Hunting and shooting skills played a part in my taking this beautiful Colorado 5-point bull, but faith and determination were the real keys.

YOU WOULD NOT THINK that hitting a simple pop fly during a church league softball game would have a major impact on anyone's life. Yet there I was, lying face-down in the dirt between home plate and first base, writhing in pain from a torn Achilles tendon.

It was June 3, and just that morning, in preparation for an early fall Colorado elk hunt with my son-in-law Matt, I had slipped into my hunting boots, donned my backpack, and scrambled to the top of Dinosaur Hill, a steep rocky ridge jutting up out of the center of Rapid City, South Dakota, just a few blocks from my home. I figured that climbing that ridge several times a week throughout the summer, coupled with regular running and working out on my weight bench, would get me in top condition for my hunt -- at least as far as my 55-year-old body was concerned.

Now, however, as I lay there on the dusty baseline, gritting my teeth in agony, my grandiose conditioning program had suddenly evaporated into thin air, only to be replaced with a long, tremendously frustrating rehabilitation program. Unfor-tunately, this situation was not uncharted territory for me. I had torn my other Achilles tendon six years earlier in a farm accident. I knew exactly what misery lay ahead.

First on the agenda -- surgery to reconnect the frazzled ends of the severed tendon. Next would follow at least a month in a hard cast (on crutches), followed by two months in a walking cast (still on crutches) as I gradually worked my way into putting full weight back onto the ankle. Then would begin the slow, tedious process of weaning myself from the crutches and building my calf and other leg muscles back up to some semblance of normalcy.

Even if I stuck to the prescribed recovery schedule, it would be the end of August before I would be able to walk without crutches, much less climb a mountain or pack out an elk. My elk hunt was scheduled for September 12. It was a long shot, but I refused to let myself think, even once, that it wasn't going to happen. If I couldn't go on that elk hunt, it wasn't going to be for my lack of trying.

THE DAY AFTER the incident, I underwent surgery, and 24 hours later, I was sitting at home trying to figure out how to improve my rather bleak situation. What I thought had been my rather innocent inquiry into an accelerated recovery schedule brought only a stony glare from my doctor. He then bluntly informed me that tendon tissue heals slowly and that rushing the process was to risk re-injury and a much longer rehabilitation. He offered no sympathy and, obviously, no adjustment in the schedule. I was stuck with it.

At that point, it would have been easy simply to give up and spend the summer moping around the house feeling sorry for myself. However, an elk hunt -- especially one with a family member -- is powerful incentive.

Two days after surgery, I struggled out into the backyard with my bow clamped tightly against one of my crutches and sprawled on a tiny folding stool with my cast leg jutting out at an awkward angle. Then I began to practice. Retrieving arrows was a big problem since it took much time and effort to get to the target and back. Sometimes I could get my wife, Marcie, or our daughter to retrieve arrows for me. But most times I had to be content to shoot only a few arrows, knowing I was at least doing something to prepare for my hunt.

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