Coues Camp.

In the Challenging Landscape Of A Sonoran Whitetail Hunt, It's Imperative You Keep Your Mind On Your Business

They will tell you it does not rain in Arizona. Don't believe them. It does, and it will. This is not a problem, if you simply accept it and prepare for it. But like I said, they like to believe it does not; and this can really catch you off-guard.

The first time I traveled to Arizona in January to pursue those utterly frustrating little Cones whitetail, my friend Les Huges, a longtime resident, did not believe in preparing for rain. I'd flown into Phoenix with a minimum amount of gear, mainly archery tackle, because my friend assured me he had the outdoor gear covered. I had envisioned cactus and long l4es under a hot sun, with desert sand sucking at my boots. My duffel bag was filled with cool cotton camo, T-shirts and a pair of lightweight hikers; this was the early-season uniform at home in northern Idaho.

Come morning we loaded substantial packs for the long, wet hike in, because my friend does not believe hi hunting anywhere within 10 miles of a road. We arrived at his secluded spot toward day's end, thoroughly soaked after hiking in persistent rain. That's when I discovered just how utterly gripped by denial my friend really was.

Let's just say the tents we'd toted were a bit leaky. They had no rain flies. Heck, they were kids' summer toys, perfect for backyard outings, that sort of thing. Les was persistent. "It never rains in Arizona. I just bring these along to keep the snakes, scorpions, spiders and stuff out of my sleeping bag."

The rain continued.

Les managed to redeem himself that last day by driving me to a distant place (he always knows a place), a top-secret spot far in the desert where we hoped the rain would not fall. He talked of blindfolding me, and I believe he would have insisted had my mood not been so foul.

It was lovely country, with saguaro cactus, jumping cholla and rocky washes wandering as far as the eye could see.

He got lucky. I killed a buck that morning. The buck was a dainty little six-point that just slipped into P&Y, after a tedious stalk through waxy jojoba scrub, teddy-bear cactus and grabbing catclaw. I liked this country immensely: its starkness, its sculptured rock, its mysterious box canyons with trickling water, its trusting mobs of javelina and its unfathomable numbers of gorgeous Gambel's quail.

On our way to the airport for my journey home, Les promised he'd take me back into the country I had fallen in love with.

"I know a place way back in there where a cold spring gushes out of the rocks, runs 100 yards and sinks back into the sand. You come back next year, and we'll pack in there. It won't rain this time. I promise."

Of course, he was wrong [ldots]

Another year, another season, and Les' little spot is indeed wonderful. It is a true oasis surrounded by harsh desert. It's like the secret hideout of an old-time Western, and it is not difficult to imagine Apache raiders or black-Stetsoned cattle rustlers holing up in such a place. You might walk right past the place, rearing trees and all, and never suspect a thing.

Javelina trip over the tent lines at night and grunt outside as if to inquire about visitors. Gambel's quail call in the morning is as reliable as any alarm clock, and there is plenty of good wood to burn. This wood, once lit, never requires another match; today's wood is simply tossed atop yesterday's coals to catch. Best of all, up in the rocky hills above are Coues whitetail. Not a lot of them, but enough.

The first day is about javelina, because I remembered the fantastic numbers from before and have had the foresight to get my application in on time. I was lucky enough to draw a tag.

There are a knot of them on a hillside of scrub and cactus; and my buddy, Tom Wallace, goes along to take video because he is a last-minute addition and has no tag. I stalk in close and make sure of it, then I choose a huge male with protruding tusks and send an arrow through his ribs.

Say what you will about javelina on the table; but this one, slow-roasted in large chunks over a mesquite fire, is just fine. I cannot help but think of Les, who is unable to join us. That's his karma for a newly expected addition to his family.

The day of the javelina gives way to the day of the Coues deer. I find him high in a saddle with a single doe as he hurries off the top as lightning lights up the dark midday sky and thunder echoes down the hollow canyons. Les' promise has been broken. The first drops of cold rain smack me hard in the face.

I stash my gear in my day pack and hustle off the top, no more thrilled about lightning than this hurried buck. Skirting the steep ridge point and paralleling the top, I know only luck would guide me. Big, cold dollops of rain are quickly replaced by more persistent rainfall when I reach the bench where the heavy, long-tined buck and his doe have headed. I am stepping through rocks and scrub dainty-footed, with an arrow on my string and my nerves tweaked tight. I step slowly from behind a catclaw and I see the doe, standing tense at 30 yards. I quickly draw my bow.

She spins and bounds into the wall of rain, and the buck springs from beneath a bush where he has hidden watching her go. My A/C/C catches him in the last rib, and quartering forward he lurches over the rim and is gone. I run toward him. The rain is coming down in sheets now, and I see nothing. As I run to another edge I see my buck walking backward on shaky legs. I watch as he tumbles on his side and expires. Thunder crashes up in the high ridges, and the sky opens to release all of its contents at once.

I walk to my buck and slump beside him, feeling his warmth. I am soaked and shivering in cotton camos.

It rains through the night, and it is still raining when I awake the next morning and poke my head out of the big tent to look at my buck hanging from a big mesquite at the edge of camp. His perfectly matched 4X4 rack drips water, wet and shiny, and I smile and pull my head back into the dry tent.

