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I love that there's magic in the world. That from its most fundamental origins rises the most perfect enigma of all: the encrypted genetic blueprint that miraculously renders every species on the face of the earth so utterly flawless. To the sheen of a whisker, the camber of a feather. That in its grandest, most fortuitous and dimensionless expression, it happens in the wild. That it can't be bought, bartered, mortgaged, deeded, or sold. That in its truest sense, it happens when you least expect it. That it can happen for you as mysteriously as for me. And, that ever at its core, in whole or part, it exists inexplicably. That in the indefinable space of a few moments, it can change your life, and all before you thought to believe. That it can at once frighten, bewilder, fascinate, thrill, and consecrate, and, at the occurrence of a single incident, make your world a more inspirational and enchanted place for life and living. I love that it walks hand-in-hand with mystery. That its traveling companions are astonishment and eccentricity. That it First Light by Mike gaddis One mysteriOus incident leaves the hunter frightened, fascinated, thrilled, and bewildered. displaces both logic and reality, and co-exists most expressively in the company of serendipity. That it can't be dissected, compartmentalized, taxonomically compacted, or factually reduced to experiential science. That it can arise in great revolutionary epiphanies or midst the simplest of everyday blessings. With the ground-jarring crash of a thunderclap, or as the soft mourning benediction of a dove. I love that it overwhelms time and distance. That it can transpire as easily seven miles from home as 7,000 miles from home. That it can occur as wondrously whether you're 2 or 102. That, invariably when it does, it begs from us a newfound humility, concession that there will ever and thankfully remain powers and phenomena of Nature beyond all human control or understanding. That once it happens, it's happily yours to keep and cherish—with faith if not comprehension—for the rest of your years. "You can't make it happen, Child," Granny would say. "Just be thankful when it does." Pa would put it a different way: "There'll be a lot of things you'll never understand in this life, Boy. The best of them you'll never really want to." S o it was that the most recent and unfathomable occurrence among the now numerous near-and-far, paranormal episodes of my own seven decades afield, came in the minutes approaching dusk last fall. Not 11 miles from home. In the deer woods. A shadowy hardwood bottom of some 500 yards, nomadically funneled between cut-overs on every side. A favorite native covert for big whitetail bucks, though a harbor as well of great horned owls and their often-maniacal exclamations, and admittedly remote, haunting and eerie in the secret swell of nightfall. It's 4:30 on an early November afternoon. The witching hour. Time for the major bucks to walk. The sun rests near the horizon, it's dying rays backlighting softly the now threadbare-and-burgundy raiment of the oaks, the sparse gold mantle of hickory, the now skeletonized, blood-drop scarlet of maple. A light northerly breeze has fallen to a whisper. 18 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S istockphoto.coM