If you properly respect what you are after, and shoot it cleanly and on the animal’s terrain, if you imprison in your mind all the wonder of the day from sky to smell to breeze to flowers—then you have not merely killed an animal. You have lent immortality to a beast you have killed because you loved him and wanted him forever so that you could always capture the day.
—Robert Ruark, The Old Man and the Boy
Chapter Eighteen
There hasn’t been anyone out for several days. The geese have come in every day while no one was here, until yesterday, and then nothing flew. When Joe and Lars picked us up that last time they said that they wouldn’t be back till Saturday. Both of them are schoolteachers and they can only hunt on weekends.
But, it must be Saturday because here we set. But it’s a lousy day. Bluebird weather. No wind. These guys deserve better.
Seems like a good day for a BS session and they are very good at that.
“Lars, did I tell you about running into Pastor Martin the other day?” Joe asked. “He wanted to know why I hadn’t been in church lately. So I looked him right in the eye and told him that my huntin’ truck, my goose pit, my boat, and my deer stand were all named “church” and that he’d be surprised how many Sundays I spent in church. It really cracked him up, and he looked me right back in the eye and said, ’ Joe, I reckon that’s between you and your Maker, and I’ll just stay out of it. How has the goose hunting been, anyway?’ He’s a great guy Lars and he loves to goose hunt. Maybe we can get him out here one of these Saturdays.”
“That’d sure work for me.” Lars replied. “He and his boys are good hunters and we can squeeze five in here. Divine guidance wouldn’t hurt a thing today, that’s for sure.”
“Tell you what, if it stays like this”, Joe said, “Let’s head over to Don and Sandy’s at noon. We can eat lunch and watch the Big Red kick the Buffalo’s butts.”
Let’s see? I’ve heard of buffaloes and Big Red sounds like a name for a Chessie. That contest sounds very unfair to me. I know I’d bet on the Big Red Chessie.
There they go, leaving, just like they said they would. They hollered back, “We’ll be right back, Magic. Don’t let anything happen while we’re gone!”
Yeah, right!
And then, here they came. The geese I mean. A little family of seven landed right in front of me about forty five minutes after the boys left. They swung the decoys twice and then went out in front and came straight in. Backpedaling like no tomorrow. They must have hung in one spot for two minutes. Talk about easy! Sorry boys. You shoulda’ been here.
I just heard the truck door. This will be interesting. Very interesting. The geese heard it, too. They’re getting nervous. Very nervous. The boys will come over that hill back there and I’ll bet they won’t be ready, but these geese will be.
“Heronk! Heronk! Heronk!” Away they go. And just listen to Lars and Joe. Oh my goodness! I won’t even repeat that. Such talk from such nice young men. For shame. That’s goose huntin’.
You pay your dues and sometimes you still don’t collect. Those boys should never have left.
“I can’t believe it, Joe.” Lars said. “Seven geese in the decoys. A bluebird day, nothing flying all morning, we leave for two hours just to watch the Huskers whup the Buffs and the geese fly. Somehow it just doesn’t seem fair to me.”
“Lars, you know that fair is a weather forecast.” Joe just laughed. “There ain’t nothing fair when it comes to hunting those long necked, cheeky devils, but it sure beats anything else we could be doing. Come on, let’s get in the pit. I’ve got a hunch we’re not done yet.”
Well, there are hunches and then there are hunches. Joe’s was sure way off this time. Not even any tweetie birds flew after that.
Speaking of tweetie birds, yeah, I know, they’re not tweetie birds, they’re snowbirds or some such, but everybody calls ‘em tweetie birds. It just amazes me how these human’s eyes can’t tell the difference. Everybody I’ve ever hunted with catches sight of a flock of tweetie birds coming, thinks they’re a flock of ducks or geese, and jumps. It only lasts a second, but boy, do they ever duck. Blackbirds are just about as bad. I just love it.
Must be my sadistic streak.
Today brought another bluebird day and the boys set up as usual but so far nothing has flown. They got pretty bored a while ago and started throwing dirt clods at one of the old tire decoys. Guess I’m on watch.
“You know, Joe”, Lars said, “we do have permission from old man Evers up by Roscoe to hunt the river on his place. Maybe we should check that out. I think these geese have changed their feeding pattern. We just haven’t see anything but that sneaky low life bunch the last two days.”
“I know Lars,” Joe said. “But we’re going to have to get up awfully early to drive up to Roscoe every day. We don’t have a blind in, and I’m not setting in the willows freezing to death like you told me you did last year.”
“Well, this ain’t exactly been freezing weather, but, just to make your day, I talked to Kent at the liquor store in North Platte and he has an old portable blind that he’s not using. He said if we wanted to, we could use it. You know we’ve got tomorrow off and we could move it in then.”
Joe fairly jumped out of the pit and said, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Let’s pick up and get outta here! It can’t be any worse there than this. We’ll keep an eye on this place and if they start coming back this way to feed we can always move back.”
I’ve never seen two guys pick up decoys and load them so fast. They were plumb excited. And, Oh Lord, so am I! On the water again, finally. It sure will be nice to get this dirt washed off.
