Wild Life (7 page)

Erik must have slept finally, because he awoke to find Quill standing over him, her cool, wet nose nudging his face. She appeared to be fully refreshed after her night's sleep and ready to
go
.

Erik sat up and looked around at the sun rising pink and new, illuminating the ragged wisps of mist that hovered over the land. In the distance he could see a deer walking cautiously along a line of trees, looking for a place to bed down during the heat of the day. Off to the west somewhere, a pheasant cackled. Now that he was learning to look and to listen, this place that had at first appeared lifeless to him was bustling with activity.

He and Quill had to get moving, too. They couldn't risk staying in one place too long. And they had to keep moving steadily farther from where they'd started, in the event that a search party had been called out.

From his pack, Erik took out peanut butter and crackers for breakfast. He smeared peanut butter on a cracker and handed it to Quill. Too late, he realized this was a mistake. The peanut butter stuck the cracker to the roof of her mouth. Looking embarrassed, she smacked her tongue again and again, trying to get it loose. Erik choked back his laughter and made little sandwiches, with the peanut butter inside the crackers, after that. Soon they had emptied the jar and finished the crackers, and after Erik ate the last apple, Quill crunched happily through the core.

His stomach still felt empty, and he spent a moment recalling the eggs Oma had fried for him the morning before, their edges crispy, and the ham, salty and chewy, and the toast, dripping with butter and topped with raspberry jam…He pushed himself to his feet. Enough of that. It was time to pack up and go, time to find his own food.

It was then that he made the discovery that it is impossible to get a dog to drink if she doesn't feel like it. He filled the bowl with water for Quill, but she took only a few quick licks. He tried to make her have more, pointing to the bowl, stirring the water with his finger and saying, “Mmmm, water, so tasty,” reminding her how thirsty she'd been the day before and how sorry she was going to be later, but in the damp coolness of the morning, she wasn't interested. He gave up and drank as much as he could hold, then filled the canteen.

“Okay, Quill,” he said as they started off, heading, once again, south. “Today is the day. You're going to find the birds. And I'm not going to miss.”

For several hours, Erik moved carefully in Quill's wake, observing her body language. Over and over in his mind, he rehearsed what he would do when she went on point. He'd ready his gun and walk slowly forward, mentally prepared for a bird to flush at any second. When it went up, he'd wait for that moment when it seemed to hang in the air, lift his gun, sight down the barrel, and swing from behind in the direction it flew.

He was beginning to wonder if Quill's points on the previous day had been flukes, when it happened. She began sniffing intently, moving quickly down a hedgerow, her tail going faster and faster. Erik laughed, thinking she almost sounded like a snuffling pig as she snorted in huge nosefuls of scent. She worked her way to where the hedgerow ended in a field of cut grain.

In his mind's eye, Erik saw the birds moving along in front of Quill, remaining in the safety of the brush until suddenly they were forced into the open and—
pttttttttttttrrr!
Into the air went a rooster—
blam blam blam
—and another—
blam blam
—and then four hens. And to Erik's astonishment and joy, this time one of the roosters fell!

Quill retrieved it and brought it to Erik. She sat before him, proudly holding it, and when he extended his arm she dropped it gently into his hand. It was obvious that Mike Duvochin had trained her well, but Erik refused to let himself think about that. He was struck by the simple beauty of her doing so perfectly what she had been born and bred to do. “Good girl, Quill!” he hollered. “We did it! We did it! Ya-hooo!!”

He set the bird and the gun down carefully, with the safety on. Then, unable to restrain himself, he pounced on Quill and they rolled together on the ground in a gleeful celebration. After several moments of this, Quill rose and shook herself. She spit a few stray feathers from her mouth and looked around sheepishly, as if hoping no one had witnessed this undignified display.

Then Erik picked up the bird, smoothed its feathers, and held it up to the light to admire its beauty. The head, with its bright red mask and green and purple feathers, was magnificent. There was a perfect white ring around its neck. Depending on how the light struck them, the iridescent body feathers changed to include every color in the rainbow. The breast feathers, delicately tipped in black, shaded from rust to gold to amber, purple and blue-green. The tail feathers, well over a foot long, were striped with black and brown.

