An Amazing Memory

When I was eleven years old, me and my dad went hunting at Hammerhorn Mountain, California. It was a B5 Hunting zone, so we were not expecting any type of dangerous company from animals; only deer or buck. We arrived and set up camp around the edge of the forest, and had planned that next morning we would go out walking to begin the hunt. When morning arrived, my dad gave me the rifle I was assigned for the trip to put on my back. I put the strap over my back and started to follow my dad. We walked for couple hours, and there were no sign of deer. The trees were tall, the air cold, and every step we took seemed to be the only lively noise there was in the forest. Yes, we heard the birds chirping in the distance and the ordinary forest sounds, but it was weird hearing our own footsteps constantly. Eventually, there was a type of bypass that divided the road into two, one going up towards a very tall tree with bunch of bushes around it, and the other going down toward a side of a hill. Couple of minutes before we reached this point, I asked my dad to hold the rifle for me, because I was getting tired (remember I was only eleven years old, now I can walk for days). As we reached the bypass, I accidentally took the wrong path, and headed down the path toward the bottom of the hill, and I did not notice that my dad went up toward the big tree. I kept walking until I started to hear noises in the distance. In my surprise, there were three wolves about twenty feet away from me. They had noticed me, and I did not know if they wanted to harm me or not. But I got my answer soon enough. They started to get closer, and I started to get scared. I did not dare run because then my chances of survival were very minimum. In all of that suspense, I heard a rifle fire from top of me, hitting one of the wolves necks causing it to have the head dangle on the neck. The shooter of the rifle was my dad. The other two wolves ran off, and my dad rejoined me. All he told me was "Never leave your rifle with me, always have it on you". I love this event in my life because after all of this happened, my dad knew all along where I had went, and had kept track of me from the big tree. I felt protection at its finest from my dad that day, and now I always know my dad has my back in anything, as I have his back for anything. It also taught me a lesson for hunting that one should always be aware of their surroundings and must always have necessities for hunting on them at all times; one of those necessities being a rifle or firearm. After this hunting trip, I started going much more often, and started to grow into the hunter I have become today.