Ready for Wild: A Book Club Recommendation!

(Braden Montgomery)

The mission of men there seems to be, like so many busy demons, to drive the forest all out of the country . . .

—HENRY DAVID THOREAU, THE MAINE WOODS

Forget it. Luck is with me today, I can feel it.

Luck? Take a look at this face. It was meant for television.

Age before beauty, you two. And pass the donuts.

The partially closed doorway to our conference room muffles the voices inside, yet I’m able to overhear just enough of my coworkers’ conversation that I stop short outside the door. Luck? Television? Age before beauty? The donut talk, though, is familiar.

When I open the door and step inside, nothing in particular looks different. The small, stuffy room is windowless and always reeks of burnt coffee and something sickeningly sweet. Today’s culprit is an open Dunkin’ Donuts box in the middle of the conference table where my three game warden colleagues—Julia, Drew, and Egan—have settled in, each wearing a khaki button-down uniform shirt embroidered with the Colorado Parks and Wildlife logo. Since the Dunkin’ box is already half-empty, it’s likely that everyone at the table is already working on their second artery-clogging snack of the morning, washing it down with their third cup of bad coffee.

All of this is what I expect to find in this room when I make the drive from my base in Hotchkiss to the main office in Grand Junction for staff meetings with our boss. And yet . . . something isn’t right.

Today, the mood in the room is different. Instead of mumbled conversations and not-quite-awake expressions, everyone’s energy is off. As in, wild-eyed-and-eager off—and it’s making me twitchy.

I don’t fucking like it.

Julia looks my way with a donut in her hand. A few flecks of granulated sugar fall from her chin when she pins me with a grin that’s way too animated, even for her. With her short auburn hair in rumpled curls, a soft build, and the out-of-style eyeglasses she keeps on a chain around her neck, Julia always brings to mind my elementary school librarian—a woman I couldn’t help but love with all of my little-kid heart because she was the keeper of the books. As a result, I find it nearly impossible to frown on anything about Julia, even when that grin makes me nervous.

Morning, Braden! Julia calls out.

Morning, I answer flatly, warily taking in the equally jolly expression on Drew’s face.

Drew is fresh out of college and probably too good-looking for his own sense. And this might be the seventy-five-year-old cantankerous asshole who lives inside my thirty-two-year-old body talking, but with his precisely trimmed beard and his square-framed glasses he looks like every cliché hipster you meet in a craft brewery taproom. The kind of guys that make things in their spare time—like reclaimed-barn-wood cornhole boards or bottle openers fashioned out of recycled mountain-bike chains. Junk that only sounds ingenious to other bearded guys of his kind. I still haven’t figured out how Drew ended up working as a game warden instead of doing something with, I don’t know, websites. Or apps.

Even Egan, the seasoned veteran of our group, looks less like he’s merely counting the days until retirement. The first thing he does each morning is draw a big red X through today’s date on the calendar he has in his office for exactly this purpose, ticking one more day off of the two years remaining until he’s eligible for his full pension. Today, though, he’s smoothing the front of his shirt and sitting up straight in his chair, opening up a spiral notebook on the table as if he’s planning to take notes.

Again, I don’t fucking like it.

I keep my eyes shifted their way as I walk toward the coffee brewer, waiting to see if one of them is about to jump onto the tabletop and break out into song, or anything else just as bizarre.

When I step up to shove my travel mug under the pour spout of the coffee brewer, I nearly knock over a huge color photo that’s been set up on an easel just off to one side. The photo wobbles, and I reach out quickly to keep from sending it to the ground. Once it’s steady, I train my focus on figuring out what the hell it is and why it’s here, in the goddam way.

I step back and scan the photo. A woman with a big smile, big curls of blonde hair, and bright blue eyes stares back at me. She’s dressed in a hot pink camo-patterned tank top and a pair of impossibly short white denim cutoffs, while holding a compound bow in one hand. She’s also wearing some sort of high-heeled sandals, one hip cocked out in a way I think must be an uncomfortable position to stand in for longer than ten seconds. All of this, while posing in the middle of a sagebrush-covered field, a ridgeline of snowcapped mountains in the background. Along with what I think are Photoshopped whitetail deer and some mountain squirrels lingering about behind her. At sunrise, of course. Like she’s some half-dressed, witless Disney princess.

