Dave Richey OUTDOORS

Zeke was a hard-hunting, hard-drinking, hard-fighting man, and he loved all three with a burning passion. It's very possible he also loved his wife in some weird way, but she always got shortchanged because he took care of his hunting dogs and his hunting gear. At times, she was left to shift for herself for days at a time during hunting season.

Their marriage had been crumbling like a house of cards for 10 rocky and tumultuous years, and she began making vague noises about a divorce. Zeke was young, as was his wife, and he felt it would be possible to weather this storm without having to face a divorce judge.

He failed to see the stormy clouds of divorce looming on the horizon, and she eventually issued a stern ultimatum. Pay some attention to me, and spend a little more time at home, or you will come to regret your unwise decisions. She just wanted more than he was willing to give, and the ground he stood on became even shakier underfoot.

It was a tough issue for Zeke. He'd fished and hunted all his life, and had raised bird dogs for the better part of 20 years. He lived for the fall months, the pungent odor of leaf piles being burned by other people. But they were never his leaves; he refused to rake and burn them. The grass never got cut unless his wife did the job, and his truck went through the winter snows much better than her bacl-wheel-drive car.

A downed grouse or woodcock, taken in front of his pointers, made Zeke's day.

It was more fun to whistle up his pointers, pat the hounds on their head, letting them know their turn would come once snow covered the ground. He'd grab his double-barrel 12 gauge, and hie himself off to the woods where no one could bother him.

His dogs worked very well together, and if one pointed, the other would back him as they were supposed to. Zeke had two of the finest pointers in Michigan, and they were as tough as whang leather, just like him.

Soon, the day-after-day training took its toll on the marriage. His wife didn't want to leave, but she didn't want to stay either, and Zeke said he would try to change his errant ways. He felt it was time to attempt mend his falling-apart marital fences.

His words were nothing more than a hollow diversion. He tried to spend more time with her, but would always sneak off to go hunting. The words between them became more harsh, acrimony ruled their lives and even Zeke could see the handwriting on the wall. His stock was no longer worth a bucket of warm spit.

He began putting money aside for the eventual day when the divorce would go in front of the judge, but he had almost three months to chase grouse and woodcock before it happened. He went for about a month working his dogs but leaving the shotgun at home. He wanted the dogs to be in prime shape for the last week of October and first week of November when the flight woodcock came down from the north, riding the chilly winds into dense alder runs and aspen thickets.

Hiding money meant putting it where his wife would never look.

He continued to work the dogs, and managed to hide money from his wife. The dogs were as sure as death and taxes on both ruffed grouse and timberdoodles, and he enjoyed the comments he got from his friends and other hunters.

They made nice mouth music about his dogs, and wondered why he wasn't shooting. He explained his home situation, his failing marriage, and said going out without a shotgun really wasn't hunting. At least that is what he believed was true and what he told his wife in an attempt to explain this was bird-dog training, not hunting. It meant the same thing to her, and no explanations could change the coming divorce.

Zeke kept hiding money from his pay check, and his wife wondered if he was spending it on another woman but he was never gone from home at night, and spent every day off with the dogs. Week after week he salted money away, choosing a place where he knew his wife would never look.

You see, she had nothing against hunting but detested firearms. She didn't understand them, didn't know how they operated, had no clue about the difference between a single bore and twin tubes, and Zeke knew this. Every week he would stick one or two $100 bills down the barrels of his beloved 12-gauge side-by-side.

The last week of October soon arrived with a heavy two-day rain. Zeke knew the woodcock would come drifting into his area on the strong northwest winds and heavy rain. His pointers could smell the cooling air, and knew it meant bird hunting, and they were ready to go when he hollered "kennel up." They jumped into the dog boxes in the back of his pickup truck, and off they went on their first real hunt of the season.

They drove to one of Zeke's favorite coverts, and puttered around, trying to figure how to hunt the pointers into the wind. He knew the puddles of standing water would bring nightcrawlers and worms on top of the ground, and the birds would not be too far away. He knew the timberdoodles loved earthworms, and wet earth was just what he had hoped to find.

He grabbed the double-barrel, stuffed two low-brass No. 8 shotshells into the chambers, closed the action, and headed into the dripping woods, snuffling the clean odor of wet dirt. Here and there he spotted the white splashings of woodcock dung, and knew the birds were here.

One pointer soon vaccuumed up a nose-full of woodcock scent, and slammed into a quivering and tense point, his pointy tail as stiff as a dagger. The other dog backed him, and Zeke moved in slowly, watching the ground in front of the dogs noses for a flushing woodcock.

Two twittered up, one peeled off to the left while the other zigzagged right, and Zeke was primed. This was the moment he had waited all year for, and he swung left, shot, and quickly swung through the second woodcock, and shot again.

This was Zeke's big moment: a woodcock double.

Both birds flew away unscathed. It took Zeke a moment to figure out what had happened, what he done to himself. In his haste to hunt this perfect woodcock day, he had forgotten about stuffing both shotgun tubes full of rolled-up $100 bills. They were jammed in tight about eight inches back from the muzzle.

Scattered all around him were tiny bits of charred and burning green paper. He later said that he had squirreled away over $5,000 in his shotgun barrels, and there was nothing left but green confetti and his two pointers and a shotgun with barrels peeled back like banana skins.

To make matters worse, when he returned home, dejected, he found it empty except a note on the table.

"I'm leaving, Zeke," the note read. "The divorce papers will arrive in two days. I'm sorry, but I can't take it any more. Love …"

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors