A Flatlander in a Faraway World

Flatlander. That is what they would have called me out there. Someone raised where the land runs so flat and far that you can watch tomorrow coming long before the sun even sets on today. She who comes from a place where the earth lies low and wide, like a story told around a porch—with only the humble hills of Crowley’s Ridge to interrupt the vast delta land, poking up against the boundless sky in the place I called home. But I found myself in a place where the fragrant rice mud and gumbo earth felt galaxies away, because even a flatlander can feel the pull of a faraway world.

This was my western winter, the one where I traded the familiar swamp for the cold, hard, unforgiving mountain land. There was something addictive about being out west. Something charming and haunting all at the same time. No matter how long I stayed out west, it always felt like the very first time.

It felt like freedom. It felt like independence. The kind of feeling that settles warm in your chest and refuses to be talked down. I was headed to a place so empty and so desolate that if trouble arose, search and rescue would have needed all day to find me if they ever did at all. And maybe that danger was part of the sweetness. Proof that I had stepped into a land that did not know my name and did not care to learn it. A land that let me be small and quiet and uncounted.

The three men in my family who love me the most called, begged, and warned. They said they would never take on this trek in a blizzard themselves, let alone send me. But my mind was made up. Nothing was standing between me and the gates of the Western world. That feeling of freedom was too precious to surrender.

The scenes around me looked like heaven. On the other side of that coin, the conditions felt like utter hell. I was enduring weather that my Arkansan nature could never even fathom. It was not just cold, it was an indescribable feeling of bitter, angry air. But nevertheless, I paved my own trail in the snow. And with every mile, I kept on looking for my next adventure.

While driving in four-wheel high, I kept on watching. I studied the land all around me. There was no litter. No trash. Not a single hint of carelessness. Folks out west took pride in the land they lived on. Or maybe they simply knew better than to tarnish something so mighty and ancient. Either way, it stood out to me.

It reminded me of nothing back home. Not the distressed highways that are freckled with beer bottles and torn grocery sacks. Not the country stretches where you can find old deep freezers and every kind of discarded waste tossed out like an afterthought. In Arkansas, it does not matter if it is an interstate or a county road. If a man has been there, you can usually tell.

But it was different here. Untouched. Almost too untouched. I could not decide if I should admire that purity or be scared that there was not enough traffic to leave evidence of man at all. Either way it made me feel like I had slipped clean off the edge of the map and into some forgotten place where the world still breathed the way God first made it.

Sometimes it is plain to see that I confuse ignorance with bravery. I drove through that blanket of white earth for hours on end, thinking there was nothing to it. I was the only soul around as far as I could see in every direction, and it had been that way for hours. No headlights. No taillights. No proof that anyone else was fool enough to be out there with me.

Then suddenly, quicker than my mind could wrap around what was happening, my black GMC Sierra broke loose. The back end swung wide, and the world started sliding sideways. The whole interstate turned into a sheet of glass under me. Time stretched thin while I let out a scream, with no one to hear me.

Somehow the truck straightened, and the wheels caught. I realigned myself on that frozen ribbon of highway and kept moving forward, hands shaking on the wheel. I knew I still had fifty miles ahead of me. Fifty miles of nothing but snow and ice and mountain roads. It became impossible to tell where the highway began and where the highway ended. The land blended straight into the sky until it all looked like one endless sheet of powdered chalk. I eased along that stretch with my knuckles turning white on the steering wheel, wondering what in the world I had gotten myself into.

After what felt like hours of being the only human alive, I finally caught up behind a caravan. Horse trailers. Tractor trailers. Rental cars that had no business on a road like that. And there was me, tucked behind them, by my lonesome self, whispering prayers begging to make it where I was headed.

Cattle walked behind the fences that lined the road, pushing through snow past their elbows, steady and unbothered, like they had lived through a hundred winters just like this one. Watching them trudge along in that deep white snow made me finally understand just how much of a mess I was in myself.

When I finally arrived to meet my hunting companions, after a journey that had stretched on for far longer than it ever should have, thanks to the snow, I pulled into what could only be described as a skating rink disguised as a boat ramp. The temperature read three degrees and was still falling. The moment I stepped out of the truck, the cold grabbed hold of me before I could even shut the door.

I was excited. I was anxious. I was grateful. I stood there taking it all in, knowing I had made it. I was in the most beautiful place on earth, surrounded by some of my favorite people in the world. And in that moment, that was more than enough to keep me warm.

Six of us piled into an aluminum boat with a seventy-horse jet motor growling at the stern. We skimmed down the river while snow-capped mountains held the horizon. Ducks and geese filled the sky, dark against the winter light. They were everywhere. It was impossible not to stare.

