Day had waned by the time we reached the sweeping prairie hills of Carter County. As much as we stared into the darkening shadows, we could see no tawny antelope on those southeast Montana plains.
Oh, they had to be out there in big, big numbers. We sensed them watching. Their musk was in the air. At least we let our imaginations tell us so, amid the horsiness of Frank Mehling`s ranch yard.
He and a hired hand were bolting together strips of oily metal plates from a salvaged petroleum tank to make a secure corral for the harsh winter. We helped them wrestle a plate or two, then I slipped through the knee-high grasses and up a gentle slope where the last daylight shimmered weakly in the west.
Below spread a dusk-shrouded Montana, the silhouettes of ponderosa pines guarding hilltops that define the range. Three flights of sandhill cranes cut through the huge sky above, intersecting with a querulous band of Canada geese. I stared into the shallow valley. At least 400 antelope should be out there somewhere on Mehling`s 25,000-acre spread. They were, at least, four days ago, when he last checked.
For more than 40 years, the Mehlings have run their ranch with wildlife in mind. Longhorns and stately Scottish Highlanders share the range with conventional cattle. Mehling does so well on specialized breeding that he can afford to run far less commercial head than others, hardly abusing his pastures. The antelope, mule deer and sage hens respond abundantly to his extra lush grasses, sages and succulents.
”The problem out here,” Mehling said, trudging back to the barn, ”is that we have too many antelope for easy hunting. It`s hard to sneak up on them. If you see a dozen go over one ridge, another 30 or 40 may be watching you from the other ridge. It`s hard to get out of their sight to get close. If you spook one, you spook `em all.”
And that`s basically what we did for two days until a fine pronghorn with 9-inch horns panicked and strayed off course and maneuvered within 150 yards of the .30-06 I had borrowed from Neil Oldridge. This time I figured out his scope, and one shot was all that was needed.
I had been increasingly worried until then. Sure enough, each time we came upon one of Mehling`s tremendous herds of 20 to 40 wary goats, something eased or sent them skittering away. And, face it, I flat-out blew a couple of golden chances.
I had zeroed Bill Cullerton`s beautiful old .243, which he had wanted me to take hunting, even if he couldn`t go. It had proved itself many times in Africa, and Bill thought the old piece deserved another outing.
Oldridge had other ideas, however. As the sales and marketing manager for Remington as well as Stren, he was knee-deep in developing a super-secret cartridge that still needed testing, and the only guns he had for it were his own bolt .30-06 and a 7-mag, scoped for him, of course.
I wondered if these rifles weren`t a bit strong for antelope, but Oldridge demurred.
”I`m of the opinion that if it takes a 5-pound hammer to drive in a nail, why not use a 10-pound hammer to really get the job done?” he said.
And so we lugged along his artillery, zeroed for me with just three shots at a hole in a rock at roughly 200 yards. This is not a recommended style of hunting.
For example, we were approaching one of those special spots along a fence where antelope slip under (they never jump) when a nice buck with maybe 15-inch horns came over the hill, pushed by other hunters. We immediately were out of the truck and running for a place where we might get a shot from 250 yards.
”It`s going under!” Neil said as I frantically tried to find a field of vision from the pin-prick of light in his scope. ”Shoot, shoot!” he frothed while I played the weapon like a kaleidoscope.
”It`s through! . . . It`s going up the hill! . . . It`s stopping!
. . . It`s looking back at us! . . . Shoot!”
I finally had found the spot in the fence, without antelope. I waved the rifle around, trying to find the hill. I looked up, found the buck, went back to the scope, found only the maddening pin-prick of light, looked again at the buck, found it at last in the scope, just as it eased safely behind some brush.
Oldridge pathetically shook his head. ”The darned thing was begging to hang on your wall,” he muttered.
I did virtually the same thing the next day with a magnficent mule deer buck of at least 14 points. We had watched it swiftly enter a labyrinth of ravines from a precipice about 600 yards away and pick the one we were guarding. I braced myself against a friendly rock just as the deer trotted behind some boulders.
”It`s going to come out right up there,” Neil said, indicating a spot slightly past us and maybe 200 yards away.
I fiddled with the rifle, even found the area in the scope, but the buck emerged 50 yards above. By the time I saw it in the scope, the shot was chancy. Rather than risk just wounding an animal, I lowered the rifle, put on the safety and sorrowfully watched it glide away.
I spent several of Oldridge`s precious cartridges on some rocks, making a truce with the scope. Fortunately, there was no shortage of game on Mehling`s ranch. Mainly scouting the first day, we saw parades of antelope grazing his open plains, well above 200. We scared up another 100 or so huntable mule deer, but their season wouldn`t open until the next day.
”Getting close to those antelope, that`s the problem,” Mehling cackled at our first try to reach some over scrubby plains. Oldridge and Dave Rockland made the stalk through a gully while Mehling and I watched from a low hill. As they advanced, the dozen or so goats receded, finally disappearing over a ridge. We changed positions and saw what they were up against. Those dozen had joined a group of 30 that now were moving away. To the left, 20 others raced off, whistle-blowers who had seen Oldridge`s empty van.
Later that day, we surveyed miles of glorious land from the lip of a plateau. No less than 11 herds of antelope were in sight, some merely butterscotched dots on the sides of distant hills. In the panorama of a creek- broken plain below us, a nearby herd of 30 was being watched by two coyotes, five deer and a scuttling cougar.
I had one good chance at some running antelope Oldridge and Rockland pushed from a road below, but you don`t shoot at racing greyhounds. They just move too fast. One fellow who tried bagged a doe instead of the buck he was seeking. I put down my gun, awed by the beauty and power of this swarming herd.
My time came with a clean, sure, easy shot early on the third day. We had seen hundreds of game animals in dozens of situations. This buck erred by trying to cross my path. I`m not sure he knew I was there. While it wasn`t glorious, it did put savory, tender antelope meat on my plate from time to time.
There may be nothing better to wing the mind from city life to the sagey plains of the west, and the promise of one`s own scope in times to come.
