KA-BOOOOM
The blast of a shotgun reverberated across the otherwise quiet marsh in the still evening air. With just about 10 minutes of legal shooting light remaining and just one green head shy of his limit, Wayne shouldered his Mossberg and connected a number two with the mallard as it passed overhead. Even for his full choke the shot was a bit of a stretch at roughly 45 yards. A plume of feathers puffed into the air as the drake fell from the sky and splashed into the water just beyond the decoy spread. He generally liked to work them in a little bit closer for a more reliable finish, but his opportunities had been waning all afternoon as birds were only just beginning to pick up off the refuge on the other side of the levy and filter out into the hunting pools to feed for the night. On top of that it was the last day of the season for Missouri’s Middle Duck Hunting Zone, and Wayne wanted to go out on a full bag limit.
Wayne got up to make his way out to retrieve his last duck of the year, unloading the other two shells out of his gun and tucking them into the slots on his chest waders as he did so. He stopped in his tracks at the sight of a good 200 ducks lifting into view just over the levy not 300 yards from him. They rose into the air and spread out in all different directions, fanning out over the hunting pools as if his late shot was the official dinner bell signaling the evening flight. Mesmerized and somewhat frustrated, Wayne watched as more birds followed suit.
“Oh sure, now you start flying,” he muttered as two more passed directly over him, “if I had known that’s all it would’ve taken I’d have cracked off a round half an hour ago.”
He stood there watching as thousands of birds came up off the safety of the refuge lake, some in groups, some singles and doubles, spreading every which direction out over the marsh. It would have bode well for any other hunters out there that evening, but Wayne was fairly certain most everyone else hunting that day had packed it in hours ago, either satisfying their six bird limits or choosing to cut their losses in exchange for warmer and drier locations. It was definitely a cold day to be out in the water with temperatures peaking in the mid-20s, which were slightly improved in part by the sun finally starting to break through shortly after midday. By now though, much of the cloud cover had broken up to the west, setting the stage for a picture perfect sunset of pinks, purples, and oranges cast against the steel-gray cover of night fall slowly creeping its way across the sky from the east.
Wayne couldn’t help but think to himself as he soaked in this most heavenly sight that this was perhaps the most perfect finish to a hunting season one could possibly ask for, especially if it were to be his last season of hunting. A small brisk breeze swept across the marsh, stinging at his cheeks as they poked out from under his woolly camouflage Elmer Fudd hat, a gift last Christmas from his wife Charlotte. She didn’t much care for him being out hunting by himself at his age and she wasn’t afraid to tell him how she felt about it.
“I wish you’d just quit this silliness already, Wayne” she’d start in. “You don’t get around as well as you used to, you’ve got nobody to go with you, and I’m sure not going out there to freeze my butt off with you.”
She was right, Wayne didn’t move quite like he used to, and after Jim died a couple months ago, he was the only one left standing from the old crew. They were a group of best friends that grew up together, both physically and mentally, although when they all got together one could argue that the latter had yet to actually happen. They’d hunted just about every square inch of this marsh over the last 50 years, so by now Wayne knew it like the back of his gloved hand. They continued to hunt after Rick’s cancer diagnosis ten years ago. They lost Terry to a heart attack just before season a few years back. That one stung, and not just because he was the lucky pill puller at the morning draw. Terry was older by just a year or so than the rest of them, so he took it upon himself to be the de facto leader of the group when they were teens just starting to get the itch for waterfowl hunting. Jim fell ill just before season started, and just could not get himself well enough to hunt opening day. Wayne suspected that the dejection from not being able to hunt may have broken Jim’s spirit, and thought maybe he’d still be alive if he could have just gotten out into the marsh one more time.
