Page 7 of Battle Mountain

“I’m not talking about rubbers,” Rankin said with irritation. “I mean bear spray and a handgun.”

“I’ve got bear spray and a .357 Magnum,” Eisele said as he clipped both to his belt.

“I’d rather it was a ten-millimeter or a .44 Mag,” Rankin said. “I don’t expect to run into any grizzly bears around here, but when it comes to those beasts, the bigger, the better. You heard what happened a year ago.”

“Of course,” Eisele said. Everybody knew about the murderous grizzly attacks that had occurred across the state the previous fall.

“Them bears can move fast,” Rankin said. “Maybe faster than you can draw your weapon if it isn’t handy.”

“Maybe I can get a bigger handgun before we come back withour hunters,” Eisele said. “I think I can borrow one from my father-in-law.”

Rankin indicated his approval.

“Did you bring mountain money?” he asked.

“Mountain money?” Eisele said, puzzled. He had about fifty dollars in his wallet.

“Toilet paper,” Rankin said. “It’s more valuable up here than dollar bills.”

“I’ll remember it next time,” Eisele said.

“Do that,” Rankin said. “I can share mine if you need to take a shit.”

Eisele was dressed head to foot in Kuiu high-tech hunting clothing and Zamberlan Italian hunting boots that he’d spent a small fortune on. Rankin wore weathered jeans with a sagging butt, a Wyoming Cowboys football T-shirt, a bloodstained camo vest, and ancient Red Wing hunting boots.

When they were ready, both men eased the doors shut on Rankin’s pickup as quietly as possible and started up the mountain.

—

Eisele tried tokeep up with Rankin as the older guide led the way. Rankin was short and stocky and in his midfifties with a salt-and-pepper beard and close-cropped hair. He moved in a relentless and deliberate pace that was as sure-footed as a mountain goat, Eisele thought. And he did it almost silently. It was as if he were gliding a few inches above the loose rocks, dry twigs, and haphazard pine cones that Eisele seemed to find with every other step.

At one point halfway to the buckbrush ridge, Rankin stopped, turned around, and glared at him.

“Look ahead of you before you step,” Rankin said. “Then place your foot on something that won’t make noise. You’ll spook the elk away long before you can get to where you’re going. You make as much noise as a bunch of drunk monkeys trying to fuck a football.”

Rankin’s colorful language and occasional bad grammar belied the fact that he’d graduated from Stanford and that, prior to becoming an outfitter, he’d both built and divested himself of a very successful pharmaceutical company. Eisele’s father-in-law said that very few of Rankin’s clients had any idea that the guide could likely buy and sell them if he chose and that the man liked to play up his facade.

His nickname, Spike, apparently had come from the fact that his mother was sure he’d been conceived in the temporary shelter known as a spike camp while she was elk-hunting with his father.

“Sorry,” Eisele said, using the break to catch his breath. There was a sheen of sweat across his entire upper body and he’d wiped it from his face several times already with the sleeve of his jacket.

“It’s okay to pause,” Rankin said. “Stop, look around, sniff the air, and justlisten. The last thing you want to do is walk up on a bunch of elk with your hunter huffing and puffing so hard you can’t set him up for a shot. Besides, he’ll likely be even more out of shape than you are, if that’s possible.”

Eisele leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees. His lungs burned and his calves and thighs ached. The higher they climbed and the thinner the air, the worse it got. The exertion didn’t seem to affect Rankin, which was annoying.

—

The elk-hunting seasonon Battle Mountain was on pause, Rankin had explained. Archery season had taken place from the first of September through the thirtieth. Antlered-elk season for rifles started up October 15, followed by “any elk” season through October 31. Antlerless elk season went from November 1 through November 12.

Since all of Rankin’s clients were rifle hunters, he was booked solid from mid-October through mid-November. He used the two weeks between the end of archery season and the beginning of rifle season to set up his elk camp and horse corrals, scout the area so thoroughly that he knew where most of the trophy animals hung out, note where any other elk camps might be located, and hire a camp cook and an assistant, which this year was Mark Eisele. The aim was to provide the highest-quality elk-hunting experience possible, given the limitations of hunting on a roadless mountain located largely in the Medicine Bow National Forest.

Eisele didn’t know much about the first group of hunting clients coming the next week, other than Rankin’s description of them as “well-heeled fellows from North Carolina.”

—

When Eisele hadcomplained the previous summer at a gathering with his wife’s family in Cheyenne that he was getting bored working remotely in his basement for the Silicon Valley high-tech company that employed him, his father-in-law had overheard the conversation.

“You need to get outside and challenge yourself,” the man hadsaid. “Life is more than a keyboard and a monitor. You need to get some calluses on those baby-soft hands of yours.

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