Part Two: The Wager
Click Here to Read Part One
Mike did his part. I turned him out of the box, which was sitting at the rear of the wagon and facing the rear. He set out headed straight away behind us, which is what
Mr. Reed wanted. He liked to show that his dogs would handle. Mr. Reed said quietly to me, “Call him around.” I had shown dogs with Mr. Reed before. Two things were certain. He was loath to raise his voice to a dog, and he never corrected me in front of another person.
I called one time gentle enough to let Mike know which way we were headed, but loud enough to not let him get too far to the rear. Within a minute, Mike had found the front and was quartering through the pine timber ahead of us, sifting the morning air with every leap. A freshly plowed fire line offered him a moment of easy hunting, and a likely covey haunt, too. He took it farther ahead, curling off when the line curved away from our path. At ten minutes, down along a series of hurricane roots, Mike wheeled and leaned stiffly into his first covey. We could see it all very clearly from the wagon.
“There you go Mr. Seville,” Mr. Reed said. “Go see if he will retrieve.”
Mr. Seville stepped down from the wagon’s side with his shotgun and set out toward the dog. It was really a pretty setting. A beam of sunlight had found its way through the pine canopy and cast the perfect spotlight on Mike. His liver saddle and dark mask sure didn’t take away from the picture. As Mr. Seville approached Mike, quail began to lift at all sides. Mr. Seville nervously raised the gun to his shoulder. His motions were not smooth at all. A shot was fired before the butt rested in the crease of his shoulder. His second shot was fired at a quail escaping to his far right, not an easy shot for a right-handed shooter, I thought. Both shots missed. “Damn dog,” we heard him say, like he wasn’t talking to anybody, but wanted to make sure we heard him. “He should have been closer to those birds. A spaniel can find them that far out.”
Mr. Reed chuckled and wasn’t gritting his teeth anymore. I realized then that Mr. Reed knew exactly what was transpiring and how it would play out. I think he knew it back at the kennel. “Oh well, come on Mr. Seville let’s go get another shot. We need to see if ol’ Mike will retrieve.” I also sensed we were now in Mr. Reed’s arena. “The price of a dog is worth the extra mile, don’t you think?”
Just over the next hill we found Mike standing in a patch of lespedeza. Like before, Mr. Seville shot before his gun came to rest on his shoulder. His second shot did manage to down a sleeper trying to make a late and slow getaway. He turned to us to make sure we saw his victory. I had, but Mr. Reed, I think purposefully, looked the other way.
Of course, Mike had marked the down bird and retrieved it to a beaming Mr. Seville. I sensed that Mr. Reed hadn’t wanted or expected Mr. Seville to become so happy with Mike. I suspected he wanted Mr. Seville to totally fail and leave Red Oak without a dog. Maybe, maybe not, as I would find out, Mr. Reed could read people very well. At any rate, the next time Mike pointed, Mr. Reed laid his cards on the table and called Mr. Seville.
As Mr. Seville walked toward Mike, Mr. Reed called out to him. “Mr. Seville, I haven’t seen you make a double today. Would you be interested in a wager?”
Mr. Seville turned and questioned. “Maybe. What’s on your mind?”
“Well, you seem mighty concerned about Mike’s heavy marking, and the price of the dog. Not that the price of a dog is anything to a man like yourself, not like that poor fellow at the kennel this morning, but what if you could get Mike there for nothing?”
Mr. Seville glanced over his shoulder toward Mike standing tall and now mouthing the scent of his hidden quarry, chopping his jowls, slobbering and quivering. Mr. Seville rested the double across his forearm and asked, “How’s that going to happen?” It had my attention, too. It occurred to me that Mr. Reed, in the most subtle way, was backing his opponent into a corner from which there was no escape.
“Come on back to the wagon and let Mike savor those birds a while longer and I’ll tell you how.”
Mr. Seville made his way back to us and Mr. Reed continued. “Why don’t you let this lazy boy here take your gun and see if he can get a double. I’ll put Mike on the table, and you put the price of the dog on the table. If the boy can’t make a double, you get Mike for nothing and keep the $1,200. If he does luck up and gets a double, we get the $1,200 and keep Mike.”
Mr. Seville studied for a moment too long, so Mr. Reed pushed him over the edge by saying again, “What do you say Mr. Seville? What’s the price of a dog to a man like yourself?”
I didn’t question Mr. Reed. I never had. Without being asked I climbed down from the wagon and reached for Mr. Seville’s gun. I shouldered the gun once before reaching the dog and swung it as if following a bird in flight. The stock was too long for me.
Mike had the covey under his nose. Out of habit (from training the pups) I walked in from the front, flushing birds straight over his head and toward the wagon. Then birds began to get up from all sides. Two sailed toward the wagon so I pulled away from them to a single off to my left. It was an easy shot going straight away rising slightly. Feathers exploded into the air. I took another step facing ahead but slightly to my right. The birds were quickly getting away and out of range. I could not count on waiting for a sleeper.
Quickly, quicker than I wanted to, but out of necessity, I drew down on the last one in range. It was too far I thought. It had begun to sail, curving sharply, keeping just above the knee-high sedge, a hard shot for sure. I don’t remember aiming. I followed the darting target until I considered it still just barely in range. I squeezed the trigger. He disappeared sharply behind a myrtle bush. I didn’t see feathers or any sign that a bird had been downed.
The chaos was over. Mike was still standing, unmoved by the shots or the loud whirrr! of the escaping quail. His breeding had held true. Only his deep-set eyes moved, following all the quick paced action. I surprised myself with the poise and calmness I had maintained.
Mike raced to the fallen quail of the first shot and scooped him up. With a high happy tail, Mike brought him to me. I then walked toward the myrtle bush that hid the subject of my last shot. Mike was ahead of me some 20 feet when he wheeled into a point just behind the bush. I heard Mr. Seville, “A cripple bird ain’t a double.”
He was right. I had let Mr. Reed down. I was further disappointed when I stepped in front of Mike and flushed an untouched quail. I watched as he flew away. “Umm,” I grunted to myself.
Mike marked flight. I whistled him away from his point, but he became sticky, not wanting to leave the area. After a moment more, he became birdy again, something had caught his attention. He circled the myrtle once, then again, and then reached into the bush slightly above his head and, as if picking an apple from a low limb, gently muzzled a still warm bundle of brown feathers away from the snare of limbs it was tangled in. The shot had landed true. I reached to Mike who laid the bird in my hand. Exhilarated, I raised it to show the two men, both sitting with equal anticipation at the edge of the wagon.
“Heel Mike.” We walked to the wagon, and I handed Mr. Seville his gun. He didn’t speak. I found my seat, picked up the reins and clucked to the mule. I quietly mouthed, “Home Emma.”
It was a quiet trip back to the kennel. Mr. Seville tried to make small talk, but Mr. Reed only answered with “yes” and “no” and “yeah, that’s something….”
When we did arrive, the two men stepped down off the wagon. Mr. Reed spoke up, “Lane, put Mike up and lock the kennel gate,” and then he turned to Mr. Seville, “but first, Mr. Seville, please pay the boy. Twelve hundred was the price.” He spoke in a manner and tone that left no one uncertain as to what was going to happen.
Mr. Seville drew from his front pocket a roll of bills wrapped with a red rubber band. He handed the roll toward Mr. Reed. “Do I need to co unt it?”
“That won’t be necessary, the boy will count it.” Mr. Reed continued. “Pay the boy, that’s his money not mine.”
That became a cold moment, as Mr. Reed was humbling the man, and the man knew it. I reached from the wagon seat and took the money. “Thank you, sir,” was all I knew to say.