The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
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AMONG WILD TURKEYS, BEE TREES AND DEER
By S. C. Turnbo
In continuing his hunting stories Mr. Calvin Clark says, "I remember
catching two turkey gobblers on Big Creek one day while they were fighting.
They were fagged so bad when I approached them that they paid no attention
to me. I caught one by the neck and the other by the wing. Their resistance
was feeble until after they had rested. Then I had to kill them to prevent
them from fluttering loose from me. I have heard of hunters killing two
deer at one shot when they did not see but one deer when they shot, but
on going up they would find two dead deer instead of one. I killed two fine
gobblers under the same circumstances once, in dry hollow that runs into
Little North Fork ¾ of a mile above Thornfield, Mo. I had called
up a gobbler and shot it dead. But on going to it I heard a fluttering close
by in the grass and looked and seen another gobbler in the agony of death.
I did not see or hear but the one turkey when I shot. Both birds were in
line with the bullet. Another peculiar thing about this was that the bullet
entered the breast of each turkey where the beard had growed out and cut
part of the hair from each beard. This little incident reminds me of another
strange thing, which a hunter occasionally meets with," said Mr. Clark.
"One day while I was hunting on the right hand prong of Big Creek I
saw a turkey sitting on top of a sharp rise of ground above me. At the moment
of pulling the trigger of my rifle to shoot it through the body it squatted
down to fly and it rose and flew just at the report of the gun. After flying
about 75 yards I seen it drop to the ground. When I went to it I found that
its head was shot off. To make it more plainer the turkey was just in the
act of flying when the bullet hit its head and I suppose that it had started
with such momentum that it kept its wings in operation that distance before
its life was entirely extinct. While I am talking about wild turkeys I seen
another singular circumstance one day on this same creek where I have hunted
so much. I and my father, Billy Clark, were together in the creek bottom
and seen a turkey sitting in the top of a dead cedar tree which stood on
the brink of a bluff. This bluff is about 150 feet high. We were at the
foot of the bluff when we noticed the turkey which was sitting nearly over
us. Father shot the turkey but had to point his gun nearly straight up when
he fired. At the report of the rifle the turkey rose straight up and kept
rising upward until it seemed no larger than a snow bird. Then it fell back
to the ground. Its body whirled over several times as it descended swiftly
down. It struck the ground about 100 yards from where we were standing.
The ball from the rifle had tore through its breast leaving only a small
fragment of the turkey’s heart." Mr. Clark in mentioning his father’s
bee hunting says that during the month of February and the early part of
March in 1845 the weather was remarkably warm for the time of year. There
were plenty of wild blooms and grass by the 10th of March. Bees worked nearly
all the time and his father found 16 bee trees during the month of February
In the vicinity of the mouth of Shoal Creek. The furtherest tree was not
over two miles from the mouth of the creek.
In speaking of the killing of deer Mr. Clark said that one day in 1851
while he was hunting on Shoal Creek about one mile above the mouth he heard
a splashing in a pool of water in the creek. After advancing up closer where
he obtained a better view he seen a very small bodied buck in the water
which carried an enormous pair of horns. There were nine points on one beam
and ten on the other. The horns appeared so large that they were out of
all proportion to the size of the deer’s body. "I shot the deer
and killed it. You have already obtained an account of the largest and fattest
buck my brother, Bill Clark, killed which was near the spring where Dugginsville,
Mo., now stands. The largest and fattest buck I ever killed was at the mouth
of a hollow that the early settlers called Devil’s Branch which puts
into the river just above the mouth of Coon Creek. I and Isaiah Wilkerson
were fire hunting one night and intended to run down as far as mouth of
Little North Fork, but when I shot this buck and had loaded it into the
canoe we considered the size so great that we gave up the hunt for the night
and floated down opposite home and dressed the deer which netted 150 lbs.
Its horns were large having nine points on one beam and eleven on the other.
The fat in places on its body was three inches thick. The venison was so
delicious to the taste that I took my father a mess of it and told him that
it was fat beef. He did not know the difference until after I had told him
better.
The most deer I ever killed from the same tree was four which all fell
near together. This was three miles west of the present site of Thornfield,
Mo. There were five deer in the bunch which were in range of my rifle and
I shot one and broke its back. The other four deer stood near the floundering
animal until I reloaded and repeated the shots until three more fell. When
the fourth deer fell the remaining one took fright and run a few yards and
stopped until I reloaded my gun but when I aimed the gun and pulled the
trigger the gun failed to discharge and away the deer went. But I had enough
on hand now to give me plenty of work for awhile. As I have told this story
I had just as well tell you the other one which I did not aim to tell you
for it might sound unreasonble, but it is true. One day while I was passing
the John Morris place at the forks of Big Creek in Taney Co., Mo., I noticed
a large flock of turkey just ahead of me crowded into a path. The trail
was straight at that part of it. The turkeys were going from me. I lowered
myself and with my old favorite muzzle loader I shot in among their necks
and heads and six of the turkey yielded up their lives to one ball. It was
the heaviest load of turkeys I ever carried home alone. Now for another
story and I will quit you for the present," said Mr. Clark, "Hunters
used to play tricks on each other to have a great long loud laugh about
it. In a few cases the ones who were beat would get mad and would not get
in a good humor for some time. One night in August and a few years before
the war, I and Isaiah Wilkerson agreed with the Nipps boys, John and Henry,
to fire hunt on alternate nights. That is me and Wilkerson would hunt one
night and the other party on the following night. By some means the Nipps
boys misunderstood us for it had been agreed between us that I and my companion
were to hunt the first night. We started from the mouth of Long Bottom Creek
opposite the Bull Bottom, but after we had drifted down a short distance
we found the other party ready to start too. We tried to prevail on them
to keep their word, but they said that we were the ones that failed to keep
the agreement. We discussed the matter some time without either side giving
way and me and Wilkerson went on and got some distance ahead of the Nipps
men before they started. As we were floating slowly along near the mouth
of Music Creek we saw a broad flat rock lying in shallow water. We had not
seen a deer since we had started, and to have a little fun out of the other
party I and Isaiah stopped here and after pulling the canoe on some rocks
so it would not drift away we hurriedly placed the rock on its edge and
propped it. The under surface was the color of a deer (red) and we left
this part of the stone facing the channel where the boys would pass. The
shape of the rock resembled the body of a deer in a dim light. We now hurried
on a short distance further and concealed ourselves and canoe behind a little
toehead and put out the torch light and waited for our friends to get in
view of the stone. After awhile their torch hove in sight and getting down
close to the rock they observed the outlines of it in the water which they
took for a deer at once and shot five times at it before discovering their
mistake. Mr and Wilkerson roared out with laughter now and the boys heard
us and they got fighting mad and declared war at once. I and Wilkerson were
not in a fighting humor and we told them it was not necessary to fight,
that we could get along without it and we finally patched up a treaty of
peace and me and Wilkerson got off without a fight, but the other side was
slow in getting in a better humor."
The fire hunting that Mr. Clark refers to was in White River over the line in Marion Co., Ark. The mouth of Shoal Creek is in the edge of Boone Co., Ark.
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