Wildlife Wars: The Life and Times of a Fish and Game Warden

by Terry Grosz

  We approached man-mountain, and Joe called him away from what he was doing. Joe said, “I understand you ran into a little trouble the other night.” The giant sort of glowered at Joe and then told him exactly where he could go and where he could stuff it.

  Joe moved his five-foot-eight-inch, 155-pound body right up into the giant’s face and told him, “That’s the trouble with you; you want to screw me—you need to save that for the other sex.

  “But,” he continued, “let me tell you something. I pinched your grandfather, your dad, all your brothers, and half your cousins! I’m here to tell you that if I catch your blubber ass on my river with a spear again or clobbering one of my friends, it will be the last knowing thing you will ever do. Do you understand me?”

  Man-mountain was at least two feet taller than Joe, but he just hung his head and answered, “Yes, sir.”

  Joe said, “That’s good; now there will be no more problems on my river. Now, shake hands and the issue is done.” They shook hands, and the giant extended his hand to me as he had been ordered. All I wanted to do was break his head, but the look in Joe’s eyes told me a handshake was all that was in order, so I took his hand. After that there were no more words spoken as we turned and walked away.

  I just shook my head and said, “I don’t know how you do it, but you really do have a way with people.”

  Joe turned to me and responded, “Terry, don’t ever forget, no matter their size or station in life, they come with two legs same as you and me and crap down between their boots same as you and me. There ain’t no one who won’t listen to reason, providing you back it up with two ounces of rock salt or the like.” The way he looked at me told me that theory applied to thick-headed rookie game wardens of German descent as well.

  I never forgot those words, and although I never had to resort to two ounces of rock salt, he was right. People are only what they are—some bigger than others, some meaner than others, but underneath they are all the same, if you get my drift.

  Chapter Six

  Gut Feeling

  In the early fall of 1961 was a new state Fish and Game warden stationed in Eureka, California. As I went through the various steps, both academic and practical, of learning my new profession, I still found time to maintain old ties with college friends because I had only recently graduated. Donna, my wife, and I especially enjoyed the company of a fellow graduate student named Butch and his wife, Mary. Over the months, as this relationship developed into a strong friendship, we would get together on weekends, play cards, eat, and just have a merry old time that didn’t require a lot of money. In those days such things were a whole lot simpler than they seem today.

  One Friday evening Butch and Mary came over for dinner and an evening of cards. As usual, Donna had fixed an excellent meal, and the four of us were having the time of our lives playing cards and visiting. Then, along about midnight, I got an uneasy feeling. It’s hard to explain that feeling, but it was one that came from deep inside. I could sense something about to happen, but that sensation was barely on the edge of reality and I could just as often pass it by as pay attention to it. I know that sounds funny, but some people can predict things about to happen, and that is what the feeling was like—not strong but with enough presence to make me uncomfortable, mentally and physically, if I ignored the feeling. My mother had the ability to foresee or predict events, and maybe I had that same gift, I sometimes thought.

  However, up to that stage in my life I had not often experienced such things and was reluctant to say anything to anyone about the phenomenon. So I ignored this particular feeling and continued to have fun with my wife and guests. However, the feeling just kept getting stronger, becoming an almost physical presence, as the evening turned into early morning. Thoughts of putting on my uniform and going to the Snow Camp area above the town of Areata kept overriding any thoughts of having a good time with Butch and Mary and ruining my concentration in general. Every time I got into a complex part of the card game, these feelings would sail right in and destroy my focus. That happened several times. The idea was always the same: that I should be in the Snow Camp area working illegal deer hunters. The sense never varied in strength or theme throughout the earlier part of the evening, and as the clock ticked on it was becoming more urgent, or so it seemed. I continued to try to ignore the feeling, but it persisted, and I guess it finally showed because Butch asked, “What is the matter with you? You’re costing us the card game because you aren’t keeping your mind on what’s going on around you.”