The cold stung my cheeks and burned my lips, but I could not bring myself to cover my face. I needed to feel it. I needed to see every second of it. The wind cut sharp and I smiled through it. I felt alive in a way that only comes when you know a moment cannot be repeated. I knew I would never be twenty-four years old in a place like this again, and I wanted to hold it still, to keep it exactly as it was.

We eased toward a riverbank that felt right, as we watched ducks pour into this pocket of river from afar. Snow clung to cottonwood limbs overhead, and we tucked ourselves beneath their cover, after carefully placing a dozen Legacy Mag Mallards decoys riding the current like they belonged there all along. The green flocking contrasted brightly against their muted background, setting the perfect scene. A symphony of duck calls filled the air, with j-frames and cutdowns alike joining together to create a beautiful hum. Low-flying birds buzzed down the river, then circled to take a second look at the spread we offered them. The rhythm of our feed calls created a lifelike music that could only result in one thing: ducks landing in our decoys.

They maple-leafed in front of our eyes, almost like a movie we couldn’t have written better ourselves. Watching it play out was an out-of-body experience. As I looked through eyelashes heavy with condensation, tiny icicles clinging to each blink, the ducks finished so close, taking little convincing,  as if it was all they ever wanted was to be right there with us.

We wore white painter suits that day, pulled over our hunting gear to disappear into the snow drifts. Paired with our overhead hide, we were invisible. They had no idea we were there. We sat along the bank and duck hunted, but in between volleys, we sat in the snow, laughing and moving like kids turned loose after a long day in school. I could not tell if it was the joy or the sheer magnitude of the experience that made everything feel so adolescent and light, but I was overwhelmingly thankful. I wanted to replay the moment again and again. We finished that afternoon in time to watch the sunset, with the watercolor sky fading from white to orange to pink to purple, and finally to black. As the light slipped away, I could only imagine the adventure still waiting ahead.

 Thankfully, that high was enough to carry me into the next morning. I had no idea what the next adventure would hold, but my hopeful position that we would be back in time for breakfast allowed me be optimistic enough to brave the cold. We left the tiny cabin long before daybreak, stepping immediately into negative two-degree air that stung my lungs and punished my bare face.

 We arrived at what seemed to be a promising river bend, but the empty sky taunted me otherwise. We sat up only to learn the wind would toy with us all day. It would blow perfectly, then shift without warning, then disappear altogether. We rearranged decoys, debated setups, and talked anxiously about the possibility of moving altogether. We were all about finding birds willing to work with us–especially in this weather.

 Finally, we committed to dividing and conquering, and our group of six hunters quickly dissolved into a group of four. Two headed to scout, and four headed to hunt. We agreed to communicate, and if one group found anything worthwhile, we would all meet up again.

 The next thing I knew, we were on a walk. We clipped three decoys apiece to our belts, while we packed in our backpacks and guns. That was all we toted in. What we thought would be a few hundred yards continued to build until it was closer to half a mile. We walked through feet of snow on the riverbanks, then crossed wide rivers and narrow creeks, with each step demanding deliberate intention. As a flatlander who grew up stomping through the flooded bottoms of Arkansas hardwoods, the river’s rocky bottom intimidated me. The rocks were smooth and slick and deceptively unstable, paired with a current strong enough to make me fight it to cross. I walked surefooted like a mule, steady and stubborn, and more than anything–carefully. I took my time knowing that one wrong step could sweep me away with the current, and in this weather, it could cost me my life.

 After climbing out of the river bed, we trudged along on the snow-covered ground just 500 yards more before reaching our new destination. Even in the -2 degrees, the movement was enough to send sweat beads rolling down my back. As we reached our new spot, ducks flew overhead before settling down on the river exactly where we came from. Internally, I hoped patience would be enough to hold us over in our new spot. Meanwhile, the second I stopped moving, the cold returned with a vengeance. That sweat turned against me, and I could feel myself freezing in my layers from the inside out.

 The ducks flew slowly that day, hesitant, as if the world had changed overnight. It felt like a switch had been flipped and someone had turned everything down. We sat for hours in the cold, trying to keep our duck calls from freezing just like our hands already had. I was, quite frankly, too proud to admit how frozen I was, and I knew everyone else had to be feeling it too. Between the long trek in, the shifting wind, and the silence overhead, the day demanded endurance. Still, I stayed put, knowing this was part of it. Knowing that out here, nothing is promised. There were no timelines to be met, no places to be. We belonged to the river that day, and we lived on its time. I found myself enjoying the stillness of a slow day, taking in my surroundings, and studying the earth all around me.

