Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/116174
the crash site, beating the dog by a split-second to the downed bird, then yelling "NO!" at him as he tried to take it from my hand. Once he saw that he was to be denied this morsel he started to hunt again, working out through the field while I examined my treasure. Dad came over and slapped me on the back, saying "Fine shot!" over and over. At that point it didn't matter what the rest of the day held; I smiled so hard my face hurt. on something in the stubble I could not see, and maybe he couldn't see anything either, but his nose was telling him that they were there and he believed it, as sure as a dog can be sure of anything. Ten thousand years of evolution stood three feet from my left leg, the culmination of predatory wildness and breeding and training now perfected in this old, ugly, beautiful awe-inspiring creature. At that moment I didn't care if his smell could kill me: I loved him. We would hunt together three more times that fall, and all of those outings were repeats of the first – dog stinking, working beautifully, snatching a bird when he could, the cussing and laughing and shooting printing my memory. W I didn't know what to expect, and I certainly did not expect what happened with the next step I took; the frosted buckwheat stubble shattered in front of me and brown pieces of it whirrrred! out in all directions and I stood there and watched my father in the most graceful and elegant smoothness take one, two, three shots and three birds were falling and the others scattered out into the field and fencerow beyond us. I didn't even raise my gun. To this day, every time someone says the word "quail" I see that scene, with my old man and the dog and the birds and the sky, and I think that with the possible exception of the first time I laid eyes on my wife or my newborn children, it may be the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. "Can't kill 'em if you don't shoot," Dad said with a crooked grin, reloading his Remington. "Hunt dead!" he told the dog. The first dead bird Lightning came to disappeared down his throat so fast I thought I was seeing things, but Dad's yell of "NO, DAMN YOU!" woke me up. "Quick, find the other two!" he yelled, and we barely beat the setter to the other two casualties, which at once were hidden safely in Dad's vest. "You sorry SOB," the old man said. "Hunt 'em up!" And once again we started walking in the direction of the scattered covey, the dog now working out in front of us. "We'll take turns on the singles," Dad said, and as he did Lightning stopped like he hit an invisible wall and did an about-face 30 yards in front of me, pointing like a wooden dog into a tiny patch of buckwheat missed by the machine. I eased up toward him until I was only ten feet from his nose and the bird flushed from between us up and to my right and I saw the explosion of feathers over the ivory bead of the Fox. "RUN!" the old man screamed and I sprinted to S P O R T I ith each point we took turns backing each other, Dad killing three birds on three flushes and me two of five. Every time that miserable old setter rewrote the book on bird dog performance and every time we had to fight him for the dead birds. I don't think any dog ever before or after endured the like of the cursing laid on him by the old man and my vocabulary grew fat with new and wonderful prose. And every time the dog cut through upwind of us he was easy to track. "He sure doesn't need a bell," Dad quipped. We came over a small rise and there below us where the creek and fence bordered the field, where an ancient walnut had fallen in an August storm the summer before, Lightning stood solid with his nose pointed into the overgrown branches. "This could be another covey," Dad said as we approached. "I'll cross the fence and cover the woods, you stay in the field." When Dad was safely over the creek and even with me, I eased up to the dog, saying very low under my breath "Easy, easy." He didn't look at me, but was very aware of my presence and when I stepped up even with his nose, the whole end of the field exploded. I heard Dad's gun off to my left, but fixed a bird on the bead straight away and fired, saw him fall, and swung right on a cock bird that had found his stride. I swept in front of him and bang, the Fox barked and he upended in mid-air, doing backwards somersaults through the cloud of his own feathers and crashing into the fencerow blackberries. My first double! At Dad's first shot Lightning had sprinted his way, hitting the creek like a freight train, and as I rushed forward to recover my birds I could hear Dad cursing, "YOU QUAIL-EATING BASTARD!" I had just reloaded my gun when I heard another bird flush from that direction and as he rocketed out over the field I took N G C 134 L A S S I C S