One man’s wilderness (25 page)

There’s a ram stew simmering on the stove with everything in it but the kitchen sponge.

I hauled my last load of sand down from the point and started on the last sack of cement. I hope it will do the remaining twenty-eight inches of chimney. Can’t just run down to the corner store out here.

This evening I am just coming out on top of the roof, with about fourteen inches to go. I had to slow down my hot pace to cut flashings out of gas-can tin. By tomorrow evening I had better be done since the cement sack will be empty.

My collapsible form couldn’t have worked better. I’m glad I took the time to make it. With it sitting on top of the chimney for the next course, I wondered how the chimney would draw, so I put a piece of scrap tar paper into the firebox and touched it off. The smoke poured up the chimney in fine shape even though the spacers were in the form. When I am finished, I will experiment with the throat to see how much I can close it off and still not smoke up the cabin.

Peppery ram stew for supper. Just the way I like it and plenty of it.

September 19th
. Twenty degrees and clear.

Today I would go as far as I could. The cement would give out by evening. The chimney was taking more mortar than I figured and more time, too. Work was slowing down because of climbing up and down for special-shaped rocks.

About ten-thirty I heard a plane. It was Babe. He had a “brush rat” with him. They had been passing by and just dropped in to check on my progress. He didn’t have anything, but he mentioned I had a package. He spread his arms apart to show me how big it was. There was other mail, too. He would be in with it before freeze-up. Most of the lakes down country were already frozen over. Their inspection tour over, off they went, probably to pick up a caribou somewhere.

I have enough cement for one more course of stone. I would have finished, but a man must be polite when company calls.

I took my eggs out of the cooler box and brought them inside. The temperature read thirty-two degrees under the moss. Then I went out to the creek flat on a hunt for special stones for my chimney cap. The fall colors are gone now. Dark brown and grays have replaced the yellows.

Well, the pressure is off! The fireplace is built and what little there is yet to do can be done regardless of the weather. I will allow a few days for curing, and then build a warming fire in the first fireplace at Twin Lakes.

September 20th
. If I was going to stay the winter, I would need more meat. Today was the last day of the sheep season and I liked sheep meat better than caribou. The sight of four good rams in a bunch convinced me.

I put the butchering outfit, camera gear, and musket into the canoe and paddled across the calm lake in the shadow of Crag Mountain. The big rock face of the mountain would hide my approach from the sheep. I decided to leave the camera gear in the canoe. This was serious business today. Up through the spruce and into the high country that I loved, careful not to expose my movements to the sheep. They must know now what a stalking figure on two legs means. I stopped to examine a lone spruce deformed by the wind, a few tufts of branches left near its top. There were fresh tooth marks in the bark and long brown hair hanging from every sliver. The claw marks were higher than I could reach. This was the bears’ social register, and the one who had signed it recently was big.

I climbed to a rocky outcrop and eased my head just barely above the rim. There were the rams out of range, lying down and soaking up the sun on a ridge line. I watched until they rose, stretched, took long looks down the mountain, and then trailed off out of sight. I climbed fast. I didn’t want them to be out of range next time.

As I peered over the rim where they had been bedded, I saw them again. Closer now, but still out of range—my kind of range, at least. They were on another ridge and climbing slowly. In between was a rocky point and a little saddle. I left my packboard and jacket behind and climbed, keeping the rocks between the sheep and myself. I was breathing hard from the fast scramble and wondered whether I would be able to hit anything when I reached the rocks.

I peeked over the top of a granite boulder. About 200 yards away, the rams were moving behind a grassy knoll. They would appear on the other side of it.
The first legal-curl ram to step into the clear would be my target. I wriggled to some dry grass and waited there on my belly, the safety off the ought-six, my heart thumping against the earth.

Suddenly there he was, a big ram stepping out. A full curl at least. I held the tip of the front sight blade just below the top of his shoulder, took a deep breath, and as I slowly let it out, squeezed the trigger. The shot crashed loud in the high stillness.

I heard the
whunk
of the bullet hitting. The ram did a flip, and down he came sliding and rolling in the new snow. I could see a red spot growing larger on his front shoulder. Down past me he rolled and kept right on going. Maybe he would make it to the timber. I watched him until he stopped. Then I went back for my packboard and pulled on my jacket. My hands were trembling. Up above me three rams posed against the sky for a thrilling moment and dropped out of sight.

My sheep was stone dead. If the bullet hadn’t done the job, the fall had. He was a big one, with a little better than full curl and both tips intact. Plenty of meat and a beautiful snowy pelt. I had opened and closed the season in one day, with one shot.

I took him by one heavy horn and dragged him on down the mountain to a level place beneath some spruce trees. As I dressed the big ram out, the camp robbers came gliding in. They perched on the limbs, watching me with inquisitive tilts of their heads as I peeled off the hide. Some ravens croaked from the crags. They had seen the whole show and were talking it over.

At first glance I figured three loads. I took the neck, front quarters, and ribs the first trip. A record trip down to the beach, non-stop. Steady going is the way to do it. Each time you stop to rest, it is harder to go again. One careful step at a time and eventually you’re there.

Back up through the timber again to find the camp robbers picking away at the kill. The hind quarters didn’t seem too heavy. Maybe I could clean up what was left in one super-load. I had sawed off the skull cap, with horns attached. I put the head, feet, and some other scraps in the hide, which I rolled into a compact bundle. The heart, liver, tenderloin, and brains I put into a flour sack
and tucked it between the hindquarters roped on the board. I tied the horns atop the hide bundle. All that was left were the entrails and a few small scraps that the birds and other prowlers of the slopes could share.

It was a much slower trip down the mountain this time. I was glad to get down on the level and see the gleam of the canoe through the brush. It had been a rugged load, but I had saved myself a trip.

Paddling across the still lake, I felt like an Indian hunter returning to a hungry tribe. I glanced up at the high place where I had made the kill. It seemed clouds away.

I put the heart, liver, and brains to soak in a pan. I put the bloody flour sacks, the pelt, and the horns into the lake to soak. I hung the meat in the woodshed for the night, cleaned up all my gear, and put it away.

The pelt must have weighed 100 pounds when I dragged it from the water. Nearly all the blood had soaked out of the white hide, but after I fleshed it I put it back into the lake to finish the job.

Sheep liver and onions for supper. The liver fried two minutes to the side. Pink in the middle, full of flavor, and I ate enough of it. Maybe some of that old boy’s ability to romp the high places will rub off on me.

A satisfying day. The search for meat is over. I hate to see the big ram end like this, but I suppose he could have died a lot harder than he did.

September 21st
. I put my smoker into operation again. I kept it going all day, and while all the meat except the hindquarters cured in the smoke, I worked on the white hide and hung it on two poles to dry in the sun.

Not a pound of meat will be lost due to bullet damage. The bullet hit a whisker high behind the front shoulder. Shooting up at such a steep angle, I should have held a shade lower and would have caught the heart.

September 22nd
. Smoked the hindquarters today. Salted down the sheep pelt and cleaned up what was left of the skull. The smoked meat of yesterday hung in the woodshed with a plastic covering over it. I found the spruce squirrel tugging at
this plastic game bag. Away he bounced over the ground when I yelled at him, and such a fuss from his perch on a branch stub! Stamping his feet and pumping his tail and scolding as if he had more right to the meat than I did.

I hung all the sheep meat high off the ground and covered it with the poncho. I always thought this is the way I would like to do it. Butcher at the right time of the year, hang the meat in the open until it freezes, then just keep sawing off chunks as you need them until it is gone. That’s living in the wilderness first class.

September 23rd
. Clear, calm, and a frosty twenty degrees.