Mean Animals I Have Known
By
Thom Cantrall
Once again I find life and Hollywood to be at odds. In all the movies I’ve ever seen wherein animals are actually allowed to appear as themselves, in their real personae and not some Disneyesque scenario where wild animals are portrayed as living in family groups with Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear living in harmony with their bunny and squirrel neighbors, the mean ones, if depicted at all are conspicuously obvious. Who could but realize immediately upon seeing him that Shere Kahn is absolutely up to no good and wishes nothing but evil to the “man cub” in “The Jungle Book”?
Even when actual animals are playing the part of animals, often with the help of plastic stand-ins, we are not allowed the honor of determining for ourselves the level of innate goodness embodied therein. “Jaws”, for example could not make an appearance without being introduced with a blood chilling rendition of some soul-tingling mood music. I know that one Great White Shark bears a strikingly close resemblance to any other Great White Shark much the same as one crow bears an exact resemblance to any other crow in the world. But, that not withstanding, did we need to be told that this creature was dangerous? Wouldn’t the simple appearance of a tall fin jutting out of the water tell us his intentions?
As a person who has spent a great percentage of his life among God’s Creatures, I can attest to anyone so inclined that no such warnings as those described above have ever preceded any close encounter of the malevolent kind among Mother Nature’s children. Not once have I ever heard the tum-tum-tum-tum… tum-tum-tum-tum that Jaws engendered when approaching any critter that might wish me ill!
In my single digit and very early double digit years I spent well over seventy-five percent of the daylight and a substantial portion of the not-so-daylight hours when not serving time in that venerable institution that was the bane of my ilk… School… anywhere but under a roof.
Much of this time was invested in exploring every square foot of my uncle’s ranch and the surrounding environs. Fences held no meaning for me at this juncture and location other than a necessary inconvenience meant to keep livestock restricted to a predetermined area… more or less, considering the shape in which most of these backwoods fences were kept.
Many of them had been erected by the Spanish when General Mariano Vallejo had owned this vast Northern California domain and had seen little in the way of maintenance since that time. To say that most were decrepit would have been liberal in description… actually, most were worse than that. As a consequence, this was pretty much open range to both the cattle and sheep that grazed these timber and brushlands as well as to small boys who were, truly, pint sized disciples of Lewis and Clark, Kit Carson and Jedediah Smith. But, I digress…
This ranch was home to about four or five million Western Rattlesnakes. Indeed, it seemed that these rattlesnakes were the only thing that did grow in profusion on this back-woods ranch. Now, perhaps I’ve exaggerated a bit, but suffice it to say that they were common and they grew large. I know that the official records say that this snake does not exceed five feet (1.52 m) in length, but I could have shown those experts several specimens that exceeded that conservative length considerably. Probably the largest I ever saw personally was one my cousin Shirley killed under the clothesline just out the back door of the house. This snake measured over six feet (2 m) in length without its head. This snake had a girth of over eight inches (19.3 cm) and looked particularly menacing. For the most part, the only time we ever killed a rattlesnake is when it was in proximity to the house or could pose a danger to some of us. While I know that television tends to portray the rattlesnake in a coiled position, head poised to strike and rattles singing, I actually saw that in the wild so rarely that I thought for many years that we had demented or, at least, unnatural snakes. Yes, when provoked, our snakes would coil and assume that classic pose, but it was an extremely rare circumstance, for sure, when a snake let forth with his singing buzz. Generally speaking, he had to be provoked heartily to induce that buzz. Normally, as soon as he was no longer being prodded or poked, he just uncoiled and slithered on about his rattlesnake business without so much as a “by your leave” or even a glance back. Though, he would probably have shaken his head and shrugged his shoulders, had he had them, at the ignominy of this treatment he had received.
The one notable exception to this general rule occurred one warm spring day when Tony, our trusty and tired saddle horse, and I were returning from a morning’s excursion to the edge of the wilderness, an area of immature Madrone trees about two inches (5 cm) in diameter and twenty feet (7 m) tall that had been killed in a fairly recent wildfire that had passed through the area. This created a nightmarish land of soot-covered stems reminiscent of a black bamboo jungle. Only the foolish ever entered the Wilderness… a second time. On the morning in question we had just made the trek for much the same reason people climb mountains… because they are there. It had been a pleasant foray and had served to clear my mind of the cobwebs engendered during the previous week by Mr. Wilson, my fifth grade teacher in his never-ending quest for dangling participles or split infinitives or something of the sort. The ride had worked wonders on my over-taxed nervous system, serving to remind me that if a noun wanted to dangle its gerund, it was by no means my fault!
