"Get Grandpa Off The Thunder Mug": Chapter III

Bearly Heroes

Now that I am old and grouchy I sit by a south facing window in a warm house and wonder about eager hunters racing up and down our Cebolla road on the way to the great hunt or returning. There was a time, however, when we could hardly wait for the aspen leaves to drop and greet the first snowfall that made the outdoors look, feel and smell like the opening day of deer or elk season.

In autumn of 1941 my brother Scooter, Gavin Skinner and myself outfitted ourselves for a bang-up hunting trip. A wall tent was borrowed from our grandfather, a burro from Woodrow Weaver, a skillet, pans and old cast off quilts from our respective homes.

Food received the least of our attention. Salt and pepper, eggs and bacon we considered necessities, anything else a luxury. Soap, wash cloths and towels fell in the luxury category with hands dipped in a spring for personal cleanliness and cooking utensils scoured with mud and moss if cleaned at all.

We had chosen a small park at the head of Sawmill Gulch for our camp site planning hunts to the west and along draws from Deep Creek. E. D. Watson, Superintendent of Schools and our high school principal, gave us an extra day to prepare the trappings as we had invited him to join us in the expedition. We would pack in on Thursday before the Saturday opening of season with Mr. Watson joining us Friday evening. Scooter and I were less than enthusiastic about the use of the burro, but Gavin assured us he was docile and trained to pack. He was right on both counts. It stood quietly as we packed it and it was so docile it allowed us to push and pull it the entire route, up skid trails and through trees. Once at the site and unpacked we cut a sapling for the horizontal pole, threaded the tent on it between two trees with no thought of the slanting ground underneath. Next we pegged and tied the walls outward in a taut position, threw a ragged piece of canvas on the ground and covered it with the quilts in hap-hazard fashion to accommodate the four of us.

As Scooter and I split and stacked firewood Gavin led his burro to the water hole, or tried to lead him is a better description. This was the first breach of conduct by old Jack since the start of the trip. With ears laid back and loud braying he refused to take the path. It was then that Gavin saw fresh bear paw prints in the soft earth where grass had been worn away by many animals visiting the park for browse and water. What excitement! We studied the prints then followed them to a wallow where the big fellow had waltzed around before drinking. We bragged to each other how we would have him hanging on a pole beside our buck deer.

We found that bravery is directly associated with daylight. As we sat around our campfire that evening, eating the chili Gavin had heated in our lone skillet, we were less anxious to have any sort of encounter with the bear. By full darkness we were armed and every sound of the tethered burro brought us to our feet with rifles aimed at the noise. We put more wood on the fire and retired to the tent where, eventually, we drifted off to sleep.

The most unearthly sound we had ever heard brought us to sitting positions, more agonized braying raised the hair on the napes of our necks and we were now fully awake. By the sounds there was no doubt the burro and the bear were engaged in a fight to the death. As we felt around in the darkness for guns and knives we appraised the situation and voted two to one to declare the burro expendable. Scooter and I felt the burro would satisfy the bear's appetite until daylight when we would either riddle him or get the hell out of his territory. Skinner was more compassionate. He suggested we build up the fire for light, try to kill the bear and save Woody's burro. We declined. He slipped into his boots, pointed his rifle through the tent flap and made a half hearted attempt to follow it just as old Jack let out another terrified scream that reverberated for miles around. The three of us huddled at the rear of the tent.

We admired Skinner's courage as he pushed past the tent flap for the second time, threw a wadded up paper sack on glowing coals, and began adding chips of wood as the sack flared. Within minutes he had a roaring fire started, illuminating the camp and the grove of scattered aspen where the bear was tearing poor old Jack to pieces. We admired him even more when he ventured from our sight. Again came the agonized braying and we could see, by his shadow against the tent wall, that Gavin was crouched to jump back inside. "Please come help me," he pleaded, "I can see the burro and I think the bear's gone." We thought it over briefly. After a hurried discussion between us two solid facts emerged, Gavin had borrowed the burro, therefore the burro became his responsibility. We had borrowed the tent and our responsibility was solely the preservation of Granddad's tent. We tied the flaps securely. Gavin, too, had just become expendable.

The next sounds from the outer reaches were of pleading, swearing and Gavin's description of his hunting companions to old Jack as he loosened coils of rope that had hopelessly entangled the poor beast in fallen aspen. A daylight examination showed the bear had passed with much torn up turf where he reversed directions when Jack began braying.

We spent most of the next day soothing Gavin's hurt feelings as we awaited the arrival of Mr. Watson. We met our exhausted, staggering, superintendent near the head of the canyon where he gasped, "You told me it was only a two mile hike, but you neglected to tell me it was straight up." As we helped him to the tent we related the night's adventures, but Mr. Watson had only one thing in mind. He stood his rifle against a tent rope, dropped his pack and began unlacing his boots. As he crawled through the flap he partially turned and painfully whispered, "Mrs. Watson prepared a fryer and rolls for our evening meal, the sack is in my pack." With that message depleting the last of his energy he curled up on the covers and was asleep within seconds.

