Wildlife Wars: The Life and Times of a Fish and Game Warden

by Terry Grosz

  When I looked out across the dry rice field, a large collection of feeding and whirring-in-and-out waterfowl less than one hundred yards away was readily evident through my binoculars and night-vision scope. Watching thousands of swirling waterfowl feeding is not only a sight to see but music to the ears, especially to one who lives for the outdoors. Aside from the cold, watching the world of wildlife enact a drama that was eons old was truly food for the soul, but tonight it carried a dangerous twist. Lost in watching the feeding waterfowl, I did not see danger approaching until it was almost too late.

  Laying my equipment down on my rice check, I took one more look to the front of my position before I began looking to the rear and sides for human intruders. What was that? There it was again! Directly before me, just yards away, was what appeared to be a large mound crawling toward the feeding and unaware ducks. Hardly daring to move against my rice-check cover, I slowly raised my binoculars and focused them on the lump only to discover that it was three human beings with shotguns crawling slowly toward the mass of ducks, using a rice check as cover. Instantly I knew what was about to happen. Those three lads, if their sneak was successful, were going to intercept the carpet of feeding ducks and blow them up, shooting all together into the mass as the ducks fed up to their hiding place behind the rice check. The three chaps continued easing toward the ducks, but now they had spread out until they were about five yards apart; then they hid behind a rice check immediately in front of me. As the birds continued to feed toward the newly set trap, I waited. It was a hopeless feeling. The men really had to shoot in order to violate any laws. So I just sat there waiting for the carnage to come.

  The moments seemed like hours; then suddenly I heard a whistle from one of the chaps. This technique was common among commercial-market hunters. One minute the ducks would be happily feeding, making all the noise in the world, and the next they would hear a whistle and go instantly silent. Immediately, all the ducks would raise their heads to better locate the sound. When they did, the shooters would slam one shot of hot lead right into their raised faces, killing many with their first volley. Since the feeding waterfowl were densely packed together on the ground, actually touching each other, only the birds on the edges could leap into the air to flee. Each outside duck’s departure freed a space for the next duck, and the process was quickly repeated. While this fly-away process was being repeated on the outside of the feeding thousands, the ducks in the middle of the flock would start walking away from the danger, awaiting their turn to fly. In short, what you had going on in front of the guns was a “sheet” of ducks lifting up from the ground and flying away. As the living sheet lifted, the gunners would punch a twelve-foot hole in the portion before them with each new shot. If the market hunters had chosen to take the plugs (a mechanical device limiting a shotgun to only three shots) from their shotguns, thereby increasing their shell capacity from five to seven or more, depending on the make of the gun, the resultant carnage could be terrific. Many times when I had located a shoot, or drag, that had occurred the evening before I would pick up anywhere from three hundred to five hundred crippled ducks—after the shooters had picked up several hundred dead birds and left! You can see why the state and federal officers worked the commercial market hunters so hard in order to reduce this tremendous waste of the waterfowl resource.

  The ducks raised their heads in alarm at the sound of the whistle, and the three men shot into the thousands of raised heads and necks. Birds that had been happily feeding moments before now rose in terror in their attempt to escape the sure death and sheets of flame in front of them. The roar of fleeing waterfowl covered the echoes of the shots and drowned out the small sounds of the hundreds of ducks flopping on the ground in their dance of death. As this carpet of ducks rose from the rice field and fled to the safety of the air, the three gunmen finished shooting, dropped to the ground in an attempt to conceal themselves from the eyes of any game warden who happened to be in the area, and began to look around to see if anyone was coming to investigate what they had just done.

  I held my position as the sounds of the night returned to abject quiet. Except for the sound of a few ducks still calling or flying overhead to investigate the feeding area for merit, it was silent as a tomb. I had already selected the largest chap of the bunch because I thought he would be the slowest. I knew I couldn’t catch all three, but I sure planned on putting a hurt on the largest one, in the form of a flying tackle if I were given the opportunity. My shooters waited about twenty minutes until things quieted down and they were comfortable that no one was around to chase them. Then, as if on command, they rose to their knees and looked all around the now deserted and quiet rice field. After another long look around in the pale moonlight, they stood up, laid their shotguns down, headed over the rice check that had hidden them, and quickly started picking up the hundreds of dead and dying ducks.

  That was my cue. I slowly rose to my knees, checked my pistol and carbine, got into a half crouch, and began to slowly trot toward the largest of the three shooters. I hoped to get as close as I could before being seen, thereby saving my strength for the footrace across the rice field that was sure to follow. I hadn’t taken more than two or three steps when something that felt like a board or a giant hand hit me in the back and sprawled me face down in the rice field, where I flopped around on the ground like a beached salmon. My entire backside, from my legs to the back of my head, hurt like there was no tomorrow. I reached back to grab the areas hurting the most, and my hands came away slick. At that point, I knew I had been shot. I rolled over and saw the three men I had trotted out to catch running like hell across the rice field. Taking the 30 carbine, which fortunately had stayed in my hands during this episode, I fired all thirty rounds from the magazine knee high at the fleeing lads, thinking they were responsible for my injuries. My mind was racing, trying to put this picture together, when all of a sudden I thought, Damnit, Terry, you are bleeding from the back. Your shooter is behind you, not in front!