  Looking at the group, I said, “I really feel like I should be up on the mountain. Something illegal is going on up there, and I should be there. I know it’s weird, but I have had this damn feeling most of the evening that I should be up at Snow Camp. It’s like a premonition, and the feeling is so strong it’s almost physical.” After letting those words slip out of my mouth, I felt like a fool.

  There was a kind of embarrassed silence from my wife, and after a moment Butch said, “Nah, you’re just dreaming.” Seeing the discomfort this premonition was causing Donna, I dropped the subject and continued to play cards for another ten or fifteen minutes. By then the urge to get up on the mountain in the Snow Camp area was really fierce. I somehow knew that something illegal was going on up there, and I was being “called” to be there. Silly or not, that was how I felt, and the feeling obviously was not going away.

  Finally I said, “That’s it, Butch, I’m going up on that mountain come hell or high water.”

  “Terry, this is hogwash,” Butch responded. “There is no scientific explanation for having a feeling that something wrong or illegal is going on miles from here. Damn, you just graduated with your master’s degree and should know better than to believe in premonitions.”

  “Well, I’m going. If you want to come, let’s go. The ladies can sit here and visit, and you and I can take a swing through the area and at least satisfy my curiosity. The Snow Camp area isn’t far from here, and it shouldn’t take long to run out the area.”

  Butch looked at me and answered, “I can’t believe a grown man, especially a Humboldt State-trained man, would believe in this kind of crap.”

  “I can’t help it; something is going on up there and I need to be there. Believe it or not, it’s bugging the hell out of me, and I have to go see for myself.”

  Butch, seeing the determination in my eyes, threw up his hands and cards in disgust and said, “All right, I’ll go with you, but we sure as hell are wasting our time.” Butch was a straightforward kind of guy, one who didn’t cotton to much that he considered extraneous to the business of life. In fact, because of his dogged, commonsense approach to life, his nickname at college was Pertinent Poop.

  I hurriedly crawled into my game-warden uniform and shoehorned my six-foot-four-inch, 320-pound frame into my Mercury Comet patrol car, and off we went. A short time later we arrived on the west side of the tremendous deer area known locally as Snow Camp. The whole area was surrounded by ranches and lumber operations and was covered with second-growth forests, remnant redwood forests, and high-mountain grassy prairies. Snow Camp had a reputation as a favorite site for local employees of the lumber industry, or “brush okies,” as they used to be called by members of the enforcement fraternity, to illegally hunt the Columbian blacktailed deer that foraged over the previously logged-over terrain.

  Turning onto a narrow dirt road that led up the mountain and into the Snow Camp area, I noticed a heavy smell of dust in the air through my open window, not the kind you smell just after a car has driven down a dusty road immediately in front of you but the kind that hangs in the air from a car long past. The feeling was now stronger than it had been before, and it was as if it were leading me to the center of the source of its energy. I know that notion sounds stupid, but I was being dragged into battle without any idea why. Stopping the car, I turned off my headlights, and Butch and I sat there in the dark for about ten minutes to let our eyes adjust to driving with just a small sneak light that w
as fastened to the underside of my front bumper. As soon as we could see with this type of illumination, off we went, up past an abandoned farm and around a curve that led us by one of several old abandoned apple orchards that were favorite haunts for the local deer population. The whole time Butch kept after me for being goofy to believe premonitions and the like. I sat there and took it, just as I was taking into account the intense feeling that something was about to happen, and happen fast.

  Coming slowly around the last curve by the top of one old orchard, I was surprised to meet another vehicle coming down the road without lights. We couldn’t have been more than forty feet apart when both of us reacted. The instant the driver of this vehicle, a pickup, saw me, on went his lights and he zoomed past my vehicle with a vengeance, missing us by no more than a few inches.

  “Holy crap,” yelled Butch as he quickly pulled his arm in from the open window to avoid being hit by the onrushing pickup.

