SEVENTEEN

Seventeen TEX TAKES A TROPHY

Tex recounts a different kind of trophy hunt—one in which not the size of the ram’s horns, but the difficulty and challenges of the hunt make up the pay-off. He takes care to point out at the beginning and at the end that he has no time for persnickety hobbyists who measure horns and antlers as a means of ranking trophies, and he is also careful to point out that he is hunting for meat as much as for any other reason. As in other places, a strong ethical sense about the proper use of an animal’s flesh and thus about the ethics of hunting informs this piece. Carrying eighty pounds of meat and a large trophy head down a mountain and then all the way home is no mean feat—it’s a classic example of virtuous mountain masculinity.

—AG