Halpin McCauley and the Power Wagon Challenge

The Cherokee Canyon Buck

Halpin McCauley

True West character and the Power Wagon Challenge

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

                The head of Cherokee Canyon and the Moonhull country south from there was once an enchanting country to hunt a deer. Hunting down there with Halpin McCauley was a treat for any kid. We’d crawl out on one of those big hillsides and have an excuse to eat our lunch.

            “Son, this is a 12 shot hillside,” Uncle Hap would suggest. 

             “Oh, I don’t know,” would be the reply. “It might beat that.”

            He’d contemplate what you said and then he’d tell you a story of a deer he killed in this very spot. You’d lay there fascinated by yet another grand deer hunt. 

            “Yea, he was a good deer,” he concluded, “but he sure wasn’t as good as that Cherokee Canyon buck we’ve seen.”

            I knew darn well what he meant about the Cherokee Canyon buck. I had seen him, too. My dad and I had seen him and got a second look at him when we hustled across a saddle to meet him coming back to us around the other side of a hill. He was, in fact, in Cherokee Canyon when we first saw him.

            The hunt and beyond

            The next day we were back and this time we came up from the old Turner place on foot. Jerry Carter and my brother were with us. We had rimmed out and crossed into the head of Cherokee when somebody started shooting from where we had just come. Looking back to the sounds several bucks were seen on the skyline. The mounted hunters continued to blast away. The deer were scattering from our view into the drainage now between us.

            Shortly, one of those deer came into view right in front of us. Initially, all you could see was the flash of horns, but the way he was coming you just knew he was a big deer. Could it be? 

            The deer was within a rocks throw from us when we got a shot. He was ours … a good deer, but the big deer, the real Cherokee buck, he was not.

Our day, though, was now before us. We had to get this deer out.

            The walk to Uncle Hap and Aunt Mary’s at the mouth of the Mangus was a long one. Before we got there we had concluded the easiest way to get the deer out was to take a horse back and pack him.

            Eating lunch with Uncle Hap, we had to tell him the whole story. He was interested in the deer, of course, but he was more interested in our insistence we had to take a horse to get the deer. 

             “Tell me again where that deer is,” was his inquiry. “I think we can get a truck right to him.”

            My dad assured him that there was no way, but now Hap was challenged. Outside sat his brand new 1967 Dodge Power Wagon. Hap was as proud of that truck as he was his International crawler and his Remington 721 .270. My dad’s insistence only redoubled Hap’s intent. 

             “Let’s go,” was his unilateral decision.

            The challenge

            We crossed the river and drove up Davis Canyon to the mouth of Cherokee. There was a two track up Cherokee from that point. We knew we could get a good way up the drainage, but the prospects of packing that deer a long way still seemed like the most likely outcome.

            When we reached a point where a two wheel drive pickup would be stalled, my dad told Hap, “Well, we’ll have to walk from here.”

            Hap didn’t even respond. He got out and locked the hubs and onward we crept. When a tree halted our progress, my dad again served notice we would be walking.

            “Son, bring that chainsaw,” Hap requested. Three pulls and the David Bradley came to life. 

            “Takes three men and a little boy to hold that thing doesn’t it?” Hap reflected in his business monotone. 

            Onward we crept. The next obstacle was a cut bank. This time it was my dad. 

            “Bring me that shovel,” he ordered.

 From that point, we were a team. Hap was beaming in that Hap McCauley way with his lips pursed. We were going to get there.

            Searching, seeking, attempting, cutting, engineering we made our way up the drainage. The Dodge crawled around and over and under and through. Hap was seriously intent now. His hat was now tipped down low and his eyes were reduced to slits. This was now a challenge in only the way he could address such a thing.

            The next stop seemed impossible, but Jerry Carter was now fully in the battle. “Hap, what size is your high lift jack?” he asked.

             “Exactly what I was thinking,” was the response. 

            This time, though, near tragedy was afoot. We had the truck suspended with two quarters on blocks and the near side slid off the jack. The left rear quarter panel was crushed against the rock. 

             “Jack ‘er up again,” was the order now from the field marshal. 

             When we got it up, Hap goosed it off the blocks and we landed on the bench forward of the back tires.

            About the time someone was trying to finish, “Gheez, Uncle Hap we’re sorry about your truck”… bang! He hit the quarter panel with a sledge hammer and drove it back out of the way to be free of the tire.

            “We can fix that,” was all he said. “Let’s go.”

            Respect

            From that point forward there was no turning back. There was no thought of anything short of full victory. We were a family. He was ours and we were his … And, we cherish his memory … and his humor …and his patience … and his curiosity more each passing year. 

            The last deer I got I went by to share the event with him. He was then frail and it was near the end. I told him I needed him to come out to the truck and share something with me. 

             “I’m getting pretty weak, son,” he told me with some embarrassment.

            “Guess that means I may have to help you, then,” was my response.

            As we approached the side of the pickup, he could smell what was there. “Where did you get him,” was his question before he could even see the deer.

             “Not so far I had to build a road to get to him,” I smiled at him. 

            We stood there and talked until he tired.  It was then I saw his response and his apparent pain. I reached to help him, and, with my hands on him, I hugged him. He couldn’t say anything more. He just stood there with tears in his eyes and looked at me.

             “I know, Uncle Hap . . . me, too.”

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico.  “Hap McCauley was one of the great characters of the modern West. A book of Hap stories could be written, and, if circumstances allow and God is willing, he will be back from time to time for a visit.”