The Journals of Major Peabody: A Portfolio of Deceptions, Improbable Stories and Commentaries about Upland Game Birds, Waterfowl, Dogs and Popular Delusions. Galen Winter
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table, chairs and a wood stove made out of a fifty-five gallon oil drum. Major Peabody said he thought the roof had to be older than the building. It allowed a number of leaks. One of them dripped directly onto the stove. The water sizzled when it landed on it.
A window graced the south wall. Three of its panes were glass. The other was a piece of weathered corrugated paper. The door had seen better days. Binder twine was threaded through the hole where the door knob should have been. The other end of the twine was tied to a bent nail driven into what was left of the door jam. It nearly held the door shut. No one knew when the place had been abandoned, but it wasn’t a recent occurrence.
In addition to the Major, the shack also contained three other hunters and two dogs. They were all very happy to be there. It was raining outside. Not drizzling. Heavily raining. Had it been drizzling, the men would have been in the field, watching their dogs enthusiastically wagging tails and snuffling the ground in search of pheasants. Now, the dogs sat with their muzzles on their owner’s laps, getting their ears scratched and filling the small room with the special perfume coming only from wet dog hair.
When four hunters and three dogs are crammed into a small shack, they’ll talk about hunting. (The dogs won’t talk. They’ll sit, get their ears scratched and listen in the often disappointed hope of learning something intelligent.) As surely as the night follows the day, the men will recount their own experiences.
Major Peabody slid a shingle into a slivered rafter in order to funnel the drips away from the stove and Tom Rosenow took the floor.
“Jim. Do you remember the time we were hunting grouse up near Watersmeet?”
“Yes, I remember it.” Jim couldn’t forget it. Tom wouldn’t let him. Every time they met he was sure to tell the same story. Each time the story was embellished a bit more until neither of them recalled exactly what had happened.
“Your dog. Sparkle, chased up a bird and it flew off to my right, dodging around the popple trees. It was a long and difficult shot - I’d say about fifty yards - but I tried it anyway. The bird took a ninety degree turn, flew through some balsams and disappeared into a swamp. You remember, Jim?”
“I remember,” Jim said quietly. He knew what was coming.
“Well, Jim came over and took great delight in giving me a three minute lecture on wasting shells, shooting at out-of-range birds and, by missing, disappointing his dog. Just as he was getting into a full barrage of abuse, Sparkle came out of the swamp with the grouse in its mouth. I’ll never forget it.”
“You’ll never let me forget it,” Jim muttered. He could have told an entirely different version of Tom’s story, but would have run a serious risk of violating the Hunter’s Code of Ethics. Shotgun hunters tend to be polite fellows. They allow the story teller some leeway with regard to absolute truth. They expect a certain amount of poetic license and will accept the accuracy of a fellow hunter’s story even if such acceptance requires a super active imagination.
“It doesn’t take much to knock down a Ruffed Grouse,” Jim said. He was anxious to change the subject. He knew Tom was about to embark on an extended declaration of his justifiable pride and recognized accuracy in the firing of shotguns.
“A single 7½ chilled BB will do the trick. Sometimes they’ll fly after being hit. I remember one time I was hunting with Peabody in Forest County. The Major raised a bird. He shot and it flew away. We both thought he missed it. I walked for about another fifty feet and heard something in the branches above me. I looked up in time to see the Major’s grouse drop out of the tree. It fell at my feet and it was dead, dead, dead. Isn’t that right, Major?”
“Absolutely,” Major Peabody lied. “I remember it just as if it were yesterday.”
“I don’t doubt it for a moment,” Bruce Sim, the third hunter, confirmed, signaling he was about to tell some questionable tale and expect Jim, in turn, to back him up. “But, sometimes a single BB won’t bring them down. I was hunting near the South Branch of the Oconto on opening day. Lots of birds around. I had a limit and was back in camp before noon. I didn’t go out with the guys in the afternoon. I decided to give them a treat and cook some grouse for dinner.
“I made a Hollandaise sauce for the broccoli, baked some potatoes, chilled a few bottles of Liebfraumilch and then went to work on the grouse. The meal was delicious. Everyone was in a pleasant mood and things were going well until Doc Carmichael bit down on a BB and broke a tooth. Then things got exciting. There were threats of lawsuits and million dollar damage claims for pain and suffering. There was talk about avoiding the lawsuit by shooting Doc Carmichael and leaving his body in the woods for the Ravens.
“I wasn’t the least bit worried. When things began to get out of hand, I reminded them I was not the kind of person who would ruin meat. I always shoot grouse in the head. The men were quickly convinced the grouse in question must have been shot during the previous season. It carried the BB inside it for an entire year.”
The three other hunters sat silently considering the story. After a few moments they nodded, agreeing the story was probably accurate. Then everyone looked to the Major. It was his turn. Peabody surveyed his companions and began by quoting Shakespeare.
“Hamlet said: ‘There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ There are more exceptional events involving the Ruffed Grouse than the uninitiated can conceive. Still, those exceptional events do occur. Some years ago, the Michigan Ruffed Grouse Season opened on the day after the close of the Trout Season. I got to John Schmid’s cabin the day before hunting grouse was legal. A note informed me John was in town looking for supplies.
“The cabin was near the Tamarack River and John left his fly rod on the porch. To use up time, I picked up the rod and walked to the stream. I was back in the cabin when John returned. When I presented him with a Ruffed Grouse, John accused me of poaching. I suppose, technically, I may have fractured some Michigan Fish and Game Regulation, but, given the circumstances, I don’t believe any U P jury would convict me.
“I explained what had happened. I told John I did not shoot the bird, but, can you believe it, he did not believe me. He thought I shot it or, perhaps, it committed suicide by flying into my car. I carefully skinned the bird. There were no bruises on the body. Neither were there any BB holes. The only mark was a deep gash on the bird’s neck.
“Gentlemen, that bird flew across the Tamarack River just as I was in the middle of a back cast. My fly hooked its neck and broke it.”
Peabody stopped and looked at his friends. They were quiet. They wouldn’t look him in the eye. To bolster his story, the Major added: “I was using a Hair Wing Adams on a three pound test leader.” It didn’t help. One by one the men got up and walked out into the heavy rain. The dogs, with heads down and tails between their legs, followed them.
The Future is Before Us
When the lovely Stephanie asked Major Peabody to attend one of her soirees, he said he’d be delighted to attend. He wouldn’t be delighted to attend. Peabody detests those kinds of social event, but he likes the lovely Stephanie. In addition, the lovely Stephanie’s invitation meant he could exchange his accustomed late-in-the-month breakfast, lunch and dinner diet of boxed macaroni and cheese for the goodies that would grace her hors d’oeuvre table.
Peabody knew the invitation also meant he would be expected to mingle with people who didn’t hunt. Their know-ledge of dogs was limited to the Pekinese, the Shi Tzu, and other small, hysterical, disgusting, ankle biting non-hunting breeds. He was willing to undergo the ordeals of conversation with those people only because he expected he would be able to dull his sensibilities with the aged single malt Scotch usually accompanying the lovely Stephanie’s parties.
I provided the Major’s transportation to and from the affair. From the moment we arrived, I knew Peabody’s evening would not be easy. There was no single malt hidden among the bottles of red and white wine set out on the buffet.
There was, however, a plentitude of conversation