Read Online Into the Twilight, Endlessly Grousing by Patrick F. McManus - Free Book Online

finger, and bloodied my nose. I thought the gun had exploded, and was glad still to be alive, but it had shot true and killed the grouse stone dead. My mother was enormously pleased with the grouse, marveling that her son had brought home wild game, and she cooked it in a gravy to pour over rice, and that one grouse could have fed twenty people, with some left over for the dog. I forgot to mention to anyone that the grouse had been sitting on a limb, but a kid can’t be expected to remember everything.
    I walked all the way through the woods and came out near a road on the other side, and by then I had three grouse, enough for my mother to have fed an army. All three shots were amazing, all wing shots, too, with the grouse
burrrring
off through the trees, but none so amazing as the shot that took that first grouse fifty years ago. Did I say
fifty?
Surely I meant twenty. Yes, it couldn’t possibly have been more than twenty years ago.
    â€œHow’d you do?” the Old Man asked me. “I heard a dozen shots. Even you must have got something with a dozen shots.”
    â€œThree grouse,” I said. “How about you?”
    â€œI did fine,” he said. “None for none. It was a good hunt. This is a great grouse woods. By the way, what does that sign say over there? I been thinking about walking over so I could read it, but then I figured I might not make it back before dark.”
    â€œThat sign. Oh, it just says, ‘Private Property. No Hunting.’”
    â€œIs that all?” the Old Man said. “I thought it might be something important.”
    On the way back to town, the Old Man mentioned that he’d got hungry from all his exertion. “Let’s stop and get a bite at Gert’s Gas ’N’ Grub.”
    â€œYou want to
eat
at Gert’s Gas ’N’ Grub?” I said. “Why, you must be half starved, and crazy besides!”
    Gert herself came out to visit with us, and all the waitresses gathered around and made a big fuss over the Old Man, and he ate it all up, along with a chicken-fried steak and hash browns with gravy poured over them. He joked with the waitress and tried to pinch Gert on the behind, but she was too quick for him, as was almost everyone. Then a couple of the local boys joined in the festivities, and after a while one of them asked what we’d been up to.
    â€œGrouse hunting,” the Old Man said.
    â€œGet any?” Red Barnes asked.
    â€œI only got three,” the Old Man said. “The boy here, he didn’t get none. Did a lot of shooting, though, so he had some fun. It was a good hunt.”
    â€œWell, I guess your eyes are still plenty sharp then,” Gert said.
    â€œYep,” the Old Man said. “Mighty sharp for a man my age—thirty-nine and some. Well, we best be going. Pay the bill, boy, and leave the girls a big tip.”
    We didn’t get back to the Old Man’s cabin until after dark, and he was pretty well tuckered out, although still smiling over all the attention heaped on him by the girls at Gert’s. “I guess I still got it,” he said.
    â€œYeah, right,” I said. “It’s just that you’ve got so old the women know you’re harmless. First you get harmless, then you get lovable. That’s the way it works with women.”
    â€œYou’re just jealous,” he said.
    I helped him to his cabin and was about to close the door behind him when I suddenly remembered. “Wait a minute,” I said. “You left your gun in the car. I’ll go get it.”
    â€œNaw,” he said. “Keep it. Save us both the trouble of you stealing it from me later. That was a fine grouse woods. Mighty fine. I’d thank you for taking me there, but it’d just give you a big head.”
    I drove on home, happy in a way about the gift of the gun, but also not so happy. When you get right down to it, a gun is only a gun. I was glad it had been a good