 We finally moved spots once more, revisiting our prior path, before finding another snowy bank to sit upon. We found little success as the afternoon went on, hunting from daylight to sunset that day. We were tired, cold, and ready to rest. However, the walk back to the truck offered a painted mountain skyline as a consolation prize. We trudged back with our soaked gear, our inevitably frozen calls, and a modest mixed bag that would be just enough for us to feast on. My friends unanimously gave me their sincerest apologies for the day being a bust, but that was the reality of hunting–a fate I knew all too well. Some days you get them. Others you don’t. I insisted it was still one of the most beautiful days I had spent outdoors in years. I was simply happy to be there, and it was evident that they were too.

 We went home and did what sensible people do after a hard day afield. We regrouped, warmed ourselves, and ate some of the finest grilled duck my taste buds have ever known. I will not pretend it tasted that way because I was cold or hungry. The credit belongs entirely to my friend Lexie, and it would be dishonest to suggest otherwise, as I simply took notes of her every move in the kitchen, watching her work magic from over her shoulder. Supper has a way of restoring both body and optimism, and by the time my plate was clean, I was already convinced that tomorrow would be different. I went to sleep curled up tight, dreaming ahead and hoping for a complete reversal in both weather and birds.

 Morning found us climbing back into that aluminum boat as if nothing the day before had happened at all. It did not take long before we noticed a particular stretch of river that the ducks seemed drawn to, as though it had been set aside specifically for their use. The banks rose high on either side, and we tucked ourselves into the upper edge of the riverbank, strategically utilizing the bushes for cover, and looking down on the water below. The dog’s Invisalab dog blind was placed alongside us, hidden in the brush, with an easy path down to the water below.

 Sleeper shell honker decoys resting along the bank lent the scene a realism I had never encountered before. We also put out a dozen Legacy Mag Mallards, one Battleship Swimmer, and a single Guide Series Pulsator. If you squinted, you would have thought you were looking into the pages of National Geographic. Our spread looked like art, and we were proud of that.

 For once, we were calling at almost the same height as the ducks that were flying. They came down the river on our level, close enough to read their intentions, close enough to reason with them if needed. We called, and they listened. Birds began dropping in as singles, then doubles, then in groups. I nick-named this place Death Valley, not out of theatrics, but because names simply ought to be honest.

 It was the most enjoyable hunting I have ever known. Shooting down on birds brings with it a calm sense of accuracy, a feeling that the work has already been done and you are simply finishing the sentence. The dog was tireless, charging into the cold water again and again with a seriousness that suggested this was the most important job in the world, which, for that morning at least, it was.

 We took our mallard limit that day and were granted a few bonus birds for good measure. Goldeneyes and ringnecks wandered into the spread and later made their way onto our supper plates. The Canada geese that chose to involve themselves were treated no differently. It was the sort of day that does not ask to be improved upon. One you carry with you long after the river has moved on and the birds have gone elsewhere.

When it was all said and done, I realized the greatest gift of those western winter days was not the birds we carried out or the stories we would tell afterward. It was the reminder that the land does not belong to us. We belong to it, briefly, and only by permission. Out there, nothing catered to my comfort. The mountains did not care where I came from, the river did not bend to my expectations, and the cold offered no mercy. And yet, in that indifference, I found clarity. It can be sweet to win, but the sweetest wins only come after losing. All you can do is play the best you can with the cards you are dealt, and hope that the odds are in your favor.

 The land has a way of stripping you down to who you really are. It removes the noise, the timelines, the performance. It teaches you patience when the sky stays empty, humility when conditions turn against you, and gratitude when the smallest success feels earned instead of given. I was reminded that hunting is not about control, but about participation—about paying attention, showing respect, and understanding that some days you are simply meant to observe.

 I learned that endurance looks different out west. It is quiet and steady. It is choosing one careful step at a time across freezing water. It is staying present when the cold seeps into your bones and the wind refuses to cooperate. It is trusting the process even when there are no guarantees waiting on the other side.

 Gratitude found me there, too. I was grateful for land that still bore the marks of God’s original design, for people who treated it with reverence, and for the understanding that wild places demand responsibility from those who are fortunate enough to move through them. The absence of litter, the care taken, the evidence of restraint shown; it all spoke to an unspoken agreement between people and place. One I felt honored to witness.

I left that country changed in ways that are hard to explain. Carrying more than frozen gear and tired muscles. I carried a deeper respect for slowness, for silence, for days that do not unfold the way we hope they will. I carried a renewed understanding that joy does not always come from abundance, but often from awareness—from noticing where you are and accepting it fully.

 I was a flatlander in a faraway world, small and uncounted, allowed only a brief window into something vast and ancient. That land did not know my name, and it never will. But still, It gave me exactly what I was meant to receive. And that, I’ve learned, is the highest gift the wild can offer.