I think, now, that the thing my father liked best about bird hunting was the listening. The sounds you made through the crisp orange of the covers, so sharply punctuated by the abrupt quiet when you stopped. The straining to hear the tinkling of the dog bell, the sorting out of all the little noises until what you wished for came through the rest. Past the rustling of the trees, under the wind, over and around the calling of the crows and the barking of distant farm dogs, the threadlike tinkle of the little five-cent bell would call us off to some new and exciting direction.
Now and then we'd stop, trying to catch the waxing and waning, trading disappointment for eagerness, the bafflement of silence leaving the next steps to our woodsmen's judgment until one of us could see the dog standing there on point, her head turned to our footsteps until she was sure we'd seen her.
One off to each side we walked, and then, at the sound of the shot, we'd stand dead still, putting the rolling boom away in our memory against the instant silence that suddenly seemed almost a rebuke to the violent sound of the shot. Sometimes one of us would speak, sometimes not. The ritual then was not to talk just for the sake of talking. Idle chatter wasn't the way of country people. We were as thrifty with our emotions as we were with our little money. Chattering was looked on as impolite or worse, empty-headedness. Bird hunting was a private delight.
The woods are where I go when I'm starved for quiet. But, of course, the quiet is only relative. Few things in nature have idle tongues. The chattering of a squirrel will alert those of its kind that are listening--as it's meant to do. The scolding of the jay precedes my presence like a siren.
These are important sounds to creatures that live by listening. As a small boy I used to practice walking, as careful as a warring Iroquois not to snap a twig or rattle a rock, and few things filled me with more pride than a walk up on a browsing deer and be able to stand so still that I could pass for a tow-headed, slightly ragged, runny-nosed tree. And I still take a certain amount of joy in my quiet ways, helped along by some dulling deafness, absorbing the small, now-and-then bits and pieces of quiet like a tonic. I take to the woods alone a lot more than I used to in younger days.
You stand there and the scratching of a match to light your pipe sounds like a tearing of canvas. But you don't dare stand still too long or the silence forbids the idea of moving. You begin, after a while, to shed a few of the layers of man and you understand, however so insignificantly, the demand for quiet that is instinctive in an animal in the wild--the ghost fears that have existed for a hundred thousand years.
So we follow the old dog, shuffling along well inside the need for a whistle, knowing that any chance for a bird is slim and knowing that's not really why we are here. We are not really here to shoot birds this time. We are after something else. We are looking for that layer inside us, that subconscious antenna, that feeling that here, in these woods, we are washing something away in the quiet.
We come to watch the beaver and understand his hurry to get things done. We note the rubbings of the buck and the heavy nests of the squirrels. Most of the songbirds have left, and you stop and imagine, or try to, that the lady jay is two thousand miles away and in four or five months will find her way back to just where her bold and cheeky mate is perched, telling you that you haven't spoofed him for a minute. Some crows are worrying an unseen owl who couldn't care less. The old dog comes back and asks us a question, and to humor her sense of industry we move on.
They ask me, "What do you think about in the woods?" I tell them all sorts of things, but actually I'm trying not to think of anything special at all. This is the country of few second chances for the unwary, and you might think about that. Or you might wonder about the certain odd shape of a stone and turn it over with you foot and think about it trying that side up for another few hundred years. Just idle ruminations of the mind. Animal curiosity.
My father especially liked the sound of snow falling. He used to say "listen...," and I couldn't hear anything but the softness. It took me years to understand what he heard in the sounds of snow and rain and that it was possible to understand something and never be able to explain it--that some sounds you absorbed deeper than in the labyrinths of the ear. What does the bark of a fox sound like to the mouse? Or the croak of the heron to the frog? I tell the old dog that none of these are the voices of poets and she, to humor me, agrees.
The work shift changes with the coming of twilight and the voices wane. There is a chorus of good nights as the pheasants pull the covers up over their heads. The fox barks to let them know he is there, but I think they know already. If you're a pheasant, the fox is always there.
An owl orders silence and gets it. Some odd night birds call, forever mysteries to me; others have voices I can put faces on. The old dog has heard the pheasants too and looks over her shoulder to see if I'm following. I am, but unwillingly. Ordinarily I leave the roosting covers alone in my theory that a man's house is his castle and that goes for the pheasants as well, but the old dog is sort of twisting my arm and reminding me that there is some time to go before dark.
I try to argue with her but it's no use. She reminds me that we took a bird or two there when she was a puppy and I tell her that was training and she says that she's old and can't see or hear too well anymore and has to make do. We head toward the little swamp, she at a trot, looking back to make sure I'm there.
The quiet is palpable now. All I can hear is the dog splashing back with the cock bird. I turn away and head back toward the car and she follows along with her prize.
I feel guilty at having broken a promise I long ago made to myself. But I have given the old dog her way and now it's too late for remorse. How often we have to reflect on the price of satisfaction--the toss of a coin, so to speak, that often seems as willful and arbitrary as the Roman judges in the Coliseum.
I take the bird and carry it myself, and I can hear the delighted snuffling of the old dog as she shuffles along, poking her nose into the feathers to reassure herself that the bird is still there. We stop and take a last minute to look at the ruby eyebrow of the setting sun and listen to nothing.
I unload the gun and slip the shells into my pocket. What I want, right now, is to hear another cock bird calling from the swamp, a voice that will echo through the evening mist with a wild bravado to reassure me that this little corner of my world is still quick with life. I know it is, for we heard half a dozen crowings just before the old dog had her way, and I want someone to tell me now that the incident has already been forgotten. But nothing happens.
I, who had wanted only a quiet walk, have become the owl and the fox. I, who had gone only to listen, have become the one who was listened to.
Sitting by the car I dress and pick the pheasant. The old dog stretches herself out for a little nap and the feathers drift over her dull, black coat. I take a handful and slide them under her nose and she thumps her tail without opening her eyes. I think that I ought to tell her the story of Eden, but being a woman, I'm sure she understands it far better than I do. I tell her that I'm just a pushover for a pretty face, but she knows that too. She climbs into the front seat with me, ignoring her kennel in the back, puts her head on my lap, and sleeps.
This story originally appeared in A Listening Walk...and Other Stories by Gene Hill.
Copyright (c) 1985 Gene Hill. All rights reserved.