The Pheasant

By Aaron Juhnke
Contributing Writer

He often went hunting with his grandfather in the early morning in the fall, when the sky was stale blue and the dry grass still grey in the half-light before sunrise. Sometimes there was frozen dew like glass dust on the fields and along the frozen farmroad. The boy would walk beside his grandfather down the farmroad, frozen hard as granite, out through cottonwoods that stood like relics of temple-columns along the road. The leaves on the cottonwoods would be turning orange and gold beneath the silver frost, and the old hunting dog would walk before them.

The air was still and silent and trails of smoke went curling out of the grandfather’s corncob pipe, wrapping around over his shoulder and disappearing like a ghost. The boy kept quiet, listening to the sound of their boots on the frozen ground. The patting of the dog’s paws. At times they heard the chuckling of a grouse or a pheasant in the distance in the thin air.

Away from the farmhouse and the road with the cottonwoods, they turned onto the rutted fieldroad that stretched out alongside a shelterbelt of stunted elms, hunched like old gnomes. Beside the road was dried-up grass, dead for the year. Gnarled limbs with waxy leaves stretched out over the road from the shelterbelt, and the road wandered away down toward the reedy slough in the distance.

The old dog started to work then. The grandfather grinned slightly with his pipe as he shifted the shotgun from his shoulder down into his hands. The boy watched and then did the same. Getting into the thick grass beneath the shelterbelt, the dog started to work and smell, winding back and forth like water running downhill. The boy watched the dog weaving in the grass with the gun cold in his hands.

When a pheasant or sometime grouse flew, the grandfather would let the boy shoot first. The birds almost always flew down toward the slough. It was a sudden movement in the grass and then an explosion of the bird in a fury of wingbeats, sometimes cackling or chirping. When it was a hen there was usually only the sound of the wings and they wouldn’t shoot.

When it was a rooster the boy saw the long dark tail, the dark head with a white neckband coming up out of the grass, sometimes looking back at him as it turned in the air. The gun went to the boy’s shoulder. His eyes squinted. He fired. It sounded like a thunderclap in the cold thin air. The sound ran down the shelterbelt and over the slough and finally came back weakened like ripples that are sent back by the shore when a wave breaks.

Usually the boy missed.

The grandfather never missed, though. He let the boy shoot the old singlebarrel first and miss. Then, with the bird far out toward the slough, having aimed steadily the whole time, the grandfather fired. Feathers swirled in the air like dead leaves as the bird fell. Spinning in a tangle of tailfeathers, wings, and claws.

The grandfather let his gun down, watching the rooster fall. Eyes squinted and smoke curling from the pipe. The old dog was already off after the bird, and the boy was reloading the singlebarrel. They stood and watched the dog find the bird and then retrieve it. The grandfather would reload the first of his double barrels. He almost never used the second barrel. It was because he had learned using the old singlebarrel. The boy was learning on it now.

The old dog came back with the bird. The dark head and tailfeathers hanging out either side of the dog’s mouth, and claws sticking out the front. The grandfather took it and put it into his vest, and then they went on down toward the slough. The old dog went back into the grass, and the boy walked beside his grandfather.

One year the grandfather got sick. Stacking bales in the barn in August, his hand went to the collar of his shirt and then rubbed over the chest. His hand worked like it

was trying to smooth a stubborn wrinkle or bend some metal flat. His face was tight and sweating. He sat down on the bales wiping the sweat with his handkerchief.

“What’s wrong, Dad?” Then everybody stopped to look. There was a cold feeling from the sound of the question.

It was his heart, the doctor said. Too many breakfasts of sausage, bacon, and eggs with coffee so dark it had made his teeth yellow. He gave the grandfather medicine.

“You’ll have to take it easy for a while.”

“I feel fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’re a tough old farmer.”

“Could be.”

One morning, sitting in the kitchen when the sky was murky before the sunrise out the window, the grandfather ate dry wheat toast and drank tea, and the boy was finishing his eggs. The yellow lamp that hung over the kitchen table glowed like candlelight in a monastery. It was the two of them alone in the kitchen except for the old dog lying on the rug by the door. The boy’s mother and grandmother were washing the breakfast dishes. The grandfather cleared his throat. It made a sound like the old tractor in the barn that got harder to start every year.

“Be a good mornin for some huntin.”

The boy looked up from his plate. His brows narrowed.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to go?” the boy said.

The grandfather looked at the boy. The boy was taller on the chair every year. He ate more too. The grandfather’s face wrinkled beside his eyes and he smiled when he spoke, looking at the boy.

“Didn’t say I was going.”

The boy looked at him.

“What d’ya mean?”

“Think you ought to go out by yourself.” The grandfather looked back at his toast. “You’re old enough. See if you can’t get one for lunch. And take my doublebarrel if you want.”

The boy smiled. “I don’t need it.”

“Well, we’ll see about that.”

The boy finished his breakfast. The horizon was beginning to show pale blue out the window when the boy sat by the door putting on his boots to leave. The gun leaned with the barrel between the coatpegs on the wall beside him. He stood up. “Come on boy.” The dog looked and then slowly stood. The grandfather looked up from the table.

“Take it easy on him. He’s old, like me.”

“I will.”

“Better get goin then.”