I was smiling inwardly and drowsing outwardly in the late morning sun. Tony, for his part, was taking it all pretty much in stride and was nearly as asleep as I was. The road we were on was no proper road, but a cat trail cut out by the massive blade of my uncle’s venerable TD-24 bulldozer in the quest for the huge Coastal Redwood trees (Sequoia Sempervirons) that grew there. These cat roads laced the mountainside, providing the foot-weary a fairly comfortable place to walk. They were, at least, brush free and coated in about six or so inches (9 cm) of loose, flowing dust. The dusty trail was the morning newspaper of the mountainside. In it you could read the travels of the local denizens… deer, lizards, snakes, mice, skunks raccoons and weasels… they all left note of their passing for the alert reader.
On this particular day, however, “alert” was not a word I would use to describe either Tony of myself. I was slumped in the saddle, nearly asleep in the sun, the reins wrapped loosely around the pommel… My feet were dangling on either side of the horse, free of the stirrups. All in all, it was about as pleasant a morning as a lad of my few years could have imagined until we rounded a curve and, directly under Tony’s belly a rather large rattler let out with a very loud and penetrating buzz that immediately served to transform an idyll into a nightmare.
I immediately recognized the sound for what it was and, unfortunately, so did Tony. His immediate reaction, born of an innate, if heretofore unknown, dread of large rattlesnakes, was to launch himself straight vertical for a considerable distance. I’ll have to leave the exact altitude attained to one’s imagination as, at that moment, I was much too busy for quantitative research.
Words my father had uttered only a week or so prior, on the occasion of my arriving back at the barn on Tony and being in the saddle but sound asleep, came to mind… “Thomas (actually, he called me Tommy… a habit I could not break him of his entire life!) one of these days something is going to spook him and he’s going to throw you so high the crows will have time to build a nest in your behind (actually, my dad’s language being as colorful as it was, “behind” was not the exact word he used here) before you hit the ground!” That, along with certain other predictions regarding the effects on my anatomy of some of my antics served to suggest to me that he would have had a fair future as a prophet had he chosen to pursue that end. With maturity, something you could have gotten pretty long odds, in this era, against my ever surviving long enough to reach, has come the realization that, perhaps, “Natural Consequence” may have had more to do with his prognostications than did any sense of the supernatural or ethereal.
It amazes me even today, more than a half century later, how clearly those thoughts came to mind while I was still in the ascent stage and was diligently applying what I knew of , added to what I was learning of the physics of flight, even while contemplating the inevitable… Somewhere below me was a crazed horse and, below him, an angry, vociferous rattlesnake. Even though I was still gaining altitude at the moment of this thought, I knew that, eventually, gravity being what it was, I was going to going to have to effect a landing. Although I was, at present, navigating quite well, I was not at all sure that such benevolent circumstances would long continue, let alone persevere.
While time seemed to hang suspended, I could feel myself losing velocity as I neared the apogee of my short flight. Soon, I felt the rush of air as my direction of flight reversed and my velocity once more began to increase at the rate of, I was to learn many years later, thirty-two feet (11 m) per second for every second of my descent. At this point, my thoughts began to change from the esoteric investigation of non-powered flight to the entirely mundane… Where the HELL (this being about the strongest language at my command at this time) is that snake?
I must say, as earth became larger and larger in my window of vision, much the same image the Apollo Astronauts would have seen about a decade and a half later, that snake began to occupy more and more of my working mind. As the conjectural thoughts were pushed aside in favor of the essential, I began to detect, on the very periphery of my awareness, a loud, eerie screeching that seemed to fill the air with its essence. A small portion of my conscious thought was being hijacked by the weird sound. About this time it dawned on me that, of the three players in this incongruous drama, there was only one capable of generating that kind of output. As in the science of criminology, when the impossible is eliminated, what is left is probably the truth. So it was that in this case, neither horse nor snake was capable of that tone, therefore, that left only me as the author of that sound… a fact that, while it did little to attenuate the volume, it did serve to remove one source of stress from my already tortured psyche.
