Alzada, Montana, is a small border town on U.S. 212, about 30 miles northwest of Belle Fourche, South Dakota. A modern convenience store dominates the town--a small collection of houses, barns and farm implements on a lonely, snow-covered plain. Alzada also has a bar where you can buy a public land hunting permit and shoot the breeze with the owner, a transplanted Californian--downing an ice-cold draught beer and admiring the authentic, period saloon woodwork while you wait for her to complete the paperwork.

Mike Watkins' place is just over the line in Wyoming, a mile or so to the south and several miles west. On the way there, a big whitetail buck bounds across the road at the state line and disappears into a stand of pines. Big trucks thunder down a hard-packed dirt road, carrying loads of bentonite--a sought-after mineral found in the Little Missouri River drainage. Between the rocketing passage of the trucks, there's time to pull over and glass small knots of mule deer that feed within 100 yards of the road.

In a few miles, a ranch road chugs hard up a hill and ends at the place Watkins has based his hunts for the year. Wild turkeys feed in the yard, and a rifle zeroing session must be delayed until the mule deer saunter off the makeshift range. All in all, it's a good place to spend Thanksgiving.

The first morning out, we're on a ranch just north of Alzada. An early blizzard had blanketed the high plains with heavy snow, but it's starting to melt away as the weather moderates. Guide Paul Burns--a young guy with sharp eyes and a calm, reflective demeanor--and I stand in the gap of an old earthen berm, long since breached, as we wait for dawn.

Below us is a sagebrush flat and a winding creek lined with cottonwoods. It's full of mule deer. The task at hand is to move some of these deer to where the other hunter in our party, Richard, and his guide await.

Paul and I drop down onto the flat and move to flank the mulies. A line of does trots out of the wash ahead of us and stotts out into the open. We stay alert for any that may try to sneak (or bolt) away behind us. The big bucks, Paul says, won't hang with the others; they'll cut from the group when pressed.

Other groups of deer--numbering anywhere from five to a dozen--mill nervously in the sagebrush. Forkhorns, spikes, smallish 3x3s and 4x4s watch us, seemingly unconcerned even though we're within 300 yards. They stare briefly before getting back to the business at hand, that of harassing does and sparring with each other.

The prairie/breaks country of southeastern Montana features high buttes and deep drainages--in addition to sweeping plains--that hold mule deer and some whitetails.

We never do push the deer past Richard. Some of the deer leave the cover of the creek bottom and head for the open field; others double back.

We finish the day by glassing some country over by the Little Powder River to the west, below Broadus. As evening closes in, we spy a great whitetail buck in the distance. The Powder River system, like portions of the Little Missouri, has some decent whitetails, and this is one of them.

The next morning we hit a different spot. There's more snow here, and high buttes enclose pine draws and small sage flats. Tiny snowdrifts trail behind spiny yucca plants on the open prairie, lending a ripple effect to the plain. As the morning sun lights the landscape, we begin spotting deer immediately.

We discover a bachelor group of decent bucks standing at the head of a pine draw, but they stott off before we can get a really good look at them. We crest a ridge and happen upon the rancher--a man in a light gray Stetson and tan Carhartts riding a paint horse that throws showers of sparkling snow with each step. He's looking for a steer that had gotten away the day before. We promise to keep an eye out for it and drive on.

Paul and I push out some small draws to no avail, and the shadows begin to get long as we motor to another part of the ranch. Paul suddenly slams on the brakes. "There he is," Paul says, quickly maneuvering the truck off the ranch road. "He" is a big three-pointer, one the guides had been seeing on and off throughout the season. The buck has great forks, good width, excellent mass. We ease out of the truck, Richard loads his rifle, and we sneak a few hundred yards undetected. The buck is bedded on an open sidehill, keeping watch over several does. Richard nestles in behind the gun and touches the trigger--and the big 3x3 is his.

