In a bound, the brown flash disappears into the spruce. The crash of the shot is barely fading when it is replaced by another crash - the smashing of frozen limbs and down timber in the spruce tangle. The rifle swings to cover the escape route - but is greeted by nothing but silence. No motion comes from the trees. It is over.
Wings whisper in the frozen air.
A Clark's nutcracker flits through the now silent forest, landing inches from the hunter's shoulder. A partner joins it - then another, recognizing the ultimate meaning of a rifle shot in the elk woods. There will be scraps of suet, discards. Nothing will go to waste. Tonight, coyotes will feed on the offal and even mice and other small creatures of the night will find sustenance where during the day magpies will reign, but for the moment, it will be just the hunters and the nutcrackers.