The Tarnished RXP

Mulak Reader - The Tarnished RXP

I found an empty shotgun shell in the woods one time, and later, realized it was one of my own from two years before. That experience resulted in this story. There is a pen & ink drawing entitled Echoes II that I did to accompany this story. Sports Afield used it in the Backcountry section of their October 1982 issue.

THE TARNISHED RXP

          A glint of blue showed through the fallen leaves of the dry bog a few paces in front of him. Without taking his eyes off his young springer, he bent and picked up the bit of trash. It was an old empty, a Peters RXP case. The brass head was badly tarnished, but as is both the blessing and curse of all plastic, the hull was none the worse for its seasons on the forest floor.
          “Hmm?” he raised a questioning eyebrow. “Someone else hunts here?” The only other person he had ever seen in the Brook Covert was an old trapper who worked the streams, but here was evidence that memories made here were part of someone else’s repertoire. The still-reloadable shell went into his gamebag, where it clicked dully with the empties from the morning’s hunt.
          He thought of the Brook Covert as his own. It was far enough from the road to be as private as any piece of open land can be. He and Dick had discovered it years ago, and continued to hunt grouse and woodcock here together for as long as Dick had lived. The place centered around the confluence of a pair of bog-fed brooks. The old gent who owned the land had told them of a stand of virgin white birch that had stood on the rise between the brooklets. Back during the Depression, the birches had provided saw logs when no other money was to be had. Afterward, he had put in an orchard among the stumps. A few of the old apple trees still remained, inundated now with sumac and white pine. But the heart of the covert was in the broad, flat valley below where the brooks joined and the woodcock favored the moist ground beneath the aspens. Now, with Dick gone, he continued to hunt their “private” covert every autumn. The old gent was long gone, and another man’s name was on the legal deed, but his years of memories gave him squatter’s rights on the place.
          Ahead of him the springer’s stub tail wagged furiously as he sniffed at a chipmunk in a rock wall. He grinned at the pup’s exuberance, but added a touch of authority to his command of “Move on!” Years before, Rusty had found a cripple that they had given up for lost in that same stone wall, but he had done his own share of mousing around as a pup, too. There could never again be another dog like Rusty. Any subsequent setter he owned would be under the unfair handicap of being constantly compared to his predecessor, so when the time had come to start another puppy he had by-passed his prejudices by choosing a flushing dog. The springer took some getting used to, but he was having more fun training the pup that he would have thought possible.
          As he picked his way over the rocks of the wall he thought back on some of the remarkable memories this place held for him. He had stood in awe, unable to act, as a goshawk pursued a grouse on the wing. It had been Dick’s warning shot that had scared off the predator. Another time, up in the old orchard, neither he nor his partner had noticed the porcupine on the ground until Rusty had jumped over it on his way to make a retrieve. He had held his breath until Dick’s hand closed around the setter’s collar. Rusty had a love/hate relationship with all porkies that lasted as long as he lived.
          Ah, memories. He smiled to himself. Although he had often times hunted alone in years past, it seemed that the easy-going personality of his hunting partner was an integral part of nearly all his recollections. Memorable things just seemed to happen when Dick was along. Or perhaps it was simply a matter of his being able to appreciate things more fully when they were shared with the sort of man Dick had been. After Dick’s death, he had hunted with other men, but a friendship a lifetime in the making is not easily replaced, and lately he found he was more comfortable hunting alone.
          The valley began to broaden out before him. He found a an inviting fallen tree trunk and sat for a moment to rest and remember. He opened his double and laid it aside in exchange for his pipe and tobacco pouch. The springer, grown accustomed to his master’s frequent rest stops, came in and sat at his feet.
          There would be no woodcock in the valley today. At this late date they would have long since departed for points south. But he suddenly recalled another day in this same valley when he and Dick had paused along in here to change to lighter loads in expectation of flight birds. Old rusty had been late in his prime that year, so it must have been either ’74 or ’75. He shook his head. God! In 1975 Rusty might well have been the finest grouse dog in the world. That day, the setter’s walking point had signaled “grouse rather than the expected woodcock, but they had stayed with their light 9s—too many times in the past they had been caught with their guns open at inopportune times. The pair of grouse Rusty corralled quickly lost their nerve in the open understory. Theirs was not the paired flush of grouse on calendar pictures and magazine covers, but the more typical “you-go-this-way-and-I’ll-go-that” of smart, hunter-wary birds. One had crossed immediately in front of him, and as his shot folded the bird he heard the report of his partner’s 12 to his left. He recalled counting off a scant dozen paces to where his bird lay. He had gone to Dick to congratulate him and arrived just as Rusty was coming over a stonewall with the second grouse. Dick had been futilely searching for his empty shell in the leaves, and hadn’t realized they had shared a double or even that two grouse had flushed. In his memory, he could still see the confused expression on his partner’s face as clearly as if it had all happened last week. The moment was quickly over, but the memory would last forever.
          He got to his feet, stretched, and picked up his shotgun. The young springer recognized the signs and bounded off, eager to be on with the hunt. The memory of the shared double stayed with his as he replaced his shells in the barrels. It had happened just a few yards behind him, and he turned and glanced back the way he had come, remembering. In his game pocket, the empty shells clinked.
          It was then that his mind made the connection. “I wonder…” he muttered aloud. He reached into his game bag and brought out the old blue empty. It held his gaze for a long moment. On the spent primer was what was left of the adhesive paper dot that Dick had used to mark his reloads.
          He smiled, slowly this time, and sat back on the log. The springer came in and nudged his hand impatiently. He reached out and scratched the dog’s ears, but he was alone with his thoughts.
          The past lives, he thought. It is a reality. Sometimes embellished, often regretted, more frequently simply forgotten. But it was there, and it was real. In his hand he held a touchstone that affirmed that fact. Life is for the living, it’s true, but the past is another reality where a man can hunt again with dogs now sleeping and men who live only in the minds of those who remember them.
          On the entire face of the earth there was only one person to whom the tarnished RXP meant anything. He wrapped it in his handkerchief and buttoned the flap of his shirt pocket over it. Like all souvenirs, it was singularly un-extraordinary. But it said to him alone, “We were together when it happened. Remember?”
          He patted the shell in his pocket. He remembered.

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