This story, “Stroll Up a Flight,” appeared within the August 1953 concern of Outside Life. Sage hens are one other identify for sage grouse.
“Only a thousand miles away from home-and a-waitin’ for a practice.”
The chorus of a lonesome hobo’s track saved operating via my thoughts.
It was one in all life’s darkest hours. There I used to be, within the shadow-filled foyer of Arco’s largest resort. It was now almost darkish, however I may nonetheless visualize the grim, lonesome, sagebrush flats of Idaho. Windswept miles of them on the city’s edge.
I had simply phoned house — Phoenix, Arizona — solely to be taught that my scheduled journey down the Center Fork of the Salmon River had been referred to as off. The telegram asserting the change in plans had come after I’d left. And right here I used to be, a thousand miles north of Phoenix with nothing however time on my arms.
The gloom that surrounded me was lighted by just one factor — the pleasant face of a younger man who’d been watching as I stomped forwards and backwards between the cellphone sales space and my chair, muttering after I couldn’t get a name via. The Forest Service phone strains had been shorted out, and I couldn’t attain the ranch on the Center Fork to seek out out concerning the cancellation.
The younger man appeared half amused at my antics, and after I realized what a spectacle I offered I needed to snicker too. So I smiled at him and mentioned hey a bit shamefacedly. He will need to have been slightly bored, as a result of we jumped at one another, conversationally.
This fellow proved the native saying, “You by no means meet a stranger in Arco.” After half an hour’s warm-up we had been going high-quality. I knew who he was — Paul Vogali — and why he was there. And he knew all about my canceled journey down the Center Fork and the good disappointment that was mine. Then he malestioned having had a sage-hen dinner that night. “My landlord,” he explained. “went searching at present. He’s going once more tomorrow.”
“Sage hens? I’ve heard about them however by no means gunned for them.”
“It’s loads of work nevertheless it’s enjoyable. Say, I’m going to cellphone Mr. Sillivan — he’s my landlord — slightly in a while. Would you wish to go alongside if he has room?
“I certain would.” I mentioned enthusiastically. “I’ve no gun or license, in fact, however I do have my digicam and I’d wish to get some footage.”
Paul went on to clarify that the sage grouse is strictly a Western species-a fowl that typically runs as huge as a small turkey. He mentioned it was recognized domestically as a sage hen no matter intercourse.
“Properly,” Paul concluded, glancing at his watch, “I’ve obtained an errand to do after which I’ll name Mr. Sillivan. I’ll drop by your room and let you know the way I make out.”
I used to be simply settling in mattress, a while later, when a knock got here at my door. It was Paul.
“Mr. Sillivan will cease in entrance at 6 tomorrow morning,” he mentioned, smiling. “Shall I depart a name for you?”
He waved off my efforts to say thanks and disappeared. I went to sleep supposeing it’s a reasonably good previous world, at that. It was top-notch subsequent morning, for proper on schedule a automotive pulled up in entrance of the resort and a fatherly-looking chap obtained out. He was Mr. Sillivan — Russ to his mates. He launched me to Pete Anderson, who was driving.
They appeared completely happy to have one other outdoorsman alongside.
The solar by no means appeared brighter than it did that morning when it came visiting the horizon and solid lengthy shadows throughout the sagebrush flats, simply outdoors city, the place we parked the automotive. I used to be on my first sage-grouse hunt, though all I carried was a digicam.
Arco, on the Misplaced River, facilities an irrigated space of farmland. The inexperienced, saucerlike flats are rimmed by flat-gray sage which we had been to hunt. The ocean son had opened at midday the day earlier than and was to shut at sundown-only a day and a half of searching, however I used to be in on it.
The distant increase of shotguns echoed throughout the valley as fortunate hunters be gan to stroll up sage hens. For that’s the way in which they hunt-walking via the sage, poised to swing on a flushed fowl. Pete moved out to the left, Russ to the proper, and I trailed barely be hind and between them.
We skirted the irrigated fields of alfalfa into which hens had moved very early within the morning. The technique was to intercept their return to the sage after they’d completed feeding.
1 / 4 of a mile away another hunters had been driving a cutover hayfield. They had been urgent a stubble-covered nook when a trio of sage hens flushed with a roar. The hunters missed and the birds fanned out. One, on set pin ions. soared over us, inside vary. Russ missed. Pete led the dashing fowl good, and his shot folded it in flight. Then I obtained my first shut take a look at one of many nation’s best upland gamebirds.
