IT’S GOOD TO BE ALIVE

By N. Vernon-Wood

IT LOOKS LIKE ANOTHER one of them swell days when Ol’ Sol pokes his snoot over the mounting an’ says Good Morning all over our camp. It’s Indian Summer, an’ there’s a smell in the air that sort of makes yore hair bristle, an’ you want to go out an’ slap a Grizzly’s face just to see if he’s got nerve enough to do something about it.

At least, it seems to affect my Pilgrim that way. He’s sittin’ cross-laigged by the fire, scalin’ flapjacks down as fast as Greasy can slide ’em off’n the skillet, an’ breathin’ deep of the mornin’ ozone like he was takin’ exercises.

“Tex,” says this Pilgrim around the edge of a flapjack, “you know it’s worth five hundred Gold Standard dollars, just to be alive this morning.”

Which is his way of lookin’ at it. There’s a blister on my heel, left over from scalin’ a few thousand perpendiculous feet of slides the day previous; I got a hangnail that don’t feel so good, an’ besides, I’m not addicted to deep breathin’ of a mornin’, so I just grunts. Bein’ alive don’t seem any better today than it did yesterday, an’ yesterday I found the beginnin’ of a crack in the stock of my favorite rifle.

“Mebbe,” I growls, thinkin’ of the blister an’ the crack, “but I druther see the five hundred.”

ME AN’ THE PILGRIM got going right celerious after breakfast, an’ high-tailed for the slides, an’ the general direction of a Wapiti we’d heard trumpetin’ earlier in the mornin’. By ten o’clock the Ol’ Haymaker has melted the frost, an’ it’s warm enough to peel off our sweaters. There ain’t a mosquito or hoss fly in six townships, an’ on the slides the huckleberries are thick as sextenarians at a Townsend picnic. We’re depletin’ the visible supply when that Elk let out a holler so close I thought he was in my pocket. The Pilgrim grabbed his rifle, an’ we both looked in fourteen different directions, when I caught the glint of sun on the ivory-white tips of his antlers, an’ silently pointed.

As we watched, the Elk stalked out into the open, an’ I begun to laff. It’s a young Bull of eight points, narrow in the spread, an’ right spindley in the beam, but man, oh man, has he a voice? To hear him, you’d think he rated a fifty-inch spread an’ fourteen points. Which, when you come to think of it, is another point of similarity between us sapiens an’ the rest of the mammalia.

So leavin’ almighty-voice to accumulate years an’ spikes, we oozed along, up an’ on, over scree slopes, around scrub balsam patches, an’ through larch groves. We’re settin’ on an outcrop, catchin’ up our wind, an’ watchin’ for somethin’ to show up; way below us, Leman Lake looked like a big turquoise layin’ on green velvet, an’ here an’ there, the golden brown of the slide grass run up to the silver gray of the limestone. The Pilgrim is takin’ on somethin’ epic about Nature’s Canvas, an’ the color harmony of Sky, Lake, an’ Forest, when I seen somethin’ that made me jab my elbow into his ribs, shuttin’ off the flow of rhetoric.

Standin’ out on a two-bit bench about three hundred yards away, an’ slightly downhill, is a perfectly good Elk. He’s as still as a bronze image an’ watchin’ somethin’. Then I see, way down in the crick bottom, a half-dozen cows pokin’ along footloose an’ fancy free.

The question immediately arises will we take a poke at him right now, or shall we try to stalk closer, meantime runnin’ the chance of his decidin’ to constitute himself a welcomin’ committee of one, an’ go tearin’ down to thrill them females.

A bird I’m guidin’ one time promulgates the theory that a successful hunter has to try to think like he thinks the beast he’s huntin’ thinks. If you get what I mean.

So, I think—here I am, a right personable batchelor Wapiti, with plenty free time and no place special to go, and yonder’s a bunch of beautious gals, down there by the crick. An’ I see myself tearin’ down the slide, knockin’ over some right sizeable timber in my onseemly haste—so I says to the Pilgrim, “About three hundred an’ don’t forget it’s a downhill shot, so aim low.”

