The Old Drake
Posted on November 30, 2016 by bob in OffTheBeatenPath
The old man sat in the front of the boat, completely still save for the rhythmic movement of his right thumb working up and down the length of a shotgun shell.
“I love the way shells feel,” he said. “The smooth brass, the ridges.” He turned around. “Remember how I could twirl them around in my hand? You always liked that.”
The boy, not a child anymore except to his grandfather, looked up.
“Yeah, I know Pap. I remember.”
He used to marvel at how the old man never dropped the pair of shells as he rolled them around in his huge paws while steering the boat, and how he himself had practiced it in private for hours until his little palms ached. He remembered one morning in particular.
On the way to the blind a pair of woodies darted in front of the jon boat and the old man let go the tiller handle, tossed the two shells he was twirling into the old Parker and stood, fired and dropped both birds. He never missed; but he was younger then.
“My fingers don’t work so well anymore,” the old man said, looking down.
His shriveled, bony hands were covered with faded pink scars and darkened here and there by sunspots. They were gnarled and weathered like exposed roots of an old river tree that had seen many floods and droughts. A scarred knee protruded through one leg of his patched pants, looking like an aged cypress scuffed by many a boat hull, stray pellet and outboard prop.
As they motored along, the old man strained to keep hold of the battered Parker. That involuntary shaking that comes with age made it difficult to thumb the action, something he’d done a thousand times before but never with as much difficulty. He never made the switch to steel shot, and the shells he now fumbled into the cobwebbed chambers looked as old as the gun itself.
Sunrise came, and with it flocks of mallards, teal and pintails. The boy picked a bird off here and there until he had his limit, but the old man remained still, watching the skies, despite a dozen seemingly easy shots. One by one, the other blinds on the swamp emptied, the hunters piling into jon boats and pirogues and heading back to camp.
The old man, however, remained still, occasionally shuffling his feet on the sagging plywood floor. He toed a soft spot with his boot and sighed.
“This blind’s near ‘bout old as me,” he said, exhaling deeply.
The boy started to speak but thought better of it. When these spells set in, he had learned it was better to just ride them out. The old man’s drooping eyes slowly scanned the interior of the blind, sagging lower with each splitting two-by-four and warped piece of plywood. Several minutes went by.
“It’s hell getting old, boy,” he said.
His few remaining hairs were long, gray and unkempt and hung like Spanish moss. Except for a few scattered children and grandchildren he was alone. One by one, like ducks picked from the flock, each one – wives, friends, even enemies – had disappeared. He missed them all.
All morning he sat quietly scanning the skies, a graying retriever whose spirit remained strong but whose aging body had betrayed him.
“There,” the old man said, pointing.
In the distance, a single greenhead, a cautious high-flyer, was closing in on the now still swamp. He passed by their blind, then circled back overhead and out of range, cruising the timber for a safe place to land. The boy could have taken the duck, but instead stood staring at his grandfather, whose dull eyes suddenly sparkled with life as he strained to follow the mallard.
The duck came back around with wings cupped as the old man struggled to stand, shotgun raised. The boy went to brace him but was waved away. The old man pulled the trigger, missing, and the greenhead flared. The old man let loose with the second barrel and dropped the duck into the black water of the swamp.
The boy waded out, retrieved the green-head, and placed it in his grandfather’s trembling hands. The scratches on the dull band around its leg told its life’s story: this old drake, this lone, cautious high-flyer, had made many trips up and down the flyway. The old man sighed, and a single tear fell onto the duck’s emerald head.
“It’s hell getting old, boy.”
Niko Corley, a USCG-licensed charter boat captain, spends his free time on the water or in the woods. To contact him e-mail niko.corley@gmail.com.
