The Egg and I (28 page)

Game or Who Is?

I
was all right at flushing game, Bob decided, but at retrieving I was a washout. This was due to my nearsightedness and not to any lack of co-operation on my part, I might add. So Bob bought a dog and I uncovered another weak spot in my character.

"This dog," Bob dramatically informed me, as he gingerly untied a large, curly haired, mahogany-colored dog which he had roped in the back of the truck, "is a thoroughbred, Chesapeake retriever, has a pedigree, is a wonderful hunting dog and is very, very vicious." Then, with what I considered an overdose of caution he secured the dog to the feed room door with a hawser large enough to anchor a man o'war. During all of this the vicious dog regarded us stonily with pale green eyes and didn't twitch a muscle.

Bob added, as he made a large safe detour around Dog to get his feed pails, "He has bitten almost everyone in Town, but I understand dogs and if I take all the care of him, keep him tied up and just use him for hunting, I think it will be safe enough." The dog trainer went importantly off to the chicken house and Dog and I looked at each other. He had on a hand some studded collar with a name tag but from a safe distance I couldn't make out the name and when I received only the cold pale green stare for my friendly overtures of "Here Boy" and "Old Fellah," I started on my evening chores, leaving Dog to brood.

During dinner that night Bob told me how, when I was in the hospital, he and the doctor had been discussing hunting and the doctor had told him about Dog. The doctor didn't finally make up his mind to part with the dog until it had bitten two postmen and three delivery boys. Bob talked about building a dogyard with eight-foot wire, the steady nerves it takes to train dogs, the heinous crime of treating dogs like pampered humans—here, I surreptitiously placed my napkin over the puppy who was lounging in my lap—and other firm manly things to do with discipline and hunting, and then he left for the Hicks to see about borrowing the team for disking.

Later, remembering I had not fed my goslings and forgetting about Dog, I heedlessly rushed into the feed room and was scooping up chick feed when I felt a nudge at the back of my knees. I turned and there was Dog the vicious, Dog the terrible, offering me his large feathery paw. We solemnly shook hands and I learned from his nameplate that his name was Sport and from him that he never wagged his tail, was dignified and really very shy. Throwing caution to the winds I untied the rope and took him with me to feed the ducks. There I decided to test out the hunting theory to see if it was as ridiculous as the danger theory. I threw Sport a stick to retrieve and he lalloped after it, then tore down to the edge of the orchard and buried it under the plum tree. I confess that I hugged him for this because now there were two of us who seemed to have had no vocational guidance.

When I heard Bob's car in the drive, I removed Sport from behind the Stove and tied him in the feed room and that was the way things were. Sport knew that I knew that he was neither vicious nor a sport but we decided to let Bob dream on for a while.

When Bob was attacked by the she-bear, Sport just happened to be behind the stove—a little out of breath but trying to look as if he'd been there for hours.

When Bob and Crowbar and Geoduck Swensen and Crowbar's large bear dog were on the scent of the cougar, Sport came out of the woods like a streak of flame and plastered himself to me to shiver and whine. I attributed this to a ferocious attempt at his life on the part of the cougar. Bob said, "More likely a face to face encounter with a squirrel." Bob knew about Sport, then.

Bob, Sport and I went hunting in the fall. Great sport for Bob and Sport—all work and no credit for me. The procedure was for us to start up the road with Sport disappearing into the woods at intervals supposedly to flush a covey of quail or some grouse. He would crash around like a bulldozer for a while and then appear all smiles and minus anything at which to shoot, except him, which proved a stronger and stronger temptation as the day wore on. Finally I would cut through the brush and flush some grouse, which left the ground just in front of me with a roar of wings that scared me so I fell over a log into some blackberry vines. Bob would take aim and fire and usually get one or two birds which always fell in a very dense thicket. Wallowing in, bent double, in an attempt to see the birds, with Sport rushing between my legs and back and forth just in front of me, I would inadvertently stumble on the first grouse, the other being only a few feet away. Thoroughly scratched by blackberries, stinging from nettles and small whipping twigs, I would reach for the first grouse but Sport had found it too and, snapping it up, bounded off to find Bob. I could hear Bob praising and patting as I crawled under a log with the salal snagging my cheeks and blackberries wrapping themselves around my legs. Emerging at last I would give Sport a dirty look as Bob calmly and without comment took my grouse and stowed it in his hunting jacket.

