A Breath of Prairie and other stories Part 34

Was it Sandford's gun, or was it mine? Who knows? The reports were simultaneous.

And then--_splash!_ and a second later,--_splash!_ as two dots leave the hurtling wedge and, with folded wings, pitch at an angle, following their own momentum, against the dull brown surface of the rippling water.

Through the intervening branches and dead sunflower stalks, I look at Sandford--to find that Sandford is looking at me.

"Good work, old man!" I say, and notice that my voice is a little higher than normal.

"Good work, yourself,"--generously. "I missed clean, both barrels. Do better next time, though, perhaps.... _Down!_ Mark north! Take the leader, you."

From out the mist, dead ahead, just skimming the surface of the water, and coming straight at us, like a mathematically arranged triangle of cannon b.a.l.l.s, taking definite form and magnitude oh, so swiftly, unbelievably swift; coming--yes--directly overhead, as before, the pulsing, echoing din in our ears.

"_Ready!_"

Again the four reports that sounded as two; and they are past; no longer a regular formation, but scattered erratically by the alarm, individual vanishing and dissolving dots, speedily swallowed up by the gray of the mist.

But this time there was no echoing splash, as a hurtling body struck the water, nor tense spoken word of congratulation following--nothing.

For ten seconds, which is long under the circ.u.mstances, not a word is spoken; only the metallic click of opened locks, as they spring home, breaks the steady purr of the wind; then:

"Safe from me when they come like that," admits Sandford, "unless I have a ten-foot pole, and they happen to run into it."

"And from me," I echo.

"Lord, how they come! They just simply materialize before your eyes, like an impression by flash-light; and then--vanish."

"Yes."

"Seems as though they'd take fire, like meteorites, from the friction."

"I'm looking for the smoke, myself--_Down!_ Mark your left!"

_Pat!_ _pat!_ _pat!_ Swifter than spoken words, swift as the strokes of an electric fan, the wings beat the air. _Swish-h-h!_ long-drawn out, _crescendo_, yet _crescendo_ as, razor-keen, irresistible, those same invisible wings cut it through and through; while, answering the primitive challenge, responding to the stimulus of the game, the hot tingle of excitement speeds up and down our spines. Nearer, nearer, mounting, perpendicular--

The third battalion of that seemingly inexhaustible army has come and gone; and, mechanically, we are thrusting fresh sh.e.l.ls into the faintly smoking gun-barrels.

"Got mine that time, both of them." No repression, nor polite self-abnegation from Sandford this time; just plain, frank exultation and pride of achievement. "Led 'em a yard--two, maybe; but I got 'em clean. Did you see?"

"Yes, good work," I echo in the formula.

"Canvas-backs, every one; nothing but canvas-backs." Again the old marvel, the old palliation that makes the seemingly unequal game fair.

"But, Lord, how they do go; how anything alive can go so--and be stopped!"

"Mark to windward! Straight ahead! _Down!_"

CHAPTER IX--OBLIVION

This, the morning. Then, almost before we mark the change, swift-pa.s.sing time has moved on; the lowering mist has lifted; the occasional pattering rain-drops have ceased; the wind, in sympathy, is diminished.

And of a sudden, arousing us to a consciousness of time and place, the sun peeps forth through a rift in the scattering clouds, and at a point a bit south of the zenith.

"Noon!" comments Sandford, intensely surprised. Somehow, we are always astonished that noon should follow so swiftly upon sunrise. "Well, who would have thought it!"

That instant I am conscious, for the first time, of a certain violent aching void making insistent demand.

"I wouldn't have done so before, but now that you mention it, I do think it emphatically." This is a pitiful effort at a jest, but it pa.s.ses unpunished. "There comes Johnson to bring in the birds."

After dinner--and oh, what a dinner! for, having adequate time to do it justice, we drag it on and on, until even Aunt Martha is satisfied--we curl up in the sunshine, undimmed and gloriously warm; we light our briers, and, too lazily, nervelessly content to even talk, lay looking out over the blue water that melts and merges in the distance with the bluer sky above. After a bit, our pipes burn dead and our eyelids drop, and with a last memory of sunlight dancing on a myriad tiny wavelets, and a blessed peace and abandon soaking into our very souls we doze, then sleep, sleep as we never sleep in the city; as we had fancied a short day before never to sleep again; dreamlessly, childishly, as Mother Nature intended her children to sleep.

Then, from without the pale of utter oblivion, a familiar voice breaks slowly upon our consciousness: the voice of Johnson, the vigilant.

"Got your blind all built, boys, and the decoys is out--four dozen of them," he admonishes, sympathetically. "Days are getting short, now, so you'd better move lively, if you get your limit before dark."

CHAPTER X--UPON "WIPING THE EYE"

"To poets and epicures, perhaps, the lordly canvas-back--though brown from the oven, I challenge the supercilious _gourmet_ to distinguish between his favorite, and a fat American coot. But for me the loud-voiced mallard, with his bottle-green head and audaciously curling tail; for he will decoy."

I am quoting Sandford. Be that as it may, we are there, amid frost-browned rushes that rustle softly in the wind: a patch of shallow open water, perhaps an acre in extent, to the leeward of us, where the decoys, heading all to windward, bob gently with the slight swell.

"Now this is something like sport," adds my companion, settling back comfortably in the slough-gra.s.s blind, built high to the north to cut out the wind, and low to the south to let in the sun. "On the point, there, this morning you scored on me, I admit it; but this is where I shine: real shooting; one, or a pair at most, at a time; no scratches; no excuses. Lead on, MacDuff, and if you miss, all's fair to the second gun."

"All right, Sam."

"No small birds, either, understand: no teal, or widgeon, or shovellers. This is a mallard hole. Nothing but mallards goes."

"All right, Sam."

"Now is your chance, then.... _Now!_"

He's right. Now is my chance, indeed.

Over the sea of rushes, straight toward us, is coming a pair, a single pair; and, yes, they are unmistakably mallards. It is feeding time, or resting time, and they are flying lazily, long necks extended, searching here and there for the promised lands. Our guns indubitably cover it; and though I freeze still and motionless, my nerves stretch tight in antic.i.p.ation, until they tingle all but painfully.

On the great birds come; on and still on, until in another second--

That instant they see the decoys, and, warned simultaneously by an ancestral suspicion, they swing outward in a great circle, without apparent effort on their part, to reconnoitre.

Though I do not stir, I hear the _pat!_ _pat!_ of their wings, as they pa.s.s by at the side, just out of gunshot. Then, _pat!_ _pat!_ back of me, then, _pat!_ _pat!_ on the other side, until once again I see them, from the tail of my eye, merge into view ahead.

All is well--very well--and, suspicions wholly allayed at last, they whirl for the second oncoming; just above the rushes, now; wings spread wide and motionless; sailing nearer, nearer--

"_Now!_" whispers Sandford, "_now!_"

Out of our nest suddenly peeps my gun barrel; and, simultaneously, the wings, a second before motionless, begin to beat the air in frantic retreat.

But it is too late.

_Bang!_ What! not a feather drops?... _Bang!_ Quack! Quack! _Bang!_ _Bang!_... Splash!... Quack! Quack! Quack!