Even at 350-plus yards, the sound of the 270-grain Barnes X bullet hitting flesh and bone was louder in my ears than the report of the .375 Ruger in my hands. A half mile away my brother, watching from the truck, could hear the bullet smack home.
I was already racking another round into the chamber when the bullet found its mark, good on windage, bad on elevation. It was enough to take out the front shoulder, but not drop, the some 600-pound bull gemsbok (oryx) I’d just fired at.
What ensued was a foot race across more than a mile of New Mexico desert as my father and I tried to catch the wounded animal before sunset. There was a clock and it was ticking down.
We had to be off the government’s White Sands Stallion Range by 6:30 p.m. come heck or high water, whether the animal was down or not. If we didn’t get him before then and make the gate in time we might not get him. It was 5:35 p.m. We had half a day of hunting left and it would likely take that and more to find the wounded animal if he didn’t go down before dark and if he did, there was a chance coyotes would have him before morning.
My adrenaline was still surging two hours later when the ringing in my ears from the multiple shots I took at the fleeing animal began to sound in my head.
Every hurried step across the intervening mile-plus I was praying and pleading, “Dear Lord, please let him go down. Go down you big S.O.B. Go down. Please go down.” It was New Mexico’s once-in-a-lifetime oryx hunt. I’d put in for it for more than a decade before drawing out. Other men on the hunt had done so since 1980 — I was one of the lucky ones.
I’d worked hard since mid-2015 when I’d first found out I’d drawn the tag. I could have worked harder. I could have been more successful. But I’d worked hard. Walking, eating lighter, losing some 40 pounds, short of my near 60-pound goal I’d set.
I wasn’t in the best shape for this hunt. I wasn’t even in the best shape of my life, but it was the best I could do and the best I’d been in 8 years.
I’d worked hard in December on my cow elk hunt, perhaps not as hard as some men, but as hard as any 470-pound man could ever be expected to work. I’d hiked the hills as hard as my body would let me. I’d come close twice and finally succeeded on sheer chance.
Chance wasn’t going to cut it this time. I knew it. I was worried going in and scared before it was over.
Many hunters had told me the oryx hunt was not for the feint of heart. It wasn’t a driving hunt like it was in the 1980s. It was hard. I’d had a fellow hunter and formerly obese man tell me the oryx hunt was the moment he decided to change his life and get gastric bypass surgery.
Somewhere under that unforgiving New Mexico sun, between opening day and going home with tag soup, he’d had the come to Jesus meeting with himself. He was now nearly 300 pounds lighter, but still no oryx.
This was going to be a challenge. The terrain was unforgiving, offering little to no cover. The animals were as wily as any mule deer buck and as fleet of foot as their North American cousins, the pronghorn. The hunt window was two-and-a-half days, cut down to just over one-and-a-half that weekend because the range was “in use” for military training. I was told not to expect a shot at shorter than 300 yards and to prepare for 400-plus. The success rate was 80 percent, but that included non-trophy animals on the “broken-horn” hunts — I might have to settle.
Yes, I was worried.
More than a mile later the oryx finally went down.
We’d seen him first thing that morning. He wasn’t a record book animal, but he was good — 36 inches on the long and 35 and ¾ on the short.
When the gates opened at 6:15 a.m. we were the last ones through. Every other vehicle hit the paved range roads and headed south at a high rate of speed trying to get to “the sweet spot” to hunt, wherever that was.
We were behind the 8-ball. Why rush if you’re already too late for the party? We took our time, piddled down the road and hadn’t gone more than three miles into the hunt range when we stopped to “glass” in the meager, pre-dawn light and spotted a herd of oryx some 400 yards from the road. Every other vehicle had driven right past them.
My bull was in that bunch, as was a larger bull. My first stalk to that herd was a wash. They knew where we were from second one and when I hit 385 yards out they turned and ran. We found them miles away and watched them from more than half a mile off. We moved around to find a possible approach and crossed a mile-and-a-half of desert on foot to try and approach from the “brushy” side, i.e. waist high-brush versus knee-high brush. No go. They saw us at 1,000 yards and left the area.
Except for a passed opportunity at three running oryx with deformed horns at some 150 yards, the rest of the day was spent watching animals from a mile out at best.
I knew if I was going to succeed it would be on that first group. No other hunters had been in that area and the animals were less harried than those further south.