With Pete one up, Russ started to hunt more durable, and I trailed my host whereas he bird-dogged the flats and informed me extra about sage hens. They spend most of their time within the brush, however in early morning and late night they transfer into the perimeters of the cultivated fields.
The trick is to get them simply after they’ve had their morning meal. For those who wait till 10 or so, till they get again into regular cowl, they’re laborious to seek out within the miles and miles of open nation. Then you definitely actually should stroll your legs off to stand up a flight.
We whipped forwards and backwards, frequently discovering a “set” the place a grouse had spent the night time, however no stay birds. Throughout the ridges and down into the gullies, Russ and I stepped up the tempo till we had been each respiratory laborious. Lastly he referred to as a welcome halt on a ridge we had combed from one finish to the opposite, retaining about 30 yards aside. Whereas we rested Russ ventured the opinion {that a} sage hen is as unpredictable as a slot machine. After a 5 minute blow, we stepped off, and
Phr-r-o-o-m!
…proper out of Russ’s pants cuff zoomed a sage hen!
It got here up so quick Russ touched off toe fast. and shot below the fowl.. The second blast from his 12 gauge auto loader, a miss too, brought on the sage hen to jam down the throttle, and it scudded away over the subsequent ridge.
Russ laughed as he turned. “Like I used to be saying,” he started — and one other hen erupted from a near-by clump of sage.
Because it curved away Russ, now over his nervousness, led the whistling fowl and spilled it right into a sagebrush thicket. The hen was a giant one, one of many largest we had been to see that day.
It was then nicely alongside within the morn ing, and the distant booms of shotguns had been much less frequent. Russ and I started the lengthy circle to the automotive, and by now we had been searching nicely again within the sage, removed from the alfalfa fields. We reasoned that the grouse had all filtered again via the margin we’d hunted earlier that day and had been now sunning and dusting themselves a ways from the irrigated fields.
How improper we had been! We didn’t flush a fowl.
Again on the automotive, Russ sighed deeply and comfortably as he eased himself down on the sharp fringe of the bumper. I felt bowlegged. myself, and sensiblely numb beneath the waist. I used to be that drained. Then we spied Pete. who had gone off on a tangent of his personal, popping out of the inexperienced saucer of irrigated fields.
We had not more than noticed his tiny determine, when a brace of hens rocketed out of the hay stubble within the very subject that had yielded Pete’s first fowl earlier that morning. We noticed him elevate his gun, then decrease it, and moments later got here the uninteresting increase of his shot. He had missed.
The birds flew towards us. One curved away. The opposite planed down onto a sage-covered ridge.
Russ groped as he heaved to his ft and chambered a shell. The primary few steps had been painful as we began towards the ridge. As soon as there, we literally trampled down the sage cowl attempting to flush the fowl however lastly had to surrender, exhausted, given us the slip.
“We didn’t mark it nicely sufficient, I suppose,” mumbled Russ.
Shortly Pete got here up, and he and Russ stood for a second, debating whether or not they had sufficient energy left to exit after the remainder of their bag restrict.
It was midday. The hunt for sage hens had cleared my thoughts of the turmoil of the night earlier than. It had been enjoyable, assembly these two strangers. However by now I used to be itching to get again on the street. Despite the fact that the journey down the Center Fork had been canceled, I used to be optimistic. If this flip in luck would solely maintain there was no telling what sport lay forward of me.
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As if studying my thoughts, Pete and Russ instructed we name it a day. They’d a fowl every, one in need of the bag restrict. We turned to go to the vehicles, and the bottom appeared to blow up with the roaring take-off of the sage hen that Russ and I had seemed for vainly.
It had been hiding at our ft on a regular basis we’d been standing there.
It erupted so quick that Pete and Russ had been left frozen. Then all of us needed to snicker — snicker at each other’s dumbased expressions. They’d missed with the shotguns; I’d missed with my digicam — the most effective image of the day. However I hadn’t missed a high-quality morning of brand-new sport. For that I may thank the pleasant smile of a younger fellow sitting within the foyer of the largest resort in Arco, the place the place you by no means meet a stranger.