Wayne could remember like it was yesterday the first time the four of them loaded up in Terry’s pickup and headed out for a morning hunt. They must have gone through two boxes of shells a piece that day, all for just a couple of lousy teal. They couldn’t talk about anything else that week all through school, bitten by the infectious bug that is waterfowl hunting, and that next Friday night after the football game they gathered their gear and met back up at Rick’s place to do it again while the rest of their peers indulged themselves in the usual Friday night parties. This became a regular occurrence for the gang, and the more they hunted the more experience they accrued, no longer burning through shells by the box for a just a bird or two.
As they got older and took on jobs and got married and started their own families, one thing remained constant; come fall they were stepping back out into that marsh together. They took a trip to North Dakota for a duck, goose, and pheasant hunt for Terry’s bachelor party. All of them at one point or another had called in “sick” at work in order to take advantage of cold fronts and fresh pushes of migrating birds, Jim even claiming once that he told his boss that he couldn’t come in that day because “his arm was in a sling.” The boys fell apart with laughter when they happened to run into Jim’s boss that same morning at the draw-in.
Wayne recollected on the infamous blizzard hunt, arguably the most bizarre day they ever had hunting. With early morning temps flirting with a sultry sixty degrees, the guys almost didn’t hunt. But seeing as it was duck season, and it was the weekend, they decided to give it a go. They hadn’t hardly fired a shot all morning, and strongly considered packing it in. Rick was adamant that they stick it out because there was supposed to be a cold front pushing through that could very well get the birds moving. Sure enough by about eleven o’clock the temperature started dropping as thick gray clouds slowly rolled over the marsh. By noon it was starting to rain.
”Man, I don’t like this. If we stay out here too long we’re going to get soaked.” Jim pleaded to call it quits and escape the weather that was getting worse by the minute.
“No no, this is perfect, Jim.” Rick rebutted. “These birds are going to start flying, and we’ll be sorry if we leave now.”
About that time a cloud of snow geese rose up off the water on the other side of the marsh, and a few minutes later the rain turned to snow. And damned if Rick wasn’t right, the birds started flying. By mid-afternoon it was near white out conditions, and they didn’t even have time to think about leaving as ducks started pouring into the spread left and right. Rick was out collecting one that he had just knocked down when another came within a mere three feet of landing on his head. By the time it was all said and done they had a four man limit of birds and ended up riding out the rest of the storm in their trucks in the parking lot.
Against Charlotte’s wishes, Wayne determined himself to hunt this one last season, for the fellas at least. That seemed to be enough to convince her to back off her protests, at least for a while. In truth, Wayne was feeling the effects of old age himself. The way he figured it, he wasn’t going to last much longer, and hunting one more season might fend off the grim reaper just a little longer. Selfish as it may have been, Wayne secretly mused that if he was going to die, there was no place more appealing to do so than laying peacefully in the blind surrounded by these ducks in this marsh, especially under a sunset as pretty as this one.
“Probably ought to take that idea to the grave with me or Charlotte’ll put me in the express lane to it.” He grinned even as he thought of her whopping him upside the head for suggesting such a thing.
Electing to kill two birds with one stone, Wayne started collecting decoys as he waded out to retrieve that final bird. Weaving his way back and forth through the not-quite knee deep water he could feel the skim ice already starting to form across the surface of the pool. The last thing he needed now was a tumble into frigid water, otherwise the marsh would become his final resting place. Realizing that between the bundle of decoy cords, the spinning wing decoys, and the green head he’d be hauling more items than he had hands, and in the interest of simplicity Wayne snatched the mallard out of the water by the neck and chucked it back toward the blind. As the dead bird took one last flight leaving a trail of stray feathers floating on the soft breeze over the pool, the last fleeting remnants of daylight glinted a metallic reflection around the ankle. The duck landed with a thump on the dry ground next to his blind as Wayne paused momentarily, a single tear forming and rolling down his cheek.
“50 years of duck hunting and I finally shoot me a band” He said in almost a whisper. “And nobody is here to see it.”
As complete darkness enveloped that mid-Missouri marsh, the last feather fell.
The Hunting Lodge 