Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/433799
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 6 6 Make him carry his gun open coming and going. Make him open it whenever approached by another hunter. Set him way off by himself along a treeline, far enough so he can't shoot nobody but not so far where you can't beller instructions. When the birds start falling, credit him with an extra bird or two. But the boy began blasting away like an Iraqi air defense colonel. If he saw it, he shot at it. Wick wryly watched the proceedings. "You put a stretcher on that boy's shotgun?" "Hey Boy, quit that sky-busting!" He did but it wasn't long before he came trudging the furrows, gun open like I told him, out of shells. "Necesita mas cartouches?" I asked. "What?" "Sorry son, I was back in Argentina." "They tried to teach me Spanish in school," he massaged his gun shoulder, "but I just couldn't pick it up." "Mas cartouches, mi hijo." I tore open another box of low brass, rattled half of them into his vest. "Well, you buck up and do better. You know that little Mexican girl just down the road?" He blushed. "Yessir." "I'm fixing to hire her to come over and give you private lessons." I could see the panic rise. All of a sudden he knew that I knew. She was a little looker, alright, about his age, just a little more than half grown. "Oh no sir, you won't have to do all that!" "Get on back there and slide your butt into the brush a bit. Not so far you can't see but just enough to break your outline." Then I sprung the same line on him that my daddy sprung on me. "And remember the T." "What sir?" "The T. We are trying to shoot, not shoo." The limit was 16 birds. I wasn't sure if a junior hunter's bag counted as mine, so we stopped early. Back at the shack, I laid the birds on an outside table. "Dime una paloma," I said. Wasn't any way to confuse that, so he passed me a bird. "Mira," I said. "What?" "Watch." I plucked the breast clean of feathers, ran my knife close alongside the breastbone, cut till I hit the wingbone, then peeled away the meat. Each side would have filled the bowl of a good-sized serving spoon. " Puede asistarme?" He grunted, took the knife. I went to the kitchen and fetched up a mess of sweet banana peppers. While the boy whittled on the doves, I split the peppers, shucked out the seeds. Half a dove breast filled half a pepper perfectly. I wrapped each in bacon, pinned with a toothpick, baptized with a splash of soy, and dusted with powdered garlic. "Lo haremos parilla estos." "How come you been speaking Spanish all afternoon?" "Practicing up," I said. "You going back to Argentina?" "We are going to Argentina." He looked at me like a spaniel. "You gonna take me to Argentina?" "Well boy, I am gonna try. It's a longshot but I will promise you this. If I go, you will go too. And I won't have you stumbling around with dumb looks when you are hungry, thirsty, or need to pee. You sure you don't want me to call up that little Mexican girl?" "Oh no, sir, I'll do better, I promise!" "I am going to hold you to it. Now go fire the grill while I start the rice." "Yessir! Parilla, that's grill right?" "Correcta!" "So how do I ask for more shells?" I told him and he grinned from one ear clean to the other. "We having these birds for supper?" "Not unless you quit all this jawing and get after that grill." "Parilla," he said.