Sam Teel and Booty Blevins had been partners ten years, never had a fight. They argued some about how to fix a problem, but each knew that was healthy. They didn’t make much money, but loved what they did for a living, training and handling pointing dogs on the field trial circuit.
In their day there was just one circuit, for shooting dogs were yet to be a separate circuit, formally. Sure, there were wide dogs and short dogs, big country and less big, major trials and weekend trials.
Sam was the handler, Booty the scout. Sam was white, booty black. But outside of a trial heat their jobs and duties were pretty much the same. Feed and water ’em, scoop after ’em, yard work em, work ’em horseback till they patterned and broke themselves.
Most important, figuring which had the potential to be worth their time. Not many. The rest could be hunting dogs if they had the nose and were not run-offs; country break and sell these was the key to not going broke.
Like all the rest in their profession, having in their string a couple all-age dogs that with the breaks could win any stake, and a derby now and then that could mature to be a winning all-age, these were the essentials. And most important, having a few owners that were loyal, affluent enough, enthusiastic through the leanest times. Sam and Booty knew these things, and that was why their partnership had held up ten years,
It was 1955. Sam had served in combat as a Marine corporal in the pacific in WWII, Booty in the Army as a truck driver in Europe until at the Battle of the Bulge he became by necessity an infantryman. Both had suffered, and still did, the psychological ill effects of their service, once called shell shock, then battle fatigue, now PTSD. The dogs and horses and the out-of-doors were their therapy, but they still suffered.
This season they badly needed a derby that could become a winning all-age. They thought they had one. Then the second week of training on the prairie, tragedy struck. Their best coming derby, a pointer named Bud, dropped to its belly on point of a chicken for no obvious reason.
Booty arrived, stood him up, stroked and sweet-talked him, turned him loose. Five minutes later, he did it again. Booty picked him up, sweet talked him, put him in his box on the dog wagon, pulled by a knot-kneed team of Canadian-farmer draft horses rented for the season. The training team headed in silence to the abandoned farmhouse that was their summer headquarters.
Dropping on point was a dread reaction, often to a shot fired too close to the pointing dog’s ear, sometime to a correction administered by a trainer to the dog, sometimes to an unknown, as appeared to be the case with Bud.
Sam and Booty were silent on the ride in, and for the time they tended to the dogs and stock. Supper would be bread and cheese and cold cans of pork-and-beans. The three ate in silence, Sam and Booty and the teen boy who had come north with them from Alabama to drive the dog wagon and help with chores.
Finally, Sam said, “What should we do?”
Booty rubbed his chin, then said, “Let’s sleep on it.”
And so they did, but in Sam’s case not before hours of lying awake remembering other dogs in training that suddenly dropped on point. All had continued the reaction and become hunting companions for foot hunters glad to have a dog sure not to run up birds. Finally, Sam fell asleep, only to review in dream his prospects that had become droppers-on-point.
Booty fell asleep as always as soon as his head hit the grain sack filled with hay that served as his pillow.
At wake-up time, a half hour before dawn, Sam and Booty met at the woodstove to boil water for coffee.
“What do you think?” Sam asked.
“Let’s leave him chained at his box today,” Booty said, and they did. It was a glum day working other dogs.
That night after they were back in camp and the dogs and horses cared for, Sam said, “What you think we should do?”
Booty said, “I done had a talk with Bud. Here is what I think. Let’s work him tomorrow, and if he drops we don’t do nothing but put him in his box on the wagon”
Sam had no counter suggestion, and in sadness nodded his assent.
Next day they ran Bud in prime time and ten minutes down he pointed. Booty rode to him, dismounted, walked silently past Bud and flushed. A young chicken rose and flew and Bud dropped.
Booty said nothing, took Bud gently by the collar, walked him to the wagon and lifted him into a compartment, all in silence, and took another derby from its box for training.
The day’s actions were repeated the rest of the week, with the same results.
Sunday there was no training, Sam and Booty instead fishing a lake on the training grounds from a wooden rowboat tethered there, owned by whom they knew not. Fish were not biting.
“What do we do now,” Sam asked Booty.
“I think Bud’s going to be OK tomorrow,” Booty said.
Sam just sat in silence. Fish never started to bite.
Monday Bud was loaded by Booty in the wagon as usual. Booty put him down alone for the second brace in an area that nearly always held chickens. Ten minutes down Bud pointed, Booty rode to him and flushed, and Bud stayed standing and did not chase.
Booty said softly, “Good boy, Bud”, knelt and stroked Bud’s back and tail. Then he released Bud to hunt on, and Sam, mounted beside his dog and scout, blew a loud blast on his pea whistle to send Bud on.
Booty, grinning, put foot in stirrup and swung effortlessly into the saddle, then rode to join Sam.
“I knowed he loved to hunt. I figured if he figured dropping was going to get him picked up, he’d quit it.”
Bud never dropped on point again, won a prairie derby stake, and two years later won a championship.