Bob really tried to train Sport. Every afternoon for a week or so during the early summer he'd work on him. Through my open kitchen windows I could hear violent disagreement between the dog trainer and the hunter. From the kitchen it sounded as though Sport wanted to sit heavily on his tail and shake hands but Bob wanted him to take cover, or uncover or something quite different. "Jeeeeeeee . . . zuz . . . how could anything be so dumb?" screamed the exasperated trainer as Sport eagerly offered the other paw.

His breed, color, build and pedigree said that Sport was a hunting dog—he wasn't—he was a friendly dog. He loved companionship, warm fires, the baby and me. He preferred chocolates to dog biscuits or meat and he was passionately fond of music. I still bear the emotional scars of the first time I heard Sport howl. It was the first night of the harvest moon and I was lying contentedly in bed watching the silvery moonlight on the pond when suddenly the quiet air was ripped to shreds by the most terrifying noise. It sounded as though a freighter had gone aground on the front porch and was giving a long hoarse shout for help—it sounded like an ape man roaring for his mate—it sounded like the death call of an elephant. It woke Bob from a sound sleep and sent him flying for his gun. Just as he reached the window it came again—louder—more terrifying. Bob thrust his head and shoulders through the open window—then he burst into roars of laughter. "Come here, Betty," he said. I went over to the window and there below us sitting in a shimmering pool of moonlight was Sport, looking as self-conscious and embarrassed as only a Chesapeake who had built up a terrible reputation of fierce ness could look when he was caught wallowing in moonlight and howling for love.

I was, still am, a strong swimmer but Bob took neither Sport nor me on his duck-hunting expeditions. For this sport he either went to the Dungeness marshes, where he got teal and canvasbacks which tasted like fish and were perfect stinkers to pick, or he and Geoduck and Clamface went to a secret private preserve they had and shot mallards which were very very good but stinkers to pick. The private preserve was a lake owned by a Mrs. Peterson, and known as Peterson's Lake. Mrs. Peterson loved ducks and spent all of her pension money buying feed for the thousands which lived on her lake. When she first bought the lake there were no ducks but she wanted ducks more than anything, she told Geoduck and Clamface who happened to be hunting up there. Geoduck on the spur of of the moment told her that if she would paint her house green like a mallard, the ducks would come there to live, for green was their favorite color. So she painted her house mallard green and the next year, nobody knows why, thousands of mallards took up residence on her lake. She was hysterically grateful and told Geoduck and Clamface that from that day forward they, and their friends, could hunt ducks there. She shot, quite accurately, at anyone else who set foot on her property.

Her mallards were fat and friendly and Bob preferred the salt marshes for duckhunting but I preferred the mallards. Roast mallard duck, wild rice and Oregon grape jelly made a superb combination.

Sometimes, in fact many times, hunters became lost in the mountains. Even the experts like the Swensens got lost on occasion. Our first meeting with Crowbar was the result of his being lost in the woods near us. It was that first November and I had not yet become used to the coyotes howling and this night I had lain awake for hours and hours listening to that morbid sound, when suddenly I heard two shots—close together—from the forest west of us. I waited a while—then it came again—two shots. I waked Bob and told him. He immediately got his gun and fired an answering shot. The two shots came again, Bob answered with one, then he started the fire and put a pot of coffee on. After quite a while we heard the shots again much nearer—Bob answered. This went on through two pots of coffee and all of my morning's wood and I think that Bob and I were more tired than the hunter when about three-thirty Crowbar Swensen, who was supposed to know those mountains better than the deer, came wearily into the kitchen. He said he had spent the fore part of the night in a tree and would have been content to stay there until dawn, if he hadn't discovered that a cougar had bedded down just below him the night before. Crowbar was dripping wet and chattering with the cold so Bob poured him a water glass of the whiskey we had bought in Town and offered him dry clothes. He gulped the whiskey without a tremor or a chaser, scoffed at the coffee and dry clothes and the moment the first vestige of dawn appeared he left to pack in his deer.

