.Bang! An instant later came the gun’s report. It is true you don’t hear the shot that kills you. The same thing happened to me a few years back while hunting public land…. A sssh zing got my attention as something flew past. Seconds later, the shot went    off ... Someone outside just tried to kill me…. We were in a hollow with only one way out…. Three riders sat in that one way out…. All three wore badges on their shirts…. Oh man, I thought, this is a dream. Let’s get out the back window to the truck. We can outrun them….I got there first, looking out the window getting ready to jump, then my breathing just quit….Three hundred feet away, blissfully munching grass, two saddled horses and two pack mules grazed…. There was no pickup or road…. “This isn’t real, Jim”….Jesus, I could feel my senses slipping away; this just isn’t possible…. The mind is a funny thing. I thought of another time we climbed in the Rockies… drinking whisky…. Jim’s canteen came loose, slid off the footpath and on down a steep slope. He just stepped off the ledge after it. In slow motion, I watched that canteen bouncing off rocks…. It hit the pines a thousand feet below…. My hand reached out with that same endless dreamy movement. Grabbing Jim by the shoulder, I slowly drew him back, then normal speed returned as our butts hit the trail…. That same feeling of dreamy slowness and unreality gripped me now…”