We’ve been here four days. My 83 year old father, my sons Matt and Chris, my father’s buddy (and serial eater) Bruce, and two dogs have staked out our claim to North Dakota’s pheasants. Only Chris has been productive, hitting most of the birds he’s shot at. I’ve been dismal behind the sights of my twelve gauge over-under. Matt has been worse. But his yellow Labrador, Lexi, and a little Springer, Windsor, a dog borrowed from Chris’ buddy Massie (who’s undergoing a kidney transplant back home as his dog stalks birds on the prairie) have been such a joy to hunt with, just watching the two dogs work is a reward unto itself.
Then there are the old guys, men who once couldn’t wait to get out into the field before the sun; men who now sip that third cup of morning coffee and think about how nice another twenty minutes of sleep would be. They’ve shot a couple of roosters. Very stupid birds who walked out in front of my old man’s Tahoe and stood like statues so that Bruce could pop them both off with a single shot. Two birds with one shot. That’s a feat for anyone, let along a guy who spends more time over the cereal bowl than in the field.
The weather has been horrible. The three of us and the dogs are working a sixty acre patch of wide open conservation land adjacent to a corn field. We hunted the same patch at dusk yesterday and kicked out a mother lode of roosters and hens, only to miss most of them. Today we’re facing torrential rains, sleet, snow, and wind coming out of Canada in gusts between thirty and forty miles per hour. Even migrating geese and ducks know better than to be moving around on a day like today.
“Those Huns might be on the far side of that rise,” I say to the boys as we creep up a sharp change in elevation towards a boulder strewn thicket. “We might get a shot at ’em.”
The birds, not Hungarian partridge, but a covey of sharptailed grouse (cousins of the ruffed and spruce grouse of my native NE Minnesota) rise from the far side of the ridge long before we’re in range.
“Shit”.
Twelve round-bodied birds flutter furiously against the wind. It appears we’ll have no shot. But then, the sharpies do the inexplicable. They turn to catch the wind. Briefly, they’re suspended in midair as they try to take advantage of the gale.
“They’re coming back,” Matt says.
We raise our shotguns. Three barrels bark. A single partridge falls. I hit one, about thirty yards out, as it stalled in the wind.
“Nice shot, Dad,” Chris says.
“Crap.”
“What’s wrong, Matt?” I ask my eldest son.
“Gun’s jammed.”
To shorten this piece, we’ll fast forward past all the swear words and machinations between Matt, Chris, me, and Matt’s Remington 870. The long and the short of it is that Matt stomps off towards his Nissan pickup a quarter mile away; his shotgun in two parts; our meager knowledge of field stripping and reassembling a Remington thwarted by weather.
“He’s not happy,” I observe.
“Not at all.”
As Matt makes the crest of the hillock on his way to retrieve another gun, sharpies rise from beneath his feet like doves ascending before Jesus. The birds flap furiously in the wind. Their departure is the last straw: We watch Matt launch pieces of his inert shotgun at the retreating birds.
“Now that’s funny,” I say, holding my gut as Matt kicks furiously at wind-swept grass.
“It sure is,” Chris agrees. “But I don’t think we should bring it up later.”
My eldest picks up the pieces of his gun and moves on. Chris and I go about the business of hunting. The wind howls. The dogs try to work but the gale is so strong, any scent that’s around dissipates like fairy dust. We stop and watch Matt crest another rise. Again, the sharpies take wing from beneath his boots. This time, Matt controls his temper and simply watches as the birds catch the wind.
That night, the five of us sip beer and watch the World Series in the little white house we’ve rented in downtown Ashley. Outside, the wind continues to pummel the land. Snow continues to fall. Inside, the dogs sleep heavily, their exhausted bodies curled tight against the storm. It isn’t long before the story of Matt throwing his shotgun at a covey of sharptailed partridge becomes the topic of conversation.
Peace.
Mark
