Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/100010
Mr. DETWILER Who was this strange old man who handled a shotgun like no one he���d ever seen? Charles Fergus O R T As he filled his cheek, I looked him over. His coat was canvas, brush-frazzled and dotted with stick-tights and beggar���s-lice. Canvas pants and boots ��� those 16-inchers you see in old pictures, the kind that make even the stockiest legs look spindly ��� with gray wool socks folded down over the tops. On his head perched a black-andred-checked cap, brim broken in the middle; below the cap brown eyes shone in a weathered face that could have been 60 years old, or 80. I realized he was holding out the tobacco pouch ��� ���Mechanic���s Delight��� ��� and shook my head. ���Fergus,��� he said, cocking his head. ���I know the name from somewhere.��� I groaned inwardly. Sometimes, in filling stations, gun shops, country stores, taverns, I hear this preface followed by an identification as ���the fella who writes for the ���Game News.������ And then I can expect a rambling treatise on why there aren���t any rabbits, why the deer population���s shot to heck, and in the next breath, the 27 bucks the discourser killed off the same stand in 27 years of hunting. ���Don���t you write for that little magazine . . .?��� I nodded, resigning myself to an afternoon shot, to grouse and woodcock unbagged, and to an inescapable ensnarement rivaled only by childhood memories of Saturdays when my parents, too smart to leave me to my own devices, dragged me from store to store while they shopped for furniture. But the old man only smiled and let his eyes wander over the hunting cover. At length he turned, ���Whyn���t we hunt together?��� he said. ���Kate���s pretty fair on birds, and I see you haven���t got a dog.��� ���All right.��� I felt relieved; hunting with the old man ��� however slow he might be ��� seemed infinitely better than standing around talking. hen I first saw him, I tried to duck back into the pines, but he raised his hand in greeting and I was stuck. All the while he was coming on over through the hawthorns, I cussed under my breath. It was bad enough finding a stranger in my favorite bird cover, but it would be even worse if I had to jaw with him as the afternoon slipped away. When he got near, he whistled in his dog, a gaunt setter marked with a black saddle and brown spots above her eyes. The dog had that slight jerkiness of gait that suggests age; so did her master. ���Hello,��� he said, clicking open his shotgun and crooking the barrels over his arm. ���Name���s Detwiler. And you���d be . . .?��� ���Fergus. Chuck Fergus.��� He stretched out a hand, and I shook it. A rough hand, bigger than mine, though its owner stood inches shorter. ���D���you hunt around here much?��� he asked. ���Some.��� ���Seen many birds today?��� ���No,��� I lied. ���This cover���s only so-so.��� He grinned, and I knew he���d taken in the one-grouse bulge in my game pouch. ���Have you hunted this valley before?��� I asked. He nodded. ���Used to quite a bit, years ago.��� ���How was the hunting then?��� He smiled, lines around his eyes sort of falling into place, and reached down to scratch behind his dog���s ears. ���It was good,��� he said. ���Wasn���t it, Kate?��� He dug in his pocket for a chaw, and I knew I was caught. S P I N G C 140 L A S S I C S Image cOURTESY of Cinnie O'Brien, www.copleyart.com by