One man’s wilderness (22 page)

Camp Meat

August 27th
. A frosty morning.

I picked up two rams in the spotting scope. They were feeding on a grassy bench high above Glacier Creek, at the base of a rock slide. Suddenly five more rams appeared, big curved horns against the blue sky. It wasn’t long before I heard an outboard motor, and there droning toward Glacier Creek in a small boat were two hunters. Other eyes had been watching those rams, too.

This would bear watching. I could use some sheep meat, and if those boys made a kill up that high, they would surely leave most of the meat on the mountain. I watched them beach, shoulder their packboards, sling their rifles, and head up the stony creek bed. They were off on a search-and-destroy mission.

From time to time I checked the hunters through the big lens. They were making very slow progress. The big rams were dropping down lower, a string of white dots on the thread of a trail. I almost wished I could warn them.

I decided to pick a can of blueberries while waiting for the main event, so I packed the spotting scope and tripod up to the hump behind the cabin. Picking had been slow, and just as I discovered a patch loaded with large berries, I heard shots rolling down from the high places. Six shots, one echoing on the heels of the other. They must have been shooting at extreme range hoping for a hit. I saw five sheep trailing across the mountain. There had been seven.

I picked up the hunters on the rock slide. I saw one ram tumbling down the steep incline. The men started another on its way, over and over, legs flailing the air. When the rams stopped, the hunters worked down to where the white blobs lay and started them rolling again.

What a way to treat a set of horns and cape, not to mention the meat. Finally the bodies came to rest on a stretch of level ground. The boys decided this would be the butchering place and went at it. I concentrated on the berry patch. I knew where to find some sheep meat in the morning.

Back at the cabin in late afternoon I glanced into the spotting scope at intervals to see how the hunters were doing. They were coming down with heavy loads, stopping to rest often. They will remember that trip up and down the mountain for a long time.

About seven o’clock the outboard started up, and two very tired men were only the width of the lake away from calling it a day.

August 28th
. Clear and frosty at 4:30
A.M
. At 5:45 I embarked on Operation Sheep Meat. Flour sacks, meat saw, and packboard were loaded into the canoe. On the trip across, the sun didn’t strike me until I turned the canoe bottom up on the gravel beach.

At 6:40 I took off up the creek. I followed game trails and beat the brush toward the steep cottonwood-covered slope. The cottonwoods were nearly all of one size and as straight as telephone poles. High ferns, highbush cranberries, and fireweed, but none of it blooming now. The blue sky showed through the branches. A part of living has got to be climbing through a grove of cottonwoods when the leaves are shivering in gold.

The wind blew cold from the glacier, and patches of fog poured down as I neared the end of the climb.

I found the two rams lying about twenty yards apart. More meat had been taken than I figured, but neither of the carcasses had been opened. I dressed them both out and couldn’t find anything wrong with the meat. The cold mountain air had kept it chilled.

I made up a load of two front quarters, the tenderloins, the ribs, neck, and some pieces of sheepskin. I sawed off two of the feet, just to have, and tucked them into the load. Then I sat down with my back to it, worked my arms into the straps, and shrugged the heavy pack to my shoulders. I rose to my feet and, with my walking stick, picked my way toward home.

Whitecaps were on the lake when I reached the canoe. Why is it that the wind always blows up the lake when I must cross it going down? They were big swells, too. I remember my commercial fishing days. Before a blow, the big swells came.

I was halfway across the lake before the breeze picked up, and by the time I reached my beach the wind was blasting. Had I been another fifteen minutes later I would have been hunting for a hole.

I sorted the meat and hung it high from the branch of a tree. I fleshed out the two pieces of hide and soaked the blood from the white hair. Then I prepared the ribs for supper. They were flavorful, but I was sure of one thing: The big ram they came from had roamed the mountains for a long time.

August 29th
. Today I would smoke the sheep meat.

The other day I had passed the boss hunter’s camp. I saw six quarters of meat hanging uncovered from the meat pole. At forty feet the stench came to me. The wolves had done a better job. My meat would be properly cared for.

I set up a big tripod of poles over the smoke tunnel outlet, hung the entire batch of meat in the teepee, covered the structure with the heavy plastic, and touched off a fire at the other end. I heaped the fire with dead cottonwood and peeled alder. Soon the smoke was pouring from the tunnel outlet, and the meat inside the plastic tent was lost in the vapor.

Dug three hills of spuds today. Not record breakers for size but they had real smooth skins.

I must add an accessory to the john. That rascal of a spruce squirrel just went berserk with a small roll of toilet paper. He packed it off with him and bannered it up and down and over the boughs. What a mess! We will have no
more of that. The toilet paper is now stuck on the spruce peg as usual, but it is capped with a coffee can. Let’s see if the little scamp can figure that one out.

While transferring my meat from the smoker back to the meat tree, I noticed an occasional sockeye salmon break water. A pretty sight, those bright red fish arcing in the sun against the green water. Lots of mileage on them since they entered the fresh water. They struggled against the currents of the Mulchatna and the Chilikadrotna and finally into the Twins.

I covered the meat with a poncho and stored the ladder. Now the meat should be able to take it if there is a rise in temperature.

September 6th
. For some time now I had my plans for the fireplace drawn up, and they looked satisfactory. Yesterday Babe came in with the big Stinson and brought, among other things, six sacks of cement, a garden hoe, and an empty fifty-gallon drum, but no lime. Without it the mortar might not stick well to the stone. That bothered me but I will go ahead with construction anyway. I hope there will be enough cement.

A familiar sound rained down from the sky this morning as I was picking blueberries up on the benches. I looked up and there they were, beating their way up country against the wind—about forty big gray, black-necked honkers.

This would be the morning to start the fireplace. I had been packing flat stones from the bed of Hope Creek for the past few days. These would be for the base. The sight of those geese made me even more anxious to get the project under way.