Bob Cain and Booty Blevins
Was up in North Dakota
Their twentieth summer
Working bird dogs
They’d come up from South Georgia
Where they was based at
Where they lived in a single wide
When not on the circuit or training on prairie
Bob was the handler
Booty the scout
But in truth they was both
Bird dog Gypsies
They was poor as dirt
A week from plum broke
But they knowed how to get by
Week by week somehow
They raised cash
Breaking and tradin’ gun dogs
And house dogs
And squirrel dogs
Whatever someone would pay for
A day hunt on public land
Or poached land
Or no-one-knows-whose-land
Or a trade of a derby they touted as special
For a strong nosed meat dog they could re-sell to a rich foot hunter
Or an old horse near stumbling for a promising young one needing Booty’s wet saddle blankets
Or any swap might leave them ahead, briefly
Once in a great while
They lucked on to a special derby prospect
Or one they thought so or that seemed so
Like Millers Extravagant (Bill)
Bob won Bill
In a poker game
‘Gainst a farmer
Thought he knew cards better than Bob did but didn’t
Bill was bred in the purple
Build like Adonis
Speed of a racehorse
Nose like a vacuum
He’d been coming on
Improving each workout
They hoped to sell Bill
Just before the Continental
Then the week before
They’d leave North Dakota
Bill stood then dropped
With no warning
Booty and Bob saw it simultaneously
Their stomachs dropped
Bob’s brain froze
Booty more cagey thought quickly
Booty said “ride on by him
Pay him no attention”
To their amazement,
Bill rose up like Lazarus
“Keep going, don’t look back”
Booty said softly
In ten minutes
Bill came in from behind hunting boldly
“Don’t scold him,
Don’t say nothin’ ”
Booty said, and Bob listened
They both knew they could not fix Bill
So, Bill became
The perfect derby
‘Sept when he weren’t
Then he was worthless
All through the fall
Bill was brilliant
Except now and then
When he dropped on his belly
Without warning
Then Bob or Booty or both
Prayed no one else saw Bill
Rode on and ignored him
Christmas came and went
Bill was the talk of the circuit
Every third heat
Bob or Booty found him relaxing
Rode silently by him
Week before the Continental Derby Championship
Calls came in
Offers for Bill
Higher and higher
Finally, the one they’d hoped for
And had agreed to accept came
But how did they guard
Against a comeback, a lawsuit?
Booty said, “Leave that to me, Boss”
Which Bob was glad to do
So, Booty said to the buyer
“You is a real dog man, Sir,
You knows every dog’s got a hole
We don’t know Bill’s yet
But he’s bound to got one”
Booty delivered Bill to the buyer’s plantation
Lane in had five miles of old live oaks lining both sides
At the bottom of the bill of sale he delivered with Bill was printed
“Don’t know his hole yet”
In Booty’s unmistakable print
Bob was waiting when Booty drove out with the check
They sped to the buyer’s bank in Monticello, and cashed it
Then with the cash they made for Memphis
To stay at the Peabody with the ducks till the National