The boy went out through the door. His boots thudded on the wooden porch in the cold air. Down at the barn, lights were on and an engine started stubbornly in the cold. The boy’s father and older brothers were down there. They were helping the grandfather with the harvest. They came out from the city on weekends sometimes to help their grandfather with the farmwork. The boy would help too, later, after he went hunting.

Walking down the farmroad with the old singlebarrel over his shoulder and his breath white in the cold air, the boy led the dog past the towering cottonwoods. They went out to the fieldroad, looking toward the shelterbelt and the slough down the hill after it. The sky was the color of dirty water. A dull hint of sun showed on the horizon like a flame inside a foggy lantern-glass.

The dog started working in the grass. The boy walked alongside, holding the cold gun in his hands.

“Get em up boy”

The dog worked and got one up. It was close, almost at the boy’s feet. The boy startled and jumped back. The gun went halfway to his shoulder. It was a hen. The boy lowered the gun. The dog, still working, found another one. It was a rooster. It came up out of the grass mad and wild and clucking. It was on old one, and big. The tail was long and dark as blood-stained coal. The boy startled some, but got the gun to his shoulder. The big
rooster turned to go away toward the slough, flapping madly. The boy fired. It was too soon. He missed. The bird rocked from side to side, but flew on mad and clucking.

The boy opened the breach, flicked out the empty case, and reached for another shell while the spent one fell into the grass. The rooster flew on and then was out of range and landed in the slough. The dog watched. Then it looked at the boy. The boy saw sadness in the old dog’s eyes like it missed the grandfather.

“Come on. Get em up boy.”

The dog went back into the grass. They went on down the shelterbelt toward the slough. It was a long walk, and there were no more roosters. A few hens. When they finally got to the slough the boy stopped and looked at it. He held the gun low in one hand. The dog stood beside him tired and panting. The boy looked at the slough and the dog. The dog watched him.

“That big one flew in here. Think you can find him?”

The dog panted and looked up at the boy.

“Come on. Let’s get him.”

The boy took the gun into both hands and kicked into the reeds of the slough. The dog went in beside him. The boy moved slowly in the thick reeds. The cattails and other marshgrasses were all dead and tangled and matted like the bristles of a dirty scrubbing brush. The boy fought the reeds with his legs, twisting through with the gun in his hands. The dog worked, hidden by the reeds, its panting coming through the sound of the cracking and rustling.

“Come on. Get him up boy.”

The boy was ready when the dog found the big old rooster. It was hiding deep in the reeds and it came out like dark smoke blowing from a tailpipe. It clucked angrily with its wings thrashing the reeds. It turned in the air over the slough. The boy’s gun was already pressed into his shoulder.

He watched the bird beyond the polished sighting bead at the end of the singlebarrel. Its wings moved furiously on either side of the bead, and the bead shined like a drop of quicksilver. The boy’s eyes squinted. He fired. Loose feathers fluttered away like black soot and the big rooster toppled over still flapping. It was hit, but not killed. It went down wounded into the slough and the old dog was after it.

The boy and the dog both went for the bird. There were feathers on the reeds where it went down, but it had run. The dog found the trail and went panting after it, as after a criminal. The boy chased the dog back and forth and around the slough. Finally he stopped and stood breathing hard. Sweat on his forehead. The dog came by him and slowed, looking up at the boy. The old dog was panting and looked tired in the eyes.

“Come on boy. Get him.”

The boy went off after the dog again. They chased across the slough. They saw the rooster. The bird could still run. It clawed through the weeds and out into the open stubble of the field. Then it ran. The old dog was behind it, chasing as fast as it could. The boy followed.

All the way across the field the rooster went with the dog behind it, but the boy couldn’t keep up. He kept running though. He ran and he saw the rooster go into a small patch of grass at the edge of the field and the dog after it. They both disappeared into the grass and neither came out.

“Good boy. Get him.”

The boy ran and finally came to the grassy spot. The big rooster lay there dead on the matted grass, and the old dog lay panting beside it.

“Good boy.”

Breathing hard, the boy dropped to the ground by the pheasant, setting the singlebarrel into the grass beside him. The bird’s scaly eyes were closed. Its feathers were sleek and beautiful with colors like oriental cloth, deep reds and purples and oranges. The boy looked at it. Then he touched it. Its body was warm and feathers soft in his hands. The boy held it and looked at it smiling. He looked back over the fields toward the farmhouse.

One yellow light peered out like the blinking eye of a dying man from a window in the cold-looking farmhouse. The old tractor sputtered again in the barn and finally came to life. The boy would be needed back at the farm soon. He reached for his gun and stood up to leave.

He looked down at the old dog. The dog was still lying in the grass.

“Come on boy.”

The dog didn’t move. It wasn’t panting anymore. The boy dropped the gun and the pheasant and knelt beside the dog. He touched it and looked into its face. Its eyes were closed and there was no movement. It looked like an old man asleep. The grey whiskers and fur around its mouth were still, and its wrinkled lids lay over the eyes like warm blankets.

The boy knelt looking, the dog not moving. Then tears came to the boy’s eyes. “No, no, no.” Then, crying, he just sat for some time beside the dog in the grass on the cold ground.

After a time he picked up the dog. It was heavy and the fur was still warm and soft in his face like that of the pheasant. The boy started walking back toward the farmhouse carrying the dog with tears in his eyes. The gun lay behind in the grass beside the pheasant.

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