In fairness to ourselves I should mention that we waited well past meal time before pulling the fried chicken and light rolls from Mr. Watson's pack. He was snoring soundly when we ate the drumsticks, a breast and two rolls each. He was still snoring when Gavin and Scooter ate the wings and I gulped down the last roll.

Darkness was upon us. We eased into the tent, gently forced Mr. Watson's form to the upper portion of the bed where a spruce root would aggravate him through the night. Between groans, we could hear him chilling as his teeth chattered out a feeble, "Please, boys, a little more cover to the south."

The opening day of buck deer season, 1941. Still in darkness other than flickering light from the flames of our cooking fire, Gavin had just banged the skillet on a stump to loosen dried scraps of chili and was working on a slab of bacon. Scooter retrieved our eggs and bread from the food cache under spruce limbs and I had just returned with water for coffee. We heard stirring in the tent and a a rumpled figure appeared pushing his boots and socks ahead of him. I had never before seen such bags under a persons eyes. He struggled to see over them and blinked a couple of times as Skinner laid strips of bacon in a skillet still sporting remnants of our chili supper. Mr. Watson groaned and began pushing himself back into the tent.

The eggs were sizzling and Scooter was toasting bread on rusty curls of baling wire when Mr. Watson next appeared. "Don't fix a plate for me," he begged, "I believe I'll just have a piece of chicken and a roll." He searched for the pack, found it under our jackets and rustled around the interior with one hand. "Did you boys remove the chicken and put it in safe-keeping?" he asked, "Surely, there was enough for all of us? Please, tell me, you didn't eat all the rolls too, did you? I thought he was going to drop his head in his hands and cry.

The hunt went just as badly for our Superintendent of Schools. We were near a point where the trail branched when a beautiful spike elk came around a small knoll and stopped, facing us at less than 50 years. As one, Gavin, Scooter and I levered cartridges into the chambers of our rifles and dropped to shooting positions. The elk didn't move but Mr. Watson, who conformed to rules and regulations, shouted, "Boys, boys, that is not a buck deer, I will not let you shoot that animal." Lord almighty, here was 400 pounds of the best wild meat in the country and we had a puritan among us. It was evident that Mr. Watson has suffered no hardship during the depression years preceding our hunt.

Shortly after noon Mr. Watson began gathering up his belongings. "I don't like leaving you boys on such short notice, but I have examinations to prepare and I feel I should attend to school business tomorrow. We had strong feelings the examinations would cover a paragraph or two we hadn't read and theorems we weren't acquainted with so early in the school year.

Two quotations in this story never close: Mr. Watson's line beginning "Did you boys remove the chicken" and his last line beginning "I don't like leaving you boys on such short notice" both run to the end of their paragraphs with no closing quotation mark, and "50 years" (for "yards," in the elk encounter) is likewise kept as printed. "Woody's burro" is Woodrow Weaver's; his own key on this site is linked from John's page only by family knowledge, and he is not the same "Woody" named in "Aspen Short Cuts," Chapter I, above. Scooter is William Charles Jackson. E. D. Watson also appears in "Echoes from the Thundermug," in "Creede Ragamuffins Battled Valley Teams," and is thanked by name, as "Professor E. D. Watson," in this book's own Acknowledgements.

Bear Without Me, Ed

Generally speaking, I like bears. I have a stuffed Teddy Bear Inez left for my comfort when she was visiting relatives many years ago. It is a little threadbare, but still serves a useful purpose. The encounters with the gruff, growling type in the San Juan Mountains have helped my vascular system and colon clear themselves, but none made an effort to chase or attack me.

Well over thirty years ago Ed Wintz, manager of the 4UR Ranch near Creede, Colorado invited me down to slay an old bruin that had become a nuisance around the area. We were bowhunters then and placed a lot of faith in the powers of composite, recurved bows zipping arrows with razor head points at our quarry.

Ed guided me to the area where the bear had scared hell out of livestock and tourists. We took up stands about 50 years apart and waited. I was reasonably brave while the sun was still up but as daylight turned to dusk I began to wonder what had possessed me to accept his offer.

Pine squirrels chattered and scolded something that was disturbing them and birds winged left and right from the path of what I perceived to be the rolling gait of the bear. Ed nodded to me from his stand to suggest the visitor was near. I could see him quietly positioning his feet and arms for a clear shot to his right. It became apparent to me, right there and then, that I would be in a near direct line with the bear's flight if Ed stuck it. I began to lose faith fast in our composite, recurved bows.

