Nothing good happens after midnight?
Nothing good happens after midnight. I think most game wardens would disagree with that statement, because if you’re the kind of person that likes catching people doing that which they ought not do, lots of good things happen after midnight.
Retired Atascosa County Game Warden Arthur Mc-Call is a classic case in point. I’ve known Arthur over 50 years. My grandfather, “Pap”, had a mercantile in Pleasanton for many years that was Walmart before there was a Walmart. In his store, Pap carried guns and knives and groceries, fishing tackle, appliances, livestock feed, saddles, stereos and records, and I don’t know what all. There was a “coke machine” just to the right of the door when you walked in. When I was a kid, I got the biggest kick out of not having to put a quarter in the slot of that machine to get me and ice-cold coke, because Pap always gave me the key. Of course, there were other options in there, - like Big Red and RC, and maybe even 7-Up – but back then, we called all of them “cokes”.
Anyway, I digress. This is supposed to be about Arthur – and it is, for sure, because my Pap’s store was an art gallery too. High on the walls, up above all the guns and knives and groceries, were original paintings by Game Warden Arthur Mc-Call. Apparently, he must’ve never slept. I think he painted by day and played game warden by night. I remember those paintings going for $25, or so, back in the mid-70s, but nowadays he gets upwards of $1000 for his work. He’s a talented artist, for sure.
But before he retired, Arthur had a talent for catching game law violators – especially after midnight. Back when he was selling those paintings in Pap’s store, many of the folks around here only tagged a deer when they saw a game warden approach. An untagged deer was “camp meat”, and in their minds, camp meat didn’t count.
So, Arthur got to figuring that the best way to curtail the camp meat way of thinking was to show up in a way in which the camp meat folks would never see him coming. The best time to do that was after midnight when most people in whatever deer camp he was checking would be asleep. All he had to do was park his patrol vehicle far off from the intended target and hike in.
One night after midnight, he was almost to a deer camp door when he heard a rifle shot in the distance. The light was on inside the camp house, so he knocked. As the door opened, a woman’s voice asked, “You’re back already?” Arthur replied, “No ma’am, it’s just the game warden.”
Right about then, lights flickered through the mesquites as a vehicle approached. When the truck stopped at camp, two men got out. “Howdy boys!” Arthur said as he shined his flashlight on them – they looked like they had seen a ghost.
“Uhhh… hello, Mr. Game Warden… we found this deer that was wounded,” one of them said. Arthur went around to the back of the truck and shined his flashlight in the bed. There in the back, was a little buck, untagged, with a single bullet hole through the shoulder. Arthur wasn’t buying it. Citations were issued, and presumably, Arthur went home after that and started painting until it was time to go play game warden again.
Arthur is now in his eighties and still painting. The subject matter of his paintings has varied over the years, but whether he depicts an old homestead, church or mission or wildlife or whatever, you can bet they’ll be set against a beautiful South Texas sky. Man – I wish there was still a place where cokes were a quarter and for $24.75 more, I could buy an original painting by Arthur McCall.
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