Now, there was only one prime thought remaining… where the hell is that snake? Very soon, like the pilot said at his Board of Inquiry following the crash of his fighter plane… “I ran out of air speed, altitude and ideas simultaneously”… I found myself measuring my length in the deep dust of the road. As I lay prostrate, still wondering where that snake was, I could hear Tony making tracks as fast as he could down the mountain. He seemed nothing more than intent on putting as much distance as he could between himself and that snake… wherever he was… as possible in the shortest possible time. As I lay there in the dirt sucking the needles and leaves off nearby trees and shrubs in the effort to get air flowing into my lungs once more, I began to take stock of my anatomy. Without the benefit of mirrors or other paraphernalia, I made the assessment that everything seemed to be pretty much as it was prior to the ordeal, all of three seconds before.
The snake was not in evidence, having departed during the debacle just described. Tony was gone, but I had no concern for him. He knew the way back to the barn better than I did and I had no doubt but that I’d next see him when I got to the bottom of the mountain, standing at the gate, probably grumbling because he hadn’t been fed yet.
I spent a few minutes assessing my condition, testing my extremities and, in general, wondering where in hell that snake was. Finally, having decided that little further could be gained from my present position, I tentatively began to rise. It was not the easiest task I’ve ever performed but almost everything seemed to work fairly well so, timidly at first but soon with more strength and purpose, down the road I moved. I was sure that Tony was gone and that I was resigned to the long walk home on shaky and achy legs.
About three curves down the hill, standing to one side of the skid road was Tony, his reins were dangling, effectively ground-hitching him and allowing me to catch up the reins, mount the saddle and ride into the ranch yard in triumph, head held high rather than having to sore-foot it the last two miles in from the site of my encounter.
My even more unkempt than usual condition and my rather labored movements finally clued my parents that all was not pure peaches and cream in my world. The severe interrogation to which I was subjected finally served to get the story of the meanest rattlesnake in all of Northern California out of me… only to incite paroxysms of mirth from the entire family, parents, siblings, aunt and uncle and cousins, at my expense… probably the meanest thing that snake did. And, I never did figure out where he had gotten to… I was just eternally grateful that he was not still there when I arrived, returning from my aborted free-flight.
As is usual with mean animals, there was absolutely no warning before he sang out in that especially loud voice…er… tail in his case. In fact, it is precisely this proclivity in some individuals to remain silent until I am entirely within their snare and am at peace with the world before launching their attack that marks them as particularly mean animals!
One of the past masters of this subterfuge resides in the forested areas of the Pacific Northwest. He is a rather small bird, too small to account for the amount of terror he can author. He seldom is as large as a bantam hen, but his ability to raise his victim’s blood pressure to near explosive levels is unparalleled in nature. The usual scenario generally involves…
The morning had been eventful. Elk were around in good numbers and had provided shot opportunities on a couple of occasions on smaller bulls. It was early in the season though and I was holding out for something better, ignoring my long-standing tenet of “never turn down on the first day what you would take on the last day.” The vagaries of archery hunting for elk being what it was, one was never safe in the assumption that further chances would eventuate that would offer good shots. But, I was adamant. I wanted a nice bull if I could get one, and if one always takes a small one first, he will never have the opportunity to take a large one.
The sun was making brief appearances from time to time and it had not rained in over two hours when I caught wind of elk nearby. It must be noted that elk, though beautiful are not fastidious and they do not bathe. Hence, they smell like a barnyard. And, a large group of them smells like a large barnyard. That is what I was catching now… the aroma of a group, properly called a gang, of elk somewhere very close. The terrain was flat and somewhat swampy. The timber was sparse, but regular in its growth. The main growth was the ubiquitous Salal Brush (Galtheria Shallon). Salal grows everywhere in this country, and is, indeed a major economic commodity in this area as it is harvested and used in floral arrangements in the cities of the west. Entwined in this lush growth of Salal is the scourge of northwest loggers, Pacific Blackberry (Rubus Ursinus). There is just enough of it here to serve as a major tripping hazard, tying the hiker’s legs securely to the ground as his body continues onward on its trek. The result is, often, a loud crash and a burst of profanity. The fact that this simple shrub is the major food source for the Columbian Blacktail deer that live here does little at this moment to redeem it in the eyes of the tripee.