  I quickly did a combat roll to my left, forgetting the pain when my back hit the ground, acutely aware of the danger from behind, and in the same motion rejected my empty thirty-shot magazine and speed-loaded the fifteen-shot magazine that had been fastened to my rifle stock. As I faced the direction that had been behind me, it became apparent that the first thirty shots from the carbine had ruined my night vision. I stayed low and pushed my eyes to the limit, trying to adapt to the night once again, as I continued combat rolling to make it harder for any second volley coming my way to connect with my already bleeding carcass. In the interim, my night vision slowly returned. It seemed like hours, but soon I could see the land before me in detail. After studied examination of this field of fire, I was satisfied that the danger was gone. There was nothing behind me but a road and a ditch, and there sure as hell was no one there. I turned back in the direction I had last seen the three chaps running, but they were nowhere to be seen. I figured I had killed them with the thirty rounds from the carbine as they tried to escape.

  By now I was really hurting like a son of a bitch, not to mention getting stiffer than a poker. Using my carbine like a cane, I pushed myself up and started to shuffle back to my patrol vehicle and help. As I inched along, between being pissed off for getting ambushed and hurting I was very thankful that I was still alive. But boy, was I one mad son of a bitch! Being a poor game warden had probably saved more of my hide than I cared to admit. Not having a lot of money in those days, I had to wear a lot of cheap clothes in layers in lieu of using the light down clothing that was available for the well-to-do outdoor set. That night I had on long underwear (top and bottom), jeans, a heavy wool shirt, and a heavy canvas hunting jacket. Fortunately for me, where the shot hit it cut out chunks of the canvas cloth, formed balls of cloth, and, owing to the increased surface area of the projectiles, penetrated the skin only about three-eighths of an inch in most instances. Back at the truck, I slowly took off my clothes and removed the cloth-covered lead pellets with my
fingers as best I could. When I added up the lead extraction at the truck and later, 189 size 4 lead pellets were pulled from my magnificent carcass. Nine pellets remain to this day, and I carry them as a reminder of my mortality and that night long ago in the rice fields.

  I got into my patrol rig and headed to the Colusa County sheriff’s office to report the shooting of one rather large state officer.

  When I arrived, I crawled out of my truck and walked slowly toward the back door, only to meet Sheriff Alva E. Leverett, or, as we affectionately called him, “Pappy,” coming out.

  He took one look at me and said, “Tiny, what the hell happened to you?” Through clenched teeth I told him some bastard had shot me with a shotgun out at the Boggs place. Pappy grabbed me and spun me around back toward my car, then, changing his mind, shepherded me over to his own patrol vehicle. When he grabbed me, I goddamned near swung at him because I hurt so badly. As Pappy opened the door to his patrol car he said, “We can’t let word of this get out. If the commercial market hunters know you have been slowed down, they damn sure will take advantage of that fact, not to mention you. Now, get in.” What he said made sense through my pain-fogged mind, and I did what I was told.

  We proceeded to his house, whereupon Pappy stripped me down to nothing and had me stand there while he pulled the remaining balls of shot from the places I hadn’t been able to reach earlier at my pickup. Thank God his wife was not home to witness that event.

  Pappy told me, “Son, you were full of number 4 shot. Whoever took a shot at you really didn’t want you there and made his point, I would guess.”

  Then out came the iodine, and boy, did that hurt. I told Pappy, “Why the hell don’t you use whiskey or gunpowder like they do in the movies? It sure as hell couldn’t hurt any more!”

  He just laughed and said, “Just you wait until I get to your ass; you will regret those harsh remarks.” He wasn’t wrong either. When he was finished he took an old flannel sheet, tore it into six-inch strips, and commenced to wrap me up like a mummy. I looked like crap, but it sure stopped the leaking.

  By now I was starting to thaw out from the chill acquired while lying in the rice field earlier in the evening, and with each minute the pain was increasing. In addition, I got a good look at my backside in the hall mirror and discovered I was the ugliest combination of blue, purple, yellow, and brown I had ever seen. To top it all off, the pain was really starting in like there was no tomorrow. Four long, deep pulls from Pappy’s bottle of Wild Turkey whiskey started to take away the hurt, but now there was another problem.

  Pappy took another look at my backside “shotgun Picasso” and said, “You can’t let that little gal of yours see this, Tiny. If you do it will worry her sick.”

  That thought had also crossed my mind. Since the beginning of our married life I had always slept nude because nightclothes made the bed too warm for me to get a good night’s sleep. To go to bed now with some sort of covering like pajamas would alert Donna in a second. Pappy was right; I had a problem.

  Pappy continued, “How are you going to get around this one?”

  “Well,” I said, “she teaches school, so what I’ll do is just work all night, and when she goes off to teach I’ll go home and sleep. I’ll just continue this pattern for as long as it takes to heal up.”

  Pappy thought for a few minutes and then said, “That might work.” He continued, “We need to keep this incident to ourselves and see if we can smoke out who pulled the trigger.” Again, what Pappy said through my pain- and whiskey-filled brain seemed to make sense. I quickly agreed.