We went back to where we’d seen them in the morning. Not quite a mile away, there they were.
Again, no approach. No cover. We drove around them until we found perhaps the only spot in five miles where there was enough of a hill we could get behind and walk out more than half a mile into the herd.
We were still more than 350 yards out when we got as close as we could get. The small curvature of the terrain hid us, and we could see just a couple animals through a gap in the Spanish daggers, also known as yucca, that formed a short, but nearly solid wall across the top of the rise between the oryx and us.
I could see one decent-horned cow and a couple deformed horn cows. No bull. Dad urged me to take the cow. I wanted a bull.
“I’m going to move around and see if I can see more,” I whispered.
“You’ll spook them,” came the response. I didn’t care. This was once in a lifetime and I wanted a once-in-a-lifetime trophy.
Five steps to my left and from behind the yucca on the right emerged my bull.
“There he is,” I nearly cried out. Dad stepped behind me to see.
“Woah. Yeah,” he breathed in my ear.
I knew he was a good one when he took dad’s breath away. He’d hunted the once-in-a-lifetime in the 1980s and seen bigger oryx then than we’d seen that day.
A cow stood directly between the bull and us and the seconds ticked by like years as I silently pleaded for her to move to the right. My shooting eye watered as I stared through the 3-9 power Leupold. Despite the bi-pod shooting stick there was scope bounce, but it didn’t seem to register. Every breath at the practice range was like trying to watch TV while head banging to Metallica. Not now.
The cow took one step. I waited. She feed. She looked up. Another step. I waited. Seasons changed. She feeds. Man discovers fire. Step. Rome is built. She feeds. Rome falls. Step. Man lands on the moon. Step. She’s clear.
For all I know the gun went off of its own accord. I don’t remember the sound. I remember the recoil of what could pass for a low-end elephant rifle only insomuch as my view of the oryx bull disappeared in my scope as the recoil shoved the gun rearward and upward with some 41 pounds of recoil energy (by comparison a 30-06 is only around 20 pounds and a .22 Long Rifle about 0.2 pounds).
I was reaching for the bolt when the report of the bullet hitting oryx came back. The bullet hit the right shoulder, low of the heart, but through the upper leg bone.
The race was on.
Finally, after more than a mile we cut the road we’d come in on and my brother picked us up. A quarter mile further on and there he was maybe 100 yards from the road, down, but still trying to rise.
Jumping out, I moved around for a shot and put another through the neck, knocking him flat. He didn’t move for probably 30 seconds and we thought it was over, then his head was up and he was trying to rise again.
Again I shot, trying to put one up the “tail pipe” as he was lying facing away from us. That round passed completely through the body length-wise, demolishing four inches of spine and lodged just under the skin at the back of the neck. Later we weighed the 270-grain Barnes X and found it retained an impressive 258.5 grains of its original mass.
He’s down. No movement. Nothing for a minute-plus.
We start out across the pasture in the truck to try and load him. It’s 5:45 p.m. and time is running out. Half way there and my brother yells, “He’s up!”
His head is up again. We pull to within 20 feet of him and I step out. Another 270-grain bullet. Misjudged range, distance too short, bullet hits dirt and skips into the animal and still pops, leaving a gaping wound track. He’s still fighting to rise. Adjust point of aim. Fire again through left shoulder. Sound of bullet hitting animal still louder than report of rifle. Effect, immediate. Animal slams to ground but still fighting with what I hope are “death throws.”
My brother is walking toward an animal known to put horns through engine blocks of army trucks and win.
My scope is trimmed back to three-power, crosshairs trained on a spot to hit, hopefully, spine and heart. Wait. Sweat pouring down face. Legs feel wobbly. Hands shaking.
Animal 15 feet away just took enough lead to drop half the Chinese army and if he rises you’re the one with a gun that has to defend the lives of your family and yourself. Not sure if its sweat or yellow water running down your leg, but you’ve known fear and it’s suddenly there like an old friend. Wait some more, unwilling to put down the gun.
Ten minutes later he’s gutted, but you’re still waiting. It doesn’t register on any level of reality that its over. He’s not out for the count. He’s just down. You know it. You can’t conceive otherwise.
Another 10 minutes later and you just failed thrice to load that big S.O.B. into the truck. You’ve had your hands on him. His blood is on you. The pungent smell of wild animal fills your nostrils. It still isn’t real.
