I thought of calling this game I'm in Trivial Pursuit, but that name was taken. Call it Turkey Tag.

Five days into the season and I have been one step behind a gobbler every morning. I am It, looking fruitlessly for the other players in the game. Think of my turkey woods as a 100-acre game board.

It is a woodlot, surrounded by large open fields, so the turkeys are contained, pieces to be maneuvered and manipulated, as only I, the master gamesman, can do it. I have planned strategy for months,
yodeling on a mouth call until my perts and putts are as perfect as those of a randy old hen in the woods.

I can yelp so heartbreakingly that gobblers will come from adjacent states to soothe my inflamed passions.

I am ready.

Day One:
Experience shows that anywhere from one to a dozen turkeys roost in the upper right-hand corner of the woods, if you stand on the low side and look up and west. This is "Go."

It's the highest point and gobblers like to perch above and watch me stumble and curse my way through the dark before they fly off to Infinity. Not this time--I have scouted so well I can make the hike in my sleep, except for a certain barbed wire fence, a confounded blowdown, a snarl of vines, and a couple of viciously armed briars. I creep in at 5 a.m., more than an hour before daylight. There is method here: turkeys are in deep sleep, not prone to alarm. Also, I forgot Daylight Time and got up an hour early.

I am a cat burglar, silent as fog, if fog falls over a blowdown and says things that you normally find written on the restroom walls of rural alehouses.

There is no moon, an overcast that makes the night dark as the inside of a bat's weskit. I find a comfortable tree with no more than the usual number of sharp stobs poking me in the back. The rocks under me are as comfortable as chert gets (i.e. a Hindu bed of nails).

I contemplate the sanity of those who rise at 4 a.m. to sit in the cold, lonely woods on sharp rocks.

A tree across the trail looks softer than the one I'm impaled to and I rise and take two steps. A sharp "Puck!" freezes me. I slowly raise my head and see a dark blob about 15 yards up. Roosted turkey. Escaping prisoners feel this way when the spotlights go on and the warden shouts, "Don't move, Rocky! We got you covered!"

I tiptoe back to my original tree and sit as the string of clucks trails off. Perhaps the bird will forget about it by dawn. Perhaps I will inherit a million dollars today. When it becomes light, I see three roosted birds, including one with a beard as long as his memory. A fourth begins to gobble, just out of sight, and a fifth is yelping to the other side. I am in a roost. This is frowned on by experts, but I think there is no way I can avoid killing a turkey.

If either of the two gobblers I know are there flies down on my side of the trees, it will be within range and within sight and I will exclaim "You're It!" with my Model 12 full choke.

All the turkeys fly down, one by one into the woods, the center of the game board, 200 yards away. They do turkey things there, paying absolutely no attention to my impassioned calling. Go directly to jail, do not pass Go, nor collect $200.

Day Two:
My knowledge of the game board leads me to believe the birds of Opening Day flew to an old field to play a different game. If I set up an ambush among the scrub cedars, I will be trampled by cavorting turkeys.

Once again, I stumble through the dark woods, fighting the same tangling strands of vine I did on opening day, ripping my already tattered camouflage coveralls on the same fence, tripping over the same deadfall.

I bypass the roost, tiptoeing as if sneaking by the housemother. I feel my way along the edge of the woods, cut through a barely glimpsed opening, and find myself in the old field. The only good hiding-tree proves to be a honey locust, as I discover when I lean against it in the dark. Like being mugged by a knife-wielding Berber.

The whippoorwills rush to explain themselves before daylight. Finally it is light enough for gobblers to declaim. They do--exactly where they'd roosted on Opening Day, 200 yards up the hill, at Go. Ah, but they will fly right into my arms and I will tag one...

Fly-down time comes and the gobbling continues. Right under the roost tree, up the hill, where I was the day before. Go directly to Jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

"Oh, fudge!" I exclaim petulantly.

Day Three:
I battle grimly through the vines and the fence and the blowdown, leaving shreds of camouflage and me on the spiky protrusions. I am losing my sense of fun, not to mention composure and skin.

