Of Woods and Waters by Ron Ellis & Nick Lyons

Author:Ron Ellis & Nick Lyons
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky

YOU CAN TAKE that little 20-gauge home with you, if you want it,” Dad said. I hadn’t noticed he was watching me, and wondered how long he had been standing in the doorway.

“It’s too short for me and your brother,” he continued. “Take good care of it, though, and keep it always. It’s an heirloom.” Dad retired to the den, leaving me alone.

Suddenly an imaginary covey of quail erupted from under the nose of an imaginary pointer. The gun came up quickly, the part of my body that had been missing all these years. Two imaginary blasts, whispered “POW!” on my lips, brought the instant demise of two bobs, and the pointer became a lemon-and-white blur. He retrieved the birds, both cocks, to hand. I patted him on the head and slipped the imaginary quail into the game pocket on the old canvas coat.

“Good boy, Chief,” I whispered.

Many writers have attempted to explain why they hunt. They wax eloquent about predatory instincts, primal desires, and ancient connections with the land. They expound on the profound paradox of loving game, yet reducing it to possession. They cast a wary glance at the general populace, who condemn hunters while exchanging money for packaged flesh at the supermarket. Sometimes I too am prone to such raving apologetics. But hunting was not that complicated for Lee Roy Mason. He did not hunt for abstractions. He approached hunting like he approached all of life, with that embodied knowledge typical of peasants. I have come to adopt the wisdom of his simplicity, seeing that there is no meaning behind a quail covey. That is not to say a quail covey has no meaning. The meaning, whatever it is, resides within the covey itself, and is not a thing separate from the quail. At the moment I begin to look for meanings and justifications behind the act of hunting, I hinder myself from receiving the gift within the game. We are born, we live, we hunt, we die, we hope to live again, Lord willing. Maybe that is all that needs to be said.

Last week while driving to the feed store to buy dog food I passed a woman walking by the side of the road. She was an arresting sight. Tall, slender, and tan, she moved with confident, effortless rhythm. Strands of her wavy, coal-black hair blew across her face, and she smoothed them aside with her long fingers. Her sleeveless blue dress billowed in the wind like waves on a fertile sea. She was an evocative portrait of youth and vigor. A real head-turner.

About a half mile down the road I passed another woman. Gray, shriveled, and stooped, she moved in geriatric staccato, aided by a walking cane with four rubber feet. She strained, through thick glasses, to see the road before her. Her brown shirt quivered in the wind like sun-baked leaves on a dying tree. She was a haunting portrait of age and barrenness. A real head-shaker.

Then I realized that over the past

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