We met in relative secrecy. Convened in a mostly forgotten part of the Empire State, we were close but not too close to the blacktop and civilization. It wasn’t quite the middle of nowhere, but somewhere near its edge.
Our venue, a proper log cabin on a small mountain top, was furnished with a couple of beds and couches, plenty of floor space, and enough parking for four or five trucks. We arrived late and quickly made camp.
The table was laid with Sam’s venison Steak Diane and Miss Maggie’s homemade cookies. There was bourbon, burnt bread, and plenty of butter and salt. The table, and the cabin surrounding it, became our home and hideout for the weekend.
We took turns airing dogs, waking them from their warm kennels and embracing the winter night air alongside them. Sam, Kevin, and Jack had setters–a sire, dam, and three pups. A family reunion. For good measure and to keep everyone honest, Joe and I added an English pointer, one shorthair, and a griffon.
Back inside, the first night of our January sojourn was in full swing. The living heart of the camp, a resolute beauty from Vermont Iron Stove Works, was kept full and burning steady. There was friendly ribbing about who got the beds, who got the couches, and who might be relegated to a dog kennel. There were honest compliments paid to the night's camp chef. We gave thanks for our meal and another journey to grouse camp with our dogs, and a toast to Johnathan, who stayed home to nurse an untimely back injury. We’ll give him the bed next time in an attempt to make up for it.
With supper over and the dishes washed, Sam announced that the time had come. We corralled near the spirited stove and took turns reading aloud like a kind of Dead Upland Poets Society. Like Neil Perry opening a DPS meeting with Thoreau, except we read Gene Hill.
Thoreau wrote, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”
Hill wrote, “A hunting camp is one of the few places left to us where we can dream of a near-perfect tomorrow. Where the harsh realities of lost riches and faded glories can be forgotten and the dreams of what might be come down to a delightful day with not too much wind, a crisp morning silvered with frost, and find us—at long last—with the right gun, shells, dogs and friends who will be pleased forever to remember the day we ‘did it all.’”
As the hours rolled by, we passed Hill’s books around like literary peace pipes, drawing deeply from “Being There,” “Old Tom,” “The Fumblers," “Why Not," “The Stranger,” “Fate,” and others. Your favorite writer is your favorite writer. It’s subjective, of course, and that’s to be acknowledged and respected. But this group maintains that Gene Hill is tough to beat for such an occasion as a grouse camp round table reading. A book club with a specific setting, comprised mostly of Fumblers, ourselves.
Each story resonated loudly among the group. Gene Hill is for the people. Our people. We all have puppies or young dogs. Some of us have had old dogs. We treasure our favorite shotguns and own more than we need. We miss our share of birds. We’re overindulgent, obsessed, and sappy about the woods. We hunt far more than we deserve. We find kinship with those who understand why we rarely attend weddings in the fall, why we don’t drive by gun shops without stopping, why we count the birds we flush and not the birds we kill, and why we read and reread these old books and stories. We’re disciples of Gene Hill and all those like him–those dead upland poets.
And so we read on through the night, slowly and carefully sharing the words aloud, and taking our sweet time to dissect and digest them after each concluding sentence. It took us hours to get through a small handful of chapters. To us, he said it all. He perfectly conveyed what we feel and how we feel it. Maybe not so much when he wrote about his highlights on the trap range, but when the pup chewed his favorite slippers, when his hunting partner once more bested him afield, and when adventure’s food and drink and company became just as important as the birds flushed and found.
Hill also wrote, "If in a single day we smell coffee, dawn, gun oil, powder, a wet dog, woodsmoke, bourbon and the promise of a west wind for a fair tomorrow—and it’s possible for us to reek “happy”—that’s just what we will do.”
Midnight arrived and we closed the books and fortified the fire. And so to bed.
When I awoke, I could smell the coffee and hear the morning chatter. Ryman this, Elhew that. You know the stuff. Kevin graced the table with a hearty baked oatmeal and more coffee. For the remainder of the weekend, we hunted grouse over good dogs and shared the company of great friends. We ate freshly killed birds and chewed on age-old questions about pointing dogs and side-by-side shotguns.
We smelled coffee, dawn, gun oil, powder, wet dogs, woodsmoke, and bourbon. We experienced a more than fair tomorrow. We reeked “happy.” We’ll be back in February or October. And we’ll read these stories again, as we try to write our own.
For someday we’ll all be dead upland poets.
Shoutout to Kevin for perfectly capturing the weekend!
Love it. Setter by my side, your post reminded me of missed birds from last season. And I'm reminded that upstate NY has Jan and Feb that no one else in the northeast has. Need to get back up there some year. Cheers from the Maine woods.
Rob and I talk about your stories. We love reading them.