The next day finds Paul and me climbing high into some rocky ridges to an ace-in-the-hole spot. It feels good to be hiking. We bull through the hip-deep snow of the shaded pine draws, circle behind a sharp peak and eventually set up in the lee of a razorback with spotting scope and binoculars. Paul quickly locates some deer, including a small buck, in one of two fingers of sagebrush that point into the big piney drainage below. We spend a lot of time glassing for something better, but eventually we move out--convinced we've seen all we're going to see. We are wrong.

As we slip down the face of ridge, half a dozen deer erupt from the head of a pine-shrouded wash--a handsome 4x4 taking up the rear. The does head for higher ground, but the buck suddenly changes direction like a tailback cutting against the grain and vanishes.

Paul curses softly at our impatience, but he grins when he says "See, those big bucks will always cut back like that."

The day finishes back in the pine ridges of the Little Powder River drainage. We're driving and glassing when we round a corner, and there, about 400 yards away, is the buck I've been looking for. His thick horns are chocolate brown and deeply forked, the spread is outside the ears. He's bedded, regally regarding a doe and a pesky spike. He periodically jumps up to drive away the spike, lowering those big antlers every time he gets close enough to the young upstart.

Unfortunately for us, the buck's on the wrong property and the hunting day is over. Naturally, Paul and I discuss going back after him the next morning, but Paul explains how mobile mulies are during the rut. It's unlikely that we'll cross paths with him again. Mike Watkins thinks we should try for a big buck that's been seen on a ranch closer to home base. I like the plan: an entire morning of sneaking around in a wide creek bottom full of hardwoods, grassy fields and sagebrush patches.

Thinking about the hunt thus far, I sure can't complain about a lack of action. Every day we see deer, deer and more deer--and plenty of average bucks. I've been picky, maybe too picky, and tomorrow is the last day.

The next morning, Paul and I ghost through the cottonwoods and elms that line the creek bottom. We hoof about half a mile, staying well inside the tree line, before we see the first deer. Two does feed on the side of an earthen berm, and a small 3x4 and a forkhorn loiter in the open grass to our left.

When the does move off the berm, we make a wide circle and cross the frozen creek--carefully sliding our boots across the ice. A well-used deer trail heads up the berm on the diagonal. At the top, we run into about eight does, and they quickly swivel their heads to stare at us as if we'd interrupted some private conversation. There's nothing we can do but wait until they go away, although they stand around as if hoping we will be the ones doing the leaving. Finally, they go--grudgingly, it seems.

Kim McCarthy's whitetail is a good example of the excellent genetics found in the tri-state region.

From the berm we look over a sort of plateau of sagebrush and tall yellow grass. It's open for about 200 yards, then bisected by a tree line that appears to be an old fence row. Behind the trees is herd of about 20 deer, and in the midst of the herd is our buck.

I know it's not a great buck--Paul knows it, too--but he's a good, representative 4x4. The lithe .30-06 Blaser R93 finds its position on the shooting sticks almost by itself as I weld my cheek onto the stock and peer through the Kahles 3-9X. Paul's rangefinder reads 265 yards--more of a poke than I would like. But the does know we're here, and it won't be long before they spook. I'd tested the 150-grain Winchester Power Points out to 300 yards, and they'd proved incredibly accurate in the Blaser. I'm confident I can make the shot.

The buck trots back and forth like a metal target in a shooting gallery, appearing ever so briefly in a gap in the trees as he moves from one doe to the next, sniffing each in turn. For a while there's no good shot, just too many deer around him, but suddenly he's in the clear. He's trotting to the left and the muzzle is already swinging with him, the crosshairs forward on the chest and shoulder blade high.

The rifle barks, and the buck bounds out of sight. There's no indication of a hit, no sound of the bullet striking home. But a second later he leaps back into view, stopping almost exactly where he'd been when I'd fired. By the time I make ready to shoot again, the buck falls over dead.

We take the long walk and are soon standing over the buck. Paul shakes my hand, smiling one of his rare smiles. We begin the mile-long hike to get the truck, and I start to plan how I might return to hunt again under Montana's big sky.