The Deer Stalker

by Zane Grey

  Again Eburne lapsed into moody silence. “Did I say army?” he asked bitterly. “Well, the army is the only organization in which you are permitted to commit murder legally. The last recommendation of the committee was that if by trapping and hunting the deer on Buckskin were not reduced by 50 per cent in a reasonable time, it might be necessary to have the government officially destroy a large part of the herd, ’utilizing the meat and hides to the best available economic advantage.’”

  Thad’s imitation of the voice of the government official who had made the suggestion brought a roar of laughter from Blakener. He rose from his chair, knocked his pipe against the stone fireplace, and said, “If we rangers don’t hit the hay we won’t be able to keep our eyes on the two-hundred-an’-fifty square miles of the preserve the way we oughta, an’ the Secretary of Agriculture ain’t goin’ to like that the least bit. I’m glad, Eburne, that you’ve got all this off your chest. Now you can sleep. It’s a mess, but what can two rangers do about it? I’m kinda glad that I missed out on that tour last month. I couldn’t ’ve kept my mouth shut the way you could. An’ as for that hearin’ over to the Rust Hotel, that woulda been just too much for me to take.

  “I know you’re goin’ to leave the service. I’ve told you to many’s the time. As for me, I’m too old to start anythin’ else. I’ll stick it out till I get my pension, an’ then live in Flag or some’eres. But you’re young enough to make your break now—for good. Then mebbe, too, this report will be filed an’ forgotten, an’ things’ll go along as they were. The deer will oblige by starvin’ to death.”

  It was the longest speech the old ranger had made in all his life. Thad knew that Blakener had shared his own feeling of futility and discouragement over the recital of the commission’s report. He wished that he could accept it all as philosophically as the older man.

  He took off his boots and rolled up in his blanket on the floor. “Well, partner,” he said, “tomorrow is another day!”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  MUCH to Eburne’s disappointment and somewhat to his surprise, after the investigating committee had gone, he was ordered back to V. T. Park to resume trapping deer.

  This prevented his hoped-for visit across the canyon, yet at the same time it somehow eased a strain that had steadily mounted since Patricia Clay had asked him to come to the El Tovar. Her invitation had been frank, direct, accompanied by a smile and a look which had haunted both waking and sleeping hours. But he feared that his imagination had run riot and garnered hopes farfetched and futile. This fear dominated him; nevertheless it did not kill the clear voice of his reasoning. Patricia knew how it was with him. She was not the woman to ask him to see her again unless there were hope for him.

  Thus longing and doubt, uncertainty and faith wore on his mind until he was no longer his serene self. Only one thing kept him at the experiment of deer-trapping; and it was that he felt convinced his methods and patience would be less cruel than those of anyone else.

  Blakener was absent again during part of the early fall, and upon his return he was full of information and rumor about the whole question of Buckskin Forest. Only one bit of news was encouraging to Eburne. McKay’s deer drive proposition had gained rather than lost ground after the investigation.

  Thad went on toiling at the deer trap, and he had just built one that he believed might prove more successful than any of the former ones when an early snow storm set in and drove all the deer on the east side of the mountain down into the lower cedar country, where buckbrush grew thickly.

  In one day the snow melted off thedesert andslopes, but it lingered on top of the plateau. Eburne abandoned the trapping of deer. He began to be discouraged with the work and felt that he would not be there another summer.

  Mail arrived, containing both bad and good news. He was ordered to proceed at once to the west side of the preserve and patrol part of a district that was to be opened to permit the killing of deer. Eburne read the letter twice and swore roundly, to Blakener’s mild amusement.

  “What’s fussin’ you?” he queried. “I got the same orders. I’ll have to go and dodge high-velocity steel-jacketed triple-expansion rifle bullets.”

  “Yes, but murdering these tame deer will hurt me. I’m irritable and perhaps morbid these days. It’s quite likely I’ll not be fair in my attitude toward these hunters who come in. Of course I’ll obey orders and keep my mouth shut. But that’s not being a good fellow.”

