BUGLING FOR ELK

Rigid vapor steamed from the dark boles of the looming ponderosa pines in the predawn chill. Sodden after a night's rain, the forest stirred in that hush before first light, as the formless shadows of imagination assumed the shapes of trees and boulders and hillocks. We stood beside the four-wheel drive in the spreading circle of silence and strained to hear the call of another world beyond the reach of the headlights.

After a moment, we heard it. Somewhere lost amid the vanilla-scented pillars of the forest, a haunting call echoed through the morning mists: AROoooRoooArO0000argggrrrha ha huah? "Should you answer?" I whispered to Dave Daughtry, dressed in combat camouflage from his waterproof boots to his stockinged face. He clutched the long flexible plastic pipe, peered into the layered baffle of the forest, and fingered the pipe's mouthpiece.

"Don't think so," he said. "Got to hide first." So we crept carefully into the forest near the base of Humphreys Peak at Flagstaff. The ghost call sounded again. "That's another one." Another trumpeted challenge sounded behind us. "We're surrounded," I whispered. Dave grunted and gestured toward a log just ahead, the only patch of shelter on the open forest floor.

The Call of the Wild

We huddled against the log in a sudden si-lence. Dave slipped into his mouth the piece of contoured plastic, like the mouthpiece for a woodwind. He held the device against his lips and blew into it. BaaarraannaAAArraAAAbbaaaaaarraa? Dave lowered the pipe. We balanced on the sharp edge of silence. Out somewhere among the trees came the answering cry, like a sea serpent in love with a foghorn. Dave answered the call, like to like.

The antlers appeared first, moving through a gap in the trees just ahead. The head followed, then the body, then the entire outline of the young elk, lured into a regal pose by one of the best elk callers in Arizona. Arizona's forest echoed with the haunting calls of the native Merriam elk for thousands of years, before excessive hunting and loss of habitat led to its extinction. Fortunately, in 1913 the state began importing stocks of Rocky Mountain elk, or wapiti, from Wyoming. Today the state's elk herd has soared to an estimated 29,000 adult elk, concentrated mostly in the White Mountains in eastern Arizona and the Flag-staff area. The elk herds have grown so fast that the state now issues to hunters about 18,750 elk tags annually, although some 84,980 would-be hunters apply. Elk live in sexually segregated groups for most of the year. During the winter and spring, the cows and calves form large groups and wander through the low for-est and juniper stands at the edge of the snow line. The bulls wander alone or in small bach-elor groups in the high-er, colder forests. Come spring, all the elk move up into the higher for-ests. The bulls regrow the antlers they shed in the winter, use hapless saplings to scrape off the itchy "velvet" skin covering the new antlers, then rampage through the forest gathering up a harem. The dominant bulls corral dozens of cows. The younger, weaker bulls hang around the margins of these herds like lovesick freshmen lining the walls at a school dance. Just as diligently, the dominant bulls chase away interlopers, trumpeting their challenge, charging potential rivals, and generally driving themselves crazy with hormone-induced possessive-ness for nearly two months in the late summer and early fall.

advertised on the back pages of a lot of outdoor magazines. I experimented a little, but managed only to produce a sound not unlike that emitted by a large man falling into an open manhole. Dave noted that the real trick lies in knowing where and when to call, which entails the study of elk culture. Generally he's found that bulls are more likely to saunter over to investigate the bleat of a female than the bugle of another male. Besides, on several occasions while male bugling, he wound up face to face with a huge jealous bull with murder in his blood-shot eyes. Upon reflection, he decided to avoid actively upsetting the bulls, each equipped with antlers stout enough to impale a car. Still, crouched behind our log, we called in three bulls in succession. Each time the bulls approached cautiously. Supposedly elk don't notice you if you don't move especially if you're decked out in the latest in camouflage gear. Dave kept motioning me to sit still: I kept forgetting to breathe and swaying dangerously when I ran out of oxygen. We spent the entire day driving along back roads, pausing to bugle for elk, then wandering off into promising patches of forest. A tough job. The aspen had just peaked, turning patches of forest into luminous gold. We had seen perhaps 60 elk, mostly distant groups of cows glimpsed through the forest as we rounded a bend. They quit responding to Dave's plaintive calls after about 9 A.M. Elk bed down during most daylight hours and feed all night. That evening we concluded the day on a windswept ridge at the edge of a great meadow, hedged by the dark sentinels of ponderosa pines. I hiked across the meadow hoping for a sunset photo, while Dave cut through the woods. Sitting in the grass at the base of a pine outrider, I marveled at the play of light as the sun broke through the bank of clouds at the horizon. The grass glowed, the clouds glowered, and the shadow of the solitary pine stretched toward the horizon a portent of night. The moment lacked only an elk. Then down just inside the treeline at the meadow's edge, an elk bugled. Perfect, I thought. Absolutely. Nothing stirs the soul like the bugle of an elk. But then Dave emerged from the forest, paused, and trumpeted again in my direction. Ah, well. Close enough.