We all kept in touch. Mark came to Arizona for some quail hunts. Bruce and Jamie dropped by Arizona to escape the cold Midwestern winters. Mike moved to Colorado, and I joined him to fish some mountain streams. Seems like yesterday, but no.
I remember standing on the bank of a Colorado river, a place the locals call Deckers, opposite Mike. We fished midges near some fast water, and Mike was in a sweet spot, taking fish. I took off my vest, set it on the bank and fished awhile, then turned around to see that my vest had slid down to the water. A camera lens was getting wet, and a couple of fly boxes had started to float downstream. I pulled the vest out of the water, ran after bobbing Wheatleys. I jumped up and down and swore, but Mike couldn’t hear me above the river. There were probably a few imaginary punches thrown in the air.
The way Mike told the story, he’s just fishing, and he looks up to see a crazy man running up and down the bank. Later, I crossed over to his side, hooked a fish that took me to my backing. I raced over the rocks as it tore off fly line, slipped and fell, jumped to my feet without losing the fish. That was about as much dignity as the day would allow. I lost the fish anyway, but not because I fell. I was wet and a fly box or two lighter. The lens was ruined.
One night I had dinner at Mike’s house. He and his family had lived in Mexico City and in small Midwest towns over the years, and Denver was a whole new world for his two daughters. They played sports and went shopping, like a nice suburban family, their whole lives ahead of them. Over the years, we made a couple of trips to the Fryingpan. We never planned our trip around the famous green drake hatch, but we did okay. Then I started fishing closer to home. I changed jobs. Things got busy, and we didn’t see each other for a few years.
The next thing I knew, bad news was coming across the phone lines. Bruce died after a string of medical problems. Mike’s wife was leaving him. One of his daughters was killed in a rollover accident. He moved into an apartment, called it his cabin, and got on with life. The last time I saw him, things were getting better. He dropped by Phoenix with his girlfriend to see a football game. I was leaving town the next day, but we met for a beer.
“Call me,” he said. “I need to get out and play. I need to fish or go bird hunting.” And so I did, but we couldn’t work it out. “Later,” I said. “We’ll make it happen,” I said. When Dave and I stood at Gambel’s grave, I looked at my watch. Mike’s funeral was about to begin.
The story fell out in bits and pieces during months of phone calls. The doctors fiddled around, trying to fix him. I’m told that when they broke the news to him, he said, “Funny, I don’t feel like I’m about to die.” A day or two later, surgery revealed the cancer had spread everywhere. They closed him back up and gave him morphine to ease the pain. A mutual friend told me about it over the phone. How he saw Mike in the hospital, and how they watched a Vikings game. How things happen.
I took off my hat by the stony cross, stood silently in the sun. After a few minutes, we started walking, swinging out toward the last covey that flushed, then back toward the truck, our path paved with quail. They got up in singles and pairs, off points or wild flushes, just about every one of them a makeable shot. One got up right at Dave’s feet. A few started calling, maybe to taunt us, or to help us, in case the dogs couldn’t find them. We fumbled with safeties, struggled to reload, laughed, swore, called dogs. Ravens clucked above. Oh, we hit a few birds and the dogs found them, but even an optimist would struggle to say we had done well.
Reality set in at the next spot, where we walked for two hours without seeing a bird, walked until it was time to make camp, build a fire, raise a glass of scotch to Mike and put on steaks. Orion turned in the sky. Betelgeuse and Sirius. A cool breeze blew and dogs snored.
Out in the desert, the moon came up, threequarters full, giving the grass a pale glow. We said: What would Mike say in this situation? He’d say, “I need a beer,” and so we’d walk over the cooler and reach into the ice for a cold one. The day kept coming back to us. What happened back there? How could we miss so many easy shots? Dave said, I gotta straighten out my barrel. It was as if the birds weren’t even real, as if our guns had fired blanks. As if someone had played a trick on us. Mike.
Mike in heaven, Gambel at his side. Thanks, Mike. A coyote howled. Not a pack, not a pair howling back and forth, just the one. Apache trickster. He howled and howled. The stars wheeled and the breeze kept blowing.
I’m not ready for this. The list of friends who have departed grows longer each year now. Bruce. Mike. Jamie after that. I remember Jamie’s voice booming over the phone, not long after Mike passed, like he was in the next room and might walk around the corner any moment. We talked about bird hunting, about getting together for some hunt that never took place, because we had all the time in the world.
I miss the rain.
I miss days of walking without complaint, the dogs racing to the next covey, the news over the phone all good, the winters gray, the future bright. I miss my friends.
There are moments when time stops. The pause when dogs go on point, when a fish strikes, a shooting star flashes, when the sun sets and silence settles over the land. A woman’s smile, a touch, a kiss. What happens next is fleeting, sometimes messy, never the same. We cannot hold on to those moments. All we can do is make the most of them, remember them, and get on with life. The sun goes down, the dogs sleep by the fire, the fields wither, the range goes to dust, people come and go. Like it has always been.
When he’s not working, Ron Dungan hunts, fishes, and backpacks in the Southwest. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona.