On this morning, I was especially careful of it. I was moving across this area of sparse timber most quietly, easing my way to where I might see the elk I was smelling. On and on I moved, step after silent step. From one tree to the next until, at last, I was seeing elk moving through the timber. There were several animals present and I had seen at least one set of antlers through the trees. I was inching ever so much closer. Already I had passed up a small bull and some cows, the larger bull now in full sight just ahead. I was slowly closing the range on him… Fifty yards… forty yards… nearer and nearer to the twenty-five yards (22.5 m) to which my wooden recurve bow limited me. Just as I was to the point that I felt that I might consider a shot, I took that one more step that is so often fateful. From out of the brush at my feet burst a small ball of feathers in the form of a ruffed grouse. He was mean enough to beat me mercifully with his wings as he made his ascent and his escape! If I could have maintained my composure, I could have caught him in my hat as he passed by, but, alas, such was not to be. One cannot imagine the amount of noise such a tiny creature can make with just his wings in the morning air. Add to that the fact that he was actually multiplying that by the factor of his wings actually beating me physically.
Of course, the elk were long gone, having no more desire to deal with the small tyrant than I had, but they had a clearer field in which to maneuver than did I with my feet tied to the ground by blackberry vines, my heart was now in the proximity of my Adams apple and still on the rise… the air around me still blue from the expletive that managed to slip out while my mind was otherwise engaged with the problems of dealing with killer grouse!
On a scale of one to ten in meanness, that grouse had to rate at least a twelve or thirteen. I did manage to survive that unmitigated attack and even to take more elk in the future, but that didn’t stay me from my newest sport… skewering grouse with my bow and arrow whenever the opportunity presented itself!
Lest one begins to think that it is only the alive and aware animal that is capable of inflicting pain and torture on the unwary or under prepared, please note that there are several species that bear enough malice to continue their retribution even past the curtain that signals the end of mortality. One of the meanest of these was an elk that went beyond the call if duty in creating torment.
It was a rainy morning that opening day of elk season so many years ago. It was the first such season and my first foray into the jungle of huge stumps, ancient timber and young re-growth timber that is the west side of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.
The Navy, just a few months prior, had seen fit to honor my first choice of duty station on my transfer from the submarine I’d served aboard for the previous five years. POMFPAC, Polaris Missile Facility, Pacific, was to be my home for the next, and last, two years of my service. This facility was located on what is now the Submarine Base at Bangor, WA, home to the Pacific Trident Missile Fleet. Housing shortage in the area at the time of my arrival… “most critical since WW II” the newspaper headlines announced on the day of my arrival… forced me to make an alteration to my original plan and to take a military house on the Naval Ammunition Depot Annex on Indian Island, near Port Townsend, about thirty miles (50 km) north of the base. This proved a most fortuitous circumstance as it landed me among the worst of bad company… a band of hard core elk hunters.
From the time I met Greg and Adam in June until season opened in November, we talked elk. Being the new boy on the block, I listened and listened… and listened some more. Many were the tales of the elk trails followed, the elk seen and of the ruggedness of the country traversed. It was this last that I, in retrospect, didn’t listen to quite closely enough.
Opening morning of elk season 1968 found me on a ridge covered in reprod timber… that is, young growth approximately six to eight years old. It was about fifteen feet (5 m) high and just an inch or two in girth. They can grow quite thickly, blanketing the terrain with a rather tall carpet of green. I was sitting in a position where I could see across the canyon below to the ridge opposite. Adam was to my right, up the ridge about a quarter mile (400 m) away and near where the two ridges united. Greg had taken up his position by going to my left, down the ridge, crossing a drainage and up onto the side of the next ridge, giving him an excellent view of the lower end of the ridge opposite. What had caused us to assume this alignment was our having spotted a gang of elk on the ridge beyond, coming up out of the Mosquito Creek drainage. And, this gang was moving slowly and unconcernedly in our direction. A quick war council produced this deployment with the agreement on the point that when they reached the top of that ridge opposite, chances were that they would either turn to my right, up the ridge or turn to my left, down the ridge. If the former case came about, they would run directly in Adam. If the latter, they would bottom out and be directly in Greg’s sights. I, being the rookie, was in the rocking chair and hoping just to get an opportunity.
