Though best known as a shotgun expert (his Shotgunning: The Art and the Science was a revolutionary book in its day), Bob Brister was no slouch with a rifle. Though he hunted all over the world, he loved nothing more than slinking around the senderos of South Texas looking for double-drop-tine whitetail deer. And he, like many natives of this outsized state, could spin a yarn with the best, and "El Ten," which ran in the November 1986 issue of Field & Stream, is one of his very best.

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The bluff with the jumble of broken boulders below the rim seemed a practical place for an ambush. Also for rattlesnakes. In pitch darkness an hour before daylight, there was plenty of time to think about both. A seriously big buck had crossed the sendero at the base of this bluff, maybe within rifle range. I couldn’t tell for sure because I’d seen him from half a mile away, glassing with 10x50 binoculars. But even in the mirage of distance the sweep of his antlers was awesome as he walked away, swaggering like an elk, antlers projecting well past his withers on both sides.

With my backpack wedged between the boulders as a backrest and my rifle laid out on the flat rock in front, I braced my elbows and strained the binoculars, scanning the vague paleness of the bufflegrass opening surrounded by the blackness of South Texas brush.

Dawn grayed, and the clearing was empty. So much for trying to outsmart one big buck in 4,600 acres of South Texas brush.

But I had to get his pattern. Old bucks are like old men¬—set in their ways. If they live long enough, they learn the safe ways to go. For this buck, the creekbed at the base of the bluff had to be the equivalent of a fire escape. It was the only cover that went completely across the opening. Almost a mile to the east, at the far end of the sendero, was an oat patch where a large herd of does fed early and late, and a lot of younger bucks were hanging around them. The peak of the rut comes around mid-December in the South Texas brush country near the Mexican border, and I’d planned my hunt to coincide with that period when even the smartest bucks are temporarily vulnerable. But not too vulnerable. There was an elevated blind overlooking that oat patch with all the does, but the buck with the wide antlers had never been seen from that blind. He probably knew all about blinds.

His logical way to reach the oat patch was to cross the open sendero at the other end via the creekbed, exactly where I’d seen him. From there he could hold to the brush, and pick off promising does going to or coming from the open oat field. I figured he would cross about dawn, and there would be only a second to get the scope on him where a washed-out ranch road crossed the brushy creek.

Something moved in precisely that spot. The scope was on it instantly, and out stepped a big coyote, stalking. Then he jumped high in the air and pounced down stiff-legged, but whatever it was got away; his jaws came up empty.

My kind of coyote, looking sort of scruffy, and with no luck at all.

The coyote lay down in the open sendero, catching the first warming rays of sun, napping. I had a mighty urge to do the same. This was supposed to be a vacation, the hunt I’d waited for all year, with no deadlines, nobody to please or displease, no pictures that just had to be made. I could hunt my way—alone and mostly on foot—with a camera, spotting scope, food, and water in the backpack. If I wanted to stop and watch or photograph wildlife, I could. If I wanted to sleep late, I would.

Great plan, except that one look at the wide-horned buck had turned it into a survival test.

The coyote got up and stretched, exactly as my Lab retriever does after he’s had a nap. Then he sat down at the edge of the brush and howled, cocked his ears, and listened intently for an answer. It came from somewhere far across the brush But then he heard the camera’s shutter and was gone.