that it appeared to have seen Satan himself. Before Reverend
John could stuff three of my skeet loads into his autoloader, two
more birds zipped by with a four-legged spotted devil hot on
their tails. It was the first time that I saw woodcock flying while
looking back over its shoulder.
The volume of the evangelist’s WHOA! reverberated in my
head but fell on deaf dog ears as Duke vanished like vapor. The
Reverend’s wild-running canine seemed to delight in thoroughly
scattering one of the most abundant flights of woodcock that
I’ve ever witnessed. Terrorized birds whistled by us in every
direction, but we held our fire, waiting and praying for just
one good point. Doctor John declared the dog to be demon-
possessed.
On occasion, we would hear the dog’s collar bell in the
distance and observe more terrorized woodcock escaping
the cover like scattered quail. During one of the many lulls,
while the dog was beyond the range of human hearing,
I showed the minister some woodcock “splashings,” the
telltale white blotches of bird droppings that indicate the
presence of woodcock. A bit later, his use of a more common
term upon finding similar defecations was a bit surprising.
“Hey, I’m a country preacher,” he responded to my wide-
eyed glance.
Four hours passed while the preacher screamed a continual
tirade of invectives that echoed through the narrow valley. A
vast array of judgment and damnation terms were hurled at
the scent-crazed, demon-possessed canine. The tireless dog
paid no attention to the Reverend’s insults or commands, but
then his name kept changing from Duke to
Beelzebub, Lucifer, Demon and other titles
only a seminarian could know.
With the October morning spent and
the utter futility of our quest obvious, we
surrendered to failure. The birds, Doc’s
vocal cords and my ears needed some
rest, and we decided to abandon the effort.
Duke, though, was still running strong. “He
certainly has great stamina,” I offered as a
compliment.
“He’s a –– .” Doc choked his response
and bit his tongue.
We were quite a distance from our
trucks, and the shortest return route to them
and a cold drink led through a mature, park-
like stand of oak, maple and ash bordering
the dense woodcock thicket. At the edge of
the hardwoods stood an ancient white oak,
an old property corner marker. As we passed
beneath it, out of nowhere, Duke trotted
up beside the preacher. Suddenly that dog
locked into the most statuesque, staunchly
perfect point that any dog owner could wish
for.
“Oh my God!” the preacher exclaimed
at the sight. “Stand back. This is my bird.
This is what I’ve been waiting for!” Raising
his gun to the port-arms position, Reverend
John advanced ever so cautiously to the
point in a setting so highly unlikely to hold
a woodcock that I suspected the wild and
crazy dog was locked up on a box turtle.
No so! As the preacher stepped in front of the classically
posed shorthair, a thoroughly exhausted woodcock rose wearily
and twittered oh-so-slowly straightaway, with not so much as a
twig obscuring its progress or our view of it.
The preacher’s 12-gauge autoloader boomed once –
boomed twice – boomed again, but the little woodcock fluttered
slowly on. Just as the last boom echoed back, the preacher
slowly lowered his gun and in disbelief screeched out an oddly
high-pitched, “Sonnnnnnn – of – aaaaaaaaa – Biiitttchhh!”
“Bitch – Bitch – Bitch,” echoed through the hollow and
ushered in an eerie silence and stillness that enveloped us
and etched the scene on our minds in ultraslow motion and
disgusting reality.
As though frozen in time and space, the suddenly and
surprisingly perfectly staunch-to-wing-and-shot shorthair slowly
rotated his head left and upward to glare at his master with an
unmistakable air of canine disdain.
Doc broke the profound silent stillness with, “What?” in
response to the look of incredulity clearly written on my face.
“There are times when only certain words suit,” the preacher
explained. “He is a dog, isn’t he? His mother’s a dog, isn’t she?
Huh? Well?”
“You’ve got a point there, Doc,” was all that I could say as
we headed to the truck with a thoroughly calm Duke, heeling
like a gentleman.
The preacher’s prayers had been answered, partially. I
couldn’t help reflecting that God must have a sense of humor.