It was just a year later when Crowbar took us for a drive to show us the "best deerhunting country in the world." We drove down into the foothills and then took a single-track, very bumpy road through miles and miles and miles of burned-off land. "This here's a real burn," Crowbar told us taking both hands off the steering wheel to encompass the entire bleak landscape in one grand gesture. "This here was the biggest forest fire in the whole world." He could have been right, too, for anything in that country to be large-enough to be noticed would have to be the biggest in the world. The moon was up, but a heavy mist had begun to settle, so that it seemed as if we were driving through an endless swamp with the silvery water rising to the knees of the millions and millions of stark snags and skeleton trees which covered the hills and stood quietly on either side of the road. The road dipped into hollows and rose to the crest of hills but we seemed to be getting nowhere, for the scene remained the same. I tried locating a particularly tall snag on a distant hill to use as a marker in our progress but I always lost it. There were so terribly many of those tall snags. So many desolate hills. There was no sign of habitation. No sign of life although Crowbar assured us that in the daytime the hills, even the roads, were alive with deer. On and on we drove past lowlands and hollows filled with the seething gray mist, past the spiked hills outlined by the pale moonlight. The dampness was penetrating and the night grew colder and I was thinking, "This is what Purgatory must be like," when Crowbar at last decided that we had seen enough, turned the car around and we started home. Even bright sunlight, blue skies and bird song would have had a hard time lightening that landscape.

The Theatah—The Dahnse!

Most social gatherings I can do without, I have said. By that I meant all women's teas, luncheons, evening bridge parties, all New Year's Eve celebrations, and all large parties. I lived to eat those words—in fact I lived to eat them over and over again like a cud. For, by the time I had lived on the chicken ranch for a couple of years I would have crawled on my hands and knees over broken glass to attend the Annual Reunion of the Congenital Idiots' Association.

Entertainment offered us chicken ranchers was: Saturday night dances—from twenty-seven to seventy-five miles away; moving pictures in near-by towns, seasonal entertainments at the schools—interesting only to the parents of the participants; monthly basket socials given by the churches—these socials were owned and operated by Birdie Hicks and her ilk and were for the sole purpose of gossiping and eating; occasional private parties such as the Indian picnic or the birthday party for Mrs. Kettle; and the county fairs.