IT’S A SHAME to nip romance before it’s budded, but we need that trophy, an’ the .30–06 Springfield, with a certain amount of co-operation from my Dude, done it.

“An’ now,” I says, “you can turn loose your flow of declamation relatin’ to nature’s palette all you like, while I perform several major operations on that beast.”

There’s a heap of awful good chewin’ on a Elk, an’ when it comes to salvagin’ meat, I’m a reg’lar Indian. Nothin’ burns me up like the eggs who drop a prime animal, an’ then just saw offen the head, an’ leave the meat for the Coyotes an’ Wolverines. By the time I’ve dessected the kill, an’ hung up the steaks an’ roasts to cool, the shadows are gettin’ long.

I got the head on my shoulders, an’ we hit for the valley. There ain’t any trail, so I’m watchin’ my footin’, an’ not payin’ any attention to what’s goin’ on elsewhere. The Pilgrim bein’ burdened only with the liver an’ a couple of back strips, is checkin’ over the slides, an’ suddenly says, “Tex, I’d swear there’s a Bear on the second opening to the left.”

I dropped the Elk head, glad of the chance, an’ fished my binoculars out of my shirt front. “Yeah—it’s a Bear all right all right,” I said after a look. “Either a fair Black or a small Grizzly—wait until he turns—yeah, it’s a Grizzly, but he ain’t such a much.”

“He looked big to me,” says the Pilgrim. “Are you sure you’re lookin’ in the right place?”

“Well, I’m lookin’ at a Bear, but from where I stand, he don’t look like any rug for your liberry. He might make a couple pair of fur-lined garters for a small chorus gal,” I reply. “What you want to do—go get him or leave him lay?”

“Let’s stalk it anyway.”

So I hung the Elk head in a spruce, an’ we started to climb, anglin’ toward the second slide. When we got to the edge of the timber we snuck up, an’ checked over the open slopes. Nothin’ in sight, up, down or across. What to do? Go higher, or slip down keepin’ in cover of the trees? I’m all for the latter for various reasons, the main one bein’ that it’s in the general direction of camp, an’ them matutinal flapjacks an’ bacon have long ago been burnt up producin’ energy for luggin’ twelve-point Elk heads over the surroundin’ terrain. But I bluff the Dude that it’s logical for a Bear to travel downhill for evenin’ vespers.

AT THAT, I’M RIGHT. We hadn’t gone five hundred yards when we seen a clump of willow bush wavin’ to an’ fro, with no wind to agitate it. Somepin’ in it, shure as hell is a man trap. Before I could spit, the bear showed part of him clear, and the Pilgrim cut loose. At the second shot Bruin come out of the bush, half rollin’ an’ half runnin’. Whammy—the Springfield sings out agen, an’ the Bear flopped an’ stayed put. We eased up, careful to see was he out, or just playin’ possum until we was in rushin’ distance.

It’s a small Grizzly, an’ not much of a trophy, as trophies go, altho’ I’ve seen smaller ones that left this part of God’s country addressed to the Taxidermist.

The Dude is feelin’ kinda six-for-a-nickel. He looks at the Bear kinda thoughtful, an’ says, “How wouldja like a new rug for the livin’ room floor?”

I see what he’s drivin’ at, so I says as nonchalant as hell, “My missus asked me to accumulate some kinda hide to cover the hole in the livin’ room rug, an’ this’ll just about fit. Tell you what. While I go to work on this schoolboy, you amble back to camp with the liver an’ tell ol’ Greasy that I’ll be ‘bout half an hour behind you, an’ that about a pound of liver cut thick, rolled in corn-meal, an’ fried not too much in deep fat, with a side order of fool-hen, a quart of java, an’ plenty boiled rice an’ raisins is what my system craves.”

I guess the Pilgrim was lookin’ for an excuse to fade from the scene of his infanticide, because he didn’t even argue.

