Hunting Quail

We pulled into the soft dirt at the side of a fallow field in the coppery gold Toyota truck with the dogs in the back in pens.  They kenneled well but ran into the distance at full speed with my uncle yelling after them as soon as they were released.  I knew my father felt his dog was much superior and more well trained than this and would say so when we were alone at home.  We all got out of the truck, dressed in tans and greens, carrying guns and shells in our pockets.  It was cold and the trees were bare.  The dirt and stalks in the field seemed oppressed somehow, dead to the world, holding secrets of spring.  During the summer these fields would be tall and grown with cotton or soybeans with full green leaves neatly in rows for harvesting when the green tractors would reap them and then it turn winter and they would die and go underground into the roots, hibernating for another season like winter where we were at now and somehow we were there to look and see the death perhaps of the birds that we were hunting.  The dogs finally came back in a small copse of woods that we went in to, in to the briars and downed branches pulling at our coats and skin and we went through the woods and the dogs pointed ahead and we approached quietly, guns at the ready, and the dogs wanted to move in and uncle said "whoa"  "whoa" until we got close enough to scare the birds up and they rose in a bluster of flapping and scattered out into the air.  I had no shot but my uncle got two on the rise and my dad killed one flying along the edge of the woods.  The dogs found the birds after some searching and my uncle saying "dead" "dead" and when he picked them up from the ground their feathers were ruffled and he stuffed them in his coat in a pouch on his back and we continued on through the mud.  The mud was building up on my boots and I could feel its weight pulling my legs and we continued on down another fencerow and up a slight rise still skirting the edge of the fallow fields.  The day was growing older now and the sun gave some more warmth than it had that morning and the hunt began to drag a little as we walked down the fencerows.  I checked my gun.  I had an old double barrel shotgun that opened to reload with a lever.  I opened the gun and took out the shells.  I thought I would walk a while with no shells.  Maybe it would be safer.  I don't know why I was concerned but it seemed prudent.  I don't know.  Maybe I just wanted to see the shells.  The metal tops and round firing cap were shiny and solid and felt good to carry maybe to be discharged at some point at a bird.  I hadn't had a shot yet that day.  The dogs were off again and my uncle called loudly after them.  My father was getting aggravated at the dogs and I knew he would mention it when we returned home.  We came to a levy where the fencerows came together and the dogs pointed at the base of the levy. I put the shells back in the chambers of the gun and closed it with a click.  I was close and knew I might get a shot this time.  My uncle approached saying "whoa" "whoa" to the dogs and then the birds exploded up right in front of me.  It seemed I didn't even aim I just saw a bird and raised my gun and shot and I hit it and I saw the bird fall.  It seemed lucky.  My uncle also shot but my dad was behind and didn't.  "Good shot, jake"  my uncle said to me.  When it began to get later in the day we began to make our way back to the truck.  We had one more covey rise but after that no more.  When we got back to the truck, I took off my boots which were covered in mud.  The truck smelled like dog and we were tired from all the walking.  We took the shells out of our pockets and put our birds into a bag.  My mom would cook them later after the shot was removed.  The light was getting thinner as the afternoon came to an end and my uncle put the truck in gear after we had loaded the dogs and we drove along the gravel roads back to the highway.