The plan worked exactly as designed. The elk hit the crest of the ridge and turned to my right, uphill. I could see them as they fed and moved through the young timber. Never long enough for a shot, but I could see them. Occasionally I could see antlers, usually poking above the trees. Never could I see both antler and animal simultaneously until, finally, at the head of that spur ridge in a small clear spot, there he was. A young bull he was, to be sure, but a nice one for a rookie. Slowly I raised my brand new Remington .30-’06 and took careful aim. I judged the range at a bit under three hundred yards (270 m) and was snuggling into the sling of my rifle… the cross hairs of my scope were just settling in place when a very loud shot rang out and all I could see of the bull in the scope were four elk feet flailing in the air! Adam, obviously, had been in absolutely perfect position.
With the report of the rifle, the gang immediately turned back down the ridge, obviously planning their escape back down the ridge to the bottom and thence slipping into the standing, old-growth timber unseen. Again, I could see them slipping through the brushy timber without giving me opportunity for a shot. Again, I could see antlers above the brush, but then…. Directly across the canyon on the side of the ridge about a hundred feet (30 m) below the crest, the herd was on a trail that brought them into the open for a short distance. By this time, they were in single file and moving at a slow trot. At the particular point in question, each animal in turn had to jump a downed log and was then in full view for about three to four body lengths at which time the animal disappeared back into the jungle of growth. It was like a shooting gallery. The range was good, about two-hundred-twenty-five yards (200 m) and about level. The shot, while it had to be done without wasted time, was doable.
I watched eagerly, my scope locked on each head as it appeared in queue, awaiting a turn at the gallery jump. When a set of small antlers appeared in the lineup, I slipped the safety off and waited as the cows and calves ahead of him cleared the way. Soon, he was there… his head held high as he jumped the fallen obstacle without seeming effort and landed in the open area. He took one more shuffling step to catch his balance and I heard the report of my rifle. I do not recall ever feeling the recoil. The shot was true as I watched the hair jump just behind his left front shoulder and he stopped still in his tracks. Since he was still on his feet, I worked the bolt and jacked a second round into the chamber. Again, the hair jumped right next to the first hit as the one-hundred-sixty-five grain Speer bullet found its mark. But, again, he did not fall. Neither did he move. It was as if time was standing still and all else in the world had disappeared except that bull elk and me. There were no other elk in existence… I had no companions, no family, and no purpose except as concerned that bull. Once more, I worked the bolt.
I knew I had two lethal shots in him and was amazed at his ability to remain upright. That he was shaken and wounded mortally, I knew, but I was determined he not suffer. Always, I had prided myself on the fact that no animal I had ever taken had required more than one shot to dispatch. That a Roosevelt Bull Elk could carry a lot more lead than a deer was a fact that I understood intuitively and was just now learning in real time. For my third shot, I took a bit more time and located where the bone ran through his neck. I was sure he was not moving with two rounds in his boiler room… now I was going to put one into his wheelhouse. I felt that the range was a bit excessive to effect one into his brain, so chose the second-best location. Once more, I could see the hair on his neck jump as the heavy bullet created its effect.
Slowly, after this shot, the bull’s knees began to buckle. Like a punch-drunk fighter viewed in slow-motion, he folded slowly, one leg at a time and he eased to the ground, taking care, I was sure, not to bruise any of his delicious meat. I watched as he crumpled like an empty potato chip bag until he was prostrate on the steep sidehill. Then, like that bag unfolding on its own, a leg jerked spasmodically… A second kick caused him to roll down the hill a bit. Soon, another kick and he tumbled even further down the ridge.
