January 2022 - 46

WILD COUNTRY DISPATCH
The magic truth
O
Story by Tom Reed | Illustration by L. Eslick
utdoor writer and friend Greg McReynolds - an
ardent setter man like me - once said what a pointing
dog does in the field is one of the few magic
tricks that exist in this big, old world.
It was near the end of chukar camp, which
is a multi-day campaign against a crazy little
partridge that lives in the meanest terrain on
the planet, including much of the American
West. The dogs were fed and asleep on soft
beds, hundreds of miles over rough terrain
behind them and a few more ahead. Some
licked sore feet, sanded down by the rock
that once spewed from throats of long-ago
volcanoes. Others dreamed chukar dreams
and curled tight against the night.
We were sated by a good meal in a warm
wall tent, feeding lodgepole that grew on
a mountain far to the east into the wood
stove. It was reflection time - feeling an
ache or pain here or there, but mostly sitting
back in that good, exhausted zone athletes
call " recovery. " Soaking in the moment and
perhaps the taste of oak in a brown liquor,
enjoying the stories of the day and the tales
of yesterday.
Trudy was on fire, sweeping down a ridge
into a rising wind and pinning a chukar
covey here, a covey there then mopping up
the singles and doubles. Luna crept up on
a running covey and finally pinned it at the
edge of a cliff where the birds took wing
over an abyss that swallowed sky. Edna made
a beautiful point and a long retrieve on a
downed chukar. Mabel was, well, Mabel.
Just adding to her legend. We were all in
that glowing, warm wash of having seen the
magic show of a trusted hunting dog released
into a wild lonely wind. Of having lived the
performance.
Dogs are evidence that there is a God.
Their longevity is evidence God is either a
cruel one, or one who requires the human to
sit up and pay attention to every moment for
46 | January 2022
these snippets called canine life are painfully
fleeting and gloriously spectacular. Magic.
Twenty years have slipped like Big Horn
Basin sand through the fingers since I buried
what I thought would be the best setter I
would ever love beneath a chukar cliff in a
wild, high desert. In those two decades since
that sad and lonesome shovel work, I have
had four other very good bird dogs. Then
along came Mabel, who put Hank off the
pinnacle. Then came Edna and I had what
the setter men of old called a brace. These are
my partners now and they are in their prime,
black and white English setters that seem
plucked from an Eldridge Hardie painting.
Being raised by humble parents, I was
taught long ago the perils of the brag. But
on this particular night in this particular
wall tent in the heart of the western desert,
the tales that were relayed about this dog or
that were not the puffery of the insecure.
Instead they were as if we were huddled
on a Broadway sidewalk after having seen
" Hamilton " and gloried in the production.
Gasping, perhaps, breathless, even.
Do you think, one of us postulated, a
good dog knows just how far to push a covey
of birds? Indeed, came the answer. There is a
buffer between the last step a pointing dog
makes into the cone of scent coming from
the quarry and the next step. Push out of
this buffer and birds flush into the beyond.
Push just to the edge and the birds will stop
and gather themselves for launch. It is in this
gathering, if the hunter is ready and close
enough, that a microsecond of preparation
can poise synapse to raise the shotgun at
the launch.
Take it a step farther, I said. Do you think
a dog knows intuitively if the birds are going
to be jumpy on a particular day, or if they
are going to be easy and hold tight and let
you get into shotgun range? Yes, everyone
agreed. We saw over the course of that week
our dogs all perform at this level. Pushing the
birds that would hold, being extraordinarily
cautious on the days birds were flying at the
slam of a truck door or the tweet of a dog
whistle. They just knew, somehow.
Perhaps the answer lies in scent. Not long
ago I listened to the podcast, " Revisionist
January 2022

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