By September, I was eager for the hunting season—more eager, I realized, than I’d been in years. I believed I had a prodigy. Burt, I knew, had a terrific nose. He loved to hunt. He loved to please me. I couldn’t wait to see how he’d handle wild birds.
When the first of October rolled around, he was 2 weeks shy of 5 months old. He was about the size of a long-legged beagle. Just a pup.
My hunting log for that season reminds me that we hunted with Keith and Freebie, his old setter, on Opening Day. We found the woods tinder-dry. The leaves had barely started to turn, and the trees had not started to drop them. The woodcock flights had not arrived. We bumped just three—and no grouse—from our good covers, shot none, and got no points, even from the veteran Freebie. Burt snuffled around. He seemed to ignore Freebie, though I had the feeling he was watching the old dog out of the corner of his eye. He appeared to be hunting. He obeyed my commands well enough. But as far as I could tell, he never got a whiff of a woodcock.
Art Currier and I hunted with Marty Connolly the following Saturday. Marty promised he could show Burt where some woodcock were hiding, and he was as good as his word. Burt’s first woodcock points came that day, and that was when he introduced me to his version of retrieving. First he pointed a dead bird that had landed in a juniper. The second bird we shot he found, flash-pointed, thought better of it, and stood over it protectively until he knew I could find it. Then he wandered off to find another.
A little later, when Art wing-tipped a woodcock, Burt pinned it gently to the ground with his paw until I picked it up.
A few days later we hunted with Skip Rood and Waldo, Skip’s wily old Brittany. Waldo was a legend. Those who’d hunted with him called him “Waldo the Wonder Dog.” He was 14 years old and stone deaf, but his nose was still sharp, and his instincts were well-honed by years of experience. I figured Burt could learn something from Waldo, as he’d seemed to from Freebie.
That was the day he swam out into the middle of a pond to fetch the grouse Skip had shot. Later, he and Waldo doubled up on a grouse that they’d trailed for about 100 yards.
I hunted as often as I could that first season. I hunted more than I had in the previous four or five seasons combined—every weekend plus a couple of weekday afternoons each week. When the season ended, I took Burt to some private hunting preserves. I wanted to fill his nose with bird smells and to fill the air with rocketing game birds and the sound of shotguns and the smell of gun-powder.
And thus it has been since Burt came into my life. We hunt hard in the fall. In the spring, we hunt—without shotguns—for migrating woodcock that he can point. We hunt or practice hunting all year round.
Burt, it turns out, isn’t quite a prodigy. He’s awfully good, though. And he loves to hunt. The appearance of my hunting boots or shotgun case sends him zooming to the back door, where he sits expectantly, whining and panting. I love his enthusiasm. It’s contagious.
Maybe I’ve reached the point in my life when I don’t need to hunt, but I have accepted an obligation. I owe hunting to Burt. It’s what he lives for. Hunting drives him and fulfills him. Poets must write, artists must paint, and bird dogs must hunt birds.
Yes, I hunt because my father hunted, and my father’s father before him, and for all those other complicated psychological, cultural, genetic, and personal reasons.
But these days, more than anything, I hunt for Burt.
Keith and I worked our way down an alder-studded slope when Burt pointed again. I whistled to Keith, waited for him to get into position for a shot, then stepped in front of the dog.
The woodcock rose from under his nose and beat its way straight up to the top of the thick alders. I shot without thinking, and the bird crumpled and fell.
“Git ’im?” called Keith.
“Yep.”
“Bout time.”
I found Burt standing over the dead bird. I picked it up, smoothed its feathers, and held it down for Burt, who gave it a cursory sniff and wandered away.
Keith came over, and we broke our guns and sat on a log.
“A ways back there,” I said, “you were asking what it’s all about. How we could enjoy ourselves hunting when we weren’t shooting a damn thing.”
He shrugged. “It’s a mystery, all right.”
“Well,” I said, “I think I’ve figured it out.”
“I’m not sure I want to know,” he said. “I like mysteries.”
