(Posted October 3,2010)
6:30am. Saturday. October. I’m in my writing studio. Instead of working on my latest novel (my fifth) I find myself looking out a window and studying the Cloquet River, a wide (and due to drought) shallow slash of black water slowly making its way west, to its confluence with the source of Lake Superior and all the other Great Lakes; the St. Louis River. Golden light creeps across the short green grass of our lawn. The sun’s tentacles stretch over a ridge of trees, bathing the old Sears farmhouse we once owned in clean yellow light. It’s morning on the river.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The report of shotguns being emptied echoes through the river valley.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
That’s Chris and his buddies, I surmise. Sounds like they’ve got plenty to shoot at.
Robbie, Becker, Rodlund, and Chris greeted morning at the Munger Farm a little later than they wanted to.
“You look sort of tired,” I said to Chris when he and his three hunting buddies gathered for breakfast in the kitchen of our house, sunlight already gathering to the east, the boys’ desire to make it onto the water before dawn thwarted by delay.
“Celebrated my boss’ birthday last night,” my son replies. “Too much celebrating.”
I smile. I remember my own young adulthood and all the “celebrating” I did. I let the comment pass. Chris cooks eggs and bacon for his crew. The boys make a youthful attempt at cleaning up their mess before Becker sounds the alarm.
“There’s a guy canoeing down the river. His canoe is full of decoys.”
“We better haul ass,” Robbie says, “or he’ll take our spots.”
The boys make it to their blinds. Shotguns bark and I imagine beautiful green headed mallards and darting teal falling from the sky, the ducks retrieved not by dogs (for the group has no dog with it) but by canoe.
My guess at what took place isn’t far from reality. When the boys come back to the house for lunch, Robbie hefts two Giant Canada geese aloft for me to admire.
“Nice geese. Who shot ’em?”
“Me.”
“Chris get anything?”
“Nope.”
It is a gorgeous early October day. The boys are hunting local ducks and geese, birds that were raised on or near the river. Manitoba waterfowl haven’t been pushed south by weather as yet. And since the Cloquet isn’t a major flyway (the brimmingly full potholes of the Dakotas having usurped the lakes and streams of Minnesota in that regard) even when the weather turns and bitter winds and rain blow in from Canada, few migrating ducks and geese will traverse the Cloquet on their journey to the Gulf of Mexico.
The boys hunt until 4:00pm, the time set for waterfowl hunting to end the first weekend of the season. They take four dandy mallards (elegantly colored greenheads that have been fattening up for the trip south) in addition to the geese.
That evening, Massie joins the group with his dog. Chris opens a jar of Rene’s homemade spaghetti sauce (just canned from this year’s crop of tomatoes and the best sauce you’ve ever tasted), boils a ton of noodles, and feeds the hungry crew. The hunters gather in front of a roaring fire a stone’s throw from the black water of the river to relive the day’s exploits. The sun is gone. Evening, its ebony veil punctured by eerily shifting stars, descends. The night grows quiet. Conversation wanes. The last beer is finished and the boys tumble into the basement and find beds. They’re soon fast asleep. They’ve vowed to get up before dawn, ready to hunt. And that they do.
By the time dusk falls on Sunday, the hunters have bagged six nice Giant Canada geese, six mallards, a pair of wood ducks, a hell diver, and a couple of wayward mergansers.
“You guys have fun?” I ask Robbie as he walks tiredly from the fire ring where they group assembled to clean birds towards his car.
I’ve spent Sunday afternoon pulling carrots, potatoes and onions from our vegetable garden; trimming my precious black raspberry canes; cutting and baling cornstalks for our church’s harvest sale; and tilling the garden for the final time this year. I’ve listened intently for shotgun fire in the near distance, appreciating that, with every discharge, the boys are experiencing the very reason I love living where I do.
“You bet. Thanks for letting us stay overnight. And for letting us hunt here.”
“No problem. That’s what it’s for.”
Chris and Massie aren’t back yet. Though waterfowl hunting is closed for the day, they’re back on one of my trails with the dog, hunting grouse.
They won’t be back until dark.
I look up at the clear blue sky. I take a deep breath, inhaling the smell of aspen leaves and autumn.
There’s no better place.