Chapter Nineteen
This South Platte River is one weird river! It must be a hundred and fifty yards across this channel, but it’s only about two inches deep. Unless you hit a drop off, then it’s all of knee deep. And, it’s got a sand bottom. I keep bumping my butt and it feels strange as hell. If this keeps up, I’ll need a new paint job on that end for sure.
This is truly an ideal location. The boys should have been here all along; water beats dirt any ol’ day. The river bed is wide open. There aren’t any big trees, and just a few willow beds, for at least two hundred yards, upstream or downstream. They hauled that portable blind a hundred yards out onto a sandbar and they have some nice flat water in behind them. That is perfect duck water. They said the sandbar was covered with goose droppings and tracks and boy, are they ever excited.
We got out here in the dark and they worked their tails off getting set up. After they got the blind moved, they cut willows and wired them to the blind. It looks good.
When we were coming in through the pasture I could hear geese getting up off the sandbar and I know they’ll come back or my name isn’t Gust…er. Lucky. No, that’s right, my name is Magic now. Confusin’ ain’t it?
It sure is nice being back in the water. It feels great. It’s where I belong. A little creative weaving and dipping got most of the dirt and cow slobber washed off. At least I didn’t have any of that round brown on me.
The boys better shoot straight because they don’t have a dog. I reckon as shallow as it is they can do the retrieving. But, they should have a dog. I remember Heinz saying that a dog was the best conservation tool a hunter could have.
Either that, or a partner who couldn’t shoot worth a darn!
“Quack! Quack! Quack!”
Way to go guys! They’re letting the decoys do the work and they aren’t even calling. That’s really smart, especially this late in the season. Those mallards have heard every call from Flin Flon, Manitoba, Canada to here. Most times a good spread will suck ‘em in and calling will just push ‘em off.
They’re looking, hard! They’re swinging! They’re locking up! They’re dropping in! And…......
“KA-BOOM! KA-BOOM! KA-BOOM! KA-BOOM! KA-BO0M!”
“SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH!.......SPLASH!??”
Oh, my gosh! They got six mallards with five shots! How about that. Let’s see; drake, drake, drake, drake, drake, hen….oops! That was some shooting.
“By golly Lars, we got six Mallards down out there and not a crip in the bunch.” Joe exclaimed. “How the heck did we do that?”
“I don’t know ol’ buddy, but we better haul butt downstream and pick ‘em off. I can’t believe it. I got four mallard drakes on three shots. Ain’t that something.” Lars jabbed at Joe.
“Yeah right! I think you got a hen and a drake and I shot two doubles.” Joe said.
“Now, either get out of the way or get goin’! We’re done duck hunting for today. I sure hope the geese cooperate as well as those mallards did.”
They scrambled out of the blind and took off at a dead run down the sandbar to head off the harvest, and they made the classic of classic mistakes. They knew all the mallards were dead, they knew they were limited out, and they left their shotguns in the blind. Big mistake.
They each have three mallards and they’re wading back to the sandbar.
“Heronk! Heronk! Heronk!”
Eight big ol’ boys are flying up the channel. The boys are hunching down. Those geese are sailing right over them, locking up, and settling into the decoys without even making a swing.
It sure is fun watching the boys try to sneak back to the blind. They don’t have a prayer.
They’re about fifty yards away, crawling on their bellies, and trying to hide behind every cocklebur plant on the sandbar. Uh-oh! The geese spotted them and they’re pulling out. What a racket!
“Can you believe that? Those cheeky devils. That little package yesterday sets in our decoys when we’re gone and now these pull the same stunt. Some days it just doesn’t pay.” Joe laughed as he put the ducks behind the blind and climbed in. “Let’s see if we can cook a bunch in.”
Ah, the smells. There is something very different about a river. It simply smells good. A little marsh odor, but not as strong as being knee deep in muck, a little mud, a few wet leaves, but,..... something else. Maybe it’s a combination of all those smells, woven together. Like I said, it just smells good.
And then, when the odor from the blind breakfast makes its way to your nose, you would think you had died and gone to heaven. Just the smell of that slab bacon skittering and spattering in the cast iron skillet is enough to make your belly ache. It sure must taste good.
I could hear the boys talking while they were cooking. “Did you hear about John’s newest blind?” Joe was telling Lars, “I still don’t believe it. He told me he was getting sick and tired of belly crawling down fencerows to sneak up on feeding geese. He and Paul came up with this idea from somewhere. Lord only knows where.”
“They cut out two silhouettes of a cow from some old paneling, painted it to look like a Hereford. They fastened the two parts together with a couple of three foot dowels and put in one of those rear window pickup gun racks. They get inside, grab a dowel, lift it up and start walking into the geese at a little bit of an angle, not straight towards them. He told me they walked right into a flock last week. I’ve still got to see it to believe it, but it does kind of make sense. I’ve seen a lot of cows with geese mixed right in amongst ‘em.”
