Hunting Marshall's Reserve

            When I hired on as caretaker of this ranch, Marshall showed me around the country north of the dirt road that runs from this ranch, through national forest, and back to the highway at his place. Between us, we control access by road to thousands of acres of National Forest. My employer said, "No hunting on my ranch, and no access for hunters through my ranch," so the area would continue to be mostly Marshall's reserve.

            We hunted the National Forest, the third season. Before daylight, clear and cold, we looked down into the canyon.

             Marshall said, "Damned if I don't see a campfire down there."

            He pointed out the tiny, flickering light and said, "They're legal being in here if they got in here legal. I'm going to hike down there and find out. You want to come along?"

            "I couldn't pass up the opportunity, Marshall. Curiosity would eat me alive until I met up with you again."

            Pale light washed the eastern sky. Marshall halloed the fireplace, and a voice boomed, "You'd better come on down and drink coffee."

            We leaned our rifles against down trees, and Marshall held his mittened hands toward the fire. "I'm coffeed up for the day, but I thought I'd come down and find out how you guys got in here."

            The biggest man of the two, taller than Marshall but leaner, said, "Well, we rode bicycles up the canyon."

            Marshall shook his head and said, "Guess you think I'm some kind of fool, tell me a story like that. I've about half a mind to..."

            "I'm not telling you a story." He walked to a big pine tree and pulled a bicycle from the shadows. "You've seen mountain bikes, haven't you? This is a good one, and Wayne's is a good one, and we pedaled our way in here with everything we got with us, and we'll pedal out, packing elk. It's going to take a few trips."

            Marshall said, "Well, I'll be damned."

            The sun edged above the plains below us. Marshall said, "I see two men, and I see two bicycles, but damned if I don't see three elk hanging in the trees. Somebody here find a way to get two legal tags?"

            The smaller man spoke for the first time. "I don't see where it's any of your business if we got no elk hanging in the trees or if we got fourteen elk hanging in the trees. As far as I know, you're just another hunter. You never showed me any kind of badge, and I don't think you showed Ralph any kind of badge."

            Ralph said, "Now, Wayne, no use antagonizing anyone. I don't mind telling about it, and I am going to tell a man with a badge about it, as soon as I get to a phone. But if you didn't believe me about coming in on bicycles until I showed you a bicycle, you wouldn't believe this story unless you saw it happen. But I will tell you about it. You sure you don't want a cup of coffee?"

            Marshall said, "I might have a small cup."

            I said, "No thanks, but I'm interested in the story about the elk."

            He poured coffee and handed Marshall the cup. "Yesterday morning, early, I worked up toward the rim, going slow and looking around. Elk came over the rim. I saw some in a clear moment in the storm, and then I didn't see them again.

            "I stood still, and I waited, hoping the storm would slow down again. Well, it did. Down the side of the canyon from me, I saw a four point bull. I put the scope high on his neck, right at the base of his skull, and squeezed the trigger. I expected him to go straight down on the ground, but he didn't. He disappeared into the timber in two jumps. Three seconds, one, two, three, and he gallops out the other side, full speed. I put the scope behind his shoulder, and I pulled the trigger, and he galloped about ten yards and hit the ground ass over antlers. I watched, to see if he might move. He didn't. When I gutted him, I found out the bullet mushroomed and went straight through his heart, a clean kill."

            He picked up the coffee pot, poured his cup full and then held the pot toward Marshall. Marshall shook his head, so Ralph put the pot back over the fire. The smell of fried liver hung strong in the cold morning air.

            "I walked down the hill and went to work on the bull. After a while, I heard Wayne fire one shot, and I figured he probably got a bull, and later I found out he did. I got the bull on the left there gutted, so he'd hold for a while, and I started feeling like something wasn't right.

            "Now, I figure I saw something that never registered in the part of my mind I think with, if you know what I mean, but it registered somewhere, so it kept bothering me. I picked up my rifle, and I backtracked the bull into the timber. A ways inside the timber, I found a dead bull, the one on the right there. I hit him right where I meant to, at the base of the skull, and he ran about ten yards before his head hit the ground and his hindquarters flipped over his head and smashed him up against a big pine tree.

            "I could have left him there. I thought about it, but I didn't think about it very long. I wouldn't waste an animal like that, so I gutted him out, and then I skinned both animals, and we skidded them down the canyon on their hides in the snow, and we cut Wayne's bull in half and skidded the halves up the canyon, and we winched everything up into trees. I've killed eighteen elk, over the years, but nothing like this ever happened before. I don't know how it's going to wind up, but I'm not too worried about it. It was an honest mistake. I had no intention of killing two bulls."

