I dreamt all night of stags.

One of those shadowy dreams filled with twilight mist, in which everything is elusive. The long stalks gave way to laughter and stories. I stretched out in front of the fireplace with a glass of wine and listened as Dick unwound the beginnings of the yarns of our family and Simon plaited in a few of his own, weaving together our families in a strange an unexpected way.

The stags came to me as I dozed between snores that rattle the windows and I told myself stories, as I so often do, to go back to sleep. Uncle Dick is famous for his roof raising nostrils. Oddly enough, it added a layer of happiness: floating to the surface of the underworld on his big bubbles of rough sawn logs as antlers circled me at the edge of the darkness, leaping between worlds, always just out of reach.

Night dreams mirrored our morning reality.

We watched, breathless as six big boys trotted through the valley with their entourage of hinds; a royal parade every bit as regal as the human sort. Dick and Simon whispered about points and candidacy. Smithy, ever so quietly, extended the legs of his tripod. I pretended I worked for National Geographic and tracked them across the sweeping hillside with my video camera, a David Attenborough-esque voice tape playing in my head.

With six stags in one grouping, four of whom were candidates, how could we go wrong? How could Dick miss?  

Simon refers to this style of hunting as “spot and stalk.” He and Dick threw around hunting world buzz words like “fair chase,” and laughed at the idea that anyone could ever think that 25 square miles of terrain, which works out to many times that much surface area in these rugged highlands, could think that this was “hunting in a pen.” With an average range of nine square miles, this is an absolutely natural habitat for the creatures. Besides, if they really wanted to, they could leap the fence in a single bound. Evidently, it’s not worth the effort. I kept asking questions, trying to keep quiet and wait for the “dumb” ones to answer themselves.

Stalking deer is never a simple proposition, but on this terrain it’s certainly not “easy.” We moved, single file around the back of the mountainside, climbed to the crest and worked our way along the hidden side of the ridge. The red tussock bush grows thigh deep and in big knotted clumps that, alternately, makes for a solid foothold or a sure way to turn an ankle hard. The matagouri bush clawed at our clothing, piercing my non-hunting-approved blue jeans like a thousand tiny claws. It’s hard enough to be quiet, keep the wind between you and the beast, and position yourself so that, with skill and maybe a teaspoon of luck, you can set up a good shot, but circumventing nature’s alarm system seemed almost impossible. Simon looked ready to wring the neck of a fallow deer just below us somewhere who loudly barked our approach. The warning echoing out across the valley.

I sucked in a whispered gasp when Dick turned his ankle and fell.

It happened in an instant, but was one of those moments that hangs in the air in, what the movie industry calls, bullet time. Marvelously, he tucked around his gun and barrel rolled to his knees, examining his firearm carefully before he silently returned to his feet and stalked on ahead of me.

How six stags and a huge herd of hinds can evaporate before your very eyes is a mystery to me. We walked miles: up and down, over and around, glassing the hillsides with binoculars and camera lenses, to no avail.

I’m beginning to understand the appeal of hunting red stag.

It seems as much about the camaraderie, the embroidery on top of old yarns and the long lunches on a sunny hillside as it does about “the kill.” In fact, this hunt is hardly about the kill at all; it’s the pursuit, the game of wits, and the matching of one’s skill and patience against mother’s nature’s unpredictable best that seems to be the real draw. The guys seemed to almost enjoy being outwitted, and their anticipation and respect of the animals grew with each defeat.

It was Smithy who spotted the afternoon’s quarry, high on a grazing shelf behind an enormous outcropping of rock, far above us. The Dos Amigos, as the elusive stags who’d given us the slip the day before had become affectionately known. A wily pair who had the good sense to remain high, where they had a commanding view of the valley and who got out of Dodge at the very first sign of outside interest. They were a very long way away.

You hear stories of hunters who develop a friendly rivalry with an animal that repeatedly outsmarts them and fellows whose friendly nemesis becomes a lifelong obsession. There were shades of the beginnings of that in the planning of the stalk as the guys chuckled over their previous defeat and agreed that they’d have to come in high and from the rear. The key being to keep them grazing, and patiently wait for any alarm to pass.

I don’t know what the men were thinking about as we stalked, probably nothing more than the stags and their strategy with the singleminded purpose that seems a prerequisite to success. I, on the other hand, was continuously reeling my mind back in on kite string from its soaring in every direction.

• I noticed the gossamer strands of silver web floating through the valleys at what must be a frightening height for the tiny spider passengers.
• I marveled at the paths the animals have worked, like embroidery, across the hillsides.
• I wondered about the types of plant life I don’t recognize.
• I listened to the Bell birds ringing off of the rock faces.
• I noticed the “Judas deer” on facing hills (the white ones that betray the presence of their fellows).
• I tried not to sing “Lonely Goatherd” out loud as it ran through my head.
• I considered my role in the world as Fredrick the Mouse.

But mostly, I worked hard to not be the one to ruin the stalk.

That’s kind of a full time job for someone as klutzy as me. Especially when crossing a huge slide of shale shards near the top of a very long drop. One false move and I’d tumble, but more importantly, one wrong step and I’d send a shower of stones dropping hundreds of feet. A sound that the venerated stags would hear from miles away. I crunched my boots carefully, exactly in Dick’s footsteps, and held my breath the whole way across.

We stayed below the shadow line and I watched Simon, as we turned every bend in the mountainside, test the wind; tossing a handful of grass in the air. He and Dick sneaked ahead. I peered around the rock to catch a glimpse of what they were seeing, and there they were:

Dos Amigos.

Two magnificent beasts. The same that had peered over the crest of yesterday’s hill, laughed through their nostrils and showed us the whites of their tails as they bounded down the mountain. Just as the guys had hoped, they were grazing placidly. No fallow deer barked our arrival. No stones shattered the afternoon calm. The scritch of the matagouri had not concerned them. The perfect stalk.

One crack pierced the mountain air and the majestic beast simply sunk where he stood.

He didn’t stagger. He didn’t take even one step. In one instant, he was transferred to greener pastures. It was a fantastically clean shot from a “mere” 160 yards (a testimony to Simon’s prowess as a guide in stalking and securing the location). The stag went out happy, with grass still in his mouth, on an absolutely perfect afternoon.

What followed impressed me a great deal.

There are people who will say that hunting is “wrong” and wonder why anyone would kill such a beautiful beast. There are those that will criticize the concept of hanging a trophy on the wall, or killing for “pleasure.” I’m sure in some cases those criticisms are well placed, but not here. In an ecosystem with no predators, as New Zealand’s is, these beautiful old boys are destined to lose all of their teeth and die of starvation, or winter cold. Or perhaps be killed in a fight with another stag, suffering internal injuries that eventually bleed them to death from the inside out. They’ll then return to the earth in anonymity on some forgotten hillside. The life of this beast was not wasted. The hunters celebrated their success, but they also celebrated the life.

“His lower teeth are loose. He had, perhaps, one more winter,” Simon declared, estimating his age at eight or nine years.

“Look at this boy, he’s had a good rut this year,” they chuckled, “He’s left several new deer in his wake I’ll wager.”

This life will live in immortality, celebrated for his strength and cunning. He’ll become an iconic legend in family lore and will preside over generations. This one won’t slip beyond the veil into anonymity. He’s one of the Dos Amigos; a hero in his own right.

It made me immensely happy to watch Dick shoulder the head and antlers and carry 60 lbs of a twenty point head out of the mountains at 2500 feet. He insists on packing out his own creatures out of respect for them. Knowing what his hunt has meant to him, in relationship, family time and adventure will never stop making me smile. That he gets to take home his prize is the biggest cherry on top for me.