But, who cares, because an outfit like that obviously makes sense if you’re headed out to do some shooting on what looks like a cold morning. Forget jeans, a sweatshirt, a ball cap, and some decent boots. Just throw on as little clothing as possible and bumble out there in some heels. I’m sure the wildlife won’t notice when you fall down every other step and make enough noise to send them into the next county.

Ugly text is splashed across the top of the photo in varying shades of hot pink and carbon gray, in a garish, almost unreadable script font.

Watch RECORD RACKS every Sunday

Exclusively on the AFIELD CHANNEL

My nose wrinkles and my lip curls. I point my index finger accusingly at the photo, my gaze now frozen on certain areas of the blonde’s tank top I feel a little pervy staring at but can’t quite bring myself to look away from.

What. Is. This. I growl.

Behind me, Julia claps her hands together like a seal cub and makes a strange chirping sound.

You don’t know? That’s Amber Regan. She has a hunting show on the Afield Channel. Isn’t she gorgeous?

I grunt by way of answering the obvious. Even though she’s dressed like a ridiculous, sexed-up advertising cliché of a sportswoman, I can’t deny that something about the image hits me hard, and in ways I haven’t felt in a long time. So much that if I hadn’t decided a few years ago that my Chesapeake Bay retriever dog, Charley, is the only female I’m interested in sharing my bed with, I’d consider making some room for Amber Regan.

Unfortunately, she has a hunting show. As if the killing of an animal should be both exploited and glossed over, edited until it looks like responsible hunting is something that happens in twenty-two minutes and includes obnoxious whispered voice-overs. And I don’t say that because I’m antihunting—it’s the opposite. It’s because I am a hunter.

But I still hate hunting shows. Because they make all of us look like bloodthirsty morons hell-bent on nothing but a new mount for the living room wall. Those shows are just one of the many reasons I don’t have cable and only rarely sit my ass in front of my crappy television to watch the one channel I pick up with an antenna. Even reading hunting magazines is sometimes more than I can stand, simply because they spend too much time writing about success and too little time on the reality of what happens in the field.

In reality, sometimes you don’t get a shot, never see hide or hair of what you’re looking for. Sometimes you take a shot and you miss. Even when it all goes as it should—good shot, clean kill—you still have to walk up to a dead animal, stand over its now-limp body and own what you’ve done. That is the truth of hunting. And if you don’t feel that responsibility so intensely your heart hurts and your eyes water, then you shouldn’t be a hunter. Just keep your hands clean and buy a steak at the grocery store if you’re unwilling or unable to feel anything about the meat on your plate.

I peer at the photo and decide Amber does look vaguely familiar. Her bow is the same brand I shoot, so I must have come across her image before in a magazine ad. None of this, however, explains why she’s on display here—in all of her poster-sized, sleek, high-res glory.

Her being gorgeous and prancing around TV doesn’t explain . . . I swipe my hand through the air in front of the picture. Whatever this is. Or why it’s here. Blocking the coffee.

Everybody here? Our boss, Tobias, strides into the room before anyone can reply to my rant, taking quick inventory of the room and answering his question for himself.

Tobias drops a stack of folders on the table and drags out a chair, watching as I make my way over and drop into a seat across from him. He shoves up the reading glasses perched on his nose to sit atop his head, smoothing down his bushy Magnum, P.I. moustache with one hand.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way. I figure if we don’t, none of you will pay attention to anything else I have to say.

His hand slips to the breast pocket on his uniform shirt, removes four skinny plastic straws that have been cut into varying lengths, and taps them on top of the file folders.

"As I think most of you already know, I received a call last week from the Denver office. Amber Regan, star of the show Record Racks on the Afield Channel, is interested in featuring an archery elk hunt in Colorado this season. She and her team will be out next month to scout locations, and they’ve asked that CPW provide some guidance on the area. I need one of you to spend the day with them, show off public lands in your units, and offer insights on herd population. He holds up the plastic segments. Hence, the straws. It’s the fairest way I could think of. Short straw wins."