  “Hang on,” I shouted, knowing a high-speed chase over mountain roads was the next thing in order. I was on a narrow part of the dirt road and couldn’t whip into a high-speed power turn, as I had been taught in the academy. So I raced up the road until I found a wide spot, spun a power turn, and came back the way we had come, with red light and siren waking up the night. The chase was on, but after about three miles of sliding around on the narrow, curving dirt mountain roads, the target of my affection pulled over and stopped, as did I.

  Quickly stepping out of my rig to avoid being killed where I sat in case of a gunfight, I became aware of the tremendous amount of dust in the air created by our two sliding vehicles. I waited a moment for the dust to clear so I could see everything that went on in the vehicle I had just stopped. Approaching the driver’s side of the pickup, I could see two very nervous individuals looking at each other as if a bear had just bitten them both in the hind end. I quickly scanned the bed of their pickup and immediately saw the reason for their longing expressions—two freshly killed does! Their nervousness was understandable, as the killing of female deer outside the hunting season was a major Fish and Game violation in California.

  Standing behind the driver’s door, I identified myself and asked him to step out of the pickup, walk around to the front of the truck, and place his hands on the hood. The driver did so without a pause. With him under control, I looked into the cab and ordered the passenger to leave the vehicle in a like manner and do what his partner was currently doing. The lad scrambled out of the truck and placed his hands on the hood. Neither said a thing, and it was pretty obvious that they were both scared to death. Reaching into the front seat, I picked a loaded .22 pump-action rifle up off the floor and pulled a still-warm spotlight from under the passenger’s seat. Walking around the front of the pickup and standing behind both chaps, I advised them that they were under arrest for the illegal possession of two does and that they were both going to the local “bastille” in Eureka. I emptied the rifle and laid it and the spotlight on the ground behind me, then gave the lads specific instructions on how to spread-eagle, which they did. I searched them and handcuffed them together for transport.

  With the urgency of the moment over, I realized I had forgotten my partner, Butch, or Pertinent Poop. Ushering my two prisoners back toward the patrol car, I could tell from Butch’s wide-eyed look that his recent experience of chasing a rapidly fleeing vehicle down a dirt road had left its mark. Looking into his eyes, I could that see he was reliving the whole episode from the “gut feeling” I had had earlier to the placement of wildlife criminals in the back seat of my patrol car for transport to jail. The grin on his face read thrill, pure and simple. I think I identified another look in his eyes as well, that expression of a hunter of humans. But on second thought, I dismissed that notion as a misreading. Without further ado I loaded one of my deer-killing chaps into the front seat of the patrol car and his partner behind him in the back seat. I had Butch sit in the rear seat behind me and told him that if the lads started anything he should keep them off me until I could get the car stopped and deal with the problem.

  “We ain’t going to cause you any problems, mister,” came a weak voice from one of my prisoners. I had to grin. They were right. I weighed in at probably fifty pounds more than my two prisoners combined. Without a word, Butch and I headed for Eureka, and then it hit me! The gut feeling I had had earlier was gone! There was nothing but a calm, almost a void. I chalked the gut feeling up to experience, one I would watch for and use in the future if given a chance. The poachers were transported without any problems to the county jail, where they were booked. The two deer were hung in the state evidence locker for later use in court and subsequent distribution to the needy, and the rifle, ammunition, and spotlight were secured in an evidence locker for later forfeiture. Butch and I happily headed back to the ladies. Arriving home, we had a tall tale with which to beguile our wives to make up for their ruined evening.

  It was too late to continue our card game, so Butch and Mary left, but not before we decided we would get together the following night and pick up where we had left off. The next night Butch and Mary showed up about seven p.m. and had dinner with us, and the card game commenced. Throughout the game, the previous night’s “hoorah” was the centerpiece of the conversation. Butch just couldn’t get over what had happened, from the gut feeling to the apprehension of the two lads with the deer. We had lots of laughs, and the men beat the hell out of the ladies in cards (as we always did).

