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Danny Bardwell | https://gundogcentral.com/contributors | All Hunting Articles

Posted 08/11/2024

For a fourteen-year-old, truth can be illusive. In many cases it’s hard to sort out and in other instances it’s just as plain as the nose on your face. I do know one thing that was true; it was well into November, and it hadn’t rained in Amite County since July. The farmers had fed out all their hay and were hoping to get winter rye into the ground before the December frosts, but they needed a rain.

Everyone seemed to be on edge and bearing the burden of the drought. Mother was brittle too, but for a different reason. “He’s a reprobate. That’s what he is, and you don’t need to be hanging around him. He’s a disgrace.” She continued ironing and mumbling to herself, and near about burnt that shirt. “Fence post…lightening ought to strike…. fence post….”.

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My problem had always been not knowing what to tell her and what to keep to myself. She gave Marshall Kuhn and me both a tongue lashing that morning, but I was the only one there to take it. What I said to Mother that upset her so, when she mentioned praying for rain, was, “Marshall Kuhn said you might as well pray to a fence post as to God. You’ll get the same results.” I shouldn’t have said that, but I had. The best I could do after that was to keep quiet about the other things he had recently told me.

“You catch him as soon as you can after he runs them birds up. Quick as you can mind you, so he knows what he’s getting corrected for. Get him close to you and hold him with both hands about ear level on each side of his head. Have a good grip, cause sometimes they don’t like it.” Marshall continued, “Give him a good shaking to get his attention. Then you got to look deep deep into his eyes and keep looking. He’s got to know you can see into his heart, down deep. He’s got to know you own him. He’s got to know you love him too, but for now he’s got to know you can see his every thought.”

Marshall had my attention that morning. He was telling me how to correct a dog from busting a covey of quail. Marshall knew every secret there was to know about training a dog. I had never known him to be wrong. That’s when our conversation turned to the weather, and the drought in particular. “We’ve been praying for rain,” I told him.

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“Well, you just as soon be praying to that fence post yonder.” He answered. “And when it does rain everybody’l be saying how the Good Lord answered their prayers. Well, that’s good if you want to believe that stuff, but you’ll get the exact same answer from that post.”

I let that alone because I just didn’t know how to answer. He continued on about looking into a dog’s eyes. “When you know you’ve reached deep into him and he knows it too, reach in close to him with your mouth open, and take his lip into your mouth and bite down. Not so much as to hurt him, just enough to let him know you could hurt him. Shake your head a little, and growl low like a mama dog might do.”

He had my full attention then. “Bite him with my mouth?”

Marshall answered me. “Now how else you gonna bite something? It won’t be bad. I’ve done it a thousand times. And I tell you what, he’ll know you’re the boss. And when you call him to you and pet him up, he’ll love you even more.”

Marshall was chock full of remedies and other wisdom too. When I told him I wanted to ask Rainey to go with me to the Fall Festival but wasn’t sure she’ say yes, he had an answer for that too. “I tell you what,” he started, “You give her the cold shoulder for a few days. If she’s like most women folks, she’ll be eating out of your hand. You try it and see if ol’ Marshal ain’t telling you the truth.”

I let that alone too, and instead asked him again about praying to that fence post. “How do you pray to a fence post,” I asked.

“Hahaha, you don’t.” He continued, “Well, you can if you want to. All I’m saying is you’ll get you the same answer whether you pray or not. As far as rain is concerned, it rains when the clouds say so, not because you’ve prayed to anybody or anything.”

So, I began that Saturday morning using my newfound wisdoms. I spent the morning chasing down every pup that wouldn’t hold their point. It was tiresome. I’d run them down and hold them with two hands and look down deep into their eyes and bite their lip like a mama dog would. I didn’t ask Marshall how many times it usually took to break the pups. I assumed a time or two. We’d see.

When training time was over and the pups were back in their pens, Rainey showed up as she usually did to help with the kennel chores. “Hey Lane.”
I didn’t answer.

“Did you hear we got a new teacher starting next week? Ms. Kemp is leaving, going to McComb.”

“Yeah, I heard,” but I said nothing more than that.

She rattled on like she always did. I was mum.

