Embers

When I consider the future, I cannot help but imagine a worn and weathered version of myself in a dark room lit by a fire on a stone hearth. The light sweetness of MacBaren’s Scottish blend encircles me as the glow of the ember reluctantly illuminates the edges of the bowl of my well-worn Peterson pipe. There are a multitude of years behind us both. I perceive an emptiness in the air; my wife has gone before me—the anchor of my life. There is no dog snoring, no gentle rise and fall of a settled creature, curled beside my chair, no clicking of claws on the hardwood. The realization of having had a last bird dog is tangible, an acknowledgment of my own waning strength. My solitude is all but material.

 Through the darkness of near memory, I hear a truck door shut. Sam makes a comment about the hour. It’s not terribly early, but early enough, especially considering the dull ache in my head.  Jay is stirring outside. He is already tending to his string of Setters. I slowly emerge from the still warm canvas tent, the gun rack within beckons behind me—the soft, timeless call of the Elsies and Parker in its grasp all but audible. Waking to a dusting of snow on the ground, and stale whiskey on my tongue, the cold greets me in truly sobering fashion. The small wood stove somehow kept up through the night, barely holding off the frost outside. Kevin is outside making breakfast. We’ve rung in the first hard frost of the year with a bottle of Red Breast and campfire.  What a life we’ve stumbled into. The alder bottoms and aspen stands will humble us, the price of hunting wild places.

Over the course of the day Setters, both rookies and veterans, ply their trade. Big George puts on a clinic; Emmy and Gus handle birds with years of experience to their names. Gal and Mabel begin putting the pieces of their callings together. My Springers get their share of the action, hard flushes on woodcock and retrieving grouse. Birds are taken, but more than that, shared pursuit deepens friendships.

With a strained draw, the ember in my pipe glows to life. The fire on the hearth burns a little lower. My brush worn joints remind me of the cold outside, but there is contentment in the gloom. The light from the ember fades as my memories return to life.

It’s dark out and early. The scraping of plastic sleds over frozen dirt provides a distinct white noise in our otherwise noiseless trek. Thankfully the cut corn stalks go with us, guiding us to the creek, a veritable series of runway lights in the early morning starry stillness. Bear, Cody’s black Lab, lumbers around us. Closing in on a decade of hunting,  Bear is primed. He knows this business very well. We arrive at the bank and without a word, Cody eases into the water to set up the spread. It’ll be mostly Mallards, maybe some Woodies and Black Ducks; the geese will be in flight as well. Anything could happen. The clouds move amongst the stars; a slight breeze pushes from the northwest. As I brush in the panel and dog blinds, Bear continues his visitations. He checks on my progress before moving to the bank to supervise Cody’s decoy placement. My eyes, acclimated to the darkness, can make out the switchgrass and brush along the edge of the field that we will need to complete the hide. As a dim crack at the horizon forms and begins expanding I quicken my pace. The jerk rig is set up and we take our places in the blind. They’ll be flying in no time, we hope.

Cody and I whisper to one another as the crack becomes a maw and the light reaches further into the sky. Cody predicts a terrible hunt. I agree. Better to keep your expectations in check, I think to myself. We consider the last hunt, and the one before that, we keep our whispering muted. Again, just in case. 

We hear Bear let out a barely audible whine–a squeak at most. There are ducks in the decoys. Bear, the perpetual optimist, always pays such good attention. We rise to shoot. The Mallards decide they’ve seen enough deception and take to wing. Crack! The first shot rings out, then a second, and a third. The muzzle flashes fade into a temporary stillness as Bear is released and crashes into the water. One retrieve is accomplished quickly, as would be the third, but the second send is different. As Bear swims for the second bird, the drake dives on him. He turns in a circle looking for it to come up but to no avail. Cody casts him in the direction he thought the bird initially swam. 

Bear refuses Cody’s instructions. 

Cody swears as Bear swims in a different direction. We leave Bear to his own devices as we reorient ourselves in the blind, preparing for another flock. Bear turns into the bank with intent. I pause for a moment; something is amiss. The line he took toward and then up the bank bely something—he tarries too long as he arrives at the edge near a break in the brush; his head disappears a moment. Anyone who has seen a dog retrieve a bird has heard a dog retrieve a bird. The change to a nasally quality in their breathing is unmistakable. The Veteran emerges from the break with a green head swinging from the side of his mouth. As I reflect, I never figured out if all dogs could smell ducks underwater, but I determined that day Bear could.

