This story, “The Extra Corpse,” appeared in the February 1954 issue of Outdoor Life.
This is a secret I can no longer keep; one that haunts me by day and makes me leap in nightmarish terror from my bed. I see all of us cornered by every game warden in Arkansas and shunned by decent turkey hunters everywhere. My only hope lies in telling all. Or nearly all.
I am weak enough to plead that I wasn’t the party of either the first or the second part, but I know the excuse won’t hold up. All of us were guilty: Jim Robertshaw, who got the extra turkey, and who, being a lawyer, is especially culpable; Ferd Moyse, who parachuted into Normandy the night before D-Day but says that White River mosquitoes are deadlier than SS troopers; Johnny Gibson, who is my partner and business manager of our Delta Democrat Times in Greenville, Miss., and who planned the fatal turkey hunt for a whole year; grizzled Conyers Sosbee, who guided us; and myself, who am herewith atoning for our sins. I guess Leonard Jones, our cook, was guilty too, though all he did that fateful April week was prove he wasn’t bragging when he said that offenders often came back voluntarily for meals at the Greenville city jail, where he worked and whence we borrowed him.
It all started innocently enough. The woods along the White River, which empties into the Arkansas side of the Mississippi about 70 miles north of Greenville, were full of the fattest, most co-operative turkeys in all history — or so everybody said. Especially Johnny Gibson, who said it all winter and who had been making elaborate preparations for a week of turkey hunting long before the Arkansas season opened on April 1. Even today we won’t tell our wives about the provisions that were called for in the six-day menu that Jim Robertshaw drew up: the roasts and steaks and hams and chops and fish, the fruit and fresh vegetables, the snacks and the case of snakebite remedy — all adding up to a far richer table than any of us enjoyed at home.
Johnny attended to just about everything else. He got it on the best authority that Montgomery towhead, an island not far above the mouth of the White, was the original turkey paradise. He drove up to Rosedale, that flower-and-tree-hidden little Mississippi town across the river from the mouth of the White, to find a proper turkey caller in the person of Conyers Sosbee, a highway-department worker by vocation but a hunter by preference and long habit. From Mr. Sosbee, whom the rest of us were not to see until the day the hunt began, Johnny learned about box calls and the relative merits of hand and mouth in fooling a tom turkey into cracking a chunk. And from the day he inveigled Mr. Sosbee into coming along, our newspaper office was a banshee’s haunt, with profit-and-loss statements hidden beneath strips of rubber, and with the squank-squank-squank of the box call drowning out the voices of the protesting staff. Johnny even rounded up Leonard, the cook, and talked Jimmy into drawing up the week’s menu. All Ferd and I did was save our strength for the big hunt.
And so, on the drizzling daybreak of April 2, our cabin cruiser, Mistuh Charley, headed up the Mississippi for Rosedale and Mr. Sosbee, 60 miles or so north. With what we had aboard in arms and foodstuffs we could have stormed Gibraltar and lived there a month without foraging.
We reached Rosedale’s landing a little after noon, and there was Mr. Sosbee, a lean, weathery man in his late 50’s, looking just as I thought a turkey hunter should. He carried a rucksack and was dressed in worn khakis, and under his left shoulder — surprisingly to anyone who doesn’t know Rosedale — nestled a shoulder holster.
Without ado he recommended that we first cross the river to Arkansas and bear a little north to where some of the boys had found some pretty good turkey hunting on opening day. With that, Johnny began making noises on his caller which so distracted Mr. Sosbee that he gave us no more instructions. Instead, in self-defense, he devoted himself to the impossible assignment of showing Johnny how.
When we reached the opposite bank it was late afternoon. We hadn’t figured on hunting that day anyhow, so when Mr. Sosbee suggested that we go ashore and look for turkey sign all of us went clambering up the bank and, sticking close to our guide, entered the woods. We took Mr. Sosbee’s word that what we saw in the dusk was real sign, including a dust bath, and we were back aboard by dark, for poker, rummy, and no end of boastful predictions as to who would get his turkey first.
