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by Bryan W. Jones
Uncle Dave doesn't trust me anymore. Last duck season he let me borrow his best shotgun and I lost it. It got stolen from the back seat of my car one Saturday night during the season when I left our property and went into town for a loaf of bread and a roll of toilet paper. He doesn't let me borrow things anymore. This morning I asked him for one of his flashlights because I had forgotten mine. You know what he said? He said we could share.
Uncle Dave is coughing this morning. He is walking around inside the trailer, getting ready for the hunt. He says he wants a cigarette even though he has already had one operation on his lung. My dad asks if he is OK. Dave nods, pours some coffee, checks the sky out the little window on the door. You can see the stars. Not a good sign. The birds won't be flying low enough to hit, that's for sure.
It's strange this morning, the last day of the season. We're selling the property because the taxes are too high and I'm starting college and it's just too far to come now that Grandfather is dead. The trailer has been on the property for a long time and over the years old furniture has found its way out here. There are things that remind me of my grandfather. It must be even stranger for Uncle Dave and my dad. They're moving around in the trailer trying to find the nose drops. They're slow and they grumble. The old trailer creaks with every footstep. One time a raccoon got inside the trailer and scared us all half to death. That thing had actually slept in the trailer with us the first night without our knowing it. It was hiding behind some fold- out beds. We discovered it the next morning when we got back from the field. It was getting into a jar of peanut butter. Grandfather chased it with a tire iron and we stood outside holding the door open so it could run out.
Uncle Dave goes outside to warm up the truck. We're going to hunt the south pond this morning. I check my shotgun and then step outside and unzip my jeans to piss out in the grass. In a second I'll pull on my waders. Dad comes out and relieves himself next to me. I can see the yellow arc coming out of his long johns as it catches the light from the Coleman lantern hanging near the trailer door. My waders have been lying in the bed of the truck all night. I pick them up, give them a shake and then pull them on over my jeans, stretching them out once or twice before crawling into the bed of the truck with the decoys. After a few minutes Dad closes everything up and gets inside the cab. Uncle Dave pulls off down the trail that leads to the pond.
The decoys rattle as we hit little bumps in the road. Their hollow plastic bodies click and clatter together and it's almost like you're riding with a truck full of ducks. I imagine what it would be like to ride in the dark with a truck full of mannequins. It's cold this morning and I shiver inside my waders even though they're insulated. The barrel of my shotgun is so cold it stings my bare fingers. I feel in my pocket, making sure I haven't forgotten the shells.
Uncle Dave pulls to a stop behind the pond under a clump of trees that will hide the vehicle from the ducks as they fly over. We get out and stretch our sleepy bodies, cussing and kicking the mud at our feet. Uncle Dave and my dad grab the decoys and start off for the pond. I can see their flashlights throwing circles on the ground. I follow behind them and then walk over to where I'm going to sit. Since I don't have a flashlight, I stumble over fallen branches and the mud. In the dark, I hear something rustle at the base of one of the trees and I pray it's just a rabbit or an armadillo. Nothing jumps out at me, so I stop worrying.
I find a good fallen tree branch to sit on. I settle in and put my boots in the water.
The waders do their job, but the cold water grips the neoprene and I feel the pressure around my ankles and calves. It's an icy grip. Whenever I read stories in literature classes that describe Death's icy grip, I think about how my legs feel when they're submerged in this pond during duck season. I imagine William Shakespeare sitting right next to me wearing camouflage.
The decoys are out and Dad and Uncle Dave have taken their spots. I can make out tiny ripples across the middle of the pond. The sky is turning that violet color signaling the sunrise. I burp and the coffee taste is even stronger in my mouth. I'm hungry and I know that I should have eaten something when I had the chance. A few minutes pass and I make out the trees more clearly on the other bank. The decoy pattern looks great. I check the safety on my shotgun. Then I hear Uncle Dave blow the duck call. He gives two quick quacks and then tries to blow long, but he stops and all across the lake you can hear him cough. He tries to muffle it, but you can hear him anyway. You can hear the rattle deep in his lungs.
"Davey?" I hear my father try to whisper. "You OK over there?"
"Hush up, damnit!" Uncle Dave says, coughing one more time. Then it's quiet again.
The first time I can remember hunting this pond I was seven or eight years old. I remember Grandfather's Lab, Lady. Lady had these big friendly eyes and I remember how she would run up and knock me over every time we came to visit. Until that first duck hunting trip I thought Lady was just an old, dumb, lovable dog. But that first trip Grandfather put me in a blind with her and told me to watch her because, I remember exactly how he said it, "Lady knows how to hunt." I didn't understand at the time how I was supposed to learn from a dog. But Lady and I sat there in the early morning light and when the birds came over, she closed her mouth and watched Grandfather until the shot, and then she was off, leaping into the water despite the cold and following his signals to retrieve the bird. Lady was a great dog.
I think about Lady and how they had to put her to sleep a few years after I had made my first hunt. I remember the hunts after, the limits of all kinds of ducks and geese. Just because we are going to sell the property doesn't mean this is the last time I'll go hunting. I figure I'll get a lease after college with some friends or something. There will always be plenty of birds in the sky.
We hunt all morning and only two ducks fly by. Dad gets one shot off. He misses. Sometimes I swear a duck can sound like he is laughing at you when he flies by.
We walk back to the truck and throw the wet, muddy decoys into the bed. Dad shakes his head and he doesn't have to say what he's thinking. He's thinking the luck wasn't with us today. That's just how it goes. But Uncle Dave says he has forgotten something and he starts back to the pond. I don't know what he could have forgotten. I know we got all the decoys.
My father walks around the truck and looks out over the fields to the distant barbed wire fence marking the property line. I take a few cautious steps and Dad doesn't say anything so I walk down to see what Uncle Dave is doing. I can see him through the trees. He has his back to me, his shoulders hunched a little. He is standing at the edge of the pond. A branch partially blocks what I can see. My uncle brings his hand to his eye for a second. Then I hear him cough. Two or three times. It gets quiet again and he makes a motion like he's ready to leave, but he looks down at the water, or at his feet. It's as if he doesn't want to leave, or as if something won't let him leave. Suddenly I'm scared that this will be the last time we get to come out here like this and I don't want to leave. I want the morning to be just starting again. I want to be lying awake in the trailer again anticipating the alarm clock. I want to hear my father grumbling as he gets out of bed to start the coffee. I remember my cold waders. And I can still hear the decoys rattling in the back of the truck on the way down here. But there was more. I'm sure there was more. I need to remember everything else because it's not going to be ours anymore. I can't let myself forget the way Uncle Dave is standing in the water, the way the trees look, the water, the sky.
Then I hear something. I turn and my father is inside the truck. The engine is running.