            Marshall said, "The law don't pay too much attention to what you intended, I don't think. Just to what happened. The law says it's illegal to kill two bulls on one tag."

            "Eventually, I'll talk to the game warden, and I'll find out what the law says and what the law is going to do."

            Marshall said, "I'll call for you, when I get in this evening. Old Jim, he'll want to come in and look things over."

            Wayne said, "Does he have a bicycle?"

            Marshall laughed, "I don't think he does. I don't think he'd ride a bicycle in here. He can drive to the top of the canyon and then walk down here, just like we did."

            I called Marshall that evening. He said, "Well, Jim, he don't seem too interested in taking care of the law back there. He says he'll try to get in there before the season's over, but he might not get to it. He said to tell those boys if they'll give one elk away, so somebody can tag it, he won't do anything about shooting two on one tag. I don't like the way he's handling it too well, but I guess I can't do nothin about it right now. I don't think they'll find anyone who'll take an elk they didn't kill theirselves, though."

            By daylight the next morning, I sat as high up the steep granite on the east side of the wizard's fingers as I could climb. Marshall had headed for the big, flat granite formation about 600 yards west of the wizard's fingers. Light snow drifted down, such tiny flakes, you'd think it was just cold fog until the light hit it right, and you saw it all drifting to the ground.

            Several cows came out of the timber west of me, then a bull with a big rack and more cows and two spikes, and more cows, and a bull with a bigger rack. I laid the scope on the biggest bull. Four points, with a wide, almost flat spread when he raised his muzzle, smelling the cold air. I could hit him in the forehead, or I could hit him in the chest and save the head. Forty or fifty elk kept coming, so I could have shot the biggest bull at 250 yards or at 200 or at 150. I never pulled the trigger. The elk faded into the timber west, and twenty minutes later, one shot.

            I climbed down from the rocks and hiked to where Marshall had the big four point gutted and the hide almost peeled. I helped him quarter the carcass, and he hiked back and brought the pickup as close as he could get, and we packed out the quarters and the hide and the head and loaded them.

            By 11, we'd hung the quarters in the shop behind Marshall's place. I said, "I'm going to go see our bicycling friends."

             Marshall said, "I believe I'll go with you."

            I almost said, "You ought to stay here and tend to this elk you shot," but I just nodded. At the turnoff to my place, I said, "I think I'll go get my pickup."

            Marshall kept driving. He said, "Nothing the matter with this pickup, is there?"

            "Not that I know of, Marshall."

            Wayne and Ralph had packed most of their camp. Wayne said, "One of you guys got a bull this morning."

            Marshall said, "I dropped a good four point. Hung him in the shop at home."

            I said, "Marshall said the game warden said if you could give one of the bulls away, he'd let the whole thing evaporate. So I decided to take one of them, if that's all right with you guys."

            All three of them looked at me.

            Marshall said, "Damn. I thought you might do that."

            Ralph said, "You don't have to do that."

            I said, "Come on, you guys, cut the B.S. Do I get the bull, or shall I go back to hunting?"

            Ralph said, "You get the bull. You get the bull."

            Ralph and Wayne helped me lower the bull from the tree and cut it into smaller pieces. Ralph said, "I'll help you pack it out."

            Marshall said, "You boys better get your bicycles headed down the canyon and start pedaling, or you'll still be packing meat at midnight. Me and Jon's in this together, and I come up here with him to help him pack this bull up to the pickup, just like he helped me pack mine to the pickup."

            We packed all the meat we could carry up to the canyon rim and loaded it into the pickup. Marshall said, "I backtracked the bull I killed and the rest of the herd on my way to get the pickup. Unless you were sound asleep, you could have killed any of the four bulls in the herd."

            "I wasn't asleep."

            We walked and slid back down the steep slope. Wayne and Ralph watched us. Marshall said, "You fellas got a bunch of hunting friends?"

            Wayne said, "None we'll be bringing in here."

            Wayne and Ralph started pedaling down the canyon. They kicked through snow at the bottom of every stroke. Marshall said, "You fellas take it as easy as you can and still get out of here in good shape. We'll look for you next year."

            We packed all the elk we could carry toward the canyon rim. Big, soft, cold, flakes of snow drifted to the ground all around us.