A young hunter sets out to track big mule deer through the desert, leaving his usual hunting buddy behind.
“WE’RE GOING TO HAVE to split up,” I said, looking steadily at my son. “The hunting’s been tough, and we need to cover more country.
We separated then, me feeling oddly conflicted as I watched him stride away, his long legs eating up the sand. He apparently felt no nostalgia, but to me it signaled a simultaneous destination reached and journey begun. I was now the old hunter, the wise one who theoretically worked less and killed more, but whose step was slower, whose eyes were no longer as keen. He was the young hunter who could run with the wind and hunt with the stamina of a hound.
He’d proven himself as a hunter: to himself, to me, and to the wilderness. In the eyes of the old hunter-gatherer people who once lived here, he was now a man and capable of providing.”
