The Strange Death of Sergeant Phleger

The Strange Death of Sergeant Phleger

As a Marine deployed to Southeast Asia 25 years ago, I had heard of tiger sightings in the bush, even an incident in which a Marine had been killed by one. I never ran across anyone, including intelligence people, who could verify this, as most unit reports and maps...
This Hunting Life

This Hunting Life

We were learning the world. It is that learning I speak of as hunting. In the house I rent hangs a photo of me taken as a teenager. I’m lying next to my dog in some tall reeds by a river. For a long time I wondered what made me frame that picture and hang it....
The Smile of Death in Africa

The Smile of Death in Africa

Largest of all reptiles, the crocodile is arguably the deadliest creature ever to walk or swim the face of the earth. Water beckons to most of the world. The inland bodies: lakes, streams, rivers and ponds, shimmer blue and tempting, time of passage, a respite from...
Larry Norton and The Searching Spirit

Larry Norton and The Searching Spirit

Larry Norton’s subjects are not only anatomically proportionate but portrayed in body positions as they appear in the wild. One notes the malevolent cast of a lurking croc, the rubble of scattered bones, virtually hears the forlorn call of the turtle dove....
John Schoenherr Bold and Beyond

John Schoenherr Bold and Beyond

As both sportsman and art lover, my walls battle for either mounted heads or country scenes. Oddly, though, I own no wildlife art. Before visiting John Schoenherr I wasn’t sure why. Now I am. Over the years, most wildlife has seemed partisan to me, as though the...
Cole Johnson in Black and White

Cole Johnson in Black and White

“You don’t decide on a style…you do the work and a style evolves.” Over the years, I have had the luck to interview some very talented wildlife artists. A number actually hunted, others did not. In the work of those that did, I discovered...
The Blood Horse

The Blood Horse

Though Chinese ceramics of 3500 BC depict horses both harnessed and ridden, the archaeological agreement is that the horse was first domesticated in Asiatic Russia around 3,000 BC. The wild horse of Mongolia, or Przewalski’s horse, as it was named in 1881 by the...
Of Ice and Men: Part II

Of Ice and Men: Part II

Part II Of Ice and Men I helped him get to his feet and got him moving toward camp. He walked like a crippled man. I quickly pulled the cord attached to my pack and it came up full of water. I turned it upside down and jammed the frame into the snow. I left the rifles...
Of Ice and Men: Part II

Of Ice and Men: Part I

Part I Of Ice and Men Just being in grizzly bear country gives one enough to stay awake about. Most dangerous of all North American game, the grizzly across a land that can present an equal peril. Western Alaska’s overwhelming of isolated hills and drainages — empty,...
Tiger Attack in Vietnam

Tiger Attack in Vietnam

In the dark night, the men sat listening. Originally no more than five feet from the last team member, Sgt. Phleger had disappeared. As a Marine deployed to Southeast Asia 25 years ago, I had heard of tiger sightings in the bush and an incident where a Marine had been...