  “Thad, I’ve noticed that you’re not your old self,” replied Blakener, thoughtfully puffing his pipe. “You’re thin. You don’t eat and sleep as you used to. Reckon you need a change. Hang on till you’ve helped put McKay’s deal over. And meanwhile cheer up. Everythin’ always turns out for the best.”

  The good news that offset the bad came in shape of a letter from Nels Stackhouse. To decipher it was a task, to grasp its content was a joy. He had been guiding Miss Clay and Sue all over the cattle country. They had looked at every ranch and salable piece of land around Flagstaff. Nothing entirely desirable, especially as to area, had been found as yet. At the time Nels wrote, they were going down to Oak Creek and then to the Verdi, where he believed Miss Clay would find what she wanted. He ended with the information that they would be at McKay’s deer drive, if it was attempted, and if it was not, Eburne was to be invited to take a trip with them down into the Tonto Basin and southward, where the climate was mild in November.

  Thad spelled the letter out a second time, and the last paragraph three times.

  “Deer drive or no deer drive, it’s all day with me, as Sue used to say,” he muttered aloud. “I’ll go!”

  Eburne and Blakener with their pack-animals traveled across the plateau to the west side and somewhat north to the district described in the supervisor’s order.

  At Camp Ryan, where a number of forest service men had stopped on their way in, Thad learned that the deer situation had become exceedingly complex and involved.

  The state governor had opposed the killing of deer on the preserve and had come out strongly in favor of McKay’s driving the deer across the canyon. It appeared that McKay had met representatives of the state and forest service at Flagstaff, where plans for his big drive had been made.

  There were two herds of deer during the winter season on Buckskin, one on the east, and the other on the west side. As McKay had to drive the east side, owing to the favorable topography of the land, his plan, even if successful, would not afford any relief to the congested west side herd. The state game warden, realizing the predicament in which the forest service was placed, endeavored to get the governor to permit the killing of deer. But he was unalterably opposed to such a measure, and Eburne openly championed him for it.

  Thus an awkward and serious situation was precipitated. The forest service had endeavored to co-operate with the state and had secured the best possible advice on how to relieve the congestion of the herd. They determined to carry out this advice in the face of state opposition.

  “That means the state game officers will try to arrest the hunters who kill deer, and we forest service men have to try to keep them from doing it,” protested Eburne. He was not alone in this deduction.

  “Exactly,” replied one of the supervisors with a laugh. “And if you all get fired, which I suppose you will, you can qualify as first-class bootleggers.”

  But it was no joke to the rangers, especially Eburne, who had foreseen this situation from the beginning. He was disgusted to learn that automobile roads had been cut through to Jump Up, Bee Springs, and other points which up to now had been wild, isolated places. A crew of men were then at work clearing a road into Pine Hollow. Camps were to be made along these roads at places convenient to water, and here rangers were to be stationed to oversee the deer-hunting. They were to have native men there to rent horses, pack in dead deer, and otherwise look after the comfort of the visitors with guns.

  Each camp was to be limited to about thirty hunters—to lessen the danger of their shooting one another an
d stampeding the herd. Rifles were to be kept sealed except during the actual hunting. No shooting near waterholes or from automobiles would be permitted.

  It had been thought best, by those who controlled the issue, not to broadcast the news that Buckskin Forest had been opened to hunters. Eburne heard this plan openly called a deliberate favoring of the residents of Fredonia, Kanab, and other towns north. Flagstaff and Winslow were not to be let into the secret. The hunters were to be informed at a set date that they could kill three deer apiece at a charge of five dollars.

  Eburne and Blakener were sent to Jump Up, the farthest camp, where there was a cabin and good water, with droves of deer browsing around like sheep. Next day, a clear, cold November day with a frosty nip in the atmosphere, hunters began to arrive in cars. They were all hungry for venison and keen to start out on the hunt. A few of them were old native cattlemen and horsemen who had not had a piece of deer meat for years. Eburne rather got the point of view of these men.

  This crowd of about twenty-five men were like a bunch of wild boys eager to get in ahead of each other before the game was scared away. Eburne took a party of them out in the woods while Blakener guided others. Favorable locations were selected, but this was really not necessary, for there were deer everywhere.