At church the next day everyone was all abuzz with Thanksgiving and Fall Festival talk. I heard Rainey tell Lexie Ford, “Oh, I don’t know, if nobody else asks me, I might just go with Wade Burris.” I could see I’d probably need to turn that cold shoulder up a notch or two, and I did. All the following week, every afternoon after school, I bit puppy lips and did my best to turn my cold shoulder to Rainey. Every afternoon until Friday. That’s when certain truths began to really show themselves.

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I got to say, that in most every instance the pups as a whole were minding better. But I found out soon enough not all truths are a hundred percent. It was a big rangy pup, nearly full grown, that showed me that. I had given him the lip bite twice on the day before and like the rest, I had looked deep into him and showed him who was boss. Today though, he burst through a big covey and gave chase, yelping and popping his tail, happy as a spring colt, like he hadn’t ever been looked deep into. When he circled around by me, I tackled him and held his head with two hands and looked deep deep into his eyes and leaned in toward him. Apparently, I hadn’t looked deep enough or long enough or mean enough or hadn’t growled just like a mama dog would. The big pup, with one quick snap, nearly took my nose off with his sharp puppy teeth. He skinned it from my eyebrow to the end of my nose. He owned me for sure.

I headed back to the kennel, calling the pups as best I could. I used my shirt to slow the blood rushing down my peeled nose. I kenneled the pups, thinking any minute Rainey would show up to help as she always did, but she was strangely absent that day, and Saturday too. I had more truth to learn.

The dawning of a new truth, one that is completely opposite to what you thought was true, brings a cold feeling. When that new truth settles into you, and you realize you’ve been wrong or did wrong, and you have to admit to everyone you were wrong, it’s not an easy task. I had done both, been wrong and did wrong. I had taken ill advise and cast away good.

I sat mostly alone that Sunday at the Fall Festival, my nose was wrapped with gauze and bandages as big as a doorknob. There’d be no bobbing for apples for me. Rainey, twice hooked elbows with Wade Burris and walked in front of me. For just an instant I looked into her eyes and asked silently for forgiveness. I think she did forgive me, but not before she looked deep deep into me and owned me. She tossed her hair with a flip of her head, giggled and walked off with another.

It would take until well after Thanksgiving before my nose healed enough to keep it unwrapped, and till Christmas before Rainey was rattling on in the afternoons like nothing had ever happened. I knew I’d never mistreat another pup or take Rainey for granted again.

I didn’t blame Marshall; he wasn’t all wrong. The lip bites worked on most of the pups. And he wasn’t wrong about Rainey either. He did say, “if she was like most women folks…”. She wasn’t.

Oh yes, one more thing. Our congregation gathered outside the church that Sunday morning of the Fall Festival. All were friends or family, coveralls crisp and blue, hats in hands and not twenty dollars in the crowd, farmers. We bowed our heads and listen as the Preacher plead our cause, which was rain, without it most would fail.

During the prayer I risked a glanced across the road to an old, barbed wire fence. I had seen it many times before. That morning though I saw it in a much different way. It hung loosely to a stout fat-pine corner post. Gathered in front of the post was another congregation, much like ours. A congregation of spindly pale asters and yellow grasses dormant and wilted from the drought and seeking relief. A hemlock had wrongly wound its way up through the fence strands and broke the post’s lateral brace, as if trying to break the good bond between wire and post; but the post remained sturdy, God like over its domain. I wondered for a moment if that post could hear a prayer, for that matter, was there a God anywhere who hears a prayer? And if so, did either one care about our prayer? I secretly hoped, prayed perhaps. To whom or what I wasn’t sure but pray I did. I prayed that the prayers of my friends and those winter asters too would be answered.

When our prayer was over, we all went inside. I don’t remember what the Preacher offered that morning, another truth, I’m sure, but I could barely sort out the truths I had. I had a lot on my mind.

It was nearly the end of the sermon when a crisp clap of thunder rattled the windows of the church and shook me out of my daydreaming about fence posts, and lip bites, and cold shoulders. Rain drops as big as white oak acorns began to pelt the ground. It would turn out to be a good soaking rain that lasted well into Monday. Farmers all across the county scratched their damp pastures and sowed their rye; and those asters took on a deeper shade of purple.

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