The Dream Buck
0ver the years I've had some really strange dreams. Some dreams I've had actually came true right before my eyes at some point. Others are mere premonitions in nature. Whatever the case, I always take warnings from them and, unless they are just too bizarre to actually happen, I expect at least part of them may come true. A dream I had in December of 2006 was just such a case.
It all started a few days after deer gun season ended in early December. While on patrol for illegal night hunters southwest of Idabel I saw what appeared to be eyes of a deer reflected in my headlights. The deer was behind a barbed wire fence not twenty yards from the road and just outside the drivers' side of my truck. It looked like a big buck so I decided to get a better look at a deer that had survived the gun season.
I shined my take-down light toward the deer and was surprised to see a huge buck moving rapidly along the fence. He looked at me as though I was in his way and as he turned to go away I saw why he was not leaving very quickly. He was chasing two doe around the field and as he chased them back by me I got a very good look at his unique antlers. I guessed him to be around 22" wide and could tell that his right G-2 was forked and the same G-2 on the other side was broken off. He was also missing a brow tine.
The next day I called a friend and his son who lived very near there and described the buck to them. I also called another friend, U.S. Forest Service Officer John Ball who also lived nearby and suggested they all try to bowhunt the buck. Little did I know I would soon get to lay my hands on this unique deer. A few days later on December 16, 1 received a call at home from Officer John Ball. The call came at approx. 7:00 a.m. and I had only been in bed for a couple of hours so I was a little groggy. John of course, asked me what I was doing and I told him I was sleeping what else? John told me that they were serving a search warrant at a particular individuals' house just a couple of miles from where I had seen the big buck a few nights before.
He gave me the name of the person and I recognized it as someone I had arrested for night hunting on at least two different occasions. My friend told me there were some possible game violations there including a very large buck that had been freshly killed. John told me they would be there for quite sometime as they had found a lot of drugs and other evidence that had to be catalogued. I told him I would get there as soon as I could and drifted off to sleep again. I was exhausted from a long night before and hadn't fully rested from several months of chasing poachers.
I slept for about thirty minutes and during that time I dreamed the suspect had killed the big buck I saw a few nights before. It caused me to wake suddenly. I bolted from my bed, put my uniform back on and left out, anxious to see what awaited me at the house. I had a brief thought about calling John and describing the deer to him to see if it was indeed the same buck but I knew they were busy gathering evidence from a drug lab. I already knew the answer before I ever got there.
When I pulled up to the house the first thing I saw was the big buck's head hanging on the wall of what looked like a kid's playhouse in the back yard. It was the same buck. He was 25" wide on the inside with a forked G-2 on the right and the left G-2 was broken off as well as one of the brow tines. It looked like a repair had been made to the right main beam and it appeared that it had been shot in half. John showed me where the carcass had been dumped in the creek. It had only been partially butchered and the condition of the remains led me to believe that it had been killed within the last 2-3 days. I also saw what appeared to be a bullet wound in one of the shoulders which had both been left to rot on the carcass.
The evidence at the scene suggested that it had been transported in the bed of a small truck parked nearby. In the truck lay a single shot .223 rifle and in the ash tray lay a meth pipe. John and I located other deer parts from past hunts as well as evidence of a career poacher; several spotlights, rifles, and fish shocking devices were located throughout the house. A photograph with the suspect and one of the other deer hanging in the tree outside with a date of November 17, 2005 on it was found nearby. This deer, along with the others had not been checked in as required. I checked with the headquarters and was advised that the most recent license purchase for the suspect was a hunting license and deer gun tag in 2004. No purchases before for quite some time and nothing after. I proceeded to the McCurtain County jail to interview the suspect.
After advising him of his rights I asked the suspect about the big buck. The first thing he told me was "I didn't kill it at night!" He admitted killing the deer but said it was toward the end of gun season. He was surprised when
I told him that wasn't possible since I had seen the buck chasing does after deer gun season had ended. He asked me if I had seen it near a particular place and I told him it was about a mile south of there. He then admitted to not checking in the big deer or the others but said he had "picked up some of those for his collection."
That was the start of a very productive day. I went on to make several other arrests later that night with the help of officer John Ball and I'm saving that story for another time. Sweet Dreams!