As morning light
threatened, we abandoned the house in practiced silence, save for a shrill
whistle and the rhythmic clinking of a field collar. Its owner, Tucker, a sprightly,
peppery English setter, rode the truck’s back bench-seat well. Curled in a ball
of muscular fur and tradition, his position was suggestive of the grit that
often characterizes upland hunting and its participants. I diverted my gaze.
The winter sun was
veiled by clouds and fog, presenting the day in a melancholy haze. A half-hour
drive landed us on the brushy banks of the James River, at a boat landing in
the Hardware River Wildlife Management Area. The lot was empty, and with
reason. Migratory woodcock had long since abandoned the tangled successional
growth of the riverbottom for the swampy groves of the Old South, squirrel and
deer season had withered, and February’s biting personality had fishermen
frightened from the banks of the meandering river. For the season, the secrets
of the almighty James seemed secure under a thick haze.
An early bird hunt. |
Tucker glided out of the
back door tenderly. Dad corralled him to adjust his collar and behold his soft,
wispy ears. Few words were uttered before the morning commenced with a locating
beep from Tucker’s collar and our shotgun-toting footsteps crunching upon frost-bitten
cut corn.
The weather on such
days is enough to draw my thoughts inward and leaden my tongue in meditation, but
there was something more spiritual at play in the bottomland. We followed our
four-legged guide closely, observing him
peruse cover, rather than observing the cover he perused. A cottontail dashed
from cover. Tucker ignored it from good training. We took little note, our
reflexes jaded by thought.
The communal element to
bird hunting was as clouded as the sun, as Dad looked forward to Tucker for
conversation. I understood. More than a decade’s share of memories tied the
companions. From cool Minnesotan nights, to fast-paced grouse shooting in the
snow-blanketed forests of the upper-Midwest and Virginia highlands, their
relationship was one of mutual dependency. Second only to a common love for
grouse and woodcock, Tuck’s affinity for crisp northern nights and his habit of
filching laps of scotch from his Master’s unattended glass mortared a
friendship only strengthened over years working for each other.
Training time, with a harnesses bobwhite quail. |
Of course, the memories
I perceived pouring from my father’s pensive eyes were imparted to me only as
nostalgia. My relationship with Tucker was different. He was introduced to our
household just months before I. It was he who provided much of my transportation
in my pre-walking years, dragging me about the wood floors of our Fluvanna County
home by the stocking feet of my pajamas, and hauling my saucer-sled over fresh
powder by a leash fashioned as a harness. I hunted over him—rather, pointed
over him, with my training cap shotgun—as a young boy. Still, most memorable
was his good-natured spirit that established him as a childhood friend and
shot-gunning companion.
We entered the fourth
in a chain of linked, riparian corn fields when we made the decision to turn
back. Our halt lit the flame under the hooves of a 12-point buck bedded on the
field’s edge. The morning’s first audible words were spit in reflexive
excitement.
The shadow that loomed
over us soon returned, our hunt half over.
Tucker’s senses roped
him from the intricacies of the field to the cover of the tangled riverbank,
where, after nosing methodically, he uncovered the magnificently large shell of
a river cooter. I dusted it off and found it a place in my pack.
It was New Year’s Day
the last time Tucker yielded me a prize of his own industry—a chukar taken on
the wing from a game preserve in Southside Virginia. That was a different hunt—one
lively and filled with comradery. He zig-zagged cover unrestrained, ears
bouncing loosely in the frosted sun, feet treading deftly, on track to a bedded
bird. At dusk, we collected our party and turned back.
Tucker plodded
exhaustedly in the lead, but caught our immediate attention when he froze
mid-step, convulsing briefly.
As we approached the
truck, the oppressive haze seemed to lift. Conversation emerged and colored our
unloading and packing as a statement of burdensome acceptance. With the fading
light in the riverbottom, yet another Virginia grouse season would be retired
to the pages of sporting memories in the mountains—but we were not hunting for grouse.
There is no grouse season this far east. We were hunting for a memory. All
three hunters recognized that the brain tumor that was steadily revealing
itself in our beloved setter with every soulful step would make this season a
concluding one, and this hunt, a final chapter—an epilogue worth writing and
cherishing, forever. □
*Originally published in the Rural Virginian
4 comments :
A lovely tribute to a childhood friend, thanks for sharing Matt.
So eloquent. Beautiful.
Thanks, guys. It's a special one to me. Tuck was once-in-a-lifetime.
Awesome writing Matt. I too had an English setter who was a special dog for 13 years. Buried him in Highland county at the exact spot he pointed his first grouse at 6 months old, which I killed.
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