Hunting the turkey was only half of the work. Shortly after pictures were taken, my guide sent me off back to the truck with the bird over my shoulder. The truck was about a half mile down the road, and to be honest, that tom turkey felt a lot heavier than 30 pounds by the time I made it to Tom's truck. 

I gently laid it down in the truck bed, and then sat down in the front passenger seat. Tom was not far behind me. He checked to make sure the tom turkey was safely in the back, before getting the driver's seat and heading off towards his cabin, with my grandparents just behind us. As we drove, heavy sleet began to fall. I didn't realize it until then, but I was actually pretty cold and damp. I just didn't bother to notice it earlier, because I was hellbent on getting a shot at a tom turkey before dusk. 

Tom drove us all the way up to his cabin, and then opened up his garage. He had a large garage, which had a smaller pickup parked in it. Tom used the tailgate of that pickup as a table to start butchering the turkey. Tom gave me a filet knife while he also held one, and together we butchered the bird. I decided to take as much as the bird home as possible.

Unfortunately, I only had a small baggie for the iridescent bronze feathers that blanketed most of the turkey's body, but I had enough room in the cooler to take the feather fan, beard, feet, and a couple of wing feathers. I also took the breasts, carcass, thighs, and heart of the tom turkey. I would've taken the neck, but it was full of lead. Thankfully, none of the best meat had been touched by any of the shotgun beads, so I was able to take home everything else that I wanted. 

Tom made sure that I knew what I was doing. He told me to not cut directly into the bird with the knife, but rather slowly and carefully skin the bird first to expose the breasts, before taking a lot of time and care to remove the breasts. The innards of a wild turkey are full of overpowering rotting smells because a wild turkey's spring diet is mostly made of bugs and rotting roots. 

As gross as that sounds, it doesn't actually give the meat a bad taste. The meat just has a bit of an earthy taste, along with a rich taste of game. 

Before I could leave, Tom had just a few more things to show me. He led me and my grandparents into his cabin, which was really nice and modern. There, we met his wife, who was very kind and invited us to have dinner. Unfortunately, we couldn't stay for dinner. We didn't have ice for the cooler, and we had to rush back to Meeker to get some ice before the stores closed. Plus, 14 hours in the wilderness exhausts a person, and I needed to clean myself up and lay down. 

Tom's cabin was decorated with amazing taxidermy of nearly every North American animal. But Tom's pride and joy was upstairs in the loft. My grandma and I walked up to the loft, and were greeted by a full body mount of a 300 pound mountain cougar. I didn't even know they could get so big, but they can. It was mounted as if it was crawling down a mountain and hissing. It had to be 20 feet long from the tip of its nose to the tip of its tail. I was certainly a beautiful animal, but was something I would definitely not want to meet in the wild. 

Thankfully, older cougars avoid humans for the most part. It's the younger, smaller cougars that often cause the most trouble. 

As a final farewell, Tom gave me three more wild turkey fans, along with my own. He said I could use them as references for when I'm setting my own wild turkey tail fan. 

I got in the car with my grandparents, and we slowly drove away from the cabin, passed the tractor shed where the ranger sat parked, and then down to the valley where fiery willows grew along the creek in the ditch. Sleet rained heavy down from the darkening sky, and I watched the wilderness go by one final time as we followed the dirt county road to the highway, and from there sped straight to Meeker. 

Back in the hotel, I slowly shed my layers. I had picked up a number of tics and burs along the way, but nothing that was dangerous to my health. I don't think I've ever had such a long, satisfying shower before. 

Just before I went to bed, I helped my grandparents clean up the meat before putting it away in our makeshift freezer. It still had some feathers and dust all over it, but was otherwise clean and ready to be cooked. There was no more than 15 pounds of meat that came from the turkey, but that was still a lot considering what I hunted. Usually, wild turkeys don't provide more than 10 pounds of meat. The fact that I had 15 pounds was something to be very proud of.