Spent

First published in Wisconsin Outdoor News 2006

Spent

My good friend John emailed me a couple of pictures from a successful turkey hunting trip he recently completed in South Dakota.

His message to me was brief, and ended with terrible news; the day before he had to put down his ailing yellow Labrador, Baru.  Sad as that is it just got me to thinking about a whole lot of other things I really didn’t want to think about. So, this story is about more than the death of one dog, even one as beloved as Baru.

Some background information is needed before we proceed.  John and I go way back, all the way to our days as college students at UW-Stevens Point.  We lived on the same dorm wing, and although we hung out and did the things college kids do, it was through hunting and fishing that our friendship grew.

We grouse hunted at Mead, trout fished on the Tomorrow, and frequented his family cabin in Monroe County, catching spring pond trout and shooting mallards and wood ducks.

College ended but our friendship grew. Wives came and went, children were born. I watched him grieve the death of his Dad.  He’s watched me bury my Mother and Father. Through it all John and I joined in the hunt and in icy blue trout streams.

In the center of our bond there were always Labradors. Readers of these pages may remember other stories I’ve told, many of them including my Lab, Fisk.  John’s  old Chocolate bitch, Tara, was mother to both Fisk and John’s Baru.

John and I are crazy for gun dogs, especially Labs, and the autumn days chasing grouse, pheasants, woodcock and ducks, are burned forever in our hunter’s memory and etched in our hearts. And always, there was a Lab, or more likely two or three, chasing birds and wagging happy tails.

The last few years have seen fewer Fall rendezvous for us. Bad hips hobbled Baru. Fisk was retired and then he died last September.  Sky is my new Lab but sad to say John has yet to know her as a hunting companion.

Plus life just kind of caught up with us, you know? Demands in career. Kids graduating.  Even kids going to war.

So my good friend John emailed me the other day.  “Jimmy,” he wrote, “Near the end he could only walk a few steps before he’d stop to lay down…always wagging his tail. Baru wagged his tail right up until the drug turned the lights out.”

John went on to write that he and his son Casey drove up to the cabin and together they buried Baru.  Baru was Casey’s pup when Casey was just a little kid.

“It was good for Casey to be there,” John wrote. “I didn’t want this to happen when he was in Iraq.”

Casey is an Iraq War veteran.  He just completed his second tour of duty in March.  On his second tour of duty sixteen kids in his unit went over.  Nine came back alive.

One day, Casey, his friend Bart and his sergeant were driving in Iraq when a roadside bomb ripped through their vehicle. The sergeant was killed and Bart had his arms blown off. Casey was awarded a Purple Heart for tending to both men while returning enemy fire. 

Robert Pope was Casey’s best friend in Iraq. He asked Casey to be his best man in his wedding when their war was over. There will be no wedding. Bobby was killed in action. I don’t know if Casey’s war is over.

“Those were memorable Falls, weren't they?”, John goes on to write. “You, me, Fisk and Baru. I bet if we looked, we might find a few of our spent shotgun shells in the woodcock covert at Andy's Alley”. 

Spent shell. That’s how I feel right now. Spent, empty, no good.

So I try and force thoughts of dead dogs and parents and young men who are no more than boys fighting a war a hemisphere away. I think about something that makes me smile. I think about Labradors.

That Baru could really hunt. Loved watching him carve up that switchgrass in South Dakota. Fully outstretched chasing the mystery of the scent, gliding over the grass, his muscled flanks and golden color made him look like a lion.  That boy had a motor that never quit. He was a good boy.

These tears that I can’t stop are not just for the big yellow dog and the big black dog that are no longer with us.

Pups...kids....parents.....they all go too goddamn fast.

John and I and Sky will hunt the dark woodcock covert at Andy's Alley next fall. We'll find those old spent shells. And, hopefully, leave a few new ones behind.