Sam Scales had just sold his AI Startup to a consortium of Private Equity firms for $1 Billion (his share) and embraced a new-to-him sport: Ruffed Grouse Hunting. He brought to it the same intensity he had to the Startup. He was a math genius with a photographic memory and a control freak, traits that did not equip him for easy companionship. But one trip into Maine abandoned-farm country, where he saw one grouse rise and fall to the shot of his host, hooked him.
On return to Silicon Valley, he read all he could find about grouse hunting. On the sale of the Unicorn he bought two setter grouse field trial champions, a Humvee custom fit for grouse hunting, and a half-dozen pricey double guns (two side-by-side, four over-and-under) recommend for grouse hunting by internet sellers.
Then he set out to find a Minnesota grouse guide. He received several recommendations for Barney Brame. He had a phone number, no address or other details. (Barney’s home location in Minnesota will not be revealed here. Your narrator is a grouse hunter. No genuine grouse hunter reveals locations.)
Sam called Barney and reserved a week mid-October and mailed Barney a money order for his fees to a PO Box address. (Except in grouse season, Barney made his living as a handy man. He had no bank account and had never filed a tax return). Barney gave Sam a beer-joint address in central Minnesota as their place to meet.
When Sam arrived in the Humvee, he saw a gray 2000 Toyota Tacoma with a plywood dog box in the bed parked where Barney had specified. He found Barney at the bar inside, nursing a 16-ounce bottled Pepsi. They shook (Barney’s hand twice the size of Sam’s and calloused, Sam’s recently manicured) and walked out to their vehicles.
Before Barney could give instructions, Sam said, “I’ll follow you.”
Barney looked at the Humvee and said, “it’s going to get scratched.”
Sam assured him that was OK.
Barney left the parking lot amid the roar of the Tacoma’s blown muffler. Sam set his Humvee’s GPS and followed. An hour later Barney pulled off the two-lane blacktop onto a narrow two-track dirt logging road and Sam followed in the Humvee. Ten-foot-tall aspens scratched both sides of the Humvee.
Ten minutes later, Barney parked the Toyota at the edge of a recently chip-cut thirty-acre rectangle and got out, reaching for the latch on the plywood dog box to release his dog.
“Let’s hunt mine first”, said Sam.
“OK, but let mine empty before you release yours,” Barney said, and released a small white and pale orange-headed pointer female, her sides marked with dried blood from a whipping briar-cut tail. She emptied and, on Barney’s soft command, re-entered the box.
Sam carefully hooked a check cord to the collar of a large white setter, let it out as he held the cord, and it trotted to the woods edge and emptied. Then Sam commenced attaching a Garmin tracking collar and a separate beeper collar on the setter’s neck.
“Why you need both? Barney asked.
“Sometimes he ranges beyond the beeper,” Sam said.
Barney nodded.
“Please set it for ‘point only’ mode,” Barney said when he heard the constant
‘Beep, beep’. Sam complied.
Barney told Sam where to walk and they began the hunt, Barney walking on Sam’s left (Sam was right-handed) and two steps behind. Sam’s dog, name Buck, stood three woodcock, steady to wing and shot, which Sam fired two shots each at without effect.
Then Sam noticed Barney had departed, leaving him and Buck alone in the Big Woods. Sam looked at the tracker-receiver for the pin he had dropped to mark where his Humvee was parked. It was absent. In his excitement, he had forgot to set it. Sam had no clue where the Humvee was parked.
Sam walked to a large stump, sat on it, and removed a sandwich from his bright orange game vest. He shared it with Buck. He removed a plastic bottle of water from the vest and shared it too with Buck.
Then he said, “Where is the truck, Buck?”
Buck looked at him in puzzlement, then began to hunt. Sam followed. In two hours, Buck arrived at the Humvee, having pointed steady-to-wing-and-shot for Sam a dozen more woodcock, one of which Sam wing-tipped and Buck retrieved. He also bumped a half-dozen grouse.
Taped to the driver-side door of the Humvee was an envelope containing greenbacks for all but $100 of the money Sam had sent by money order to Barney to pay for the hunt. Also in the envelope was a handwritten note from Barney, which read:
“Dear Mr. Sam:
Buck is a nice dog, but you better take some shooting lessons before you ruin him. Good luck.
Barney”
Sam used the Humvee’s GPS system to retrace his route to the beer joint where he had met Barney. There the Toyota pickup with plywood dog box was parked. Sam noticed for the first time its sign, “BEAR’S DEN.” Barney sat again at the bar, but before him was a long neck Bud, not a Pepsi.
Author’s note: This fictional tale is dedicated to Steve Grossman and his son Travis of Staples, Minnesota .