Two not-quite-over-the-hill Dall sheep hunters take in one last hunt, flying into the vast and unforgiving Chugach Mountain Range in Southcentral Alaska. Tragedy strikes the pair early on, and one of them is dead. The story that ensues is a wholly convincing account of the other hunter's epic journey out of the mountains, through countless hardships and hostile land, but at the same time, he traverses a majestically beautiful country called Alaska. The Last Hunt By Jackson S. Whitman Trafford Publishing Copyright © 2017 Jackson S. Whitman All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4907-8074-0 CHAPTER 1 GETTING STARTED The roar from the gun was deafening, even with the ear protectors. The punishment meted out, however, was only to my shoulder. Downrange, the third small hole that instantaneously appeared in the paper touched the previous two holes, and all were just a tad high, within an inch of the center ring. "Enough paper shooting for me," I said. "God wouldn't have put blood into a critter if he hadn't intended 'em to bleed. Th is rifle is ready to go." With the task of sighting in the guns completed, we were on our way. Gus and I had been planning for two weeks. For us, that was a long time. The usual trip, whether it was for hunting, fishing, or trapping, was planned with nothing more than a short phone call the night before. We had been on some foolhardy outings before, but for two over-the-hill sheep hunters, this one was big. In years past, we had chased after with gun, rod, trap, or snare nearly every species of animal that Alaska had to offer. All outings were successful; a good percentage even netted meat for the freezer or furs to be sold. Success shouldn't be measured by the size of the trophy, but by the good times and memories that the trip produced. Born of a deep respect for the animals and the land, Gus and I had developed a kinship that had lasted solidly for the past two decades. My forty-seven years made me the youngster on the trip. Gus never called me Charlie, but rather, "the Kid"; but he himself would never fess up to an actual age. If I had to guess, I would have said sixty when I saw him in his behind-the-desk, oil executive role during most of the year. A vastly different guess would have been warranted when I was with him in the mountains. He was transposed from a serious and efficient administrator to a twenty-five-year-old happy-go-lucky hellion, full of practical jokes, wry humor, and an ever-present Copenhagen bulge in his lip. Most trips on which we spent more than three or four nights, Gus would develop a brown stain on his graying whiskers from the tobacco spittle that he never quite figured out how to eject fully past his chin. Actually, he was probably no more than ten years my senior. I would never know. Twenty or twenty-five years old was probably a safe age for Dall sheep hunters. Much past that, and most of us aren't willing to bust our asses to get "just one more drainage over" to find that forty-inch ram. Gus and I had each taken four rams; and those sheep hunts, whether we punched our tags or not, had always been the ones most talked about over the frequent poker games, campfires, or midnight drives to the nearest salmon stream. Because all sheep hunts entailed long packs over pretty serious terrain, neither of us ever brought along a camera. It was regarded as a two-pound luxury, and when every ounce was critical, we always opted for a plastic flask of Wild Turkey in its place. That way, Gus always argued, we could vividly describe the glacier-covered mountains, the snow-covered tents, and the awesome size of the rams; and nobody could dispute our claims. With pictures, it was easier for someone to point out all the bullshit we were shoveling out. It was morning of the eleventh of September. A few fall days had hit the Anchorage bowl, but the Chugach Range above town had an inviting skiff of "termination dust" coating the upper three thousand feet. We knew we were pushing the weather, but Gus and I'd both had professional commitments that we had somehow let interfere with our hunting season. My minerals exploration business kept me and several employees busy during the short field season of Alaska's summers. We were finally loaded up and on the road in Gus's big Ford. A Subaru wagon went scooting past us on the Glenn Highway, and Gus made some profane remark about the truthfulness of the guy's bumper sticker: "Happiness Is Anchorage in the Rearview Mirror." Gus claimed he disliked bumper stickers but, nonetheless, had a couple of his own. One was actually a National Rifle Association membership sticker, the other a bona fide bumper sticker that his wife had covertly plastered there in response to another hunting season she spent alone: "Nuke the Unborn Gay Whales." We had made arrangements with Mica Meyers, a well-known sourdough and hunting guide, to provide us with air transportation to a remote area near the head of the Matanuska Glacier in the Ch