Tag is only fun when you don't have to be It all the time. I crouch at the roost and wait. There is a dark blob in the next tree over and it has the oval shape of a turkey's body. Good Lord, it isn't 10 yards away. Can it be? I see it outlined by stars, a patriotic turkey, a celestial body. If it is a gobbler, it is so close that its beard will be touching my head. I wait for daylight, finger on the safety.

It grows lighter...and the turkey resolves itself into a twisted limb. I relax my twisted limbs and brood. The first gobble is down the hill, in the old field where I was yesterday. Two others answer him and they discuss something, probably my ineptitude. We carry on high-level negotiations, but nothing comes of it. Turkey Tag is like the United Nations--much talk and little action.

Day Four:
A new element is added to the fun of Turkey Tag today. In addition to the sprout whips, thorns, fence barbs, blowdowns, and ticks (have I mentioned ticks?--they are my constant companions, so afraid of getting lost in the woods that they cling to me like, well, like ticks). It now is raining.

It's not a frog choker because then I wouldn't go; it's just hard enough to soak me but not hard enough to discourage me.

I follow a new route so I can slink into the woods at the corner where the two gobblers were yesterday. I'll keep the roost in reserve. If the two gobblers aren't there, I'll slip closer to the roost and tag somebody. Optimism like this hasn't been seen since Job, at the peak of his troubles, said, "Isn't life great!"

I wait for light, drizzle leaking down my neck, chill seeping right to the core. It is light enough for gobbling, but all I hear is a cardinal. Cardinals are eternal optimists. Rain? What rain? It's BEAUTIFUL out! Stupid birds. What am I? A human redbird...No gobbles from my corner of the woods, but there is a sudden loud shot from the roost area. Another hunter has come into the game and tagged a gobbler, probably off the roost. I remain It.

Day Five:
This no longer seems like a game; it's a vendetta. The rain has blown out and there are stars above me as I settle comfortably into the heart of a greenbriar. My whine of pain sounds like a hen's muted love whimper...or so I hope.

A Canada goose bellows in the night--night and day are all the same to a goose. A turkey, roused from deep sleep, gobbles even before the first hint of dawn. I decide to move down the hill so I can catch him as he falls out of his tree.

I skulk 75 yards through the brush, making no more noise than a rhino charge, and find another soft rock to sit on. Half an hour later, a gobbler sounds off no more than 35 yards behind me. I probably walked under his tree. He knows I am present. He doesn't care. He is out of sight in the brush and king of all he surveys (me).

I speak to him, saying things that would embarrass the staff at "Penthouse Magazine." He seems to agree, replying, "Sounds good to me!" and we talk for perhaps 30 minutes, until it is time for him to fly down.

I fondle the safety, heart thumping. Now is the moment I leap out of hiding and put the tag on the other player in the game.

He doesn't fly down, he flies WAY down, 60 feet over my head, sailing to join his earlybird brother. Together they make the woods ring. I'd like to wring their necks.

Day Six:
Okay, now we've cleared the impedimenta out of the way, made all the mistakes, gotten the bugs out, now we're ready to kill a gobbler.

You can run, turkeys, but you can't hide. Rambo Vance is afoot and he is peeved. I am at the corner of the game board, poised, slimy mouth call at the ready, as gray tinges the eastern sky. I have three potential tags tucked in the chamber of the old Winchester, each with more than one ounce of No. 4 shot.

A gobbler sounds off, down the hill, and I resolve to do something I'd resolved not to do: move toward the gobbler. If he won't come to me, I'll go to him. The leaves are muted by heavy dew. I get to my feet, groaning like an octogenarian, and take one step. There is a shockingly loud "boom!" from the direction of the turkey and then I hear two hunters discussing at the top of their voice the joys of getting a bird. So much for the solitude of the turkey woods.

I'm tired of being It. I'm going to take my ball and go home. I'm through with this game of Trivial Pursuit. I know all the questions, but none of the answers. The guy down the hill who shot--he got Boardwalk; I can't even acquire Baltic Avenue. I'm not going to play anymore.

At least until tomorrow morning...