  “Wait for big bucks or good-sized ones, and be careful not to cripple any,” were the instructions Eburne gave these hunters when he unsealed their rifles.

  But the hunters were hot to kill. They had guns in their hands, and few of them waited to pick out large, choice deer.

  Hardly had the guns been unsealed when Eburne, despite all he could do to prevent it, saw the first deer killed in his district, a two-year-old spike buck that stood fifty feet from the hunter and watched him very attentively while he loaded his rifle, leveled it, and shot. He missed! The deer did not seem frightened, but it turned away, looking back over its shoulder. A second shot struck it in the flank. With convulsive high leap, head and forefeet up, always a sign of mortal wound, the deer plunged away, soon to fall.

  Whooping, the hunter ran to his fallen quarry. Eburne followed. The deer flopped and skittered around, eyes distended, mouth dripping blood—a terrible sight for any man equipped with intelligence or feelings. It was dying when Eburne reached its side, and the hunter was kneeling to cut its throat. Eburne saw that the bullet had struck in the back, to range forward and tear out the whole front of the breast. Heart and lungs had been torn to shreds.

  “What—caliber shell—did you use?” queried Eburne, trying to speak naturally.

  “Hundred and eighty grain soft-nose thirty government. Some bullet, I’ll say. Look at that hole!” replied the hunter.

  Eburne looked, and realized that he was unreasonable and perhaps absurd in his reaction, but for a moment he had a savage impulse to make just such a hole in this hunter.

  He saw another deer shot out of that same tame troop before they loped off. It was a doe. The hunter overshot the buck at which he was aiming and struck the doe. It dashed off into the woods, followed by its fawn. Eburne trailed it by tracks and spots of blood, eventually finding it dying, with the little fawn standing by bewildered. As Eburne approached, the fawn ran off.

  It was a grim business that Eburne had to see through, and after the first day he went at it with less personal distress and decided that since it was a job to be done, he must learn all he could from the experience.

  Eburne’s camp was crowded with its quota of men every day. Hunters would kill their limit in a few hours, sometimes in less time, often, where there was good marksmanship, in a matter of a few moments, have their game packed to the camp, loaded into their cars, and drive away to let other hunters take their place.

  These cars, on the way out, were instructed to stick to roads most unlikely to be guarded by game wardens. Hunters from Utah— and most of them were from that state—were particularly liable to arrest. But many came from Fredonia, which, though mostly inhabited by Mormons, was in Arizona. Thus the state deputy wardens were embarrassed by the duty of arresting residents of their own state, and sometimes even neighbors.

  Eburne received word one morning that the local deputy sheriff and two game wardens were on the way to his camp to make arrests. His orders were urgent to forestall these officers by warning all his quota of hunters and to get them started out of the woods at night. He rode all day, finding the hunters and cautioning them to hang up their game until night, then pack it into their cars and escape. Some cars left in the daylight over an old unused road and got out unmolested.

  One party of hunters, not particularly worried about the muddle between state and federal authorities, left Eburne’s camp next morning with nine deer. That evening others arrived with the information that the party with the nine deer had been arrested. Eburne and Blakener had to bear the brunt of much criticism and disgust over the way the affair was managed.

  Another annoying circumstance for the rangers to put up with was the chagrin and complaints of hunters who hurriedly shot the first deer they saw and, after their limit, ran across much larger deer and finer heads.

  Blakener summed the situation up in one terse statement: “It’s a hectic mess!”

  Eburne had much hard riding to do. Not only was it required of him to keep track of all hunters, to oversee their hunting wherever possible, to warn them of the imminence of officers, but he had to find the places where carcasses had been left, and he had to track the crippled ones. This last was a particularly bitter job, but he would have done it of his own accord. Fortunately not a great many deer escaped in a crippled condition, which was owing, of course, to the fact that, as they were tame and stood to be shot, most of those hit were mortally wounded.

  All the hunters returned to the camp utterly amazed at the apparently innumerable deer. Old nimrods from Utah, who had hunted on Buckskin many years before, expressed astonishment and sorrow at the condition of the range and deer. This was more objective proof of the overproduction of deer and destruction of deer food.

