By Graham Ford
The oldest of the dogs didn’t honor point and busted a huge covey on the low side of the hill on the east side near the hardwood drain where we have found them before. It was a long quiet walk back to the truck to put the old dog up. Then, we got serious.
We wandered with deliberate investigation through likely patches of cover and habitat. Feeling with our feet and hearts like we would motion our limbs in a dark room looking for a light switch, only someone had moved the walls and the switches too. We embarked where we wouldn’t dare in the summer for the briars and the certainty of snakes and heat; the blessed heat. Thank goodness it was not holding court today and the woods were as welcoming as they will be all year. We could see clear to the creek bottom and the silver-gray bark of the poplars and gums. The smell of damp leaves and the quiet low light of winter are fleeting.
We hunted from the silo down a field edge where we acknowledged the birds could be anywhere. Farther down to another old field so taken with sumac and volunteer pines we had to hold onto our hats to keep them on our heads. The dogs had to take the deer path along the lower edge just to get out. Past there we searched through a draw below the old cypress pond amongst the skeleton of a downed white oak and the new brush released by its crown’s absence then up through to the next hill where two pine stands meet; one old and one young. I have seen them in all of these places. They could be anywhere.
We took a moment to collect ourselves, get the dogs some water, and ask out loud what was next after a full morning of searching. The notion came to us to hunt the edge, the transition. So we went with our gut and believed that good can still happen no matter how long it takes.
Today wasn’t anything special or different. We set out to do what we have always done – What we must do. Hunt and weave our lives with the woods. The grass and vines and saplings and lighted trees. And we struggled. And we rejoiced. On the north hilltop when the dogs worked right and the birds flew right and we shot true. Feathers were haloed by the afternoon sun as three birds fell at the report of two barrels. If only you could have heard us. Pure out hollering. Like we won something.
You can’t think of your life when a covey rises. It’s all over. Whatever burdens you brought with you have no place here, with them, the wild birds.
There is always hope. It is a wellspring. Perhaps the only everlasting resource.
Tailgate cold beers. Stories. Reflections. One step closer to a solving of quandaries. I held the birds and felt their full crops and studied and pierced through their thin skins to find that they were packed with slash pine seeds cleaned of their samaras. We marveled at the colors in the birds’ feathers and took this as all the evidence needed that there surely is no other place like this.
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