“You know, with our luck, if we tried that we’d run into a mean ol’ bull or a nearsighted rancher with an electric cattle prod.” Lars said. “You can have the back end.”
They promptly cracked up, spilled half their breakfasts, and spooked a bunch of geese that had come in from behind and were about to swing into the wind and lock up. The first clue the boys had was, “Heronk! Heronk!” Heronk!”
“Oh no!, not again!” Lars hollered after the retreating geese. “Man are we snake bit, or what? I knew we’d cook in a bunch. Then you have to go and tell that story and get us laughing and screw ‘em up!”
“Me get us laughing?” Joe said. “I beg your pardon ol’ buddy, but you’re the one who brought up the cattle prod and the bull.” and with that remark they both cracked up again.
I get a little concerned about these boys’ senses of humor. It’s a good thing they are both good shots or I’d just pack up and leave.
Ten to Two. That’s prime time on the river. Most geese come back to the river after they’ve fed in the cornfields. Tongues hangin out they’re so thirsty. At least that’s what I’ve been told. ‘Course right now the ten o’clock bunch is about three hours late. The boys shouldn’t have screwed up those little bunches early this morning. But you never…....
“Heronk! Heronk! Heronk!”A single, and he’s lonely. He’s already got his feet down and he’s dropping right into the decoys. I hope they’re awake in there.
“Heronk! Heronk!”
What the heck are they calling for, he’s already in the spread. Oh! Now I hear more geese. They must have seen another bunch coming from over east. I can’t see that way and I sure didn’t hear them. Yep. There they are, swinging the pasture and coming right back up the river. This is going to be sweet. Get ready boys, they’re just about right.
“KA-BOOM! KA-BOOM! KA-BOOM!”
Uh. Boys, uh, there weren’t any splashes. Uh, you do know I’ve been bragging about you, don’t you? What the heck is going on? What kind of a deal is this anyway? This is hard to believe. Not even any feathers drifting down. Three clean misses. I wonder why they only shot three times?
“You gotta be kiddin’ me, Lars.” Joe moaned. “I’ve shot hundreds of rounds through this ol’ Model 12 and it’s never jammed before. I got one shot off, missed it clean, and the damn thing jammed. I just cleaned it last week.” What the heck happened to you?”
“Beats me.” Lars said. “I don’t know how that bird could still fly with all that lead in him. The weight alone should have brought him down. No, not really, I just flat ass missed, both shots. Score that one for the geese. I guess we should have shot that single after all. Let’s look at your shootpipe and see if we can figure out what happened.”
“Sand!” Lars exclaimed. “Your action has sand in it. I thought you said you just cleaned it.”
“I did just clean it.” Joe said. “I leaned it on the side of the tail gate this morning when we pulled that portable blind out, and I’ll bet we pulled some sand off with the blind and it fell in the action. It worked on those mallards, and then working the slide spread it around. It’s a good thing these are easy to break down. Have you still got that bottle of oil in your box?”
”You bet, you bust it down and we’ll wipe it as clean as we can and oil ‘er up.” Lars said. “You’ll be right back in business.”
While they were working on Joe’s gun, they got to philosophizing. I guess that’s the right word. Shooting the bull about life is probably more accurate.
“Joe,” Lars timidly asked. “Have you ever thought about, uh, reincarnation?”
“What!” Joe exclaimed. “You must be kidding. Isn’t that where you believe that people come back after they die? Like, in the body of another person? No. I’ve never really given it any thought. Why?”
“Well, I was just thinkin’.” Lars said. “That if I could be reincarnated, I’d really like to come back as a goose decoy. You’d only work about three months out of the year, you’d get to hunt almost all of that time, and, somebody else would have to do all the labor. Now, would that be a sweet deal, or what.”
Well! I guess they just don’t understand what is involved in being the perfect decoy. You have to be brave, loyal, and tough. Able to work in any kind of weather, withstanding all that Mother Nature throws at you. In the water or amongst the brown rounds. Hummph! I’d like to tell him a thing or two. But, hey, I guess maybe it was actually a compliment. I’ll have to think on that some more.
“You know, that does sound good,” Joe said, “But with your luck, you’d probably get shot like Jerry’s decoys did last week. I guess some jerk sneaked his spread, crawled all the way down the fence line, jumped up, and emptied his gun into the decoys. They said that when he realized what he had done, he stood there a minute, saw Jerry’s Chessie coming after him, panicked, threw down his shotgun and started running for his pickup.”
“Jerry said ol’ Belle ran out of steam before she even got to the fence. If that guy had know she’s fifteen years old and toothless, Jerry wouldn’t have a new shotgun. I sure wish I’d have been there to have seen it.”
And with that the boys cracked up again. They are certainly easily entertained.
They picked up early today. Something about three strikes and you’re out. I know they should have had a limit of geese and been gone five hours ago. They were saying that they wouldn’t be back again until Saturday and then they had two weeks off for Christmas break. I sure hope they hunt every day. This is more like it. This is great.
Hronk is a serialized book-length work. First serial rights have been licensed to OnStand by the author. Book rights are currently available. The author can be contacted through OnStand.