But nobody got anything the next day except the thrill that is found in the river-valley woodland on a cool, sunshiny day, with the leaves damply green and the wind too much of it for good turkey spotting — rustling the unusually heavy foliage of a wet, early spring. I saw my first wild turkey that morning, but he was too far away, or rather I was too unwary to do anything about him. The gobbler was perched in a lightning-seared tree, and when he heard us he parachuted to earth. I first caught sight of him just as he hit the ground, and I could have sworn that the fat, black object was a hog. I didn’t shoot, nor did Mr. Sosbee or Ferd, who was closest to him, but it set us up mightily, and we knew that Turkey No. 1 was waiting out in those woods for somebody.
Maybe he was, but we didn’t get him. We scattered, after sighting the gobbler, and settled ourselves, according to Mr. Sosbee’s advice, in a way calculated to make the smartest tom think he had the woods all to himself, our backs against tree trunks or fallen logs, immobile, straining to outlisten, outwait, and outsee the big birds. All morning we heard turkeys stalking, and sometimes they seemed quite near, the hens yelping once in a great while and the toms, wings drumming, calling to them; and all around, too, the orchestration of the whippoorwill and mockingbird, and the patter of surprised deer. John and I, the first in at noon, decided that the original hunting grounds we had earlier chosen, an island a few miles up the White, was the proper place. Our unprofessional surmise was strengthened by the recommendation of two rivermen who pulled alongside in their 20-foot fishing skiff powered by an old auto engine. Friendly souls, they came aboard at our invitation for a drink and settled down to an hour of yarn spinning after their innards had 1 been warmed by two or three slugs. Turkey, said one of them, was all right, but he preferred cold coon and collards himself. They complained that most of the good hunting land was all clubbed up — they meant that private clubs had bought it-and while such usurpation didn’t bother them much, it was hard on the fainter of heart.
Our interest perked up when they said they had a cabin a good deal farther up the White than we were going; for, as even the tenderfoot on the lower Mississippi knows, the islands, swamp land, and backwoods along the White are home not only to honest fishermen and whisky makers and shanty boaters, but also to a shadowy collection of outlaws — hideaway folk who walked away from civilization or escaped just ahead of the sheriff, and who collectively could fill a city jail. White River outlaws rarely bother anyone except themselves and are seldom bothered, though sometimes a careless fugitive may forget his past arid pick a fight in a river town on a drunken Saturday night, and that can lead to trouble.
We plied our visitors with questions about these derelicts, and they seemed to enjoy telling us stories of their neighbors, though how true they were I don’t know. But I do believe the tale that one of them, low-voiced and a little thick-tongued, told about his companion, who had gone forward. Our tale teller jerked a thumb in his partner’s direction and said that he had once owned a prosperous business and considerable commercial property in a sizable Southern city. “Found another fellow dating his wife,” our confidant said. “He killed him and come clear, but he didn’t have the heart to stay around. Been here about 15 years.” His considered opinion was that won1en, one way or another, had caused most of the sudden withdrawals from society, but he volunteered nothing about himself. The two rivermen took friendly leave of us half an hour or so before Ferd, Jimmy, and Mr. Sosbee came aboard.
We got underway then, before 3 in the afternoon, for everybody agreed that we’d better head up the White. Before dark we had tied up, bow and stern, to a couple of willows against a heavily wooded island whose banks rose some 15 feet above the falling river. Mr. Sosbee laid the plan of battle. We would leave the boat by 3:30 in the morning and he’d place each of us in ambush. Jimmy could use a turkey call reasonably well, and Johnny thought he could, so Ferd and I elected to stay in the general neighborhood of Mr. Sosbee.
It was something less than a picnic next morning to work our way up that bank and through the dense woods, in darkness broken only by an occasional flashlight beam. But we all made it, though my 200-odd pounds were testing severally and together, much hard breathing warned the things of ·white River that we were on our way. It was worth it, I thought, when just before daybreak I lay hunched against a fallen log, with my presence hidden — so I thought — from the most observant turkey.