It’s dusk by the time I am ready to hit for camp. I’d left the head in the hide, figurin’ to skin that out in camp. I shoved the works into my rucksack an’ began movin’. When I got to the foot of the slide, it was dark.

DID YOU EVER have that spooky feelin’ that somebody or something is doggin’ you? Most generally, I’ve got the nervous temperament of a mud turtle, but somehow that evenin’ I don’t feel as placid as usual. Then I heard a faint snap behind me, like somethin’ broke a small twig. I turned, quick, an’ man of man, I felt my heart jar my bridgework.

Not twenty feet behind me was a real Grizzly. It was nine feet high an’ twenty-four feet long, an’ three ax handles an’ a plug of eatin’ tobacco between the eyes. Anyhow, that’s how it looked first time. When I turned, it stopped an’ just set.

“An’ now what?” I thought. I ain’t got any rifle, an’ somehow I can’t see myself engagin’ hand to hand with a Grizzly b’ar.

Men an’ bretherin, I’m here to tell you that the hardest thing I ever did in forty-odd misspent years, was to turn my back on that Horribilis, an’ go down the trail, trying’ to kid myself that calmness an’ coolness was the ticket. I’m tryin’ to make that Bear believe that havin’ him tag me along was nothin’ onusual, an’ that blame thing done just that. Ever’ so often I’d take a quick look behind, an’ there it’d be, two jumps behind, an’ still comin’. I expect to feel his teeth in my off ear any minute. I wonder if it’s the mother of the precocious adolescent I’ve got on my back, an’ if so, just when she’d decide to work me over, or is it just another Bear that’s mebbe attracted by the phenominum of perfectly good Bear smell all mixed up with man-scent. It’s a academic question that I druther was more hypothetical right now. All I know is, the only Bears I’m goin’ to like from now on are those that are laid out, harmless an’ tee-totally defunct, an’ ready for the skinnin’ knife.

I wanted like hell to run, but what’s the use? The Bear can overtake me in three jumps, an’ anyhow it’s no sign of a gentleman to be in a hurry. I want to shout, but my mouth an’ throat is dry as the Mojave Desert. I’m shiverin’ an’ sweatin’ an’ cussin’ an’ wishin’ I knew more prayers.

When we finally got to where the crick we’d been followin’ run into the river, it’s a leetle lighter. The valley is more open, an’ the stars are out, an’ I think how peaceful an’ safe-life the crick looked when we forded it a few days back.

I take another quick look behind an’ see the Bear, still on my trail. I wish my daddy had trained me for the Ministry, but what’s the use? Then across the river I seen the flicker of our campfire, an’ heard the faint tinkle of the horse bells. I dunno why, but that seemed quite a help. I don’t waste any time lookin’ for a ford but hit the river just where I was figurin’ I’d just as leaf drown as be dessected. I was shirt pockets deep a couple of times, an’ this’n is a glacial river, but that evenin’ I didn’t know if it was freezin’ or boilin’.

About two hundred yards from camp, I managed to let out a sort of croak, an the Pilgrim an’ ol’ Greasy hollered back. I sat down then to stop my knees from shakin’ plumb out of their sockets, an’ to let my hackles smooth down, an’ generally catch up on my sang froid.

THAT NIGHT WE was loafin’ around the campfire. I’d had a couple quarts of coffee, as well as the liver an’ fixin’s.

Life is lookin’ some better than it did that mornin’. The blister ain’t as bad as a broken laig, an’ I figger a crack in a rifle stock ain’t goin’ to lose me no Trophies in future hunts.

Says the Pilgrim again: “Tex, I still say it’s worth about five hundred Gold Standard dollars, just to be alive an’ out in the hills.”

I shuts my eyes hard a minute, an’ right away I see that she-Grizzly on the trail behind me. When I open ’em again I says, real fervent-like, “Pilgrim, you tellin’ me?”

National Sportsman, September 1936, 16–17