The hard reality of running bird dogs is the likelihood you will outlive your four legged companions. I pity the handler who perceives their dogs as merely tools to an end. Bear and my girl, Dixie, were the initial bond from which two strangers became friends.  Dixie was a bench Springer Spaniel and had no business being as good as she was. Despite her genetics, she must have had something to prove and made herself a bona fide grouse dog. And then there was Timber, my Little Bug, lost at 16 months old, her potential never realized. My mind wanders from dogs I have “owned” and dogs I have had the privilege of knowing.

The embers in the old Peterson intensify on the draw. Those on the hearth dim further, slowly releasing their own grip on life.

 The light is mottled through the trees. I look over to the figure next to me. Emily. She smiles. The current breaks around her wading boot draped in the creek. A March Brown floats by, its wings drying in the cooling air. Many more will come and quite soon at that. We take in the spectacle. Together. A fish rises across the creek. As the evening progresses, the air becomes thick with insects, March Browns and Sulphurs especially, but the Caddis will not be denied their spot on this stage.  This is as close as I have come to a religious experience. They seem a fragrant offering, rising to the heavens. We take our spots in the current. As the frail creatures return to their fluvial grave and nursery, the water roils with rising trout. I look below me as she sets the hook. The rod tip tick, tick, ticks. Like the stuck second hand on a clock, this moment will last forever. The net is out; the fish landed. I can see from here that it is a nice Brown Trout. It is handled but for an instant by the person I can’t imagine living without. Emily returns the fish to its realm; I file the moment among those I treasure most.

The memories are rapid fire. I see the grouse come off Dixie’s nose. Emily swings her Beretta. Crack. Crack. The bird’s head drops, and it returns to the mountainside on which it had hatched. Dixie quickly locates the bird. Every bird is bittersweet, but this one more so. Timber died only a couple of months ago. Emily’s first Ruffed Grouse and Timber isn’t here, but Dixie is. Sweet Dixie who never shied away from cover or the opportunity to hunt. Emily walking with Kevin down a logging road in Maine. The fullness of her gamebag matched by the joyous fullness of her expression. Around the tailgate she produces a large gray phased Ruffed Grouse. The next day she returns with a couple of Woodcock. This is paradise.

There’s a harsh, bitter wind. It’s my first time in post-blizzard North Dakota. The barren fields and blown snow are so foreign to me. This may as well be the moon. My brief time in the field produces nothing in the bag. My unfamiliarity with the landscape and quarry left me unprepared for the huns my sweet Fern flushed. I leave this land, bound for home. Dixie had been sick when I left, and I was distraught at leaving her as Emily’s sole responsibility, but trust those hands and the hearts of those around her. As the plane lands I switch off airplane mode. A buzz alerts me to a message. A photo brightens my screen, Emily and Dixie, a bright rooster in hand. It would be Dixie’s first and last wild pheasant. Barely eight months later she was taken by a neurological disease.

The embers are low, and the pipe is exhausted. Time isn’t kind to bodies spent following dogs on rocky, wooded slopes and in short grass draws, sitting in frozen blinds waiting for morning flights, and fighting currents for rising fish. Emily’s absence is palpable, though I feel like she may emerge from the darkness at any moment. I have been fortunate in life in many ways, but not least of which was the privilege of sharing my life with someone whose passions and interests were so congruent with mine.

It is cold.

It is dark.

Have I had a good life?

I have had the best life.

I have seen bird dogs fulfill every ounce of their potential. I have seen the wonders of nature and been humbled by them—from the peenting Woodcock to the trout rising in a cloud of mayflies and caddis, to the King of Upland Birds himself, becoming visible in an instant and exploding from cover. From Largemouth Bass smacking frogs in the July twilight to young bucks settling their differences in the November dawns. I have shared it with those dearest to me. From Emily’s dad helping me kill my first buck to seeing Emily run dauntless dogs in countless covers for the wariest prey. I have missed shots I had no business missing and made shots I have had no business taking. I have taken my lumps and learned and been better for those lessons. I have been immersed in this life and lived it to the hilt.

And in these dark and lonely moments I will be whole. There are no regrets. The spirit of Dixie, of Fern and Wild, of my Little Bug whose stolen potential only galvanized my desire to do right by each subsequent dog–they are beacons to me, each of them having imbued my soul with their own. In my connection with Emily, who has proven to me the existential gulf between individuals could be all but abolished, I am anchored.

It is cold.

It is dark.

But I can see and am warm.

As the darkness swells, memories become reality and reality fades into the ether.

And in every moment I live today.