Wes Coffey

It was a 16-foot ladder stand with a flip-up seat, bolted to a red oak at the edge of the ridge.

Below me to the east, the ground dropped about 30 feet into the creek bottom.

The tag alder down there was so dense you couldn't see more than 10 feet into it.

To the north and south, the ridge ran straight and relatively open.

Good shooting lanes.

Someone, Travis probably, had trimmed branches within bow range.

I climbed up, pulled my bow on the haul line, knocked an arrow, and settled in.

It was 2.50 in the afternoon.

Sunset was at 4.31.

For the first hour, it was perfect.

i saw three does moving through the bottom below me around three fifteen picking their way through the alder a red squirrel chattered at me from the next tree over a pileated woodpecker worked a dead elm about sixty yards south the wind was steady out of the northwest maybe eight miles an hour cold but not unbearable

Around 3.45, the squirrel went quiet.

I didn't think much of it at first.

Squirrels shut up all the time.

A hawk passes over.

They go silent.

A fox moves through.

They disappear.

I kept scanning the timber, watching for movement.

At 3.50, the woodpecker stopped.