Deep down you’re still not 100 percent sure he’s given up the ghost. You’d thank God, but you’re still not sure it’s over.
Your hunting tag looks like it has been filled out by a three-year-old with palsy. You need a hit of whiskey, only you don’t drink and you don’t have any even if you did — those nice, armed men in uniforms at the gate make sure of that.
You give up getting him in the truck. You’ve got no choice. It’s 6:22 and you’re a good five miles from the gate, pasture and dirt roads half the distance.
You pull off your sweat-soaked shirt and drape it across the big guy. You don’t want him to get cold. Actually, you do, but you don’t want the packs of ravenous coyotes to get him before you’re back the next morning.
Despite the earlier warm trickle, you do your best to muster enough of that yellow water to mark a scent all the way around your trophy. Your hands are still shaking hard enough you nearly catch “little buddy” in the zipper.
You jump in the truck and cut a swath across the New Mexico desert at a sprint time Mario Andretti would envy.
You make the gate and somehow still have five minutes to spare. You think you’re telling the guards all about your hunt, your oryx, but for all you know you’re speaking Russian as the words tumble out over themselves. An early morning chicken coop is more coherent.
You’re in the bar-slash-restaurant. You’re hands are still shaking and a ringing you’ve not fully recognized as such finally begins to register in your ears. All around you guys are holding their beers like they just found out their wives are sleeping with the pool boy and their eyes are boring holes into the bar top.
Their dejected looks tell you their story. The chit-eating grin on your face tells them yours.
Their dejection changes to envy and disbelief faster than a politician changes positions after election day.
You know what they’re thinking: “How did this tub of lard do it? It isn’t possible. It isn’t fair.”
You don’t care. You’re still too happy to realize the rest of the world even exists. You’re still not sure you’ve got your trophy, at least part of you isn’t. But part just decided to skip cloud 9 and revisit whatever cloud it was you reached prom night. You know the one.
Who gives a darn about the rest of the world? This is your moment, and you proceed to pour salt into the wounds by telling them about your trophy. He isn’t a record — far from it — but he’s a solid representation of the species. When you leave the bar for your hotel you can feel their stares like daggers in your back, but you still don’t care. You’re still soaring.
The next morning you’re up before the alarm. You’re ready to go collect your trophy 20 minutes before anyone else is even dressed and you’re drumming your fingers on the steering wheel and staring at your watch while hissing between your teeth.
But more than that you didn’t sleep a wink all night worrying the scavengers found your oryx, or worse, another hunter finds him before you get back.
We like to believe hunters are the crème de la crème, but secretly we wouldn’t put it past any of them to filch our trophy. Heck, they’ll steal a man’s wife and this is far more sacred, right?
You drive up on your big guy. He’s just as you left him and you’re sure he’s dead now … well you’re mostly sure.
You’re coming down from your high as the real work of cutting that big son-of-a-gun in half and loading him into the truck sets in. You’re three hours from the taxidermist you’ve “graced” with the honor of mounting your trophy. He should feel darned privileged to take your $1,100.
The drive seems to take forever and yet you’re there before you know it and before you can say, “confusion to the anti-hunters,” you’re patting that big boy on the neck — the oryx, not the taxidermist — and saying goodbye. You’ll see both again in 12 months. You chafe at the thought it could be so long and wonder if the guy you just handed a $500 down payment to is really serious about his career choice.
You get home and for two weeks you do nothing but brag about your trophy and tell everyone who will listen from the little old lady at the grocery store to the deaf guy who hangs out in the coffee shop about your hunt until even the tax collectors wouldn't show up if you won the jackpot.
What is there left to do? No one will talk to you, and even the deaf guy put on headphones. You have a couple hundred pounds of oryx meat and a few out-of-focus photos, but otherwise it’s all over. What do you do? You wait. In 12 months you’ll have your mount. Then you’ll have some new photos and you’ll be inviting everyone over for oryx steaks, and to see your big boy in person.
Of course they’ll decline the offers politely, remembering how incessantly you talked about it the first time around. Never mind the fact oryx is the best tasting wild game on the North American continent or that you did in fact win the lottery, there’s only so much of your story one person can handle before they start looking for a rope and a rafter.
The only person who doesn’t seem to get tired of hearing your story, is you. And that is a New Mexico oryx hunt.
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