JOHNSTON, R.I. — They’ve tried to chase the turkey and to trap him, to outsmart the turkey and to wait him out.

Now, with the leaves turning and a chill in the air and Thanksgiving right around the corner, it has come to this: aerial firepower.

The town of Johnston is borrowing a CO2-powered net-launcher in its attempt to humanely catch a turkey that keeps darting in and out of traffic on busy roads, posing a hazard even as he has captured the hearts of many in the town, and Rhode Island in general.

“Everywhere I go people ask me if we’ve caught the turkey,” Mayor Joseph Polisena said in an interview at his office Thursday as he cradled the Super Talon animal-catcher, which looks something like a large flashlight or a trumpet but in fact uses a net fired by a CO2 cartridge to snag animals. “This will be able to catch him.”

The saga began in early August, when the turkey, then joined by two of its pals, was jamming up local traffic, pecking at lawns and testing Polisena’s patience. Polisena got state permission to move the turkeys to Snake Den State Park, and in a brisk law-enforcement operation in early August, animal control officers grabbed one of the birds with bare hands and another with a net.

The third got away. Its trump card is simply to fly up into some power lines when animal control officers approach, where nobody with a handheld net can get it. The town is hoping that the net-launcher, which it borrowed for free from East Providence, can negate the turkey’s aerial superiority.

It’s now closer in time to Thanksgiving than it is to early August. And the turkey is still out there: On Monday, he was at the intersection of Atwood Avenue and Route 6, walking up to car windows waiting at stop lights, gobbling. When they drove off, he would chase them, still gobbling. He is unexpectedly fast for a turkey, unexpectedly bold for one, and unexpectedly smart.

He obeys no man, but has been known to cross the road at crosswalks. He recognizes animal control officers, too, according to one of them, Richard Starnino.

“He’s wise to us now,” said Starnino, who is practicing to be the triggerman on the turkey-net launch.

The turkey has even seemingly defied death, or at least being declared dead: This story started out as a potential obituary when a reporter, acting on a tip from a colleague, saw a dead turkey on the side of the road on Route 295.

It probably was a different turkey, because on Thursday, Polisena’s nemesis was outside the Brewed Awakenings coffee shop, doing what it and only it has done for the past few months. A brewed awakening indeed for the mayor.

“He’s alive and well, and he’s having himself a real good time,” Polisena said.

With a story about a determined authority figure and a defiant renegade fugitive, comparisons from history and literature abound. Polisena has referred to the turkey as Al Capone and John Dillinger, for example.

Others have likened the chase to Captain Ahab and the white whale, others the determined detective Inspector Javert (Polisena) and the lovable outlaw Jean Valjean (the turkey) from "Les Miserables" (Johnston). But with the CO2 device looking like something one would buy from the Acme Corporation, it now has the distinct flair of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.

Polisena requested that the exact date of the planned operation be off the record, lest some onlookers try to intervene on behalf of the turkey. Some people are clearly rooting for it.

“The way they feel about elected officials, especially in Washington, what do you think?” Polisena said.

Polisena’s office is now filled with turkey trinkets that other people have given him. There is the turkey hat, which he was not wearing. The solar-powered turkey toy, which, when powered, flaps its wings defiantly. There is a book titled “How To Catch A Turkey,” to which the toy seems to be responding.

Then there is the sign someone put on the lawn of Town Hall in the dark of night a few weeks ago. Polisena removed it, but didn’t throw it away. It showed a turkey running away from the camera, echoing its roadrunning brethren with a quote coming from the turkey's mouth that Polisena hopes not to hear when they try to catch it soon: “Beep beep!”