  “Also,” he added, “I’ll come out each day after Donna has gone to school and change your bandages. That way you won’t get an infection and won’t be leaking all over her bed sheets, which will give you away as well.” Damn, I thought, good old Pappy. Always thinking of the angles. Waiting for the whiskey to work its magic, I filled Pappy in on the whole episode. He listened intently and said, “I think I know who the shooter was, but I won’t say for fear I’m wrong, because you might kill him before I could slow you down.” He had that right, I thought.

  Seeing that the whiskey was finally kicking in, Pappy asked, “Are you up to some walking back out there in the rice field?”

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s go back to the field and see if you hit any of the bastards who shot the ducks. It’ll be daylight by the time we get there.” I noticed he wasn’t too worried about me. I think he knew it was nearly impossible to kill anyone my size, so being county sheriff and all, he was now worrying about those who cast the votes—or possibly it was those who had been in front of me and the 30 M-1 carbine and maybe now couldn’t vote. Anyway, we went back to the sheriff’s office, got into my truck, and ventured back to my recent field of battle.

  In the rice field, I took Pappy to the spot where I had hidden before the shooting. Then I showed him where I had risen to my feet and started to run after the largest of the shooters. I didn’t have to point out where I had hit the soft ground rather abruptly after being shot, and then a pile of 30 carbine shells marked the spot whence I had fired at the fleeing lads I suspected of killing for the commercial market.

  From there we walked to the spot where the market hunters had lain in wait for the ducks and traced their footprints from their place of hiding to where they had started to pick up the dead and dying ducks. We walked through the bodies of about five hundred ducks, following the footprints of the market hunters as they walked, then ran, then really began stretching it out before they hit the ground and started crawling like turtles as I commenced firing the carbine. The crawl marks led us to a dry irrigation ditch, where the lads, now able to stand, had run like the wind toward a white ranch house and away from the field of fire. Damn, for all that smoke and fire, I hadn’t hit a single chap. You can bet, though, that it was a long time before these chaps tried something like that again.

  Back we went to my original place of concealment, and then we backtracked in the direction from which the shots that had taken their toll on my back and legs had come. There was another dry ditch behind my position in the field where one could plainly see the tracks of a “drop-off,” or a person positioned to protect the backs of the market hunters. He had walked down the ditch and stationed himself behind his friends in the field, totally unaware of me in between him and his partners. Lying in the ditch were three freshly fired Winchester Mark 5 number 4 shot casings. I really had taken a hell of a load of 4’s.The tracks in the ditch also ran back toward the white ranch house. However, once they left the ditch we were unable to determine where they had come from or gone to. Pappy and I picked up the dead ducks and the three Winchester Model 12 shotguns dropped by the hunters when I had started shooting and left the field. Pappy took the guns and after one year sold them, using the money for Christmas gifts for the poor kids in the county. I picked up the ducks, 543 of them, had them picked and cleaned, and gave them to the old and poor of the county.

  I went home, took about three thousand aspirin, and tried to get some sleep. I commenced my little charade with my wife and kept it up for the next thirty or so days until I healed. Pappy worked his magic, and here I am today, none the worse for wear except a little ego that was blown away that night. Donna, sharp lady that she is, was a little suspicious at first, but my white lies, told with urgency, sold her on the work needed at night in the rice fields. As a result, I skated through her sharp, blue-eyed gaze, and she was none the wiser. It was kind of neat that I was able to keep this episode in my life from her for the next five years, so she wouldn’t worry. In fact, I kept this episode from just about everyone for many years.

  Sometime during January, just after the Christmas holidays, I met a fellow named John Griggs on a street corner in Colusa. He had a reputation for being a hothead and confirmed it again that day. As he approached me, he got a big grin on his face and said, “I understand you got your ass dusted last winter out at the Boggs place.”

  I said, “John, only three people
knew about that: the sheriff of the county, me, and the son of a bitch who pulled the trigger. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the bastard who pulled the trigger.” The shock in his eyes confirmed that I had the right man. I continued, “Now, I want you to listen, and listen very carefully. I am going to kill you. When you pulled the trigger, you jeopardized my family over a few ducks, and I’m going to kill you for that. You don’t ever shoot anyone over a few ducks, but I’m here to tell you that when you didn’t think and strayed over that line, you slipped a noose over your neck just as sure as there is a God. It’s OK to screw with me, that’s what I get paid for, but when you screwed with my family, and that’s what you did when you pulled the trigger, you stepped over the line.”

  All the color drained from his face and he squeaked, “You can’t threaten me like that! You can’t say you’re going to kill me! I’ll have your job for that; I will report you for this.”

  I said, “Go ahead. You have a long criminal record of fighting law enforcement officers every time you are stopped for vehicle violations or drinking while driving in this county. When I kill you, I will just tell the court you came at me with a weapon and I had to kill you. It’s that simple. If you want to run and tell someone I threatened you, go ahead. No one will believe you. It’s just your word against mine, and your reputation is pretty bad with law enforcement in this county compared to mine.”