we were there. "Three-point," he whispered. My heart was going so hard I could barely hear him. The buck stepped into the open and stood broadside, the mist drifting past him. I eased the rifle up. It felt heavier than it had all morning. I settled the sights, and Dad said, calm as ever, "Take your time." Not hurry. Not shoot. Take your time. I squeezed the trigger. The shot rolled out into the mountains, and the buck lunged into the fog and was gone. For a moment neither of us moved. Then Dad looked over and smiled. "You got him." I wasn't sure. "You think so?" "I know so." He'd watched the buck's reaction — that's a lesson too, you watch the animal after the shot as close as before it. We still waited a while before going after him. You don't rush that either. We found him a short way off, lying in the wet pine needles under the clouds — a solid three-point blacktail. I stood there a few seconds, and not because of the antlers. I looked at the buck, then at Pop's old rifle, and three generations seemed to meet in that one spot. Dad put a hand on my shoulder. "Good shot."We spent the rest of the day taking care of the deer and packing out through the mountains, and that work felt every bit as important as the hunt. Dad showed me how to move on steep wet ground, how to respect the animal, how to leave the woods better than we found them. I couldn't tell you a single assignment I missed that week. What I remember is standing in the clouds with my dad in the pines of Tehama County, carrying Pop's .308, learning patience from a man who was never in a hurry. Every time I see low clouds hanging in the timber, I'm right back there.