Survivors
Posted on April 1, 2015 by bob in OffTheBeatenPath
The odd set of tracks in the damp earth alongside the road were unmistakable; four long, well-scaled toes on the left, none on the right. He smirked, recognizing them instantly, and muttered under his breath.
“Seems you survived another year Ol’ Peg,” he said.
He’d first come across the turkey and his tracks three springs prior in a well-worked chufa patch not far from the house. They’d intrigued him, so he hung a camera on a nearby tree. A week later, he retrieved the memory card, quickly scanned through videos of coon, deer, and coyote, but stopped cold on a clip of a long-bearded tom with a funny gait.
Opening day found him on a wood line bordering the chufa patch, daydreaming of Ol’ Peg, the nickname he’d given the unique gobbler. But three days’ persistence at the patch turned up no sign of Ol’ Peg, and he began to wonder whether the trophy bird had crossed another hunter’s gun barrel. For a month he checked the chufa patch periodically, working other areas of the property and finding plenty of birds but no Peg. The season of 2001 ended without a single sighting.
The next two seasons he missed, one in service to his country, the next in a VA facility struggling to hold his life together. Like many young men of draft age, he’d been caught in the fervor that swept the nation as tens of thousands of young patriots enlisted to take the war on terror to the terrorists’ front doors.
On an otherwise routine patrol one afternoon, his Humvee hit an IED, sending thousands of fragments of steel through the vehicle’s floor, killing three of the soldiers inside. He was the lucky one, the doctor had said, suffering only a knee-down amputation of his left leg, permanent nerve damage in the other and a deep gash across his cheek that stopped short of his right eye. Eight months into his rehab, titanium prosthetic on one side and a normal looking yet nearly unresponsive leg on the other, he’d survived but wondered how lucky he’d really been. As he struggled to learn to walk again he thought of Ol’ Peg with his jerky shuffle. His own movements were not all that different.
With an honorable discharge, a Purple Heart and the well wishes of the U.S. government, he limped home, a hero to all but himself. In the sandbox, he’d often thought of turkeys, of home and the creek that crossed the pasture just this side of the hill behind his folks’ place. He thought he might even do a little guiding when he returned home, show those rich out-of-staters around the woods, until life’s path became clear.
Given his new reality and limited mobility, hunting was the last thing on his mind. Just getting around was tough enough, let alone his need and desire to reenter society, and so he’d moved back in with his parents. When he’d returned stateside – even through rehab – he dreamt of home and kept thinking the worst was behind him. No more sand, no more patrols, no more death hanging over your head. Just get stronger, just get through it. Survive.
But being home wasn’t so easy. Nightmares, cold sweats, panic attacks; these were all common. With spring approaching, his mother asked if he’d thought about hunting a bit, that it might lift his spirits. After a few weeks of her encouragement, he acquiesced, more to stop the nagging than anything else.
He struck out before daybreak, the same worn vest and shotgun over his shoulder. He managed to hobble to the chufa patch by first light and stopped, out of breath and with sweat dripping down his face, to hit the owl call and see if he could roust a tom. Instantly, a thunderous reply not a hundred yards away broke the morning air.
He eased his back against a large pine and slid as quietly as he could down the trunk. With little feeling in his right leg and his half-leg tingling from all the walking, he popped in a mouth call, propped the gun on his good leg and settled in to wait.
A few minutes later he could see the gobbler and let out a soft purr with the call. The gobbler answered immediately and made straight for what he thought was a lonesome hen. As the bird approached, he could feel his right leg beginning to cramp and knew if he didn’t shift his weight the walk home would be misery. He twisted as stealthily as he could, but the gobbler caught the movement and hightailed it in the other direction.
He sighed, exasperated, and dropped his head. When he finally looked up some moments later, a large tom stood 30 yards away through some brush looking in the direction the other gobbler had fled. He carefully shifted his shotgun to the other knee and let out a cluck with the mouth call.
The tom spun around awkwardly, and he could see clearly the bird’s long, thick beard. His pulse quickened and his palms began to sweat. The bird began to step forward, but shuffled his feet instead, then did so again. His eyes widened as the tom shuffle-stepped several feet closer before turning broadside toward the wood line.
Barrel propped atop his metal prosthesis, he watched the peg leg gobbler, beard nearly dragging the ground, limp across the field scratching for chufas with his good foot. He lowered his gun and Ol’ Peg disappeared into the brush. They were survivors, and survivors learn to make do.
He reached up and traced the scar on his right cheek. Maybe it was time he grew a beard, too.
Niko Corley, a licensed charter boat captain, spends as much of his free time as possible on the water or in the woods. He can be contacted at niko.corley@gmail.com.