“Tough. Listen. In the beginning, men trained and bred dogs to hunt for them. Hounds to chase, terriers to dig, flushers to flush, pointers to point, retrievers to retrieve. The dogs’ job was to find game so men could kill it and bring it home to eat. You with me so far?”
Keith smiled. “Hangin’ in there.”
“So,” I continued, “Burt’s job is to hunt for me. To sniff up birds and point them so I can kick them up and shoot them.” I poked Keith’s arm. “Remember how Freebie always pointed a woodcock in that corner just over the stone wall at Stick Farm, and how you got such a kick out of predicting it?”
“She was something, all right,” said Keith softly.
“How would you have felt about walking into that corner without Freebie and kicking up that woodcock and shooting it?”
He shrugged. “Wouldn’t’ve bothered doing that. No point to it.” He chuckled. “Pun intended, come to think of it.”
“Exactly,” I said. “So Freebie might’ve been trying to find birds for us, but ... ”
“But,” he said, “the fact is, we were trying to find birds for her. When I went hunting, it was as much for Freebie as it was for me.”
“So that’s it,” I said. “That’s what it’s all about. That’s why shooting and missing really doesn’t bother me anymore. Burt doesn’t seem to care one way or the other, as long as he gets to point them. And if he doesn’t care, I don’t, either. Now when I hunt, it’s for Burt.”
Keith cupped his hand around his ear. “Speaking of Mr. Burt,” he said, “I don’t hear his bell.”
I listened. The woods were silent. I stood up, picked up my shotgun, and slid in two shells. “Let’s go find him,” I said. “If I’m not mistaken, we got ourselves another point.”
Chapter 14
THE OLD COUNTRY
Every time Nick saw Doc, he was surprised by how small his old friend had become.
As usual, Doc was slumped in his chair beside the window. Elizabeth had spread a faded old crocheted afghan over his lap. The old guy’s chin rested on his chest, and he was snoring softly. His skin was papery, his white hair thin and sparse.
Elizabeth gripped Doc’s shoulder and gave it a gentle shake. “Wake up, dear,” she said. “Nickie’s here.”
Doc’s eyelids fluttered open. “I wasn’t asleep,” he said. “Just resting my eyes.” He looked up at Nick. “You been hunting, I hope?”
Nick nodded.
Doc patted his leg, and Buck, Nick’s 10-year-old Brittany, hobbled over and plopped his chin on Doc’s thigh. Doc reached out with his left hand—his good one—and gave Buck’s muzzle a scratch. “How many grouse did you point today?” he asked the dog.
“No grouse points,” Nick told him. “We had three or four wild flushes. Never saw a feather.” He dragged a chair beside Doc and sat down. “He pointed every woodcock we found, though.”
“How many?”
“Five.”
“Five woodcock? You hunted all day for five woodcock?”
“It’s early,” Nick said. “The flights aren’t down yet.”
Doc shook his head. “Even so ... ”
“I know,” Nick said. “It’s not like the old days.”
“How many’d you shoot?”
“Two. The foliage is still thick. I was lucky to hit two.”
“You’re lucky to hit anything,” Doc said. “I never saw a boy shoot so often and hit so little.” He rubbed Buck’s silky ear between his thumb and forefinger and cocked an eyebrow at Nick. “You remember that time we found Timbertop full of woodcock?”
Nick smiled and nodded.
“You must’ve wasted a box of shells.”
“Close to it, I guess,” Nick said. “Didn’t touch a feather. I was only 13. The law of averages has been working in my favor ever since.”
Doc didn’t bother telling the rest of it—that he was five for five, a woodcock limit in those days, that October afternoon. Thirty-five years had passed since that day.
Doc shook his head. “I can remember every minute of it; every bird, every point, every shot. I can remember the angle of the sun and the smell of the woods and the feel of the mud under my boots and the sound of whistling woodcock wings.” He looked over at Elizabeth, who was sitting on the sofa. “Remember that day, dear?”
“I wasn’t there,” she said. “You know that. It was you and Nickie.”
“Of course I know that,” he said. “I meant, you remember me telling you about it?”
Elizabeth smiled. Doc told the Timbertop story every Sunday evening when Nick stopped in to report on his weekend hunt. Sometimes he told it two or three times.
