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A FEW MEMORIES OF MY GOOD FRIEND, A. J. WHITE, WHO AIN'T
EVEN WENT UNDER YET by Travis Bennett
I first met Jim when he and Karen came to a WRML shoot
when we were still shooting up by the Airport west of
Riverton, I think in 1975. He introduced himself and
Karen to the club members that were there that day and
paid his membership in the club. He also mentioned that
he had a black powder shop in the basement of his house
in Shoshoni, along with a stuffed buffalo in the dining
room, and should we need any black powder supplies we
were welcome to come over any time. I had been building
for a little while, about three or four guns, and had
just finished my first Hawken rifle, built after about a
year of struggling with my lack of knowledge and
experience. It turned out fairly well anyway, thanks to
Pore Devil moving to Lander a little before I met A.J.
Pore had given me some pretty good advice and A.J.
complimented the results of my efforts and Pore's
suggestions.
Anyway, A.J. and I kinda clicked. He had been in black
powder for quite awhile and was more knowledgeable about
nearly everything that I was interested in than I was.
I visited his shop within a week of meeting him and
Karen and, naturally, was really impressed with the fact
that he had such a great inventory of fine plunder,
parts, guns, books, knowledge, and, of course verbal
abuse, which he loves to dish out, as we all know.
It wasn't long before we started hunting together and we
did so for about 10 or more years I guess, one thing or
another. We got antelope, deer, elk, fool hens, and 5
buffalo (1 of which was kinda white, actually cream
colored - A.J. has the hide). We have many great
memories on both sides of the campfire and I wouldn't
know where to start or have the time to write them all
down. But here's a couple of my favorites!
Jim and I hunted Buffalo over on Lannie Covalt's place
in the Sand Hills of western Nebraska. A.J. had
known Covalt for several years before I met him and it
was like a dream come true for me when I found this
out. Covalt's place was one of the ranches of
his family's ranching corporation and he kept about 50
or so head of buffalo on hand, mostly for the black
powder hunts of his friends. There were a lot of
stories in the old Buckskin Report about buffalo hunts
on Covalt's ranch but I never figured I'd get that close
to heaven without dying. I had always wanted to
flintlock a buff and about the fall of 1978, after
talking about it for a couple of weeks, A.J. got ahold
of Covalt and lined us out for a hunt. That was the
first of five years buffalo hunting with Jim White. We
went for five years straight and some of my finest
memories involve the experiences we shared in Covalt's
sod house on the Nebraska prarie, and the actual killing
of the legendary American bison.
About the 4th year, maybe the 5th, along about mid
January of 1982 or maybe '83, I saw Jim pull up his
little .58 caliber (28 gauge) Trade Gun, hold it on a 3
year old bull that was cutting in front of him at a dead
run about 60 yards away, and touch off a shot. It was
right out of a mountain man movie for sure! That little
buff's front legs went out from under him, his right
horn dug into the dirt like a sod buster's plow having a
runaway, dirt went flying about 6 feet in the air as the
buff nearly turned a summersault over himself and then
flopped back down with a thud, never to do more than
twitch a couple of times before dying. I looked over at
A.J. and saw him calmly fishing in his pouch to reload,
just like it was an everyday occurance to one-shot a
running buff on the Nebraska plains. He'd buried his
round ball right in that buff's spine at the base of the
neck, severed the spinal cord, and ended the poor
beast's existence for all time. I put a round ball from
my .62 J. Henry rifle into the beast's forehead to
insure that he was dead and out of his misery but it was
anticlimactic for sure. That has to be one of my, and
A.J.'s too I'm sure, greatest memories of our buffalo
hunts in Nebraska. There are a hundred stories that I
remember but this one shines.
The story of the White Buffalo hunt we'll save for
another time, but it's definitely one that should be
written for publication by someone much more proficient
than me. It had to with a second cowboy's invasion into
Wyoming, not Johnson Country that time, among other
things.
And I can never forget one of our elk hunts up on
Mexican Creek west of Lander. It was in mid November
one winter in the late '80s, the late cow season up by
Shoshone Lake, and A.J. and I had looked forward to our
hunt that year as much as we always did. We'd set up
camp on the west slope of Coney Pass, just at the edge
of the timber on a flat spot on the hill, to where we
could see any elk that might venture in to or out of the
timber below, which was just east of Shoshone Lake.
