And in classic Paul Harvey fashion...And now....the REST....of the story!
I hiked down the hill from the slaughter site. Judging from the amount of blood spray, disturbed ground, and body feathers strewn about, at least 20 gobblers had been hit with a clusterbomb, hehehe. The road where I had parked the Jeep was just a few hundred yards down below me, an easy walk. At the road, I knew I had a mile to walk back to the Jeep and I was not willing to carry that heavy bird, the vest full of water bottles, snax, spare shells, and all those calls....so I stashed vest, shotgun, and bird under a blowdown pine tree out of sight from the road and walked the mile back to the Jeep.
Now, all the way to the Jeep I was thinking about Ron's Cafe on West Main Street. I was arguing with myself whether to order the biscuits and gravy or the polish sausage, hashbrowns, and eggs plate. I was leaning towards the lighter biscuits and gravy when I got to the vehicle and realized that the keys were in my vest pocket. A mile back up the road.
With my head hanging I turned to walk back to the spot where I had hidden my booty to retrieve the keys. On the way, I threw out the lighter biscuits and gravy option, telling myself I had earned the heavier breakfast with it's extra fat, cholesterol, and salt! In my self congratulatory calorie induced haze of appetite and need for caffeine I managed to walk right past where I had left the bird and gear. As I turned back around to try finding my stuff, keys most of all, I realized that what I REALLY deserved was BOTH! Yes, dammit! I was gonna order the sausage, hashbrowns, and eggs platter with the biscuits and gravy on the side, for crying out loud!
By the time I had found the keys, I had gone through every single pocket of that Cabelas dee-luxe turkey vest at least twice. Do you know how dad-blasted pockets those vests have??? By then, the sausage had been thrown out the window for a steak, hashbrowns and a Denver dang-nab-it omelette with the biscuits and gravy on the side and a cup of coffee for EACH hand!
I will admit I was a bit weak kneed and wobbly by the time I got the key in the ignition and fired up ol' Blue Dog, the Jeep. I always claim I am gonna get in shape before turkey season, but somehow time flows backwards and I end up in shape AFTER season. Rinse and repeat for deer season for best results.
I rolled up the road to pick up my gear, caught my breath, and was feeling pretty proud of myself for a heck of a good hunt. All told, it was mere minutes from the first set of gobbles until I dropped the anvil on that B-52 roadrunner's scrawny head! Pert' near as good as sex and took about as long!
Pause the tape with me driving out on the Forest Service access gravel road. Now lemme take you back to the 4:00 a.m. drive coming out to hunt. Bear with me, this has a lot to do with what was about to happen. At about 4:00 a.m. when I hit the end of Schroeder Road and transferred wheels from paved county road to gravel Forest Service access trail, I did not spend a moment thinking about why the gate was open. I just rolled through in a demi-fog of sleep deprivation and insufficient blood sugar, having skipped a nutritious breakfast. Not even an inkling of a suspicion of an idea as to why the gate that has historically been locked on December 15th through March 15th since time immemorial has suddenly been laid open on May 2nd.
Ok, now roll tape with me driving up the gravel only to find a large steel gate with two large and pendulous (and somewhat suggestively) dangling padlocks barring my egress from the Black Hills National Forest Service land. I got out of the vehicle and walked up to the gate with my jaw hanging down and drawing flies like Jack Dawson on the Titanic drew his French girls!
I was gonna have to call the Forest Service offices south of town and ask them to send out someone to let me out of an area where I was not allowed to be, effectively turning myself in. The person they were likely to dispatch with the tiny little half ounce brass key was also likely to be carrying a very official looking pad of officious looking tickets with plenty of spaces to fill in my personal and pertinent information with his official shiny Federally issued inkpen. No amount of wriggling was gonna get this fish off the hook.
As I patted down my pockets, the exercise must have pushed a last little bit of blood into one of the back recesses of my brain where memory is stored and what little bit of caffeine left in the bloodstream tickled a neuron or three. I seemed to remember when shutting off the alarm programmed into the phone that there was a reminder from Verizon that my phone's security package was sadly out of date and that I should opt to download the updates, which would take about 45 minutes and they recommend that I have it connected to WiFi in order to do so efficiently and not interrupt my service too badly. I had hit the ok button and tossed the phone back onto the bed thinking to myself that I would have had spotty cellphone coverage anyway and if I left the damn thing home, I could better concentrate on the work at hand. Yup. My phone was at home. That whole episode with the keys was just a warm up to this screw up, son, well and truly.
Fortunately, South Dakota being South Dakota, I was no more than a mile down the road when someone I knew came driving down the road and stopped. They were kind enough to drop me at my house on their way in to work. Of course, that was about the time I realized that the keys were in the vehicle. Locked outa my house with a vehicle locked behind gates eight miles away, standing there knowing any breakfast option, now with a caramel roll for desert, was likely to be hours off in the future.
It only took me three tries to figure out what the four digit code on the garage door was, and I was into the garage and looking for the spare key somewhere on the work bench. Some of you have seen my workbench and you are likely keeled over on the floor gasping for breath like a beached carp laughing like deranged lunatics at the idea of me finding any-bloody-thing at all on that bench. But the laugh is on you, fools. It took me less than an hour. And in the process, I happened to come across a half full quart can of acetone, which really came in handy because the key happened to be sitting in a pool of Lok-Tite gel superglue on the bench, so there!
Just a metter of minutes to get the right staff on the phone at the Forest Service. Then I called a friend that works night shift to get him the hell out of bed on his morning off to drive me out to meet my lawbreaking fate. All told, the Forest Service guy was happier to see me than my dear nite shift working friend that wore his pajamas driving me out to get my vehicle, but that ain't saying much at all.
That's pretty much the rest of the story. I killed the bird by about 6:45 a.m., but I wasn't really home until noon. The fellow with the Forest Service knew me from Stick and String League archery from years ago and had been several raptor programs I had done. No ticket, just a stern warning and I had to show him on his official Forest Service topographical maps where the birds had been roosting. Small price to pay. He and I are planning on going out later this week with our bows to see if I can work my Primitive Archery friendship turkey call mojo for him. Mind you, we will be parking on Schroeder Road by 3:15 to make the three mile hike to the roost spot on time!
So, those are the two sides of my morning. Take the good with the bad. Mix with a little stoicism and a cup of black coffee, it all worked out in the end.