The weather breaks by noon, and Tom and I emerge to find gaps in the clouds that allow patches of sun to shine through. We climb the knob just above camp; and putting my Zeiss to work on the opposite hillside, we immediately find a behemoth buck feeding in a patch of sunlight on a flat bench of sand showing between globe-like mesquites. We clamber off the steep hillside toward him, cross the sharp canyon bottom that is now running water and scramble up the opposite bank. We swing around to the right to mount another knob and locate the buck again while allowing for a stiff breeze.

The buck is still in place and feeding, but my buddy has just started off the hillside when the sky unzips again. The buck finds refuge in the tight cover and is gone. I slip down to Tom and we crouch beneath a cedar, waiting under a military poncho rooted from Tom's pack.

Two hours later the rain still falls, and it begins to grow dark.

Tom and I make a loop through the area, but if the buck is still in there we do not see him. We skirt a last bit of bench where we suspect he might be, working into the wind. Nothing. It is coming on late evening, and we are again soaked when we turn downhill and into the bottom. The rain is pounding now, reducing visibility and blotting out the remaining light of day.

We reach the bottom, saying nothing and walking despondently, as we jump back and forth across the small, newly-formed creek. The sheer rock is shadowy and ominous high above us. It is then that I feel, then hear, a deep rumbling. It sounds like a distant thunder, but it is prolonged and sustaining. We stop dead and look at one another. Our minds are blank like when a thought is caught at the tip of our tongue and is quickly forgotten.

Suddenly, it comes to me all at once. Water! Flash flood!

"Run!!!" I yell, pushing Tom into motion.

I stumble in the dark bottom and come down hard on my knees. I scramble to my feet and start running again. The roaring behind us is growing louder, descending like death coming down on us until there is nothing else but its rumbling and crashing, coming from every direction. The box canyon is opening ahead of us, but the roaring is deafening.

Tom is a few steps ahead of me and throws his bow away, running. I can hear rocks moving and I scream, "Out of the bottom! Up! Up!" The water catches me as I claw at the rock to my left, and it sweeps my legs from under me. I maintain my grip. I kick and grab at anything, while the water rises around me. Then something slams into my chest, knocking the air from my lungs. The dirty water whirls around me and sucks me off the rock.

I remember when as a young child, vacationing with family in California, a stout wave swept me off my feet and rolled me under the water. I remember the sand and shells and small crustaceans that prick at my skin from every angle, I remember the terror of not being able to get my legs beneath me, and I remember tumbling along the bottom until suddenly the wave recedes and leaves me beached and gasping. I remember that now as I tumble under water with my legs folded helplessly, with stones and wood smashing from all sides, with me flailing with weak arms. Something hits me hard in the head. I think this is worse than my childhood experience. I am going to drown!

I do not know which way is up, and then something else hits me in the middle of the hack with such force that I am sure it is the end. After that blow I realize I am no longer moving; there is just a steady, even pressure on my entire body. I thrash and find purchase with my feet, while my lungs feel as if they would burst. I push with every ounce left in me, and finally my head comes into fresh air. I gasp and am carried away again, but I now know which way is up. Then a downed tree sweeps me underwater again. I kick and stroke wildly to come to the surface again. I am frothy and covered with debris. I see branches waving in the current and grab them, but as I hang in the rush gasping I get pulled under again and have to release them. I bounce into an eddy and find bottom with my feet. I scramble toward shore and lose my footing, then I finally flounder ashore.

I lay and breathe deeply on my hands and knees--lovely, fresh air--then I crawl upward away from the water. Only when I have stopped coughing do I realize there are joints of cholla hanging from various parts of my body. My pack is gone. I also seem to have lost a boot.

I begin the painful process of removing the cactus sections, one by one. I pause when I can no longer endure the pain, and I feel as if I will pass out. The canyon bottom is still a raging river, but it is clearing now of debris even as I watch, receding by feet. I do not know what time it is, or how far downstream from camp I now lay, but I do know lam on the wrong side of the water. I will have to wait; to find Tom, to find camp.

It is a long wait, and worry about Tom occupies my very existence. He had been a few steps ahead of me, hadn't he? I did see him scramble up the opposite side, hadn't I? I have made it he must have. He is a better swimmer than I am. Does swimming help in that kind of maelstrom?

I am shivering in convulsions when hours later I see Tom's flashlight piercing the absolute darkness. I stand stiffly to stumble toward him. He is wading down the bottom. The water is mostly in standing puddles now, knee-deep where it is running down the middle. I shout out weakly, and the light stops. Another shout and the light is bobbing rhythmically, moving toward me.

"I thought you were dead," is all Tom could muster before he turns his face away abruptly.

God bless ironwood, catclaw and mesquite wood, because even after the deluge we blow away the ashes to find a heap of glowing coals. Tom snaps off small twigs from around camp and piles them atop these coals, then he blows and fans them with a hat. Choking smoke rises then jumps into weak flame. In time the fire reaches up to consume finger-sized branches, and then it is off. After the hot soup and dry clothes, I fall asleep there on my sleeping pad. I watch my buck turn on his rope in the flickering light

When I awake it is daylight. While Tom skins my deer he tells me how he managed to grab a good-sized paloverde trunk before the worst of the water wall hit, and he held on as the flood swept over him then receded. Afterward, he said, when he looked again I was gone. He'd remained stranded there on an abutment of rock while the water raged, full of entire trees and cactus plants, mud and at least one cow carcass he could discern in the darkness. He was sure I had" drowned, and he had come anticipating finding my body hung in a tree.

"And you know," he said, smiling crookedly. "I finally got rid of that dam antique compound you're always complaining about."

We began laughing, the relieved laugh of survivors. We laugh because life is good.