This from a friend. Long but pertinent
The quail hunt, a tale:
And so there they were up in the anklebone trap of Earl Prince’s Quail Heaven Ranch. The anklebone was near nine sections and not so big, as traps go. Quail Heaven was 89 thousand acres of wind farm, helium gas, natural gas, native grasses with every known variety of sticker burr and some not so known, but that stuck anyway and rugged terrain along the north bank of the Canadian River in the Texas panhandle. They ran cattle & Emus, a kind of imported turkey that is meaner than the average junkyard dog, but they were free and said to be self-sufficient, so they didn’t have to feed them. They needed ‘em for the agricultural exemption in case the pair of Longhorns that Earl had bought at the Ft. Worth Stockyards wasn’t enough. Earl’s given name was Gary Wjbnoscovic and he was from the twin cities; that’s in Minnesota. He’d won the Powerful Ball Lotto for near a half billion, after taxes and then invested in a Canadian software company that landed the Obamacare contract on a no-bid contract basis and he was more than flush and had grown up infatuated with Prince, that purple ****** that no one aside from his handlers knew squat about. And he also liked the old early 60’s tune, the Duke of Earl that his older sister, Gert, had left behind on a 45-RPM record when she ran off with that vacuum cleaner salesman. So Gary Wjbnoscovic became Earl Prince.
Back at the trap, there was ‘Superglue’ an English Pointer out of sire ‘Far Ranger’ and dame ‘Comebackhereyoubitch!’ tight on a pair birds under a cholla cactus and about 10” from a six-foot rattlesnake w/a head the size of a bullfrog that was eying them for dinner. Earl and his loader, Mr. Whistlethorpe [yep, he had one o’them too, having seen that’s what the royalty did and anyway Earl naturally had a thing for ‘pairs’, mostly the bigger the better] were cautiously moving up behind Superglue whilst Donnie McDougal, a Scot of indeterminate age, but under 23 and the sometimes dog handler coaxed ‘Hardshell’ the flushing ‘diller into place w/the antennae from a ‘52 Hudson Wasp that he’d found down in one of the gulches. Donnie thot the antennae was a perfect encouragement for Hardshell, since he was a nine banded ‘diller, plus being a ‘diller, he didn’t have any teeth so he couldn’t bite Donnie. “THWACK!” As Donnie encouraged Hardshell, “Get ‘em (!), Hardshell!” It was indeed a tense moment as Hardshell had started his charge from a somewhat less than solid cow patty, but once he gained traction, the flush was on! Earl, having assumed the secret springing crouch for flushing birds as taught by the firm of Norvis & Elbert on their grounds outside London was ready! It was a cacophony of noise and motion as the birds flew directly back over Earl’s head with one almost hitting poor Whistlethorpe up side of his cap. Bang! Bang! It was over. Hardshell was sitting on his hind legs, balanced by his tail awaiting a mealworm from Donnie. Donnie looked back over his shoulder as the birds disappeared into the next draw and thot to himself, “Lost, a pair.” Whistlethorpe was gathering himself from the ground where he’d thrown the number two gun in haste and Gary, ne, Earl was saying, “Them things can sure ‘nuff fly!” Superglue hadn’t moved, still contemplating why that rattlesnake had struck him on the nose, but then in a momentary fit of lucidity he whirled about and bit Whistlethorpe, who was reasonably certain that he’d done nothing to provoke that animal.
Meantime back at the chuck, Bet, [that’s short for Betty and whose real name was Ethyl Regular Davis] was doing her best to attract the attentions of either LaShawn the chauffeur or Prickly Pear Dickens who was a not so old cowboy that got the name from being bucked into a cactus of the same name when he was first learning to break horses. Bet had on her knee high fur trimmed brontosaurus foreskin boots w/rhinestone encrusted snake leggings and python spats, blue jeans that may have actually been painted on rather than put on by a artiste that she’d met at the Cadillac Ranch two days earlier and then hooked up with at one of the galleries and enough cleavage for the Palo Duro Canyon. Prickly Pear was trying to figure out if he should bother or not, he knew it was as dangerous as any rattlesnake, but he was curious too. He wasn’t familiar with that old adage, “If it has a carburetor or a *****, it can cause you a lot of trouble.” He had not grown up in the city. LaShawn was mostly thinking about how what the boss needed was good set of 26” rims on that Range Rover for some real clearance, them white guys just not getting it. Heck, he could SEE that they wouldn’t be troubled w/any more of that high center sh*t w/a good set of rims. He’d have to talk to the boss about it. Over at the fire pit, DuPreaux, the cook, was explaining to Snarl Rock, the ranch foreman who chewed battery acid snuff and horseshoe nails how to sauté a luffa with rendered chinchilla, bruised caper berries and ant lions. Rock wasn’t buying into it much, but Dupreaux was determinate and fully intended to show him anyway.. until he remembered that he’d left the saffron back in town and then he just turned the skillet over dropping said luffa into the dirt near the fire and walked away.
On the way back into town, they stopped at a burger joint on old Route 66 and got cheeseburgers and fries & washed ‘em down with cold Shiner bocks and Earl remarked that he had certainly NOT missed Bet’s pair and gave her a knowing wink. Donnie excused himself and said he’d best get on over to the vet w/Superglue, whose nose had taken on a rather disturbing significance to his otherwise stately profile. The rest of ‘em were pretty much stuck w/Earl, so they ordered two more bocks apiece.
Meanwhile back on the ranch, a lone coyote cautiously ambled over by the spent fire and pulled the luffa a few inches further away with his paw giving it a sniff and thot, “What kinda sh*t is this?”
Snarl was saying to Prickly Pear, “I don’t recon’ them fellers to be back afore next coupla weeks what with that dog gettin’ bit & all.” And then he spit which is the cowboy way for ending a sentence. But Prickly Pear wasn’t paying that much attention. He was mostly thinking, “lost, a pair” in the tank top sense as he worried a cholla thorn from his left boot sole w/his Leatherman pliers.
Tracy Walsh
Copyright 2014