Julia seal-claps again and leans forward, her hand already outstretched and reaching toward the straws. Drew and Egan follow her lead. I stay rooted in place, something near rage rising in my lungs, filling them so much I can’t take a full breath. You have got to be shitting me. Amber Regan. Here. Bringing all of her TV-show bullshit to town and managing to somehow drag the state into the mix.

Tobias works the straws so that the tops are in a straight line, obscuring the bottoms from view. OK, everybody in? Draw your straw and—

Wait, I bark.

All eyes cut my way and Tobias lets out a tortured sigh. My feelings about this sort of thing are nothing new to him, but the look on his face says he was secretly hoping I would play along this time. Not so much.

Why do we have to play dog-and-pony show with her? And why is she even looking at units around here? Send her up north so they can show off their trophy bulls. Better yet, let whatever high-dollar outfitter she’s in bed with do this for her. All she’s supposed to do is show up and shoot, anyway. That’s how this crap works.

Tobias pinches the bridge of his nose with his free hand, draws in a calming breath.

She’s supposedly taking a new tack this year. Going on DIY hunts that aren’t a sure thing, getting her hands dirty and doing the work herself. But this comes from the top, so we don’t have a choice either way. And she is hitting up other areas in the state, so who knows where she’ll eventually end up. It’s only February, so she has some time to think it over before her hunt this fall.

But—

Tobias cuts in. No more discussion. Just draw. We have other things to cover today, and I’d like to get through it all sometime this century.

My chest clenches tight as if someone’s attempting to wrestle my heart out of my rib cage. This—the way I can’t gather enough breath to keep from feeling a little dizzy—must be the sensation that comes with selling your soul.

Not that anyone else seems to care. They’ve already each snagged up a straw and started comparing lengths. Egan’s face falls when he sees he’s out of the running, and all that bright-eyed light from five minutes ago goes dim with a harrumph. Julia thrusts a fist up when she beats out Drew, leaving him scowling at his straw.

Not so fast. Tobias turns to me with the last straw still in his cupped hand. He jiggles it my way. I shake my head.

No.

Braden.

No. Consider me a conscientious objector to this whole thing. I don’t want anything to do with it.

Just take the damn straw, Montgomery. This needs to be fair and square. I don’t want you coming back later whining that you didn’t get to play.

With a scoff, I narrow my eyes. No chance of that. Trust me.

Braden, come on. Don’t worry about it, I’m destined to win. Luck is on my side, Julia crows.

Luck. Like that matters one bit. I don’t believe in luck or fate or divine anything. Luck is for suckers and romantics, dreamers and believers.

I do believe in draw odds, however—the statistical factors that drive so much of my job. Only so many hunters who apply for certain tags to hunt are granted one, all based on how the population of whatever species they’re after is thriving and what best serves long-term conservation. Part of my job as a game warden is to keep an eye on those hunters who do have tags and make sure they’re playing by the rules.

As for my odds right now? Those aren’t in my favor. Four people in the game, two of them already out. I’m at fifty–fifty. It’s simple math. But Tobias is clearly running out of patience, and I like my job, so I’d prefer to keep it.

With a grunt, I snag the last straw from Tobias’s hand and hold it up.

All measly two inches of it.

My jaw drops and Julia’s does the same, all while Tobias tries to rein in the shit-eating look on his face. Fucker. Boss or not, that’s what he is in this moment. Because he knew exactly what he was holding.

Congratulations, Tobias deadpans, and a chorus of groans from the rest of the room follows.

I might believe that luck is for suckers, but right now one thing is for sure—today, I’m the sucker.

(Braden)

Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life.

—JOHN MUIR

Maybe Tobias won’t notice.

I could, theoretically, pull a disappearing act if I wanted to. Simply drop from sight in his rearview mirror, escaping what lies ahead. After all, his state-issued Ford truck is a good fifty yards ahead of mine, both of us driving slowly up the service road toward the trailhead, where we’re supposed to, in the words of her producer, rendezvous with Amber Regan and her team.