The predawn silence was uncanny. I couldn’t relax the slightest. Luckily I had smeared my face and hands with mosquito dope, or I’d have been eaten alive; for unlike the relative freedom from the pests which we had enjoyed on the Mississippi bank, with a steady downriver wind, we were plagued by millions of mosquitoes.
Mr. Sosbee’s calling that day should have summoned every turkey on the island; but again, though Ferd and I heard them in plenty, we saw none. We only hoped that the sounds of shooting we heard now and then meant that Jimmy and John were in luck. We switched stations several times, and saw much sign; and finally, after more than eight hours in the woods, Ferd and I decided in disgust to return to the boat. We had a good enough excuse at that, for we were both allergic to poison ivy, of which there was a bounteous crop around. and we wanted to follow up the poison-ivy shots we had already taken by scrubbing with lye soap. So we left Mr. Sosbee and somehow found the Mistuh Charley. We washed up and then settled down to gin rummy.
A little later Jimmy hailed us from shore, and we went on deck to greet him. He was carrying over his shoulder, with great nonchalance, a turkey — a tremendous tom. There is no greater envy than a hunter feels when another comes in with a kill that seems forever beyond the viewer’s hope, and we sure felt it that day. Jimmy’s damn modesty, his “Nothing to it,” added to our sense of personal wrong. It was a beautiful bird, all of 30 pounds.
As Leonard handled him, preparatory to drawing, he said, “Must of killed him mighty early, Mr. Jim,” and Jim gave him a quizzical look. But we thought nothing of it. Jimmy basked in our admiration until almost suppertime. Then, after Johnny and Mr. Sosbee had come aboard and likewise marveled, he confessed.
“Believe it or not,” he said, “I found that turkey. Stumbled right on it in a clearing about noon. It must have been dead two or three hours then. I shouted and shouted” — this was the only thing that was hard to believe — “but I couldn’t raise anybody. So here he is.”
All of us felt better. Here was proof that turkeys could be killed. And by Jim’s own admission, he was not a better hunter than we. We slapped him on the back, complimented him for his truthfulness, and loudly praised the turkey.
And then the horrible thought came to all of us.
Game wardens were thick as river fog all over the White River’s bird grounds. Somebody would have to take credit for that turkey by the time the warden came around, and the hunter who did wouldn’t be able to hunt any more. One turkey to one hunter was the limit.
Immediately the nonturkey finders declared that Jim would have to take credit for the kill. Jim’s legal mind got busy. The turkey shouldn’t count against a limit, he said, because none of us had killed it. But right then, as so often happens, the spirit of the law ran afoul of practicalities. What warden would believe such a story if he found an unclaimed turkey aboard and five hunters in the woods? Or if, as we were sure would inevitably happen, five hunters ended up with six turkeys? But now the turkey was on ice in the big fish box on the stern of Mistuh Charley.
It was then that Ferd Moyse, who is a spiritual blood brother to all White River outlaws, had his idea. “Hide it in the woods each day,” he said. “Bring it back at night. When we’ve got five more turkeys, let’s eat this one.”
That seemed eminently fair. Jim said that we could put the turkey in a gunny sack the next morning — soaking the bag awhile in the river first to cool it — and then tie it in a tree on the bank where no warden could see it. And so we did, in inky blackness, and set out with clear consciences to find five legitimate turkeys. But rain and a driving wind kept the turkeys out of sight that day, and all we got was a thorough wetting.
Crestfallen, we came in that afternoon to a friendly, waiting warden. He commiserated with us, said there’d been some turkeys killed on the far side of the island, and wished us luck. After he left, Jim hauled down the turkey and put it back in the ice chest, and we made plans for hunting the far side on what would be our last day. And so, next morning, we went through the established ritual: in the woods long before daybreak and hidden by ones and twos in the area which the warden had described. This would be the day.
And, in a way, it was. At the crack of dawn the shooting began. Johnny was somewhere to my left, and I think it was he who first blazed away at a very real turkey. Mr. Sosbee shot too, and that waked up Ferd, who had developed a technique of slumbering on the ground until (he said) a seventh sense told him turkeys were nigh. It told him too late this time, and, as he said afterward, when he shot at a turkey the turkey simply took aim and shot back. Maybe he was dreaming.
