Brownie

A short story by: 4-EyedHunter

It all started with a horse named Brownie, a 5 year-old horse living in Montana. It started on a cold Saturday at about 6:00 A.M. His owner, John Byam, was going elk hunting. John owned a huge ranch, Buckeye Ranch with horses and cattle.

That morning John woke up and went outside. In the field were four coyotes stalking a young calf. John ran back inside and got his rifle. He came back out and shot all the coyotes. He went to the barn and got the quad out and took it out in the field and got the calf and the coyotes. He took the calf to its mom and hung the coyotes in the barn.

He went back inside and reloaded because he needed them for the hunt. He finished his breakfast and got ready to go on his hunt. He went out to the barn and got Brownie saddled up and ready to go. John put the rifle in the holster and headed out the barnyard. As they rode out of the barnyard, they heard a bull elk bugling about a mile up the hill.

About a quarter of a mile up the hill, they heard a bear growl and the sound of elk hooves on the large rocks. John kicked Brownie in the side to go up the hill faster. When they got to the top of the hill, they saw a 1,000 pound grizzly bear and a 7x7 bull elk about 200 yards up the hill. In a clearing, he sat there for a minute and thought, how can I get up there. He had to figure out how he could get up there safely and quietly, so he went down the hill and tied Brownie to a tree. He decided to go up and around them and come in above them. When he got about even to where he saw them at first in the clearing, they were right in front of him fighting: the bear clawing and the elk stabbing.

He sat and watched them for about 15 minutes. When he first started watching them, they were about 100 yards away and in that time he had watched them as they fought another 100 yards up the hill. He watched them for another five minutes and then dropped back down the hill and tried it again. He went back up the hill faster so they don’t give him the slip again.

As he got around them, he saw them in another clearing. he waited for the elk to stop walking and put his 30-06 Bushnell scope on the elk. He is using a Hornady 150 grain ballistic tip bullet. Just as he got ready to shoot with the crosshairs on it, he heard Brownie nay and the loud high-pitched bark of a wolf. Hearing that, he got up and started to run down the hill to Brownie stopping about 100 yards away.

As he was running down the hill, he fell and broke his finger. Oh no, he broke his shooting finger, so now he has to shoot with his left hand or with his middle finger. By the time he came within 100 yards, he could clearly tell that the wolves had him down and had started to eat the back end of the Brownie. He pulled up quickly and shot one of the wolves right between the eyes. All the other wolves ran away without him getting another shot at them.

He ran down the hill and to see how bad the horse was hurt. Brownie was hurt very badly and was on the edge of death. As john sat next to Brownie, he started to remember all the good times they together. He remembered how Brownie used to roll around in the snow on a warm winter day and how he would pushed him in the water troth. He cried, “Don’t die, don’t die.”
John sat there with Brownie in his last few minutes they had together. John sat there for a half an hour until Brownie died. He said his goodbyes and slowly walked down the hill back the house. He went inside and took off his hunting gear and then went back outside and started up the tractor, got a big blanket, and went back up on the hill to get Brownie. When he got up there, there was a bunch of crows on Brownie. John jumped off the tractor with anger and yelled to get off him, “What did he do to you? He didn’t do anything bad to anyone.” As he walked up to Brownie with the blanket, he slowly put the blanket on Brownie and loaded him in the bucket of the tractor and tied the rest of him that was hanging out of the bucket with a chain. He drove off the hill and unloaded him under the big oak in the back yard. He called his friend Joe to see if he would come over and help him burry Brownie. When Joe arrived, they get two shovels out of the barn and began to dig. After that day, John was never the same. He didn’t hunt with his horses anymore. He didn’t do as much as he used to do. He was never ever the same after that day on that mountain.