Mulak Reader - The Compliment

Here’s a little cutie that I like a lot, but editors don’t. To make matters worse, it’s a true story that actually happened, more or less.

THE COMPLIMENT

          Susan looked at me as we came out onto the road. I don't know what she expected to see in my face, but she was disappointed. Bird season, it seems, propels bird hunters in a manner different from those who go along with hunters to watch them hunt. Susan was with me this opening day on the premise of keeping me company. She was now pooped.
          At times, even on opening days, I can still be a doting husband: I said, "You look like you wouldn't mind sitting down for a few minutes."
          There was a tumbledown pasture wall that ran along the road edge. The late morning sun had warmed the rocks, or at least the moss on the rocks, and we sat chatting about the day as it had gone so far. At length I got to my feet. Susan remained sitting on the wall. "What are you going to do now?”
          She wanted to hear me say, "Oh, lets call it a day—We can stop for lunch at that little place in Brookfield on the way home." Instead, I said, "I'm going to hit that hillside across the road. There's an old orchard up beyond the pines—there’s got to be a bird or two." The dog saw me gesturing as I spoke, and her tail wagged in agreement.
          Susan is not a complainer. She got to her feet without another word.
        The doting husband surfaced again. "Why don't you start back to the truck." I handed her the keys. "It's parked right along this dirt road. You'll see just a few hundred yards from here." (I made sure I said 'a few hundred yards'. It sounded better than 'a half mile'.) "Take your time. You can sit and read until I get back. It'll only be a another hour or so." She paused for a moment until I added, "This isn't any fun when you're pooped."
          "Okay." She nodded.
           From my game bag I pulled out the grouse I had taken earlier. "How about carrying this guy back with you? He needs to go into the cooler.”
          Where other women see 'a dead thing', Susan sees a future gourmet meal. She took the bird by its legs.
          The dog stood on the wall on the far side of the road, waiting for me, her tail wagging. I grinned. Susan, the hunter’s wife, looked from the dog to me, then shook her head. "You really love this, don't you?"
          Why deny it? "More than anything else I do with my clothes on."
          She smiled without laughing, because she had asked me the same question and heard a similar reply before. "Always a smart-ass, aren’t you?” She held my arm and kissed me.
          "I'll see you in a little while." I turned to go.
          Sometimes, doting husbands have doting wives. "You're all set?" She said. "Do you have enough shells and things?"
          "Shells? Are you kidding? That's the easy way—Anybody can get a bird by shooting it. We don need no stinkin’ shells."
          She laughed, and her laughter, as always, stayed with me long after the sound of it had faded away. I whistled to the dog and we started uphill.
          I hadn't gone more than a few hundred feet into the pines when I heard a car on the dirt road below. Susan was back there. A woman walking by herself on a back road, a few punks in a car... Things happen. It wouldn't hurt to swing back down for a fast check. Then, through the woods, I could hear a man's voice—an old man's voice. He spoke loud enough to be heard above the noise of his car:
          "What kind of hunter are you, young lady? A partridge, and not even a gun?"
          Susan didn't hesitate. "Gun? That's the easy way. Anybody can get a bird with a gun, for goodness sakes." Even at that distance I could hear the humor in her voice.
          I turned and continued up the hill. But I wondered, as I often do when I'm with Susan, what the unlucky people in the world were doing.

This site was last updated 09/21/06