by Marc Fryt
“Stupid barn!” I yelled, ejecting two more smoking spent shells from the shotgun. My voice carried off deeply into the early winter woods.
Windsor, my English setter, was bug-eyed and excitedly bounced his head up through the brambles. The sound of the grouse whirring up through the branches reverberated in my head.
“No bird!” I shouted down, looking at the final wisps of smoke circling out from the chambers.
It was a soft pitch, and I’d whiffed. The large male ruffed grouse had kicked up slowly, profiling itself against bare sky while it lumbered through the forest opening, providing two shot opportunities. Each time I pulled the trigger, I winced, knowing my aim was several degrees down and behind.
“Windsor, come!” My voice was terse, but I could only be upset with myself. I knelt in the damp soil, and Windsor trotted up and bumped into my side. I praised him for his point and for doing his part.
I got up and searched for my empty shells, spotting them at the base of a snowberry bush. As I shuffled the branches aside, another grouse flushed wild from a nearby willow tree. Windsor ran forward, aiming for the old willow.
“Whoa!” I called him off. “We’re done here, forget this barn.” Grabbing the shells, I recalled Windsor and heeled him away from the area. I pointed us in the direction of the next cover, and we started hiking.
I glanced back at the willow while pulling two shells from my vest. The mature tree was as weathered and ash gray as the barn it stood near. Most of its leaves had fallen, and I’d have mistaken it for dead had I not seen it so many other times this season. My boot caught a rock and I tripped forward but quickly regained myself. I loaded the shells, then carried on behind the dog.
The elderly barn was the centerpiece in an overgrown farmstead, and an enclave for a few grouse living around its perimeter. Clusters of conifers and decaying farm equipment sheltered birds, while snowberry bushes and alders fed them with most of what they needed.
A long hike led down to the barn in the valley. You couldn’t reach the covers beyond without first passing by the barn, and you couldn’t hike fast enough past its bleached lumber without the temptation of hunting its thickets as the dog confidently picked up scent. Yet, each of my attempts had been a well-rehearsed routine of points, flushes, spent shells, choice words and an empty game vest. By late season, I could no longer stand to hunt around the barn.
Continuing our day, we reached the next cover and Windsor began casting out along a dense, wooded edge, but I was still in my head thinking about the barn and that bird under the large willow. I never thought to focus on that tree because I couldn’t imagine a grouse waddling around in that space while there were so many alluring briers for it to hunker into. Maybe I could try that tree on the way back.
“Nope!” I said to myself. “Forget the barn.” Windsor looked back at me. “Not doing the barn anymore.”
I meandered behind the dog and immediately went back to thinking about the barn and the bird under the willow. Even the way that grouse flushed, it sounded like it hardly fluttered a few yards. It could easily walk back under that tree.
“Forget it!” I was frustratingly fixated on that barn, the willow and the grouse; I wasn’t even minding the cover we were now just rambling through. I turned my attention back to the weight of the gun, then over to the dog and how he was working the woods, and finally to the stand of young, dark hemlocks we were approaching.
“That looks grousey,” I said as Windsor halted and picked up a vapor trail leading to the conifers.
My game vest had a bird in it by the time I finally stopped to have a late lunch. I was lethargic and apathetic after pushing myself to keep hunting, neglecting to even take a bite of the snack bars in my coat pocket. I fed the dog before pulling out my own meal. Wet snow covered any decent place to sit, so I stood there blankly staring toward the ground as I ate.
“What if we knew that grouse was still there?”
Windsor turned his head to me, then went back to licking his bowl.
“I mean, it really sounded like that bird barely flushed.”
Snow was forecast in a few days, too much snow to make it safe for running the dog back down into this valley.
I finished my lunch, packed up and adjusted my gloves.
“Fine, we’ll try it on the way out.” Windsor didn’t even bother to turn and look at me.
The sun was dipping closer to the forested ridgeline as we cut our way through the woods. My boots were wet from stepping through patchy snow all day, and I was ready to head back to the truck, but only after we tried the willow tree. The silhouette of the barn began to appear through the forest, and I slowed down. In front, the wilderness braided into the aging farmstead, and on the far end of a small, dried marsh stood the mature willow. On one side, its branches pressed against a shack where part of the wall had fallen in. The barn was only a wingbeat away from it.