  Does and fawns were found to be very thin, in poorer condition than those on the east side of the range. The biggest bucks had fairly good flesh, and a very few of these had fat over their kidneys. The heaviest deer weighed around two hundred pounds. The report of the old native hunters was that even the largest bucks killed were much smaller than those of years ago—a very significant fact to Eburne.

  Over four hundred deer, that Eburne knew of, had been taken out at the expiration of the open season for shooting. The forest service had expected four thousand to be killed. But the lack of publicity, in the first place, and then the rumors about the activity of the game wardens, kept the expected number of hunters from risking it. Eburne’s opinion was that what killing was done had not in the least benefited the deer herd, but he kept this out of his report.

  The forest service made a report that the killing of excess deer could be accomplished without great injury to the herd; that the value of the meat and the pleasure furnished the hunters amply justified the continuance of the hunting season.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE RUMORS Eburne heard about McKay’s now celebrated deer drive were not ones to inspire him with very much hope or satisfaction. Men claiming to be in close touch with the forest service officials declared that the matter had not at all been definitely settled.

  Eburne left his horses and pack outfit with Blakener, who was to meet him on or about December first at Kane, on the east side of the mountain. That was the date set for the deer drive. It was Eburne’s plan to catch a ride out through Kanab to the railroad, go to the El Tovar for a day, and then on to Flagstaff, where he would join McKay.

  At Kanab, where he stopped overnight, he was surprised that he did not get his discharge when he asked for a few days off duty, but was given the same patrol duty for McKay’s deer drive as he had just exercised among the hunters.

  The little town of Kanab appeared to be full of hunters with their deer trophies, strangers, forest service men, game wardens
, and cattlemen. Eburne mingled freely with them and was not afraid to ask questions. In fact, he went so far as to appear unduly curious about people’s opinions. But he found out that McKay’s drive was not popular over here. Five thousand dollars worth of venison had already been packed through Kanab.

  One rumor, overheard accidentally, could not be traced to any authentic source. This was from the lips of a stranger to Eburne, to the effect that if the forest service and state officials did give McKay the order to make the deer drive he would find it hard sledding.

  “Where’d you get that?” queried Eburne sharply of the rough-clad, hard-faced individual he had taken for a stockman. He was standing on a street corner in conversation with other men of like aspect.

  “Wal, ranger, I couldn’t tell you if I would,” replied the man, far from civilly. “The town’s full of gab.”

  “That’s a rather queer statement you made. I’ll report it,” said Eburne and passed on.

  This chance bit of gossip and the appearance of these men recalled to Eburne, Dyott and his gang. There were insidious underground forces at work. Eburne could not conscientiously lay it at the door of the Mormons. He tried to find out where Dyott had been during the deer shooting season, but if any of those he asked really knew, they kept it secret.

  There was planted then in Eburne’s mind a suspicion that McKay would have more to deal with than the raising of funds, securing of riders and Indians, and the physical obstacles to driving the deer. The ranger had an intuitive flash of the utter hopelessness of McKay’s cherished plan, but he refused to credit it and would not permit himself to be swayed by doubt and discouragement.

  Two hunters from Lund took Eburne in their car to the railroad, where he took passage for Williams, arriving there the next day at noon. He had an hour before the branch train left for the Canyon, during which he talked to natives about McKay’s deer drive. Here in Arizona everybody was keenly enthusiastic about it, and most of them approved of the governor’s stand against opening the preserve to hunting. The deer drive was the sole topic of conversation at the station and in the stores. Feeling appeared to run rather high against those factions opposed to distributing live deer in the parts of Arizona long barren of game. One old Arizonan put it succinctly: “Thet thar Grand Canyon deer presarve is in Arizonie. It’s not in Utah, an’ them fellars over thar across the canyon, livin’ in Utah an’ votin’ in Utah, oughtn’t have power to do as they danged please. We hear they’re most United States Government men, but thet’s a lot of bull. The cowmen over thar have a lot to do about this deal.”