“Aha,” I said to myself, “how wonderful! He’ll be so much easier to dress out at the bottom of the ravine than he would be on that steep sidehill. I’d probably have to drag him down to the bottom anyway…”
Oh, how naïve can a rookie be? I had totally failed to reckon with the fact I had just harvested one of the really mean elk in all of creation. All elk hunters know intuitively that trophy elk do not live above the road as this would make the pack out to be much too easy. Even if one should be caught traversing that “no-elks-land” they will do everything they possibly can to rectify their faux pas and immediately light out for the very bottom of darkest, brushiest hole imaginable, there to die. Thus, in their passing, they can inflict the greatest possible distress on the hapless hunter who was inexperienced enough to have taken his life! I once had a Pastor of a local church swear to me that he had taken a nice bull above the road in such a position that he had but to back his truck up to the bank at the side of the road and slide the animal in whole, thereby retrieving him almost without effort. I was skeptical but not wanting to disbelieve the clergy when I found out he was also a fisherman! Now I was torn terribly trying to believe his most wild story. As he continued, it cleared itself up for me. It seems he was forced to stop for some construction work on the road he was using when the timber cutting crew lost control of a tree they were falling and it dropped right across the bed of his truck… I tell you, those elk will do ANYTHING to get even! I’m now quite sure that animal’s being above the road was just a ploy to lure the unwary into a position where his truck could be squashed like a june bug.
This is a trait common to all elk and subsequent harvests have led me from the depths of “Ohmygawd Canyon” to swamps so mean and foreboding that the fauna has regressed several stages on the evolutionary scale (I mean, have you ever seen a flying lizard?). These outings have served to teach me this fact. However, what this young bull did was way beyond the scale of ordinary meanness. Upon reflection, I cannot recall a single time when an elk just went peaceably and stayed where he fell.
In this land of excessive moisture, the rain creates many strange phenomena. The more than two hundred inches (500 cm) of annual precipitation causes the land to be conformed to the water’s needs. In this case, these pressure ridges, as we were now on, created by a long ago, long gone glacier several thousand years ago were not made of solid rock, but of alluvial materials like sand and gravel. At the bottom of the gully, between the ridges, the excessive water flow had created a trench very much like that created by a backhoe when installing underground utilities. This trench was approximately eight feet (2.5 m) in depth and three feet (1 m) in width. The sides were perfectly vertical and water ran in the bottom. The ditch looked so unstable to me that, if it had been a construction project, no man would have ever been allowed in it without shoring the walls.
As I hiked down the hill from my ambush point, I was being soaked by the gallons and gallons of water that had been suspended on the needles of the young spruce and hemlock trees I was bulling my way through to reach the place where I expected to find my elk. Looking back on that today, my worrying about that water was very much like worrying about spilling a cup of water on oneself just before falling out of the boat. It took me nearly an hour to fight my way through brush as thick as the hair on a shaggy dog’s back to reach the bottom of that gully. I could readily see the path in the more open sidehill the bull had made in his “kick it loose and let it roll” routine he used to expand his meanness to stellar proportions.
The thick brush I had been negotiating ended a few feet from the very bottom of the gully, providing a clear area approximately eight feet in width extending up and down the gully. I could not believe my good fortune in seeing this… Imagine, an area of clear ground on which to work! A five hundred pound (225 kg) plus animal is hard enough to move around for dressing in any place or position. Doing so in brush or on steep ground can be terrible. I was nearly ecstatic, then, at finding this boon. And, that ecstasy lasted the full two minutes or so it took me to break through the last of the heavy cover and see the horrible truth of what this animal had done as his last act of defiance. All that was to be seen where I would have supposed this beast to be was the marks of his last struggle as he managed to heave himself bodily into that trench in the bottom of the gully. With no small amount of trepidation, I inched forward slowly, peering expectantly into that hole even while dreading the confirmation of what I new was true.
What greeted me was a sight indescribable. Lying in the bottom of that hole I could see a foreleg, or maybe two hind legs and one eye. He lay in such a juxtaposed position I am convinced there were forces other than random chance at work here. I doubt sincerely that he could have become so sincerely misaligned by mere chance. In addition, he was now acting as a really nice dam in the stream running at the bottom of the trench and was rapidly creating a rather nice lake on his upstream side.