  About eleven p.m., my bride decided it was time for refreshments and brought out her homemade tarts, which were not of this world and one of my very favorite treats. I helped her serve the coffee, and then, wham, I got that feeling in the pit of my stomach again! Just like that, ka-boom! Knowing what the odds were against its being true two nights in a row, I kept my thoughts to myself and passed my gut feeling off to a heavy but good dinner. The strategy didn’t work. I was getting a strong sense that I needed to be up on that same mountain again. In fact, the feeling was telling me to head for Snow Camp!

  I said to Butch, “I’m getting that feeling again, like I need to be back up on Snow Camp.”

  Butch looked long and hard at me, then said, “Let’s go!” I could again see that quick, almost gunfighter look I had observed in his eyes the night before. I thought, How can that be? Butch is a self-acclaimed dyed-in-the-wool biologist, not what I would call game warden material. The feeling waved over me again, and I quickly forgot those thoughts. This time there was no arguing—get in Butch’s way now, and you would be stepped on! Brother, what a change a couple of arrests can make in a chap. I got into my uniform, and out the door and into my patrol car we went. The women could not believe what they were seeing in their two grown men.

  Butch and I roared up through the back road toward the Snow Camp area and, for the second night in a row, turned off on the same dirt road. Stopping the car, I doused our headlights, and we sat there letting our eyes adjust to the velvet dark of a forested night. We rolled our windows down and let the night roll in, bringing its smells as well as its coolness. There it was, the smell of dust in the air. Someone had recently been on this seemingly deserted back-country road. I looked over at Butch and put a finger to my nose. He nodded, and the look in his eyes told me he also smelled the dust. Good, he might make a game warden yet, I mused as I slid the patrol car into gear and turned on my sneak light. We slowly and quietly proceeded up the mountain road past the abandoned farm, past the orchards, and on along the road for about another mile.

  Turning a corner by an old wheat field, I spotted a pickup truck parked in the middle of the road not thirty yards away, with its headlights on and both doors flung open. As we drew closer, I saw two lads run out of the brush along the side of the road by their pickup, jump into the truck, and turn off their lights, hoping they would not be observed. I figured they had heard the soft crunch of gravel under my tires as I slowly worked my way toward them. Well, the jig was up. On went my headlights and red light, and this time, as I moved up to th
eir vehicle, I blocked the road so there would be no escape. I quickly stepped out of my vehicle, sprinted through the headlight beams, and moved to the driver’s side of their truck.

  “State Fish and Game warden,” I thundered and at that moment noticed by the light of my flashlight that both men had a lot of fresh blood on their hands, pants, and shoes. I asked them to step out of their vehicle, quickly checked them for weapons, turned them around so they were facing me, and took a good look at them. These were two of the sickest-looking chaps I ever saw. Suspecting what had happened, I instructed both of them to hand me their driver’s licenses, which they did. Then I removed a .22-caliber bolt-action rifle from the front seat of their vehicle and a spotlight from the floor that was still plugged into the cigarette lighter. It was apparent that these lads were scared to death. Neither one was bigger than a pint of piss, and both were scarcely more than twenty-three years old.

  Towering over them, I thought I would try something that could perhaps be added to my budding pool of field law enforcement experience. “Lads,” I said, “I want you to go back out into that brush patch and bring me the deer. Remember, I am holding your driver’s licenses, and if you run I’ll have warrants for your arrest by morning.” The hard look I gave them was not lost on the two, and there was no argument as they headed out into the field under the watchful eye of my patrol-car spotlight. They soon brought out a freshly-killed deer. Dragging that doe to the side of my patrol car, they dropped it and then looked to me for more instructions. My gut feeling was still there, so, again looking them both in the eye, I told them to go back and get the other one. Now, keep in mind that Butch and I had not actually seen these men do anything. I would have found the deer myself by just backtracking the lads. However, it was more fun to let the killers hang themselves.