Beef Jerky Conflict Resolution, Old Trapper Style

Now, I’m not one normally prone to violence. My motto has always been, “Live, Let Live to Eat Jerky.” Catchy, I know. Many a t-shirt entrepreneur has sought permission to license my saying in an attempt to send positive messages through soft cotton fabrics. I’ve declined every offer, preferring instead to send my message of beef jerky awareness through the social tendrils of the interwebs. But I’ll admit, I wasn’t born with my pacifistic temperament. There have been times in my long life when my conflict resolution skills were more than a little rusty: I’d like to tell you about one of them now.

The Beef Jerky Blood Feud

“Burying the hatchet” is a funny saying. I’ve learned that it’s a reference to the Iroquois custom of burying weapons underground in times of peace so that no one gets any bright ideas. However, there was a time when I took it to mean something very different.

It all started when I returned from my regular trapping circuit to find the trail of flour I left on the cave floor of my beef jerky den had been disturbed. With this clever trick, I immediately deduced that someone had been sneaking into my innermost sanctum.

Sure enough, on hand-counting every delicious piece of beef jerky (and eating a few, for quality testing), I found that some rapscallion had been dipping into my stores. Worst of all, the varmint had absconded with a batch of the most savory, tender jerky I’d smoked up to date. I’d become a victim of the worst sort of criminal: a beef jerky rustler.

Old Fashioned Jerky Demands Old Fashioned Justice

Even in my earlier days, I’d always considered myself to be even-tempered and quick to forgive. However, the crime of beef jerky theft was nearly unforgivable. On the warpath, I set out to track down the awful thief with all the skills my trapping career had lent me. I was on the hunt for the most dangerous game.

I’ve often lauded the fact that my beef jerky is made using real wood smoke, for that authentic savory smokiness you just can’t miss. Now, I was able to use my sharply honed sense of smell to trace that distinctive aroma across the hills and dales of the frontier. I had no plan for what to do when I caught up with the perpetrator—all I knew was that justice must be served.

Burying the Hatchet (The Wrong Way)

After several weeks playing cat-and-mouse, I came upon my nemesis late one night as he sat near his warming fire. Without hesitation and in complete darkness, I hurled my trusty hatchet and it lodged itself deep into a tree trunk, roughly 1/4 of an inch away from the fella’s face.

I didn’t miss, oh no: I hit my intended target dead-on. Even fuelled with the righteous spirit of jerky justice, I knew that true violence was not the way. And sure enough, once the jerky rustler stopped running and screaming long enough to carry on a bit of reasoned conversation, the pair of us came to understand we had more things in common than not.

For one thing, we both shared a deep, abiding love of delicious beef jerky. After I expressed my disappointment that the thief would have resorted to such lowly measures, he explained that he had caught a whiff of my jerky smoker and slipped into a fugue state, only coming to with a fistful of pilfered jerky in hand and a stain on his conscience. While he had no money to compensate me, we worked out a deal: he would carry a sack of beef jerky samples with him on all his travels, telling tales of the wonders of tender wood-smoked meats.

Beef Jerky: The Great Peacemaker

I’m no Aesop, and these stories are not fables, but I do believe there are things to be learned from our life experiences. In this instance, I learned the right way to bury the hatchet, that those who initially present themselves as enemies may end up anything but, and in the end, beef jerky really does bring people together.