The bird's head flopped heavily to the side, and Erik was suddenly aware of the finality of what he had done. Holding the limp, warm body that had been so full of life just a moment ago, he was flooded with a powerful remorse. This bird had hatched from an egg, been raised by a mother, and survived despite brutal weather and the sharp, watching eyes of hawks and owls and coyotes. Now it was dead, and he had killed it. The enormity of this settled upon him, and the exhilaration of a moment before mixed with regret. He felt as if he, Quill, and the pheasant had each played a part in a scene as ancient and natural as the earth itself. Still, he couldn't help feeling sorrow about it, even as he was grateful for the meat and proud of his and Quill's accomplishment.

Before he put the bird in his pack, he whispered a thank-you to it. Someday, he knew, both he and Quill would die, too. Would their bodies then nourish plants or grass that would allow a creature such as a pheasant to live? He hoped so. These thoughts were new for him, and he continued to mull them over as he and Quill walked on.

They ate the remaining cookies for their lunch. It was the last of their “civilized” food. That night, they would eat from the land.

Mindful of the need to camp near water, Erik began to look for a suitable spot. Quill's tongue was dragging again by the time they found a large pothole with cattails growing on the west edge and some scrubby bushes on the east. The water wasn't too gross-looking, at least not until Quill charged in to drink and cool herself off. That was okay, Erik thought. He could go around to the other side to get water, then boil it once he had a fire going.

A dead poplar tree that looked as if it had been hit by lightning stood bravely in the middle of the grassland. Some of its branches littered the ground, and others were easily within Erik's reach. They were perfect for firewood, which was good because he was starving, and eager to cook and eat his first wild bird.

Taking it from his pack, he held it up in the late afternoon light and admired it once again. He had to clean it now, he knew that. He had to pluck it and gut it and prepare it for cooking. For a moment, he panicked.
I have no clue how to do this!
Then he told himself to relax, think, and proceed logically.

First, the tail feathers. He pulled them out, tied them with a long blade of prairie grass, and put them in his pack for a keepsake. Then, holding the bird in his left hand, he plucked handfuls of soft feathers from the breast. He was relieved to discover they were much less tenacious than the stiff tail feathers and came out fairly easily, leaving behind the wrinkled, pinky-yellow skin. He worked his way down the legs to the spurred and scaly feet, then down the back.

Quill found this very interesting and dove into the piles of feathers, coming up with several stuck to her nose, then approached to sniff the bird intently.

“If you think it smells good now, Quill, you just wait until it's cooked,” Erik told her.

The bird, naked except for its feathered head and wings, didn't look quite as noble as it had before. It was also a lot smaller than he had imagined, with much less meat on it than on the chickens his mom brought home from the supermarket. It sort of reminded Erik of the scrawny rubber chicken Patrick had given him for a gag gift on his birthday. He smiled, thinking how amazed Patrick would be if he knew Erik was hunting on his own in North Dakota, with his own bird dog.

The smile quickly faded, though, when he realized it was time to get down to the
real
work of cleaning the bird. With his Swiss Army knife, he cut off the head, following with the wings and the feet.

He remembered Patrick's dad talking about checking the birds' crops to discover what they'd been eating. This would reveal the kind of habitat they'd been frequenting. He cut into the base of the throat and there it was: the “gizzard.” Mr. Holt had explained that food the bird ate stayed there for a while, getting ground up by the action of the gizzard and small stones the birds ate. Then it could be more easily digested.

Inside the transparent membrane Erik could see the yellow of wheat. That made sense. He cut it open to see what else might be there, and to his surprise he found the shiny black bodies of crickets.

He wasn't sure what this information meant, exactly, in terms of finding more birds, but he thought it was very interesting. Quill seemed to think so, too.

