It was Thursday noon, and the staff of Short Pine Plantation were gathered at the horse barn to plan for the week-end quail hunt. By tradition, shooting guests arrived Thursday afternoon at the Big House for an all-day hunt Friday, followed by a half-day hunt Saturday. (The schedule was repeated for Monday-half-day Tuesday hunts, giving the staff Sunday and Wednesday off).
The staff consisted of manager Sam Slade, dog trainer Bill Ray, wagon driver Booty Blevins, long-timers on Short Pine, and a half dozen younger and newer hands whose jobs varied with the need.
Hunts by tradition involved a brace of pointing dogs handled by Sam and Bill, plus four to six guns, mounted horseback or riding on the wagon by their choice. For each point, two guns were down in rotating order. These two walked up to the pointing dog under guidance of Sam or Bill who walked between them to flush. Meanwhile the other of Sam and Bill supervised the non-pointing or backing dog. A mounted scout and a mounted horse-holder plus the wagon driver completed the team in charge of a hunt.
Each had his well defined duties when a point occurred. And after birds flushed and shots were fired the pointing dogs were hitched by short chains to the wagon and a retriever released by Booty to pick up downed quail. It was a ritual orchestrated like a ballet.
Fresh dogs were released from cages on the wagon about every forty minutes, and the ones just down took their places in the cages. Mules Molly and Maud pulled the wagon.
The most important aspect was safety. Each hunt began with a lecture by Sam to the guns on rules designed to make the hunt safe for man and beast.
“Walk up wide on your side of the dog, muzzle up, stay abreast of your partner, shoot only in the area straight ahead of you or to your right if you are the right gun, or to you left if you are the left gun. Do not shoot low-flying birds. Know where every one and every animal is before you shoot. Break your gun after you shoot or before you walk to your horse or the wagon. Hunt safe and have fun.”
The guns this weekend were the Boss-Man’s youngest daughter Alice, just graduated college, and her intended, Ron, a few years older and an investment banker in New York. With them were Sally’s room-mate and her boy friend, a banker with the same New York firm and slightly senior to Ron.
The pre-hunt staff meeting began as always with Sam describing the guns and any special concerns for them. These four were familiar to the staff. Alice was a favorite of all, an accomplished equestrian and a good wing-shot and invariably good natured, careful and considerate. The guest couple were not new to Short Pine hunts but not seasoned veterans.
Ron was Sam’s concern, though he did not say it, for he did not have to. Ron had hunted many years at Short Pine. He had been the college room-mate of Alice’s older brother and had met Alice here. He was a crack shot, in fact a competitive skeet shooter since age twelve. His uncle owned a place like Short Pine outside Albany. He seldom missed a bird, as he would tell you, and that was the problem.
None on Short Pine’s staff could stand Ron, nor could the Boss Man though he never said it. Ron exuded arrogance. Why can’t she see it, the Boss Man thought every time he was with Alice and Ron.
Friday’s hunt went off smoothly enough. The weather was ideal and birds moving except for a short spell just before the noon break. Thirty-six coveys were moved, half during the morning eight-to-noon segment, the others in the three to six.
Ron had shot half the total bag, more than his individual limit which he ignored since they were just under the wagon limit of thirty-two birds imposed by the Boss Man. Ron had not missed and had scored many doubles, preening at the obligatory “good shooting” muttered by someone after each of Ron’s rises.
When the day’s hunt ended each of the guns expressed thanks individually to the five members of the hunt staff, except Ron who spoke only to Sam with a muttered “Nice hunt” as he handed him his over-under to be cleaned before tomorrow’s hunt.
Saturday morning the guns again arrived from the Big House at eight. The ladies had sent word they would hunt from the wagon so only Ron and his fellow banker had horses waiting at the hitch rail. Sam had Ron’s shotgun in his saddle scabbard. Ron asked for a different mount.
“I don’t like that one. He’s lazy,” Ron said.
Sam steamed but said nothing. The problem was with Ron’s lack of riding skill, not with the horse. Another was quickly brought from the barn and saddled.
The morning hunt went beautifully. They were in birds from the minute they left the barn until noon, ending time, loomed. Ron was five birds over a personal limit and the guns collectively were one short of a wagon limit for a full day’s hunt. Down were a promising derby and, by tradition for the last brace when Alice was in the shooting party, Alice’s personal favorite, a twelve year old pointer bitch named Rosie she had shot her first bird over eleven years before.
The derby pointed. Ron swung from the saddle and rushed to the point, before his fellow banker barely got off his horse. A single rose and flew low from before the derby’s point. Ron swung on the single and fired, the bird dropping not ten yards ahead of him. Simultaneously a yelp was heard.
Rosie had been standing in heavy cover in the flight path of the single. Ron’s low shot had killed her as well as the bird.
Alice had seen it all from close range from the wagon seat. Simultaneously she was stricken with grief and awakened to Ron’s true nature.
She ran from the wagon to Rosie and gathered her in her arms. She was mercifully unmoving, killed instantly and Alice prayed painlessly or nearly so.
Alice stood and faced Ron, who stood voiceless, shotgun in both hands.
“ Get in your car and get out of here. I never want to see you again,” Alice said.
They were but a hundred yards from the barn and kennel. Ron’s clothes were in his rental car as were Alice’s. She nodded to Booty who understood without the need for words that she wanted him to remove her things from Ron’s vehicle. He jumped from the wagon to do so, then returned to Rosie’s body and lifted it onto the wagon.
Alice joined him on the driver’s seat of the hunting wagon and, first stopping at the kennel for two shovels, they proceeded to the dog burial ground nearby and began to dig a grave for Rosie in the soft sand of Short Pine Plantation.
That solemn duty accomplished, Alice and the guests thanked the staff and departed in the other rental vehicle for the airport in nearby Tallahassee.
Sam called the Boss Man on his cell phone while the rest of the staff looked after the horses and dogs. “Rosie was a sacrifice and a sad one. But she did it for the one who loved her most. And it may have been for the best—no, I know it was. I’ve got a pathology report on Rosie’s biopsy in my hand and the lump on her udder was malignant,” said the Boss Man.