“Let’s circle wide ’round the barn and hit the willow from the other side.”
As we trudged across an open field, I looked over to the barn. Sunlight was rimming its rooftop where pieces of its corrugated metal were peeled back, exposing wooden panels underneath. Its barn doors lay on the ground with dried grass sprouting between the planks. The hood of an old car rusted beside the doors, and I imagined what it would be like to drive down into this valley, down the road now fully covered in heavy snow.
We continued circling through the field until the willow and the shack were between us and the barn. An overgrown trail led to the willow, and I sent Windsor down the avenue. I held the shotgun ready and thought about how the grouse might flush. Reaching the corner of the shack, Windsor slowed to a point.
“No way,” I whispered.
I glanced toward the base of the willow, then over to where snowberry bushes grew over a woodpile. I hadn’t noticed those bushes before, as they were in a small depression in the ground. I stepped past Windsor, and he inched forward.
“Whoa,” I said, turning my head to him but keeping my eyes on the bramble.
I closed in on the bushes and paused, expecting the imminent flush. A grouse busted upward, and I flinched before swinging the shotgun and firing it too soon and too low, peppering the ground. The bird shed a puff of feathers, but it accelerated on toward a row of dense conifers.
Feathers drifted downward under the willow tree, and Windsor bounced forward.
“Whoa!” I yelled out. I gripped the shotgun, scanning in the direction where the grouse had flown, and felt terrible for wounding the bird.
“We have to find it,” I said, loading a shell then releasing Windsor.
We approached the tree line where the grouse escaped, and Windsor picked up scent again. The conifers were dense and dark. I twisted through small spaces as branches thwacked against my pant legs. Dried twigs snapped, and just ahead the grouse flushed wild from the noise.
Panicking, I closed my eyes and quickly pushed through. Surfacing from the evergreens, I scanned in the direction where the bird might have dashed. Another row of shaggy conifers lay in front of us, so I brought Windsor to me and steadied him before moving forward.
Unbelievably, Windsor became birdy and stalked forward into the young conifers. It was a thin row of trees, so I moved beside him and up to where the trees came to an end. Again, I readied the shotgun and prepared for the flush.
The grouse took wing, and I tracked it in the air with the tip of the barrel, pulled the trigger and nothing. I looked down at the shotgun selector switch — it was stuck in between Over and Under so it couldn’t fire. My arms sank.
Windsor moved up to where the bird had taken off and started licking the ground. I trudged up to him and saw blotches of bright blood soaking into the snow. I looked out, trying to recall the flight path of the grouse, but my mind was focused on regret for that shot and for pressuring myself into making something happen around that barn.
“Come on,” I said, nudging the dog forward.
Windsor trotted to a cluster of leafless bushes and slinked through their branches. Just as I closed distance with him, he drew solidly to a point. I rechecked the shotgun selector while I moved up and off to the side of where he was. Stepping through the snow, I worked steadily beyond the dog with heightened awareness. We were now at the base of a hillside, and I cautiously tested each step upward while scanning for any movement.
I moved farther up the slope, yet the grouse didn’t flush, and I assumed it was no longer there, potentially flying off without me catching sound of it.
“Windsor, okay,” I called to release him, but he remained pegged on point.
I made my way back down to him, and several yards from his nose, settled into the snow, was the grouse. Relieved, I reached down and picked it up.
The grouse was young and light. Its mottled feathers lay smoothly over one another, and everything about it was undisturbed except for a missing foot. I brought it over to Windsor, thanked him and apologized to the bird for prolonging its pain.
I unloaded the shells from the shotgun and placed them back into my game vest along with the grouse and started trekking back to the farmstead.
The barn lay dormant on the landscape, without the commotion and chaos of a hunter and his shotgun. Without feeling the pressure to hunt its cover, I finally gave myself the chance to look inside. I leaned the shotgun against the gray slats and stepped in. It was a husk, with few things inside beyond piles of dirt collecting over its wide-plank wood floors, a few old cans and scattered, rusty machinery. Angled beams supported what was left of the roof, and how much longer this outpost would remain standing was questionable. At the other doorway, closer to the willow tree, snow had drifted in and pillowed into a corner. On the snow, fresh grouse tracks ventured in a few feet before turning around and traveling back outside.
