The other day I was digging around in the desk drawer where I put things I can’t bring myself to throw away and I ran across an old birthday card from a couple with whom I bird hunted for many years. Printed in England, the card features a drawing of a scowling Englishman decked out in hat, shooting coat, breeches, and knee-high boots. A ring-necked pheasant is perched on the barrels of his side-by-side, and several other pheasants are attacking his sandwiches, which are lying on the ground next to a thermos. Inside it says “Happy Birthday to a Good Sport,” signed “Hen Sluicer and Horn Blower.”
For a number of years this couple sent me birthday cards signed in similar fashion—I wish I had kept them all. I’m not sure how “Hen Sluicer” — the female half of the duo—got her name, since to the best of my knowledge she never ground-sluiced a hen pheasant or any other game bird. She did just fine shooting her pheasants, grouse, and partridge on the wing. I can’t say the same for her husband, Horn Blower, a portly, gray-whiskered chap who lowered the boom on fast-running desert quail whenever he got the chance.
For several years we teamed up to chase pheasants and other game birds through the fields and prairies of central and eastern Montana. One November morning, on a combination deer and bird hunt near Winnett, we had just left the truck with our rifles when we spotted a flock of forty sharptails gliding into an alfalfa field. Bird hunters at heart, we hurried back and got our dogs and shotguns. After two unsuccessful attempts at getting within shooting range of the jittery birds, we decided to try a dogless ambush.
We held a brief powwow and decided, by a two-to-one vote, that Horn Blower and I, being the more experienced wingshots, would hide in a coulee and wait while Hen Sluicer would circle around, crawl along an irrigation ditch to a point opposite us, and flush the birds in our direction. Anticipating a protest, Horn Blower took the offensive. “Sometimes you need to make a small sacrifice for the good of the team,” he puffed. I nodded in agreement.
“Driven grouse, right here in Montana,” crowed Horn Blower, as Hen Sluicer began the long crawl down the irrigation ditch. “No need to cross the big pond to Scotland.” Indeed, our plan unfolded perfectly, until it came time to make the sky rain sharptails. When the flock of grouse passed over we jumped up and emptied our guns. I don’t know about Horn Blower, but I had trouble getting the barrels of my over/under moving fast enough.
As they say in suspense stories, an ominous silence ensued. Then Hen Sluicer, still plucking cactus spines from her knees and out of breath from her exertions, came wheezing up.
“How many did you get?” she demanded.
While I inspected an anthill, Horn Blower tried to blow a little smoke. “They were too high by the time they came over… .”
“B.S.,” she interrupted. “They flew right over you, and you two sorry excuses for bird hunters didn’t even draw a feather!”
That pretty well let the air out of Horn Blower’s bagpipes, and I felt a cold breeze blow up my kilt as well. In an effort to repair the fractured morale of Team Sharptail, we were very solicitous of Hen Sluicer’s every whim for the rest of the morning—and that may have had something to do with what happened next.
We decided to go to town for a bite to eat, then try some pheasant hunting in the afternoon. After lunch we found a ranch that had a stretch of creek bottom that looked perfect for pheasants—tall grass and shrubs along the meandering creek, cottonwood and box elder trees for shade, and buffaloberry thickets for shelter. As we drove along the county road, a rooster scuttled out of the ditch and crossed in front of us, always a good omen. When we pulled into the lane leading to the ranch house, an old dog limped out to meet us.
Many ranch dogs in Montana are of the “blue heeler” variety— they’re actually Australian cattle dogs, but blue heeler rolls more easily off the tongue, so that’s what most folks call them. They’re useful for herding cattle, but that’s where their virtues end—they’re gimlet-eyed little misanthropes with a taste for leg of bird hunter tartare.
When you have no choice but to deal with a snarling heeler, it’s best to throw the truck door open and walk briskly toward the ranch house. Any sign of fear or hesitation will be taken as an invitation to use your Achilles tendon as a chew toy. Out of the corner of your eye you will want to keep a close watch astern, because heelers are called heelers for a reason. Their modus operandi involves darting up behind unsuspecting bovines and applying a painful nip at their ankles—or in the case of pheasant hunters, a flesh-shredding bite.
None of us was exactly jumping out of the truck to go knock on the door of the ranch house, even though this particular heeler looked like a candidate for a canine rest home. Horn Blower was first to break the silence. “Dave, why don’t you run up there and sweet-talk these good folks to see if we can’t get permission to exercise their ringnecks this afternoon.”
“Because, if you recall, I was the one who asked permission at the Turbitt place this morning—so it’s your turn.”
Horn Blower sighed. Then he turned to Hen Sluicer, who was digging a cactus sliver from the heel of her hand with the point of her pocketknife. “Hen, be a good lass and… .”
She cut him off with a withering look. “Sometimes you need to make a small sacrifice for the good of the team,” said Hen Sluicer, her voice dripping sarcasm. I nodded in agreement.
Out of options, Horn Blower made the sign of the cross, opened the door and, with a sidelong glance at the heeler, made his way to the back porch and knocked on the storm door. Eventually the door opened partway and a white-haired gentleman engaged Horn Blower in conversation.
While all this was going on, the geriatric heeler had been gimping his way toward the porch. Then, in slow motion, he shuffled up the steps and clamped his jaws on Horn Blower’s left ankle. To our amazement the two men continued talking as if nothing had happened, except for an occasional surreptitious shake of the left leg by Horn Blower, the kind of move you or I might make after stepping in a fresh cow pie.
Perhaps, we speculated from the safety of the truck cab, the rancher had left his glasses in the kitchen, or maybe he couldn’t see what was going on with the partially open storm door blocking his view—at least that would explain his indifference. But what about Horn Blower? The heeler had been latched onto his ankle for a good five minutes, and we expected to see a puddle of blood forming on the porch.
Eventually the men bid farewell, the storm door closed, and Horn Blower gave one final, mighty shake of his leg, dislodging his tormentor, who slunk down the steps and wandered off toward the barn.
By the time Horn Blower hobbled back to the truck, Hen Sluicer and I had a case of the giggles.
“That damned old dog had ahold of my boot, but he didn’t have any teeth!” said Horn Blower, slumping wearily into the driver’s seat. “He sure tried gumming me to death though!”
Hen Sluicer snickered. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“The guy’s got pheasants up the wazoo and he was really friendly. He said we could hunt his creek bottom, and I didn’t want to ruin everything by kicking ol’ Gummer.”
Hen Sluicer regained her composure long enough to ask, “Is that what you boys call taking one for the team?”
We were laughing so hard as we drove down the lane I thought the truck might tip over.
And we sometimes wonder why landowners shake their heads in bewilderment at us city folks.