When I heard the real signals, brush cracking and nasal whuffing, I knew for sure this wasn't the place I wanted to make my last stand. I broke a limb with my shoulder and cleared my throat, loudly. Ed put a finger to his lips as the sounds from the timber ceased. It was a momentary reprieve, within seconds the sounds of a heavy, moving animal returned and everything that could quiver on me quivered.

To hell with Ed Wintz, I decided. I faked a sneeze, stepped from my stand and hollered, "Guess he isn't coming tonight, Ed." There was a scrambling in the timber as Ed unstrung his bow and began cursing. It takes a lot to get that rancher riled up, but that evening he made it plain he didn't like my hunting style. The silence was like a brick wall between us as we returned to the lodge.

"50 years" for "yards" is printed as shown, as in "Bearly Heroes," above. Ed Wintz, manager of the 4UR Ranch, appears again in "Echoes from the Thundermug"; his key on this site is not yet linked from a people page of his own.

The Bear Who Came for Breakfast

A couple of years after our aborted bear hunt Ed Wintz got his trophy but not exactly the way he had planned. To appreciate Ed you have to know he is short with words. He never wastes time with long, drawn out conversations when a "yep" or a "nope" will cover the same territory. He walks ramrod straight and like he had blisters on both feet. Kind of what you would expect if a fellow got his Preparation H and Deep Heat mixed up in application in a dark bathroom

We received a call one morning, it was Ed, and he asked us if we could get away. He had killed a bear and thought we might want to see it. That was the whole conversation other than Inez telling him we would be right there. It was only 11 miles and he figured we could wait another 20 minutes for details.

We learned Ed had been awakened by the barking of his year old police dog "Duke." He made his way in the semi-darkness to the kitchen window of their home in Wagon Wheel Gap where he could see a large, dark form helping itself to Duke's Purina Pellets. Duke was protesting loudly and nipping at the bear's posterior.

Ed raced to the weapons cabinet, grabbed his recurve bow, a couple of arrows and pulled Bea Jean from bed as he whispered, "There's a bear outside." Bea Jean followed him to the kitchen and, still not fully awake, pulled herself to the picture window over the sink and asked, "Where is it, Ed, I can't see anything?" At that instant the bear reared up and placed a paw on the window. Bea Jean slid to the floor and backtracked.

Her bear hunter husband, in the meantime, had strung his bow and headed out the door to do battle just in time to meet old Ursus on his way in where the real vittles were stored. All that separated Ed and the bear was a flimsy screen door and it was giving way when he pulled the bow to dull draw and loosed a 30 inch arrow with razorhead point under the bear's jaw to lodge deep in it's chest. The bear retreated and lumbered to a cottonwood tree where it managed to climb several feet. Ed, in pajamas and moccasins, finished the unpleasant task with another well placed arrow.

After looking over the large male carcass and hearing the story I walked into the living room to satisfy my own curiosity about the gun cabinet. Sure enough, there were two rifles readily available with boxes of cartridges on a shelf nearby. I asked Ed how in the world he could choose a bow for the kill when two rifles were ready and waiting. He responded, "Well, the kids (Lisa and Kim) were still asleep and I didn't want to scare them with a gunshot." Having known Ed for so many years I could appreciate the explanation.

"...in a dark bathroom" ends its paragraph with no period in print, as shown. Ed and Bea Jean Wintz's children, Lisa and Kim, are named here; Kim Wintz has a key on this site, and "Lisa Wintz" is created new for this appearance, per the practice of this site's Name Index for named minors mentioned by family members only in passing.

My Bear or Urine

In a more recent period I knew a bear was in the locale where I was working. I had seen paw prints, stumps scattered helter-skelter where large, black ants had been tongued up, and fresh feces of a good sized boar. I wasn't worried. The bears I had seen in the past had been anxious to get away from me save for one old sow who swatted her cub on the rear and sent it loping in the opposite direction as she stood her ground and blew a warning to me. That had scared me for a moment, there was little distance between us and I thought she might have another cub near.

On this day I was surveying a control line uphill and topped a ridge near pine trees where a rocky ledge overlooked a canyon to the north. I dropped my pack and took a canteen from a side pouch. As I stood up to drink I met Mister Bear eyeball to eyeball. He was bedded between two fallen trees with his head resting on one pointing directly at me with a message: "First one that blinks is a coward." As broad as his forehead was I knew he was a very large bear. I blinked.

You can stare down a bear's snout just so long without your knees turing to jelly. Drawing on all the courage I could muster I shattered a limb near me with a rock hammer. Ursus stood up and glared. I rapped the snag again and prepared to run for a tree with low limbs. With that he blew mucus from his nose, whuffed loudly and ambled out of sight down the hill.

Tough? You're darned right I'm tough. It only took an hour for my left pants leg and sock to dry out.

"Turing" for "turning" is printed as shown.