Varmint County's gun-toting population has surprisingly never posed much of a threat to most of our citizenry. This is largely because two-legged wildlife is far outnumbered by the fourlegged wildlife that provides more than enough targets for trigger-happy teenagers and serious hunters alike.
The county has the advantage of rugged mountain terrain coupled with a sparse population. That is augmented by the fact that the moonshining activities of the Haig clan and the illegal horticultural activities of the Hockmeyer clan leave much of the county's wilderness more or less off-limits to the casual gun-toting sportsman.
Despite these limitations, the state has managed to establish two wildlife management areas within the county's borders. Mud Lake Wildlife Management Area includes a peninsula surrounded by two prongs of the lake, where a healthy population of deer and wild turkeys provide meat to many a Varmint County freezer.
The other management area includes the rugged highland valley between Flatiron Peak and McCracken's Neck, and it is here that the state decided to establish a population of elk, imported from the Canadian Rockies several years ago and allowed to live and reproduce, unmolested by hunters until this past winter.
Well, mostly unmolested. Wildlife officer Norvil Pinetar, a distant cousin of Ike Pinetar who runs the Mud Lake Marina, is the manager of Flatiron Peak Wildlife Management Area and admits that a few elk have been poached.
"We've had a few fatalities among the elk we've brought in, but for the most part they have been due to natural causes," Norvil told Ike one afternoon while checking fishing licenses down at the marina. "We've only had one or two cases of elk poaching so far."
"How on earth do you keep up with elk that die by natural causes and elk that are poached?" Ike asked.
"Keeping up with the ones that die is easy," Norvil replied. "We've got every one that we bring in outfitted with radio collars. If we find a young calf that is born here, we sedate it and put on a collar. When one of the signals stops moving for a number of days, we go out and look for the carcass."
"So you can always tell if an elk died from natural causes or was poached? Seems like that would be hard to do if buzzards, and the like, have picked the carcass clean before you find it."
"Not as difficult as you might think. If it's been shot, we can generally locate the slug with a metal detector. Also, scavengers will leave the antlers intact. If they've been removed, you know it was a hunter who's responsible," Norvil explained.
"We've only been able to arrest one person so far for illegally killing an elk," Norvil added. "That was Pie-Eye Perkins who lives up in Do Help Me Hollow near the county line."
"How'd ya ketch him?" Blackie Aslinger, Ike's assistant "boat dock man," asked.
"Well, we was monitoring the collars one day, switching from one radio signal to another to see where the elk herds were spending their evening hours, when we noticed something mighty unusual about one old bull that we brought in from Canada with our first herd."
"Unusual?"
"Yeah. That bull was running northbound on the interstate at 75 miles an hour."
"That's a mighty fast elk," Ike chuckled.
"That's what we thought. We decided to follow that bull and see where he was heading in such a hurry. Seems he stopped at Pie-Eye's cabin up in Do Help Me Hollow and stayed there for a couple of days," Norvil continued.
"Well, I sent a team of game wardens up to Pie-Eye's place and they found that old elk butchered, packaged and frozen in a chest freezer on his back porch. The poor dumb slob had hung the radio collar on the rear view mirror of his pick-up, kinda like an ornament."
"What did that cost him?" Blackie asked.
"The judge went easy on him since it was his first wildlife offense. We seized his twelve rifles and shotguns, and he had to complete 60 days of community service, clearing trails in the management area. He was allowed to keep his truck since it was the only way he could take Granny Perkins down the mountain to the doctor."
"I'm surprised some of these teenagers around here haven't shot more of the elk," Ike observed. "Some of them shoot at anything that moves when they're out in the woods."
"Well, the one other time we were able to catch someone poaching an elk, it was that mean kid Hobie Pennywell, Little Hair's nephew, from right here in Lower Primroy."
"How did you catch him?" Ike asked.
"That was easy. Hobie, the two Sweeny boys and Tubby Potts were out camping one weekend over by Oscar Pickle's farm when Oscar caught 'em robbing his strawberry patch and ran 'em off. Hobie and the Sweeny kids decided to get even and slipped back that night to do a little cow-tipping."
(For those of our readers unfamiliar with the time-honored sport of cow-tipping, suffice it to say that cattle have a tendency at night to often fall asleep on their feet. A successful cow-tipper can slip up on a dozing bovine without waking it, give a good shove on its flanks and tip it over on the ground before the poor cow awakes.
At any rate, cow-tipping can have its dangerous side, as bulls tend to stay awake while the females doze, and take a dim view of anyone messing with their harem.)
"In this particular instance, Hobie Pennywell brought along a shotgun just in case they were assaulted by Oscar Pickle's ornery bull while tipping over the heifers," Norvil recalled.
The boys slipped up on their first victim and Eddy Joe Sweeny gave a good shove to the poor cow, which immediately tumbled over on its side, giving out a pitiful bellow.
"Haw! Did you see that? That dumb cow never knew what hit it!" Hobie chuckled.
Hobie was next. Several of the nearby cattle had been startled awake by the cries of their sister and moved away, but one dozing heifer remained in place and Hobie gave it a strong push. It plopped down, giving out a surprised moo, when Pickle's bull popped out of a nearby depression. Billy Bob Sweeny turned to run but slipped on something and went tumbling to the ground.
"Gawd, I'm covered with !#&^* cow manure," Billy Bob swore, "And it's fresh. Eeww!"
"You gonna be covered by more than that if'n ya don't get up and run," Hobie yelled, as the dark shape came closer to the boys. Concerned for his hapless friend and not at all concerned about Farmer Pickle's property, Hobie leveled his shotgun and fired, hoping to scare off the angry bull.
The bull lurched and fell over. The three teenagers took off running in the opposite direction, just to be met by a red-faced and wellarmed Oscar Pickle.
"I didn't mean to do it, Mr Pickle. We wuz just havin' some fun tipping cows when your bull attacked. I just meant to scare it off," Hobie pleaded.
"Well, you boys was trespassin' but you've got more problems than that, and not from me," Oscar said, an evil smirk spreading on his face. "My bull is in the barn with a hurt leg. You boys just shot a big female elk that's been comin' down from the mountain at night to graze with my cattle."
Needless to say, Hobie Pennywell's plea to Judge Hard Time Harwell that he thought he was shooting Oscar Perkins bull and not a wild elk received scant sympathy.
"I'm only going to fine your parents $50 for your illegal shooting of an elk, young man, since you didn't know it was an elk. However, I'm fining them another $500 for your attempted shooting of a bull belonging to Oscar Pickle, and $200 each for you and the Sweeny boys for trespassing with intent of mischief. That's because there is no penalty for ignorance."
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