It was at least six feet (2 m) from the lip of the trench to the animal and he filled another short distance with his body. The walls were perfectly vertical for as far as I could see in either direction, affording me no easy access or egress anywhere within sight. I found a convenient stump left over from the logging of this area and sat down to contemplate my situation.
As I pondered the improbability of this, a shot rang out from Greg’s direction. Vaguely, I recalled another from that area a bit earlier. More than likely, this last shot finished what the prior one had started… which meant, Adam being busy with his own bull from earlier and, now, Greg with his, I was entirely on my own. I was sure that I could expect no help so what was to be was up to me.
The rain was falling, not in drops any longer, but in vast sheets of water. Looking down the draw, I could see wave after wave of water being driven before the wind. In places, where the wind swept up the ridge, the water was hurled up the ridge, a vanguard to the wind. It was actually raining uphill! I have never, before or since, witnessed this exact phenomenon, but there it was this cold, windy and wet November day.
I finally, after much soul-searching, removed my outer garments, coat, vest, raingear, etc. and piled them on the stump that had served as my throne and, keeping only my venerable Buck Knife, my small hand axe and bone saw from my belt sheath, I jumped from the lip of the trench into its bowels.
I have never seen such a sight. I didn’t have an elk lying in a ditch; I had a pile, a lump even, of elk lying in the bottom of that ditch. Looking up, it appeared that I was being buried in the groin of Mother Earth herself. With a sigh, I pushed all thoughts aside and bent to the task at hand.
My first several attempts at moving the animal merely resulted in falling debris and waves of water as I unblocked, momentarily, the river that was being detained by the body lodged in the bottom. I stopped a moment and reassessed my situation. I looked over the situation in minute detail and, believe me, there was no little part of it that was comforting. At last, I thought I had a handle on what needed to be done to untangle this mass of elk and arrange it in line with the flow of the trench. This, at least, would afford me the opportunity of dressing out the animal and, possibly, rendering it into pieces of a manageable size that it might, eventually, be removed from the hole. My years of untangling backlashes from my fishing reels stood me in good stead in getting this job accomplished.
By pulling on one foreleg until I got it free then scrambling across the lump of elk and into the growing lake of ice water on the uphill side, there to extricate a hind leg from its trap, I was able to effect some progress. Back across the carcass again to find the other foreleg only to find the antlers buried in to the bank, holding the head firmly in place… directly on top of the misfolded appendage I was trying to liberate. On and on, back and forth for the better part of an hour I worked to get this mean critter into an orientation that would allow me to begin the arduous task of butchering. By the time I managed to get five hundred pounds of dead elk arranged as I wanted him, I was drenched to the skin, covered in mud and muck and ruing the day I had ever heard of elk. It should be noted at this point that, although I may have described this in words that would make one think it was a pleasant, joyous occasion… it was not! However, in terms of what was yet to come, this interlude might well be taken as high, easy living.
At last I had wrestled him into a position in which I could begin the dressing. As soon as I had vented the animal, I began to encounter problems caused by the proximity of the vertical walls. I could not roll the animal to allow easy extraction of the offal, so I had to remove it by hand, over the aft end, piece by piece. By now, Icy Lake, formed by Elk Dam, had drained sufficiently that I could move the offal out of the water.
When, at last, I determined him to be as clean as I could make him in my present place and circumstance, I began the task of reducing him to carriable proportions. I thought that six would be appropriate. To this end, I removed his head and antlers and placed them in a safe spot. I then removed both front shoulders. This, while not near as easy as it would have been on open ground, was not overly difficult. The hind quarters, however, were a totally different matter. Normally, with the animal on its back, it is a relatively simple matter to make a cut at the joint, allowing the weight of the hind quarter itself to pull it way from the carcass. By simply extending the cut as the quarter falls away, it is soon completely severed, the hip joint being a ball and socket joint that is easily popped loose.
Such is life in a perfect world. My world, at the moment, was far from adequate, let alone perfect. I could not effect the cuts as I normally would because the walls held the legs nearly vertical, not allowing gravity to aid in the process. Add to this the fact that Rigor was, by this time, setting in and one can see the situation was deteriorating rapidly. It was pure gut-busting, mule-hauling work to get those hind quarters separated from the carcass and by the time it was completed, I was nearly in as bad shape as was that elk.
