The lower halves of the rocky hills below Chinati Peak were in shadow when guide Robert Curry told me he had a place in mind that we had to check out while the light was still good. We’d been traversing those hills all afternoon, glassing for mule deer and mostly coming up empty, but now I could sense a heightened sense of excitement—almost urgency—in his voice. Robert had a hunch.
“There are a couple hills where a good buck likes to hang out, and right about now is when he shows himself,” Robert explained. “I’ve seen him before more than once. We might be able to spot him from the road and make a stalk before dark.”
By “road,” Robert was referring to a rutted, boulder-strewn pathway drivable only because there weren’t juniper trees growing in the middle of it. The “roads” winding through the far West Texas ranch where we were hunting stretched the definition of the word, which naturally made me appreciate them more than blacktop or concrete or any other regularly maintained surface. Getting anywhere was an adventure, although I’m sure Robert and the other guides with Backcountry Hunts didn’t view the