Bob and I referred to anything social as either "the theatah" or "the dahnse" due to an unusual contact we had made during our first year on the ranch. It was a bright fall day and we had been out trolling for salmon. We had just returned Sharkey's boat and were walking down the beach to the car when we noticed a woman and some children digging clams. The woman was clad in a few shreds of hip boots, men's trousers, a gunny-sack apron, a purple knitted shawl, and had two long, dusty brown braids swinging from her head. With her were four children—a couple of them by necessity on all fours. They were all filthy and not bright. It was not an inspiring encounter and Bob and I quickened our pace, but to no avail, for the woman straightened up and hallooed to us. We stopped and she hurried up. "I am Mrs. Weatherby," she said with a great air. "And this is Mary Elizabeth," she indicated the biggest and blackest of the children, "Pamela Lorraine"—this one was a drooling crawler, "John Frederick"—his eyes only opened a tiny crack so he had to tip his head way back to see us, "and baby, Charles Lawrence." Charles Lawrence was eating a raw clam. We started to introduce ourselves but she waived it, with "Oh, my goodness, I've heard all about you. I knew the day you moved out here. I even know," she waved a dirty finger at me, "that you are expecting." (My, God, I thought, I hope it won't be marked.) "Now the children and I were just going up to the house for a bite and we want you to come along with us. We simply won't take no!" she laughed, batting her eyes and exposing her bad teeth. I was fascinated by her and wanted to go; Bob seemed unable to cope with the situation and numbly followed. Mrs. Weatherby tripped along in front of us, occasionally pausing to scoop one of the children out of the brush and back onto the path which led up a bank from the beach and into the second growth. The path was littered with empty cans, bottles, discarded clothing, papers, empty boxes, broken furniture and other junk. The litter grew thicker as we approached the house until we were picking our way through a sizable dump. The path ended, we looked up and there was the house leering drunkenly at us from its unsteady stilt legs, more cans and bottles pouring from its open door like lava from a crater. "I hope you'll excuse us," called Mrs. Weatherby from the doorway, "I just couldn't bear to be cooped up in the house on such a lovely day, so I left my housework and took the children to the beach." They must have been gone for about five years, I thought, judging by the little household tasks which had accumulated in her absence. The tin sink was so covered by dirty dishes and pans and cans and bottles that it was possible to tell it was a sink only by the dripping faucet. The oven door was gone from the rusty range and the floor, drainboards, chairs, table, washbench and an old army cot were hidden entirely by newspapers and magazines. Mrs. Weatherby took a heap of newspapers from two rickety chairs, kicked the cans in front of them under the sink and bade us welcome. "It's been so long since I've entertained anyone but the local folk," she said gaily, "that we're going to have a real treat." She bent over and began fumbling under the sink and finally emerged with a bottle. "It's only Chianti, but it
is
wine," she laughed and I noticed that one of the heavy dusty braids had dipped in something under the sink for it was wet at the end and dripped. She got jelly glasses from a shelf and filled them, giving each of the slobbering children a little of the wine mixed with water. She said, "The little French children have wine so why shouldn't Mary Elizabeth, Pamela Lorraine, John Frederick and baby Charles Lawrence, even though they aren't French?" [or children, I added grimly to myself]. It was a grisly performance because the children were actually drooling idiots, but not so grisly as what was to come. While Bob and I held our wine, trying to gather up enough courage to drink it, Mrs. Weatherby got a stool out of a corner, knocked the carton full of magazines from it to the floor, climbed up on it and began rummaging around in a high cupboard. As she rustled around up there, I stole a look at Bob. He sat staring at the wine and looking like a man who has just been clipped by an iron pipe. "Oh, here it is," squealed Mrs. Weatherby finally, and down she came clutching a big gray bundle in her dirty hands. She began slowly and carefully to unroll it, meanwhile telling us the secret. "I made it myself last year [she said yeah] but there was no occasion to warrant my using it, so I wrapped it up and tucked it away and how glad I am, for fruitcake is so improved with age." She had finished the unrolling and at first I thought—"It can't be!—it can't be!" but it was. The fruitcake had been rolled in a rather soiled suit of someone's long underwear. The cake was small and dark and I prayed that there would not be enough to go around, but Mrs. Weatherby served Bob and me before giving a thin slice to each of the droolers. Then, seating herself on the stool, one elbow on the dirty drainboard of the sink, one hand daintily holding the fruitcake, the fingers of the other carefully encasing the glass of wine, Mrs. Weatherby told us about the "quaint folk" of that country. She said, "When I first moved up here among these folk, I was dreadfully distressed by the ignorance, the complete absence of any form of culture. I said to Mr. Weatherby, 'I don't know how I'm going to go through a winter without the symphony, the theatah or the dahnse.'" She batted her eyes and nibbled at her fruitcake, waiting for my reaction. I said, "What did you do?" She said, "Why, my deah, I organized a study group. We were to meet every other Thursday—light refreshments, you know—and we would study and discuss. Music I thought would be the first subject—just simple little melodies at first—then a little stronger, and a little stronger, until we were at last able to digest a whole symphony. I had rather an ex tensive course planned but it fizzled out. I learned to my sorrow," she took a sip of wine, "that these folk are truly simple children of the soil and they wish to stay that way." I could imagine where Mrs. Kettle had told Mrs. Weatherby to put her symphony and her study group. Mrs. Weatherby continued, "And there is no spirit of cooperation at all. Time and again I have offered to help them put on little things at the schoolhouse, but they are still angry over the hot lunch ruckus and won't have anything to do with me." She waited for her cue so I said, "What hot lunch ruckus?" She said, "Surely you have heard?" "No," I answered. "Well," said Mrs. Weatherby, "it was at one of the grange meetings and the women were talking about having a hot lunch served at school. I said, and I had every right, that I could not approve such a program until I had inspected the school kitchens to be sure they were sanitary. Honestly," said Mrs. Weatherby, "from the uproar that ensued you would have thought I had questioned the ladies' legitimacy." I knew that if I caught Bob's eye I would explode, so I stood and thanked Mrs. Weatherby for the refreshments and we left.