And then, out of a tree to my left, plummeted a tom. It flew in a split second across a cleared space, and I shot twice, yelling “I got him.” That was premature, because if I did hit that turkey the load made no impression. Violating all the rules of the chase — except for Jim, who didn’t turn up — we yelled to one another and finally joined up, each sure that the others had got their turkeys.
No one had. No one could understand why. Mr. Sosbee said then that we’d better scatter out by pairs, the four of us, and take new stands. By that time Ferd and I had earned somehow the reputation of being rather casual turkey hunters, so we were left together. When Johnny and Mr. Sosbee departed, we consulted. If we were turkeys, we finally concluded, we’d come right back to this very spot later in the morning. Besides, each of us had a comfortable bivouac, and the mosquitoes in the vicinity seemed fairly discouraged by the dope. So we elected to stay more or less where we were. Ferd went off to sleep and I began thinking the long thoughts of an unsuccessful turkey hunter.
I assume that Ferd was still asleep, a few hundred feet away, when I heard the sound, an hour or so later. “Don’t move your head, not even your eyes,” Mr. Sosbee had said: “Just wait for old tom to come into view.” So I sat, cramped and rigid, waiting for my victim. Perhaps a minute later it appeared, black and slow-moving, and almost hidden by low bushes. I waited until I was sure that it wasn’t Ferd, and then I fired. There came a mighty squealing and off into the thick stuff dashed a woods hog.
It was then that I thought fast. Even before Ferd came stumbling to his feet I had stretched out peacefully on the ground, my gun leaning an arm’s length a way against a tree. When he burst into view, scaring any chance turkey within five miles, and yelling, “Did you get it?”, I was stretching and looking around with the blank stare of the newly awakened.
“Sounded like some fool shooting a hog,” I said. “Might have been the same fellow that killed the turkey for Jim.” As a cautious afterthought I added, “Let’s get somewhere else. Isn’t safe around here with that kind of carelessness.” I had read of hogs who got awfully mad when they were so positively mistaken for a turkey.
From his grin and strut we knew he hadn’t stumbled over this one. And this time we were glad. At least we were bringing back two turkeys, and one of them legitimate.
Ferd was low in spirit anyway. He had mosquito welts wherever he didn’t have poison ivy. He was also too heavily dressed, and the weather had turned warm. Like me, he was almost willing to wait until next year to try again. We trudged away, found another likely looking place, and brooded until such time as we could decently return to the boat. There the only solace to be had was the discovery that Johnny and Mr. Sosbee were already aboard when we arrived, and as turkeyless and discomfited as we. Mr. Sosbee insisted that we cut off his shirttail for missing his turkey.
Then it was that Jim appeared, almost like a replay of the first time he came in with a turkey on his back. If anything, the turkey he carried now was bigger than the first, and from his grin and strut we knew he hadn’t stumbled over this one. And this time we were glad. At least we were bringing back two turkeys, and one of them legitimate. We hefted Jim’s newest victim, admired its beard and plumage, and listened to how he had called it in and in until it had practically spat in his eyes before he saw and shot it. Just as easy as that.
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And we came to an amicable solution of what to do with the dead bird up the tree. Mr. Sosbee didn’t want it and Jim didn’t need it, so the three that were left would play gin rummy for it. While we planned this compromise, Jim went ashore again to get the original, and even before we had played one hand we heard him yell. Everything he said won’t do to repeat, because he’s running for the legislature, but he came crashing through the bushes, and without the sack or the turkey.
“Goddlemighty,” he yelled. “It’s just about melted.” And Jim smelled of dead, ripe, and melted turkey for the rest of the day and night and all the way back to Greenville the next day. Serves him right, too. Any man who tries to beat the law that way deserves to have his companions blackmail him into putting on a turkey dinner with all the fixings that very Sunday night. But just wait until next April. We know the very place.
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