An eighth of an inch of ice bent the switch grass double and interlaced the hybrid cane into impenetrable webs. Tree limbs glittered, bent and with even the slightest breeze groaned beneath the weight of the ice. The entire hunting scape reflected the low early morning light like a dazzling mirror. All was frozen except the ground. The frozen frieze stopped a foot above the now muddy slime of the ground. Fierce hunting conditions, but I. C. smiled and said, “Perfect. No one hunting this morning but us. Perfect.” We hunted.
Within minutes the agony we were in for became apparent. It was near impossible to walk through the tangled mass of weed and ice. Soon entwined mats of grass and weed, welded together by spiny shoots of ice, tackled us. I went down first, only to my left knee, and I managed to hold my gun out of the muck below. Next Red fell to both knees. He, too, saved his gun. Then I. C. went down, hard, flat of his face, arms flailing in a futile fight to stay his fall. He heard Red and I smashing towards him and struggled to his feet, too proud to let us help him.
Clee solved the walking puzzle. You did not walk. You marched, lifting your knees high, then throwing your muddy boot forward in an exaggerated arc above the icy froth of the weeds and grass, finally slamming your boot down, breaking straight through the entanglement to the wet ground beneath. In this way you avoided having your foot trapped and your momentum throwing you to the ground.
T-dog developed her own strategy for trailing the pheasant beneath the ice encrusted winter wonderland nightmare of entangled grasses, weeds and thorn bush. She crouched beneath the foot high canopy of cut glass looking ice and crawled after the fleeing birds.
“That’s the damned'st dog I’ve ever seen!” I said.
“What’s she doing?” I. C. demanded.
“She’s crawling beneath the ice cover, trailing a pheasant.”
“You can see the bird!”
I nodded. “A big black rooster.”
“That a girl, T-dog! Get that son-of-a-bitch!” I. C. roared encouragement to his dog.
T-dog needed no encouragement greater than the scent of pursuit before her flinching nose. She scurried on her belly after the pheasant.
I marched after them, my gun at port arms, my thighs burning, my calves threatening to cramp and my heart pounding in my ears. Thirty, forty, fifty yards, T-dog hurried on, I caught glimpses of the large black rooster as he darted left, right, ahead, he, too, forced to concede to the ice and brush and pick his escape with more caution than he normally would.
Bird, dog and I approached a fence row. Three strands of old rusted barbed wire half circled with a quarter inch of ice sagged between aged bois d’arc posts. Another strand lay partly hidden in the mud. The pheasant halted before the unfamiliar tableau. T-dog froze on her stomach behind the bird. I gasped out, “Bird! Here!” to I. C., Clee and Red, gripped the Franchi, found the safety on top of the grip with my thumb and slammed my left boot down just passed T-dog’s nose and beside the rooster. The frightened bird rose through the grass and weeds and ice like the Nautilus through ice at the Pole, sleek, dark, powerful and determined, slow at first, T almost grasped its tail with her lunge after it, climbing, gaining speed, moving faster with each second of flight, black bird emerging from shattering white ice. I raised the Franchi, stopped my breathing and for a few precious seconds steadied the beating of my heart, looked down the barrel of the gun with both eyes, saw the great black body rising, raised the barrel until I saw the wings flailing the air and the top of the bird’s head, squeezed the trigger, felt the jolt against my shoulder, heard the bellow of the twelve gauge shell exploding in its enclosed chamber and saw the pheasant’s head fall forward, the wings stop and the heavy body collapse in flight.
“Good shot!” Red called to me.
“No! Hold T! Hold!” I cried out.
T-dog saw the bird falling, too, and she exploded forwarded, charging into the barbed wire fence. A barb pierced her hide and she howled, flinched, but gathered herself to surge on and retrieve the bird. The barb was embedded in the loose hide along her left shoulder. It would tear the hide from there until it freed itself passed her rump, a ghastly crippling wound. But T ignored the pain. All she knew was retrieve, get that bird and she was doing that, no matter the consequence to herself.
I half laid, half dropped my gun onto the icy cushioning of the weeds and dove for the dog. I landed beside her with my right arm around her body.
I. C. had seen the danger, also. He crashed down onto his knees on the other side of the dog, grabbed the wire, impaling a barb in his palm, ignoring the pain, he freed the barb tearing a rugged rip down T’s shoulder.
T fought to free herself of mine and I. C.’s grip, still intent on retrieving the pheasant.
I. C. raised the loose wire and said. “Turn her loose, Little Lawyer. Let her get that bird. She’s earned it.”
I released T. She raced underneath the wire, found the pheasant, grasped it behind the neck and marched back to I. C. to present her prize to him. I. C. took the bird and rubbed his dog’s head. I could see tears glistening in his eyes and looked at T-dog not wishing in any way to embarrass I. C.