We'd set up my 12' X 16' wall tent with the door facing
east, it's back to the wind, and had our camp arranged
exactly like we had planned and the way we'd been doing
it for several years. Our bedrolls were rolled out on
the canvas floor of the tent along with all the
necessary grub boxes, shooting boxes, coolers, plunder
boxes, etc., etc., enough stuff to last the winter if
need be. We didn't go up there to suffer, that's for
sure. By mid-afternoon we were settled in, had a fire
going in the fire pit, the same one that we'd used for
several years, and were fixing supper and brewing coffee
while we contemplated the pleasures to come in the week
ahead. While eating supper we looked over towards the
west, where the vast Wind River range spread for miles
before us to where it enters the Wind River Indian
Reservation. It was, and is, quite a view, and worth
the trouble of getting there even if we weren't
hunting. But then we noticed that in the distance, over
the far western mountains, from south to north, and
rolling directly towards us, was an ominous, dark
and dangerous looking storm front, obviously carrying
some snow and cold weather to us before long. Almost
immediately the once comfortable temperatures started to
drop and the wind picked up. It was obvious, even to us
two fools, that we were in for some weather, and
probably not good weather at that. We quickly gathered
up what gear wasn't already in the tent and put it
either in my truck or in the tent, gathered up some fair
sized rocks and put them around the edge of the tent on
some tree branches to keep the sides of the tent tight
to the ground, tightened the guy lines again and went
inside to finish our pot of coffee and wait for the
storm. It wasn't long in coming, storms come fast in
the high country, and withing a half hour we were in the
middle of a full blown Wyoming blizzard. The wind
picked up to about 25 or 30 miles an hour and the snow
was blowing sideways so hard you could barely see the
pick-up parked 30 feet away. By dark, an hour or so
later, the wind had let up some but the snow was falling
harder and we knew we'd have tracking weather by
morning, by God! A.J. and I finished our coffee and
told stories for an hour or so and, due to the cold
penetrating the tent, we decided to turn in for the
night.
I was buried deep within the numerous blankets and
canvas of my cowboy bedroll with my buffalo robe over
the whole shebang, and with a hot rock from the fire pit
wrapped in canvas down by my feet, but it still took
some time to warm enough for sleep to come. A.J. and I
visited awhile in the dark and eventually drifted off to
sleep with visions of easy shots at dry cows and dreams
of perfect hunts and such deep in our thoughts. During
the night I woke several times. The wind had died down
but I could hear the heavy, wet snowflakes falling on
the roof of the tent even as the lighter wind kept
rippling it enough to keep it from building up.
Daylight came the next morning but later than expected,
because of the snow that had built up on the roof of the
tent, and it was also getting higher and higher up the
sidewalls, thus blocking off much of the light that
penetrated the still falling snow. But it was morning,
we were in elk camp, and it was time to get up and By
God go hunting! Good idea! But, untying the top of the
tent flap and looking out at the world beyond dampened
our desire to exit our abode any time soon. The storm
was still on top of us in all it's glory and it was
showing no signs of letting up at all, at least not any
time soon. No problem at all for a pair of hunters as
magnificiently prepared as A.J. and I were. We got the
little propane heater started, along with the Coleman
cook stove, and, thanks to the great insulating ability
of being nearly buried in a snow drift, we were soon
warm and comfortable in our home away from home and
eating like kings to boot. To make a long story a
little shorter, it snowed all day! We visited, dozed,
ate, drank gallons of coffee, read, sharpened knives,
cleaned guns, looked outside a hundred or more
times, sharpened spoons, made numerous calls of
nature to the surrounding trees, and otherwise passed
the long, boring day. By nightfall it was still
snowing. It was already two foot deep and getting
deeper. But what the heck, this was only the second day
of a nine day hunting trip and we had all sorts of time
ahead of us to enjoy hunting, etc., didn't we?
We turned in early again, not too long after dark
probably, about talked out and with everything cleaned
and sharped that we could find. The snow still fell.
Several times during the night I reached up and shook
the seam of the tent sidewall to knock the deepening
snow off the roof, which was beginning to sag under the
weight of the white stuff, and still it snowed. But,
buried deep in my bedroll with the warm rock at my feet,
I finally fell into a deep sleep sometime during the
early morning hours.
I awoke, jarred from my dreams by the deafening sound of
absolute silence. It was eerie. Nothing at all could
be heard except the gentle snoring of my partner across
the way, buried under his own pile of blankets, sleeping
bags, and such. And cold! Damn, it was as cold as I
ever woke to and
then some. I could feel the ice that had built up
around my mouth and nose where my face was out of the
covers. I was lying on my back looking straight up and
could see my breath, rising toward the top of the tent
when I exhaled, It was very, very cold!
"A.J.", I said, "you awake"? Of course I knew he wasn't
but I wanted to share the moment.
"A.J."! I repeated, a little louder.
The snoring quit, a grumbled "Huh"? emerged from the
pile of bedding.
"I think it quit snowing A.J., but it damned sure got
cold when it did, didn't it"?
"Yeah, I noticed"! he returned, with just a touch of
irritation, or maybe sarcasm, in his voice.
"Are we going to go hunting this morning"? I asked, "Or
are we going to stay in bed all day"?
No answer. Well old A.J. never was much of a morning
person, I always did know that.
"Well, I'm going hunting"! I said, raising my voice for
maximum effect, and with that I flung off the top three
or four blankets and the buffalo robe that was covering
me. The only thing that spoiled my grand exit from my
bed, and brought tears to my eyes at the same time, was
the fact that my beard had frozen to the buffalo robe
and, when I threw back the covers, my beard was, until
it pulled free, attached to the robe. And the cry of
pain that escaped my mouth as I set up and tried
to catch up with my fast moving buffalo robe brought
only loud, muffled laughter from the heaving mass of
bedding on the other side of the tent.
The rest of the hunt was memorable too, but this had to
be the part of it that makes me chuckle every time it
pops back into my head. Truly an unforgettable moment,
one of many, of my escapades with Mr. Alfred James
White.
Travis
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