In the early 80’s my long time friend, Carey, was working in a small diner on the outskirts of Fairbanks Alaska. One night the door blew open and in came this wild eyed man, shirtless and shoeless. He had hiked through the snow to town after his mining cabin had blown sky high due to a little dynamite being left too close to the stove. Everything he owned was blown to bits. His name was Lee and he was from Tennessee. Carey and Lee began a relation and eventually they came down from the north and settled around me in Glen Ellen. Carey and I opened a clothing store together and while we worked the store, Lee roamed the surrounding woods.

Lee was a true survivalist who was more comfortable outdoors then in. He would find the most amazing things while hiking up the creeks, things that other people would never have seen. He could catch fish with his bare hands. Once he found a paper wasps nest……it was absolutely beautiful and Lee swore it was empty so we hung it in the store. It wasn’t empty. The next day wasps were buzzing all over the place. Another time he and Carey went hiking along the floor of the Grand Canyon. Hearing a strange noise, Lee recognized it for what it was and barely pulled Carey up out of the path of a flash flood that roared through the ravine, taking all their gear and almost their lives. Carey ended up with a deep cut on her head but Lee sewed it up neatly with a strand of her own hair! Lee could live in the woods for months with a piece of string and a needle. Actually, I think he has……… Anyway, he and Carey eventually parted ways. She moved to the Virgin Islands and Lee hit the wandering road, working here and there, traveling the country, but he continued to come in and out of my life. I never knew when he would show up at the door. I would come home to find him sitting on the porch and twice he showed up after one of my dogs passed away, helping me with the little burials high on the bluffs of Caspar above the ocean. After I moved over here from the Coast I sort of lost track of him until he phoned me one afternoon about five years ago. I couldn’t understand a word he said.

Lee had been diagnosed with tongue cancer. It was bad. The doctors removed his entire tongue , leaving him unable to swallow and barely speak. I got the drift that he was passing through and wanted to stop and visit. He pulled up in a old white van and he had a passenger with him. Her name was Billy. She was white with gold speckles on her neck. When he opened the door of the van so I could meet her, she cackled at me and gave me the “eye”. What a turkey.

Lee told me the story as best he could. He been given Billy when she was a little chick by a young couple who were camping near him on the Mendocino Coast. Lee loves creatures, great and small so he took her under his wing, so to speak, and raised her as a pet. After his surgery, and during his darkest moments, his love for Billy inspired him to survive.

He and Billy were on their way back from the desert when he stopped for that visit. Seeking solitude, Lee had gone down there to camp and recuperate. He had a small battery operated TV in his van that Billy liked to watch. He told me she really loved Mexican soap operas. When I met Billy, she had a small infection on her leg that wasn’t getting any better. Rather than put her down, Lee had the vet amputate her leg and from then on he carried her everywhere and took care of her until she died of old age. Lee told me that was the lowest point in his life, after Billy died. Lee is a veteran of Vietnam, a survivalist and woodsman to the highest degree, but when Billy died, he didn’t want to go on.

Lee stopped by the Riverwood last Sunday evening on his way back from Idaho. In the back seat, sitting on a nice soft blanket with a bucket of feed and sand was Billy the Kid. As Lee tells it, after Billy died he truly wanted to end it all. Cancer had taken his quality of life and Billy‘s passing took a lot from him too. His little sister back in Tennessee told him into getting another turkey. Reluctantly, he went to the feed store in Fort Bragg to check them out. In a big pen were all these little turkeys chirping and scrambling over each other. Smack in the middle of the crowd stood the future Billy, staring him right in the eye. Lee knew right then that she was the one for him.

Billy the Kid lives in the lap of luxury. She sleeps with Lee, curled up like a dog next to him in bed. She follows him everywhere he goes. They walk on the beach and hike on the headlands and criss-crossed the country together. Billy went back to Tennessee last Christmas to meet his family and no, she did not end up on the table. She SAT at the table.

When Lee showed up the other evening, he was on his way back from Idaho. Lee told me he was up near Salmon last week visiting friends and while fishing in a remote stream Billy sounded an alarm. Looking up, Lee spied a grizzly across the creek, moving through the brush. Lee scooped up Billy and they made a run for it. Cancer has ravaged Lee. Being unable to swallow, he can’t eat very well so he’s thin and tires easily, but he told me he grabbed Billy, who weighs about 20 lbs., and ran about a mile down the hill to their friend’s cabin. I told Lee the bear probably smelled Billy but Lee quickly corrected me, saying no, it was Billy that smelled the bear!

My daughter and I walked across the street to say hello to Billy. Billy was on her bed in the back, giving us the beady eye. Lee gently took her out and we petted her there in the soft summer night. Several customers ventured across the street to gaze at Billy. It’s strange, but it’s not hard to miss the love between the man and his bird. People have stranger pets, so why not a turkey? As we walked back across the street I asked Lee if he didn’t think he should roll up his window.? He said no, Billy wouldn’t go anywhere. Wonder if she decides to follow you and jumps out and gets hit? …………He said no, she wouldn’t do that. She stays when he tells her to. Lee had a friend along for the ride so he joined us on the porch. He and Gary had known each other back in Fort Bragg and while they talked, Lee and I caught up on his life.

When he contracted cancer (yes, he was a smoker and a chewer) the doctors opened up his mouth, chin and throat to take out his tongue. With muscle from his torso, they constructed a new tongue so he could speak. Lee has always been a talker. He could talk and talk and talk until sometimes we would have to make up an excuse to leave the room, but then he would follow, still talking. His familiar Tennessee accent is still very present and he still loves to talk. His energy is high and his knee bounces constantly when he talks. Like a true back woods tracker, his eyes dart back and forth, never missing anything. He told me it’s hard, not being able to eat. He can only swallow liquids. It’s no way to live, he told me, but Billy keeps him going. He gets some veterans benefits but not much. Hardly enough to live on. I asked him to call me and I would write some letters for him and try to hook him up with some veterans advocates that I knew.

When they got up to leave we walked him and his friend over to the car. Opening the door, the light revealed Billy sitting on the front passenger seat. His friend uttered a small cuss word. Billy had decided to move up to his seat and leave him a present. He said she did this every time they got out of the car, but never in Lee’s seat………..always in his. Now that’s true love.