This road is surrounded by thick banks of spruce trees, which do great work of obscuring turnouts that snake down to basins littered with enormous aspen trees. Tobias is far enough away that next time his truck meets a curve in the road, I could make my move. I could drive down one, shut the truck off, and wait it out.

I even have two books sitting on the passenger seat, a Thomas McGuane novel and a memoir of a smoke jumper based in the North Cascades, a range I knew well back when I was fighting wildfires as a hotshot crew member in Oregon. These alone would keep me busy for hours, but even if they don’t, I could grab the journal tucked away in the glove box and work on a letter to my parents.

That’s right, a letter. And while I’m sure that sounds charming to some people, for us—a family with one eighteenth-century British lit professor (dad), one integrative biology professor (mom), and their happiest-outside-and-alone sole offspring (me)—letters are simply the way we communicate best. All the words, none of the talk.

No matter how I while away my time, it would leave Tobias to coddle the blonde bombshell currently waiting at the end of the road. He has four grown daughters and an amazing wife, and he’s patient enough to put up with all of my crap, so he’s far better equipped for this situation than I am.

Just as I spy one of those turnoffs I’ve been fantasizing about, the brake lights on Tobias’s truck come on and he slows to a stop. His driver’s window rolls down, and he flops his arm out the opening, gesturing up the road with a sharp jab of his index finger, indicating that he’s somehow cottoned onto my plan.

So much for my disappearing act.

We drive another mile or so, past a sign for the Grand Mesa National Forest, and pull into a small parking area. I yank a knit beanie on over my hair and tug on a pair of fingerless gloves, then take a deep breath before getting out of my truck. The cold midmorning air of early March means I can see my breath when I let out a resigned exhale.

This trailhead offers a decent view of the Grand Mesa, a beautiful and distinctive ridge of low-lying buttes. Not to be confused with the town of Grand Mesa which is about thirty minutes away, nestled in what locals call the Grand Valley. You’d think the whole area was inhabited by egomaniacs, with all the grandness going on, but instead it’s mostly ranchers and farmers, with a few hippies and artists tossed into the mix, not unlike where I grew up in Oregon. The mountains might be bigger back home, but I could never claim they’re prettier. Big or small, covered in snow or sage, mountains remain the best sight I can imagine.

Speaking of sights, the worst sight I can imagine is currently clouding my view of the mesa. At the other end of the parking lot sits a brand-new Dodge truck, jacked up with a lift kit, and decked out with brush guards and a roof-mounted LED light bar. I have no idea what color the truck is because it’s been wrapped from bumper-to-bumper in a camo-patterned vinyl decal, broken up only by the logo for the Afield Channel splashed across the truck’s doors. Hooked behind the truck is an enclosed trailer, also decaled to the hilt with the same terrible design. Behind that is another truck, same decals but no trailer—instead there’s a shiny fifth-wheel RV hooked to it.

And behind that? A third truck. This one is black, absent of any Afield decals, but both of the crew-cab windows are plastered with stickers for various brands of hunting gear, archery equipment, and optics manufacturers. The back glass has a large Lone Star State decal on it, which means this is more than likely Amber Regan’s personal rig. She’s a Texas girl to the bone, something I couldn’t miss the first time I looked up her social media—and every other time since when I’ve found myself pointlessly scrolling through her posts.

It should be noted that each time I do, I clear my search history afterward. In the unlikely event I go missing, when the local Keystone Kops comb my laptop trying to piece together my last days, it’s possible that cookies from certain not-for–prime time videos I’ve streamed will pop up like dirty little whack-a-moles—which I’m fine with. But a digital footprint that leads to images of Amber Regan sunbathing on a boat or sweating it out in her workout gear? Please don’t let some potbellied detective discover that. I’d probably stay missing just to avoid explaining why I’d wasted so much time in the last month Googling her, mostly because I can’t quite figure it out for myself.