The last step in my butchering process was to split the carcass transversely, across the carcass just above the sixth rib yielding a fairly flat chunk of meat that was the prime of primes in elk. On this was contained the tenderloin and the choicest steaks. The other half contained some fine steaks as well… the T-bones and the rib steaks as well as the chuck steaks were here with a lot of fine elk. It also included the ribs and brisket as well as the neck.
By the time I had completed the butchering, I was exhausted. While deciding my next move, I sank down to rest, using a hind quarter of elk as my seat… a load of round steak supporting a round butt… and began to think how I was going to get out of this predicament. Obviously, I could not get out the way I had come in, gravity being what it was, so that left only two options… up the trench or down the trench. As soon as my heart rate returned to a near normal rate, I arose and, shouldering one forequarter, began my trek down the bottom of the trench, praying for a spot where the sides were low enough to let me get out of the hole.
It seemed like hours had passed and miles walked before the lip of the trench began to do dip to greet me. Slowly and cautiously I crept along, my load gaining weight with each step all the while issuing prayers for the lessening of the depth to continue. Finally, at last, my head was above the ground level and I waited no longer, but lifted that front quarter from my shoulder and onto the ground outside the trench. It really felt like I’d covered at least a mile, but it was, as I learned by pacing the distance on my return trip, only about five hundred feet (350 m). Four more trips I made with the meat from that bull and I had only the chest cavity remaining. I was out of gas and out of ideas on how to move that large, bulky bull down my rapidly deteriorating route when I heard my name being called.
While grinning so widely that I threatened to break my face, I hollered back. When a second call asked if I needed help, I screamed for rope and my packboard, a couple of items I had neglected to bring with me when I dove into this hell-hole. I guess I was more interested in keeping them safe and dry in my truck than I was in actually using either. That was a mistake I never repeated in all the years I hunted elk. From that day onward, I never left my truck without a length of rope wrapped around me.
I put the question of what to do about that last piece of meat on hold until I had help here with me. In the meantime, I recuperated. I knew the job was far from complete as, even if both Adam and Greg came in, it would still mean two trips apiece back up that mountain through that brushy jungle with more than a hundred pounds (45 kg) of elk strapped to the packframes.
In a few minutes, I heard the chatter of men as the brush snapped and an occasional curse rang out, signaling a foot caught up in a root or a vine or such. It dawned on me suddenly that this was the noise of more than just two men. In fact, when the brush finally parted, not only Greg and Adam popped out, so did three good friends from town. I could not believe that they were actually there, having told us not to expect them until late as work commitments would cost them opening day of the season. There were now six of us. Bob, Leon and Larry had found our trucks parked and had heard the shooting so had figured we had animals down and could use some help. This being before the present era when the world was not overrun with thieves, we did not remove the keys from a vehicle when we parked as it may need to be moved to allow access to another. Thus, the three got out packboards and such gear as they felt we would need and started in to find us. I was deep in my long rut when they called out at first, so I did not hear them. Greg and Adam, however, did. In fact, they were within a stone’s throw of Adam and he guided them on to Greg.
I cannot express the joy I felt on seeing their homely mugs, and told them as much! It was the work of but a few moments to tie a rope to that last hunk of carcass and to pull it out of the hole. They had even determined a better route out. Basically, it followed the trail the elk had used in coming down that ridge so long ago and led us directly to the junction of the ridges and to our trucks. I broached the possibility that I might get a ride out on one back or another, but the fact that I soon realized that the only way this was going to happen is if I were willing to go the same way that elk was going… in six pieces did much to cool my ardor at what I had really thought to be a viable idea just moments before… An hour later, after much discussion of the sanity of anyone who’d venture into that hole, we were all at the truck enjoying a cold drink and a warm meal of Chef Boyardee that was whipped up on a Coleman stove. Although it was just simple fare, heated quickly and served directly from the pan, it was possibly one of the finer, most welcome repasts I have ever known.
Adam’s elk was already in his truck and Greg’s was waiting at the edge of a small logging trace, ready to load. I had fired my first shot at 8:05 that morning and the sun, behind thinning clouds, was sliding from the western sky as I sat on the tailgate of my truck, recounting the tale of the meanest elk that ever lived…