“So how many grouse did old Buck point for you today?” he said to Nick.
“None. I already told you that.”
Doc shrugged. “I guess you did. Sorry. I don’t know what’s worse, living in a chair, or not remembering what you said five minutes ago. I can remember 50 years ago like it was yesterday, but five minutes ago is a blur.”
Doc and Elizabeth more or less adopted Nick when his dad didn’t come home from the hospital. They were middle-aged and childless, and Doc and Nick’s father had been hunting and fishing partners. In a way, each of them filled Nick’s dad’s boots for the other: Nick became Doc’s new partner, and Doc became Nick’s new father.
In the winter they chopped holes in the ice and jigged for yellow perch. In the spring Doc took Nick to Sebago and Moosehead to troll streamers for landlocked salmon. After the snowmelt ran off, they fished for trout in local streams. In the summers they prowled the shorelines of lakes and ponds all over New England in Doc’s canoe, casting Jitterbugs for bass and Dardevles for pickerel.
And every October and November from the time Nick was 12 until Doc had his first stroke, they spent weekends in what, even in those days, they called “the old country,” the vast sprawl of alder thickets, river bottoms, birch and poplar hillsides, and abandoned pastures and orchards, all crisscrossed with dirt roads and stone walls, that lay in the shadows of New Hampshire’s White Mountains.
Doc would toot his horn outside Nick’s house at 7 on Saturday morning, and when Nick stumbled out to the car, Doc would be sitting in the passenger’s seat. Nick learned to drive when he was 12. He guessed he must’ve logged 25,000 miles on Doc’s Ford wagon before he was old enough to get his license.
While Nick drove, Doc told him stories about his father. Nick figured at the time that Doc was making sure he didn’t forget his dad. He supposed it was also Doc’s way of not forgetting him. Mostly they were hunting and fishing stories.
On Saturdays they hunted the covers—Doc and Nick’s dad called them their “string o’ pearls”—that took them northwards: First Chance, Black Alder, Bullring, Crankcase, Red Bloomers, County Line. They stayed in the Valley Hotel on Saturday nights. Doc’s bird dog—first Bing, then Trip, then Duke—joined them in the hotel dining room. The dog lay at their feet under the table, and they dropped meat scraps to him. The management of the Valley Hotel welcomed bird hunters.
The last time Nick drove past the Valley Hotel, he noticed that the sign over the door now read “White Mountain Bible Center.” He’d never mentioned that to Doc.
Their Sunday covers took them in an arc that ended up pointing southward, to home: Bonanza, Tripwire, The Old Hotel, Mankiller, The Treacherous Road Bird, Timbertop.
When they hunted together, Doc liked to recollect how he and Nick’s dad had discovered each of those covers, how they got their names, how some birds were killed and others were ingloriously missed, how the dogs pointed and retrieved and got porcupined in them. Doc had a lot of memories of the old country, and in the years they hunted together, he and Nick added more to his storehouse.
They hunted grouse and woodcock in those New Hampshire covers for more than two decades. Then Doc had his stroke, and that was it. Nick stopped hunting in the old country. He found some covers closer to home and a couple of companions to share them with, and he left Timbertop and Bonanza and the rest of their old New Hampshire covers to Doc and his father and their memories.
Doc hunted vicariously now, trapped in his chair, his shriveled legs covered by his old afghan, stroking Buck’s head with his good left hand while Nick told him his stories. It had been 15 years since Doc’s first stroke, and Nick hadn’t missed an autumn weekend in the woods in all that time.
The truth was, New England bird hunting was nothing like it had been when Nick was a kid, full of passion and energy, prowling the old country with Doc. There were too many hunters now, too many paved roads, houses, and gas stations. There also weren’t enough birds, and for many years Nick had been feeling pangs of regret every time he shot a grouse or woodcock. He could easily have stopped hunting altogether.
But Nick figured he owed it to his old friend. If he were to stay home when it rained, or when he had a cold, or when he just didn’t have the urge, Doc would miss out on a weekend’s hunting.