There was no more postponing it. He took a deep breath and sliced into the belly below the breast, exposing the guts. They were slimy and disgusting-looking, and were already stinky. He recalled Mr. Holt saying he always “field-dressed” his birds, removing the innards immediately so they didn't contaminate the meat. Next time, he would do the same. He removed the guts and carried them off into the grass a ways.

Quill followed at his heels. “No,” he told her. “Wait for the meat.”

Then he rinsed the bird as well as he could in the pothole. It was time to get the fire going. He searched the brush until he found two fairly large rocks and placed them about six inches apart. Then he piled some dried grass between them and put sticks over the grass. The mess kit pot he set over the wood, edges perched on the rocks. Perfect. He filled the pot with water from the side of the pothole neither he nor Quill had disturbed, set it back on the rocks, and lit the fire.

While he waited for the water to boil, he found a fairly stout stick, sharpened the end, and skewered the bird with it. He placed the bird over the fire, to the side of the pot.

Erik had been so intent on his preparations that he hadn't noticed that Quill had disappeared. He called her, and she returned quickly, looking guilty and licking her chops. “Yuck, Quill,” said Erik. “You ate those guts, didn't you?”

She sat, gazing off into the distance, the picture of innocence, and Erik laughed. “I guess a pioneer dog would have done the same thing, huh, girl?” he said. “Nothing gets wasted, right? Well, they're all yours. You don't have to feel guilty about not sharing.”

The sun was sinking fast, and Erik was glad he'd started early to make camp. The unfamiliar task of cleaning the bird had taken much longer than he'd realized. He set out the plastic bag for his ground cloth, unrolled his sleeping bag, and got organized while there was still light to see by. Then he and Quill sat by the fire, waiting for the water to boil and the bird to roast.

He had been hungry and thirsty before, but never anything close to the way he was feeling now. His eyes were riveted on the pot of water and the bird. Nothing seemed to be happening. He wished he'd started the fire under the water earlier. When he stuck his finger in the pot, it was barely warm.
What the heck?
he wondered.
How long does it take to boil water, anyhow?
At home it would have taken just a few minutes on the stovetop or in the microwave. He added more wood to the fire and blew on it. The flames blazed higher. He put the lid on the pot; maybe that would help. After a while, the water began to steam ever so slightly, but the bird didn't seem to be cooking at all. The skin was still pale, not even close to turning a crispy brown.

The water steamed and steamed, but never came to a real boil. Afraid it would all disappear before it got fully hot, Erik took the pot off the rocks and set it in the grass to cool. He knew he had to drink some of the water tonight. People could live without food a lot longer than they could survive without water. He thought drinking enough must be especially important with all the walking he was doing in the dry prairie air.

He rearranged the bird over the fire and concentrated on it as the stars came out and his stomach growled. Quill half napped beside him. Her eyes were closed, but her nose twitched at the smell of cooking meat that was—finally!—wafting her way. Erik's own eyes felt heavy, but much more than sleep he wanted
food
. At one point, he must have nodded off, though, because he snapped awake to see that the exposed ends of the spit had burned through and the bird had fallen into the fire. He pulled it out. The skin on one side was scorched and the entire thing was covered in a fine film of ash, but it smelled wonderful.

Finally, when he could stand waiting no longer, he put the bird on the mess kit plate. It didn't look quite like the perfectly browned birds on the platter in the photo in Dan's shoebox, but to Erik's famished eyes it looked utterly delectable. He carved off half the meat and put it in Quill's bowl, but held it away from her to allow it to cool a bit.

“I know, I know,” he told her. “It's hard to wait. But you don't want to burn your tongue.”

And then they ate.

In his former life, Erik would have called part of the meat raw, and part of it he'd surely have told his mother was burned. He would undoubtedly have complained about the pellets in the meat from the bird shot. But now he barely noticed these things. To him, the bird tasted of the prairie. It was smoky and rich and wild. By comparison, store-bought chicken was tasteless, boring,
dull
. Wild pheasant was the finest food there was, no doubt about it!

Quill seemed to agree.