But no matter how diverting her posts and pics may be, all those trucks simply reinforce every notion I have about people like Amber. Instead of venturing into the woods with one iota of humility, they bully their way there with big trucks, too much gear, and a conquer-and-destroy mentality. Zero respect for the natural world and their teeny-tiny place in it.

Tobias makes his way over to the camo carnival, greeting a tall, willowy woman who’s bundled up in a down coat with a fur-lined hood. Her dark, almost black hair has bright pink and purple hunks dyed into it, contrasting dramatically with her porcelain complexion. She and Tobias share a few words before he sends a glare my way that’s enough to get my feet moving.

Braden, this is Teagan King, Amber’s producer. Tobias waves me forward. I think you two have talked on the phone over the last few weeks.

Teagan offers a look that says she remembers all of our phone conversations and exactly how one-sided they were. She slips off a mitten to extend a hand, and I spy the tattoos on the back of her hand, a riot of color that runs nearly to the tips of her fingers. Add in the tease of ink I can see on her neckline and the dime-sized onyx earrings that have distended her ears unnaturally, and you have someone I can’t picture doing a lot of hunting.

Like it or not, there is a type when it comes to hunting—and Teagan isn’t it. The demographics might be evolving away from exclusively white, male, and middle-aged, but it’s a slow tide. We’re still a long way from filling the forest with women who would look more at home in a dive bar nursing a pint of oatmeal stout while watching some singer-songwriter do his best impression of Johnny Cash.

Braden. So nice to put a face with a voice. I can’t tell you how grateful we are for your time and expertise.

I take her hand while casting a look around for someone more . . . blonde.

Huh. Maybe Amber stayed home to shoot her bow in heels.

Nice to meet you. I drop Teagan’s hand. Are you ready to get going? The climb isn’t long, but it’s tough, so it’s smart to start up the hill sooner rather than later.

Teagan laughs. "You are to the point, aren’t you? I like that. She drops her head to the right and calls out behind her, directing her voice to the other side of the trailer. Amber?"

Yeah?

Out of nowhere, my entire body starts to hum. The sound of Amber’s voice, entirely feminine but with a faint whiskey-smoke edge, turns my usual buzz of impatience into something anticipatory and eager—like I’m one syllable away from barreling toward the sound. It all feels base and irrational, trumping how I can’t stand what Amber Regan represents. Brought on by her uttering one word. Great. My brain and my body are already at odds with each other, which I’m sure does not bode well for whatever comes next.

You decent?

A short laugh from Amber. Pretty much.

The inference that she was naked or sort of naked, or somehow indecent, just a few feet away drives my thoughts straight into the gutter. I ball my hands into fists and drag my mind back where it belongs.

Teagan tips her head to invite us around the trailer. When I fall in line behind her, Tobias locks his eyes on mine with an evil gleam, like he is convinced he’s about to watch the beginning of the world’s most fucked-up blind date.

Between him and my buddy Garrett, I’m at no loss for people who think the situation I’ve found myself in is hilarious. Garrett is a redneck with no filter for his mouth, who always defaults to a joke when he can. He’s done nothing but yell, Rolling! and, Cut! when I walk into a room for the last three weeks, and that’s only when he’s not calling me George Clooney. Last week, I came out of the local grocery store in Hotchkiss to find a torn-out article from some women’s magazine stuffed under the windshield wiper on my truck.

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Fucking kid needs a hobby.

When we round the corner, my first real-life glimpse of Amber Regan is almost more than I can take. It’s also not of her face.

Instead, I’m greeted with her bent over at the waist, her perfectly rounded backside pointed our way, hopping around on one foot as she tugs on a wool sock. She’s dressed in formfitting base layer gear, black pants, and a long-sleeve top. Her blonde hair is spilling down around her face, and when she turns her downcast head so she can see us, she blows out a sharp exhale to urge a few stray pieces out of the way. Her blue eyes pick me out and don’t shift, even as she continues to hop, then loses her balance, careening directly toward me.

My arms shoot out on instinct, but she rights herself before I have to touch her, which feels like the best possible turn of events. Because no matter what I imagined or what I ogled