By Greg Thomas

Nine months after my father's stroke I was loading up our hunting gear, wondering whether I should drive my pickup truck or an ambulance to the speed goat grounds. With me were my father's brother Bill (who was recovering from a heart attack of his own), his wife, Sally, my father, my brother-in-law, our friend Greg Partridge, and one of my father's closest buddies, Dave Zimmerman. All of us held antelope tags. I would serve as the unpaid guide, responsible for getting the geriatrics in and out of the field safely, hopefully with buck antelope in tow.

Adding to our challenge were the rules behind the hunt: the rancher restricts hunting to hike-in only. Vehicles are allowed only on the main roads, meaning we'd have to drag antelope out of the hills, pack them on our backs, or load them on a couple of horses Bill brought over from Washington.