Sweet Revenge

Ben and Sam were savoring Friday afternoon drams of The Macallan in Ben’s library-conference room when the subject of back-hunters came up, and they recalled an incident. The curmudgeons agreed that the most dastardly of outdoorsmen were back-hunters, those unprincipled souls who, having hunted as a guest a host’s favorite covert, would alone or with others (but not the host) sneak back to hunt the honey hole.

In years past Ben and Sam had each first week of November trekked to West Virginia with their setters to hunt ruffed grouse and woodcock around Davis. One year they had invited one Fred Fried MD, an orthopedic surgeon new to Albany, to join them. They were soon to learn from the Mountaineer with whom they always boarded that Dr. Fried had later that year returned to Davis with a partner in his practice and hunted all the coverts Ben and Sam had taken Fried to. Not only that, he and his partner had shot over the limit and bragged about tree-shooting their final birds.

Ben and Sam had vowed revenge. Next year as November approached Doc Nixon hit upon a trap for Dr. Fried. They called their Davis host to set it. They were sure Dr. Fried would be calling him to arrange rooms for himself and a guest to return to the Mountaineer State to hunt grouse. He was delighted to conspire with the curmudgeons for revenge on Dr. Fried.

It seemed there was near Davis, adjoining railroad-owned land for which hunting permits could be purchased by the public from the Davis Volunteer Fire Department, a tract of prime grouse territory owned by a wealthy West Virginian plaintiff’s lawyer who guarded if jealously for his own hunting use. Ben mailed to their host a map hand-drawn by Ben showing the tract owned by the plaintiff’s lawyer and a dirt road over the railroad land to enter the posted tract from an obscure mountain top. The map had Ben’s name scribbled on it. Their host agreed to place the map in a dresser drawer in the room Dr. Fried would occupy on his upcoming trip.

Sure enough, Fried and his partner soon called the Mountaineer about renting rooms. They first inquired what days Ben and Sam had booked, and booked for themselves rooms for the week before. On their first day they drove to the mountain-top entrance to the plaintiff’s lawyer’s tract and hid their truck in a hemlock grove just off the tract.

Ben got the call from the plaintiff’s lawyer. He had been expecting it.

“Ben Reach, what the hell are you doing giving a map to my property to some damn Georgia surgeon?”

It seemed the tract had been covered in game-trail cameras set to transmit photos to a game warden’s cell phone. The game warden had been waiting for Dr. Fried and his partner when they returned to their truck. Each had one over the limit of grouse in his hunting vest. Dr. Fried also had Ben’s map in his pocket. Ben explained the trap he and Sam had set for Dr. Fried.

“What will they be fined?” Ben asked the plaintiff’s lawyer. (He had conferenced Sam into the call).

“Oh, they won’t be fined. But what do you think should be their contributions to the Davis Volunteer Fire Department?” the plaintiff’s lawyer asked.