So Nick went hunting, and he and Buck faithfully visited Doc and Elizabeth every Sunday evening in the autumn to report on the hunt. Thus they keep their partnership alive.
Elizabeth poured each of them a glass of red wine. It was Doc’s medicine, doctor prescribed. In the old days, his drink of choice after a day’s hunting was bourbon and branch.
Doc lifted his glass in his left hand. “To Mr. Partridge and Miss Timberdoodle,” he said, as he always did. “May they prosper.”
They clinked glasses, then sipped.
“So,” Doc said, “start at the beginning.”
When Nick first began to summarize his weekend hunts for Doc, he recited the numbers—birds started in each cover, points, shots, kills—but Doc quickly put him straight. He wanted to know what the birds were eating, what type of cover Nick found them in, how the woods looked and smelled, whether he saw any spawning brook trout in the streams. Doc was greedy for details, and Nick soon learned that he wanted stories, not just facts.
“Our first stop was at Buck’s leg-stretcher,” Nick said. “The goldenrod was thigh-high, not yet frost-killed, and the whole meadow glistened with dew in the slanting early sun. It was like walking through a field of diamonds. Buck headed straight for the alder run along the far side. I had to hurry to keep up with him. I figured it was still early in the season for flight birds, but sometimes a grouse scuttles down to the evergreen thicket at the end, and Buck knows it ... ”
Doc’s eyes were closed, and he didn’t interrupt, which told Nick he was telling it right.
Nick closed his eyes, too, visualizing the scenes, remembering the details, groping for the words to reconstruct it all for Doc. He recalled the moose tracks by the brook. When he’d spotted them, he thought how he had to fix it in his mind so he could tell Doc. He remembered how the Baldwin apples blanketed the ground in the old orchard on the sunny hillside, how some of them had been pecked, and how sweet they smelled when he crushed them under his boots. He remembered picking one off a tree and taking a bite—it was so sour it puckered his mouth—because he wanted to be able to tell Doc how it tasted.
And Nick was struck, as he was every Sunday evening in the fall, with how rich and intense his hunting experiences had become since he accepted the responsibility of recounting them to Doc. He noticed everything, and he evaluated its significance, and he filed it all away.
When he finished, Doc sighed and opened his eyes. “We had a pretty good day,” he said. “Didn’t we?”
Nick nodded. “We had a very good day. Every day in the woods is a good day.”
“One of these days you should head over to the old
country,” Doc said, as he did every Sunday evening, “show old Buck our string o’ pearls. Timbertop, Tripwire, Crankcase, County Line ... ”
Nick took a sip of wine and shrugged.
Doc nodded. “I know. They’re probably all grown up, peppered with No Trespassing signs, bulldozed for house lots.”
“I could check them out,” Nick said.
“No,” said Doc. “Leave’ em be. I like the way we remember them. Did I ever tell you how your daddy and I stumbled onto Bonanza?”
Nick smiled. “Many times.”
“It was the third weekend in November,” Doc said, “one of those slate-colored days when the air is chill and damp and you wouldn’t be surprised if it snowed in the afternoon. Your dad and I were driving an old dirt road we’d traveled a hundred times, but on this particular day ... ”
Nick slumped back in his chair and closed his eyes. One of these days, he thought, perhaps he would sneak over to the old country, send Buck through Timbertop and Bonanza, if he could find them. He guessed he wouldn’t tell Doc about it, though.
Chapter 15
THE CHIPMUNK HYPOTHESIS
Whenever a long day of chasing pointing dogs through Mankiller, Hippie House, Stick Farm, and our other grouse covers leaves our gun barrels clean and our game pockets empty, Keith and I don’t blame our bird-finding skill or our luck or our dogs. Instead, we comfort ourselves with this handy explanation: The cycle must be down this year.
And when the other members of our New England grouse-shooting network also report slim pickins, even taking into account the Machiavellian secretiveness of partridge fanatics (we do not necessarily trust each other), we deduce a trend.
If the reports are consistently grim throughout the season, we assume we know why. Grouse populations are cyclical—always have been, always will be. Some years are better than others, and there’s nothing you can do about it except wait it out.
Upland Autumn Page 10
