I grew up in Colorado and I'm a proud member of the Mascalero Apache tribe.

I grew up hunting elk, deer, and bear in the mountains.

But I've had the privilege of hunting all over the United States. I served eight years as an infantry

men in the U.S. Army, and I have three tours in the box. I've seen all sorts of things that would

be hard to explain for anyone, but I'd like to focus this letter on the events that happen right

here in my home state. Growing up as a backcountry hunter and

fishermen, I always strive to get off the beaten path. Our elk camp is a six-mile walk and we hunt

even further than that. My father and grandfather had a lot of stories that we would talk about

around the wood stove in our

outfitter tent and I would hang on to every word of the stories because I thought that's just

what they were. Stories until I got older. One story that sticks out was one about a cow elk

my grandfather shot in a snowstorm.

Grandpa hit her a little further back in the body than he would have liked, and she ran

a ways before they even picked up a blood trail, so they gave her some time to die.

It was easy to track in the fresh powder, though.

They followed the tracks 400 yards through the scrub oaks into the back of a drainage,

where they found the imprint in the shape of an elk, and the tracks stopped.

What they saw there scared the hell out of my grandfather.

There were big tracks with long strides that looked like something walking

and bare feet coming down the ridge and onto the shelf and then they went back up the ridge.

Whatever this thing was, it had taken the elk and carried it back up the ridge. And that's

one of my grandfather's stories, but here's mine.

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