Mushroom Hunting in the Land of the Mvskoke

Riparian. At least that is how the field guide would describe this place. The old timers would call it mushroom country. At first it is all proud with color—the eye-catching brilliance of Dogwood pink and Redbud purple easily visible from the highway. This is contrasted by the pure white of sand plums—blooms as sheer as a cotton summer dress and almost as refreshing to the eyes of a man beaten down by the graying capitulation of winter. But this is just the aperitif: Shangri-La doesn’t look like a garden party. It looks forlorn and shadowy: like the forest triumphed over fire and progress and humankind. Mirkwood? Tolkien must have been a forager. No one captures the essence of old timber without first tasting its fruits. That’s exactly what I intend to do. Of course, it’d be a sight easier if anything in my journal made a lick of sense.

APRIL 5^th 1996. I spent the day looking for a burn to no avail. Decided I might as well just follow the river and see where it goes. I must have crossed it four times before I finally got to ground I haven’t covered before. Took a red squirrel out of a big sycamore with the .22 and bent to wash him in the creek when I saw the downed elm. It is amazing how you can look for something so hard and then when you see it—well—it just jumps up and slaps you. Exactly 34 big yeller morels stood like miniature garden gnomes in front of that fallen elm. The largest had to be 8” tall.

Everyone has a plan until they get hit. I realized this after I stepped out of my truck into the WMA. Late March rains had swollen the Deep Fork like a dog tick. Grotesque in proportion, the river offered none of the low-water crossings that I had seen in the years before. After searching for them for an hour, I decided that I could find the morel patch in a roundabout manner and skirted the bank of the river for at least four miles. Finally I came upon a likely crossing. The Deep Fork here was only four inches or so deep and no more that 10 ft across. Three steps into the current and I knew that I should have cut a staff. The clear water here not only flowed over the rust-colored sand, but also through it. I immediately sunk, hip-deep, into the suspension. The panicked memory came back to me in a thunderclap. Not ten miles from this very spot I had experienced the quicksand before. I was a boy of only 10, following a motley pack of hounds: Treeing Walkers, a couple English dogs, and a loggerheaded Bluetick whose only redeeming quality was his loyalty. Back then my plaintive wails were crescendoing: “Dad! Daad! Daaaddd! Help!” My father, a loving and nature-oriented man, either misjudged the gravity of the situation or knew something that I did not. He continued ambling along, turning to tell me to hurry up. In half disbelief, I mustered all my might and managed to lift my left leg, then the right. I somehow made it out of the river by sheer force of will.

The situation now was no different but somehow even more frightening. Here I was literally in the middle of nowhere, at least 20 miles to the nearest town, Nuyaka. That wasn’t even a town anymore. Once it had been a community formed by the Creek Nation and named after New York. Now it was little more than a picturesque Oklahoma bridge and an oddball winery. I gave a sporting heave and the colloidal sand’s vacuum was broken with a peculiar sucking sound. Once on dry land I folded myself down into a fragrant patch of Allium canadense. Yet another reminder of the Creek, I wondered briefly if they too had lounged in this patch of wild onions and sought to catch their breath. I arose smelling of garlic and filled with a new sense of purpose.

To the trained eye, morel country is as distinct as an Escher painting. The sum of the parts creates a whole unlike any other. For morels, the prerequisites are: sandy soil, humus, elm, ash, sycamore, and partial shade. The panorama before me was practically Escher’s Relativity. All the pieces were there. Though I knew that the landmark downed elm of ’96 would be long gone, the scene did look familiar. Better yet, the recent precipitation and current warm temperatures suggested that the time was right for morels. I scampered to-and-fro through the bottomland eying each piece of ground and religiously looking for sign. My productivity was nil. My sweat, soggy boots, and exhaustion had bought me a woven basket full of air. If mushroom hunters have a fault, it is hubris. Years of combing the woods, reading dusty books in local libraries, and sautéing their bounty in butter often leads them to believe that they understand the morel. And why not? Are we not a learned race, capable of comprehending the natural world? Perhaps not. As soon as the mycophilist exhibits the slightest degree of haughtiness, the mystery of the morel deepens. Woodland flats that have produced bushel baskets of morels turn into barren wastelands. Rotting logs always good for a pocketful of Morchella yield nothing. In part, this explains why would-be agriculturalists have proven unable to reliably cultivate the morel. They are things beyond the ken of man.

This all comes as a revelation to me as I am angrily kicking leaves. I channel my inner rotten brat nonetheless; kicking leaves at least prevents me from cursing. In a display of grand childishness I also punt a leg-thick Post Oak limb and am genuinely surprised to find that it has struck back. I am rapped at lightning speed on my knee-high leather boots by a brazen rope that is coiled near the limb. A broad, spade-shaped head peers hatefully at me from a position of righteous indignation. My stupidity has nearly cost me my life. The copperhead shifts, posing like a boxer. My bullhide boots show two stained and shallow punctures, but my hide is intact.

What madness has possessed me? Have I truly risked life and limb all for the sake of a humble fungus? Somewhere in my deeper consciousness a tune emerges:

One Friday morning he did go

Into the meadow for to mow

A round or two and he did feel

A paisin sarpent at his heel

When he received his deadly wound

He dropt his scythe upon the ground

And straight for home was his intent

Calling aloud still as he went

And there he lay suppose to rest

With both hands acrost his breast

His mouth and eyes were closed fast

And there poor man he slept his last

Considering this a lesson from on high, I slowly retreat from the viper and make my way back to the sandy shallows. The walk back is a long one, full of contemplation and anxiety. I have brushed the face of nature and it has responded in kind. Each sight and sound upon the trail is riveting. The red cockade of the Pileated Woodpecker and its laughing song seem to mock my return. The cacophony of unseen tree-frogs is raucous cachinnation at my expense. I am humbled aplenty and am relieved to see my Ford at the end of the access road. Quickening my pace, I toss my cap on the dash and greedily retrieve a jug of water. While leaning across the truck bed and blankly staring into the bar ditch I am rendered speechless. Within spitting distance of my Will Hunt for Food bumper sticker is a family of newly-emerged morels, shining like diamonds in the Oklahoma sun. The final verse of "Springfield Mountain" echoes through my mind: 

The seventh of August sixty one

This fatal accident was done

Let this a warning be to all

To be prepared when God does call