HERSHEY’S HUNT

Stomping through alfalfa,
past cattails,
onto plowed ground,
I turn to
hurry Hershey along,
for I know the bird
must be just ahead.
Of course, his nose
knows more
than I ever will,
as usual,
for he is on point,
a static, silent signal
of our quarry.
I backtrack in time
to watch the rooster
explode from under
the big brown nose,
rise over cattails
and crumple,
though only
from the third and
final shotgun blast.

In five minutes,
my Big Boy makes
a second perfect point,
not bad for a
Chocolate Lab,
whose breed
often lacks this trait.

I’d usually be less
certain that I knew
the location of
a hunkered bird,
but today is a different,
unusual, sort of hunt—
our first trip
to one of the
shooting preserves
where, for a fee,
pheasants are released
into the field; clearly
this is not real hunting.
The pen-raised birds
will have to do,
though, for the chances of
Hershey hunting when
the season opens
two months hence are slim.
“Osteosarcoma,” the vet said,
“not a good cancer to get.”

“We haven’t opened;
worried about fire,”
was the first response
to my inquiry to
Little Canyon Shooting Preserve.
“And I don’t have
any mature birds
up there yet.”
When I explained why
time was critical,
the bird man promised
three mostly-mature roosters
for me at Endicott,
near the places Hershey
and I had hunted for years,
tramping behind memories
of pheasant outings with
Dad in my youth,
down the road from
the field where
I had spread
Dad’s remains
ten years past.

Walk—sob—point—shoot
is the order of
this bittersweet day.
Yes, I can smile,
even laugh,
at the enthusiasm
of my goofy pal, but
sooner rather than later,
the impending loss
avalanches and I
can scarcely
remain standing.
I coax him
to sit, to drink, to rest.
I’m sure
he is confused—
“Where’s the
hunt-nonstop-over-the-
next-ridge-till-we-drop,
Daddy?”
But it is warming and
I fear dehydration, so
we pause while
he drinks from
his collapsible field bowl.

Over the final stubbled hill
and down along the road,
I spy the bird pens
150 yards away.
The end looms
in my heart, but,
devoid of the Knowledge
that defines
“The Human Condition,”
living in eternal present
as we all should do,
my faithful friend
vectors up the hill and
freezes like
an English Setter
before a clump of
withering cheat grass.
There it is, our last bird,
a Hungarian Partridge.
I nail the final shot
and let him chew
the downed bird
as I record
tear-dropped video.

Together we finish
the final field
and I am grateful
that I decided to
bring my buddy here.
Three weeks later
he is gone, the kindly
vet helping him across
as he drapes over
our laps in the
living room, Karen
kissing his noble face,
my ear on his chest,
tracking each
smooth, slow breath
until
his massive heart
goes still.

A month passes
and I ask,
“When will our
tears run dry?”

October 12, 2014

R. Steven H.