We live in a small community.

Seems like every day at check station brings at least one youngster with their first big game animal. Labor Day weekend, it was a local 12-year old girl with her first.

Happened to be a 9-year old bighorn ram.

A lot of people wait decades for a chance to hunt a bighorn sheep. I still haven't. And here, that's what she started on. And did really well.

Saturday, it was another local 12-year old girl, with her first big game, a 16-inch pronghorn buck. Stalked across muddy hummocks of greasewood and sage in the morning's rain. Dad said it was a two-mile hike for him to get back to fetch the truck.

So far, no one has brought a taller buck by.

Sunday evening, another local girl with her first pronghorn. Several years older than the other two girls because, hey, you have to be lucky enough to get the license first. Her Dad was just as proud as the other two fathers, and the daughter just as shy and quiet. Young women may enjoy hunting as much as young men, but they rarely seem to have the urge to brag.

Truth be told, the boys rarely brag, either.

But she had done well, made a clean and proper kill. You could see she was proud. And a little pleased I was talking to her, and not to the men in the truck.

And tonight we find out that, about 13 hours after showing me her buck antelope...

She was driving.

We live in a small community.