chapter 66
AS DAWN CRACKED that Sunday morning, Moon Pie was leaning against a giant oak along the Tombigbee River in Monroe County, Mississippi. The property owner was a Columbus ER doctor who Moon Pie knew, through a paid source, was working that morning. Moon Pie intended to capitalize on the deer movement he knew would follow the storm front that had blown through that area the previous night. Everything in the woods was dark from the all-night soaking rain, allowing Moon Pie to walk silently on the wet leaves. He plumed his breath in front of him to check the wind and then pulled down a face mask and set off to walk a wooded ridge bordered by the river on one side and an oxbow lake on the other. This was prime ground, intensively managed, and nothing less than a 150 buck would excite him. I only have about two hours before I gotta leave to meet those Gulf Coast gooks to make the trade.
Moon Pie eased through the hardwoods, always careful to not walk on bare areas that could leave tracks. It was taking him fifteen minutes to stalk a hundred yards. He had seen several does and a couple of small bucks when a group of mallards flushed at the far end of the oxbow and flew right over him. He instinctively dropped, knowing that something had spooked them. He positioned himself behind a cypress knee and patiently waited.
Within a few minutes, he noticed a hunter wearing an orange cap moving on the far side of the oxbow. Moon Pie found him in his scope and tried to determine who it was. The hunter’s face was partially obscured by a neck gaiter. Moon Pie then tried to study him with binoculars, but they weren’t as clear as his scope. When the hunter moved deeper into a thicket, Moon Pie leaned back against a cypress tree. Since he had a moment, he decided to check his phone. He saw an hour-old text from his informant, a janitor at the hospital: “Dr just left ER swapped shifts said he was going hunting U o me $50 or some backstrap.”
Moon Pie swore to himself. He appreciated the heads-up but was pissed at himself for not checking his messages earlier. He was caught up in the beautiful morning and ideal conditions. Moon Pie spotted the hunter again and cranked up his scope to twenty power. He was pretty sure it was the doctor—the same guy who had almost caught him poaching last year.
The doctor couldn’t have been hunting. He was walking at a steady pace. It was as though he were looking for something or somebody. Moon Pie realized that he was being hunted, and he loved it. He cautiously glanced around and knew he was trapped. The doctor had rounded the edge of the oxbow and would be on top of him soon. If he stood, he’d be seen, and the doctor probably had a radio like last time. He envisioned that the doctor was trying to drive him like hunters sometimes push deer—trying to force him in the direction of a waiting game warden. They’ll never catch me.
The doctor—with a high-powered rifle slung over one shoulder—was only 125 yards away and was walking in Moon Pie’s general direction. He was coming down the center of the ridge, completely silhouetted, while Moon Pie was hidden on the edge where the undergrowth was thick. Moon Pie scrunched up, making himself as small as possible, and pushed back against a tree.
Moon Pie knew he could take the doctor in a fistfight. The guy was well over fifty and obviously out of shape. With his right thumb, Moon Pie silently slid off the safety, just in case. He hated rich doctors and businessmen who bought up the land he had freely hunted since he was a kid. They didn’t even know how to hunt. Most of them just sat in heated shooting houses on the edge of food plots or power lines and shot whatever walked out.
When the doctor was at thirty yards, Moon Pie made a fist with his camouflage-gloved hand. He was covered head to toe in camo and coiled like a cottonmouth ready to strike as the doctor approached. At ten yards, he watched the doctor’s eyes. He seemed to be looking everywhere but directly at Moon Pie. Moon Pie was low but positioned to leap to his feet. If the doctor stayed his course, he would walk within five feet of Moon Pie.
The doctor suddenly ducked under a large vine hanging at an odd slant. It was just enough to alter his course, which would now carry him close but not as close as before. Moon Pie held his breath. The doctor looked right through him as he walked within ten feet. Relief washed over Moon Pie as he watched the doctor walk down the ridge. Moon Pie knew he would not see any of his tracks, particularly when the doctor was looking off in the distance instead of paying attention to close details. Moon Pie mentally laughed at the doctor’s lack of woodsman’s skills.
When the doctor stepped off the ridge and into a depression about ninety yards away, Moon Pie began a silent escape pace that took him in the opposite direction. Within moments, Moon Pie was clear of the doctor’s sight and hurried back toward his truck, which he had parked in a public hunting area. He carefully picked his cover and was soon off the doctor’s place. At that point, he squatted down and pulled on an orange vest and cap. He then stepped out onto a gravel road and walked casually but briskly to his truck. He looked at his watch. He had been pinned down for almost forty-five minutes. It was nearly time to make the trade. Feeling completely bulletproof, he called Levi to tell him that he was on the way and that he had a story to share.
Moon Pie had driven less than half a mile when he saw the game warden’s dark-green pickup parked on the side of the road. It had been just as he suspected. His daddy had taught him well and emphasized one thing: never get caught on another man’s land. His daddy’s words rang in his ears: “You can hide or you can run, but don’t ever get caught.” He was taught to understand the woods and recognize nature’s alarms. Some were audible, but most times they were silent. But that was all before cell phones, handheld radios, surveillance cameras, high-dollar hunting clubs, and good deer-ground leasing for more than farming rights. It was much tougher being a successful poacher today, and so far Moon Pie had kept his promise to his dying daddy that he would never get caught.
His satellite radio beeped an alert that his favorite song was coming on the country-outlaw channel. He clicked over and listened to Charlie Daniels sing “Uneasy Rider,” telling a story about a fight in Jackson, Mississippi, on a Saturday night. Moon Pie knew every word and sang along.