MADISON, Minn. _ I have come west again, to kill a pheasant. Maybe several pheasants, should our fortune be so good.
Gone now, the too-warm early-season days of October. Gone, too, the massive tracts of standing corn where the birds had too much room to hide.
This is the early December hunt. The corn is harvested. Three of us have come, as we have for more than 30 years, to hole up in the red farmhouse. That's three dog lives for some of us, four for others.
It's the pheasants that have drawn us over the decades, and the birds still matter to us. We drive for five hours for this privilege. When one of my companions finally turns off the asphalt and onto the gravel, his Lab senses the rumble beneath the tires and begins to whimper with anticipation. That's how we all feel.
We say it's the pheasants, but we all know this hunt is more than that. It's blood-red December sunrises through the branches of the old cottonwood. It's the sere texture of the land. It's cold fingers, ice-covered sloughs and stingy daylight.
It's personal history, too. We cover a lot of ground in our conversations around the kitchen table. Almost no topic is off-limits _ life, death, hopes, fears, kids, regrets, politics, health. That old kitchen has been a crucible of friendship.
