dogs, though. What kind of dogs, Ezra asked. Pugs, the guy said. Took all Ezra had to smile and nod, wait till the guy wrote out the check and went on his way. Pugs.
Ezra had selected all four of his hounds when they were just weeks-old puppies, watched them in their litters and picked up on traits of personality that set them apart. Trained them himself, spent long summer hours in the woods and brush with them, teaching them to work as a team. Though the hunting season wasn’t till October, you could run bear in the summers in Wisconsin for dog-training purposes. On days when he didn’t have to guide, he generally loaded the hounds into their crates and into the back of the truck and set off to take advantage of the free time in the way he loved best: out in the woods, alone except for the dogs. Of course, it wasn’t like being alone at all. The dogs were Ezra’s family. More than pets, more than friends. And when the air turned chill as fall began to lose its early skirmishes with winter, and the dogs bayed long and loud in the dark woods, Ezra with gun in hand as they chased their prey? Then, the dogs were something altogether nearer to his heart: comrades.
Boone, a six-year-old bluetick, was the pack’s alpha male even though hewasn’t the largest. Bridger (they were all named after famous woodsmen—Boone, Carson, Bridger, Crockett) was bigger in size, taller and fifteen pounds heavier, but he lacked the aggressive edge that dogs respected in a leader. He was a diplomat, Ezra had decided, whereas Boone tended toward the preemptive strike. Ezra felt closest to Boone, but he spoiled Bridger and tried to put out the idea that he was the favorite.
He cleaned a final fish, tossed its remains into the kennel, and then gathered up the filets and his knife, turned off the floodlight above the cleaning station, and went into the house. He cooked the fish and ate it with potatoes and carrots that he’d seasoned and wrapped in foil and cooked outside on the propane grill, ate at the kitchen table, facing the mounted head of a ten-point buck he’d taken five years earlier. Everything from the décor of his room to his clothing to his daily activity told him what he was, reminded him of it, pushed the essence of his life into him from the outside. He was a fishing and hunting guide, a woodsman, a local. His clients knew it, his friends knew it, his neighbors knew it. After nearly forty years, he was starting to know it, too. Mission accomplished.
You became what you wanted to become. That’s what Ezra believed. You could become it if you tried hard enough, could take what you really were and change it, force-feed yourself a new life until it became your old life, too, blurred together until a better self emerged.
He’d spent twenty years in Detroit and another four in the jungle trying to decide what he’d be if he could choose. Nothing stopping him, he’d move back in time, open up the west with Frémont and Carson and the others who were there, see this country in all the beauty it had once held. Reality did stop him on that one, and so he chose the next best thing, a life spent on the water and in the woods and far away from the urban world of greed and hustles and constant violence that he’d known growing up. He’d been twenty-five when he arrived here, a young man with an old warrior’s body count behind him, had no idea where to find a walleye, no idea how to track a deer or run a bear. He learned those things, and now he taught those things, and there were moments when it seemed that the perception of others—that idea that he’d always been here—was true.
He finished his meal and washed his dishes and gathered his car keys and went out to the truck. Took Cedar Falls Road to the logging road, went bouncing over the uneven track. Anybody else would spend hours, maybe even a full day, trying to locate that car from the land. Ezra was different, though. A tree that looked identical to the rest stood out
Ezra had selected all four of his hounds when they were just weeks-old puppies, watched them in their litters and picked up on traits of personality that set them apart. Trained them himself, spent long summer hours in the woods and brush with them, teaching them to work as a team. Though the hunting season wasn’t till October, you could run bear in the summers in Wisconsin for dog-training purposes. On days when he didn’t have to guide, he generally loaded the hounds into their crates and into the back of the truck and set off to take advantage of the free time in the way he loved best: out in the woods, alone except for the dogs. Of course, it wasn’t like being alone at all. The dogs were Ezra’s family. More than pets, more than friends. And when the air turned chill as fall began to lose its early skirmishes with winter, and the dogs bayed long and loud in the dark woods, Ezra with gun in hand as they chased their prey? Then, the dogs were something altogether nearer to his heart: comrades.
Boone, a six-year-old bluetick, was the pack’s alpha male even though hewasn’t the largest. Bridger (they were all named after famous woodsmen—Boone, Carson, Bridger, Crockett) was bigger in size, taller and fifteen pounds heavier, but he lacked the aggressive edge that dogs respected in a leader. He was a diplomat, Ezra had decided, whereas Boone tended toward the preemptive strike. Ezra felt closest to Boone, but he spoiled Bridger and tried to put out the idea that he was the favorite.
He cleaned a final fish, tossed its remains into the kennel, and then gathered up the filets and his knife, turned off the floodlight above the cleaning station, and went into the house. He cooked the fish and ate it with potatoes and carrots that he’d seasoned and wrapped in foil and cooked outside on the propane grill, ate at the kitchen table, facing the mounted head of a ten-point buck he’d taken five years earlier. Everything from the décor of his room to his clothing to his daily activity told him what he was, reminded him of it, pushed the essence of his life into him from the outside. He was a fishing and hunting guide, a woodsman, a local. His clients knew it, his friends knew it, his neighbors knew it. After nearly forty years, he was starting to know it, too. Mission accomplished.
You became what you wanted to become. That’s what Ezra believed. You could become it if you tried hard enough, could take what you really were and change it, force-feed yourself a new life until it became your old life, too, blurred together until a better self emerged.
He’d spent twenty years in Detroit and another four in the jungle trying to decide what he’d be if he could choose. Nothing stopping him, he’d move back in time, open up the west with Frémont and Carson and the others who were there, see this country in all the beauty it had once held. Reality did stop him on that one, and so he chose the next best thing, a life spent on the water and in the woods and far away from the urban world of greed and hustles and constant violence that he’d known growing up. He’d been twenty-five when he arrived here, a young man with an old warrior’s body count behind him, had no idea where to find a walleye, no idea how to track a deer or run a bear. He learned those things, and now he taught those things, and there were moments when it seemed that the perception of others—that idea that he’d always been here—was true.
He finished his meal and washed his dishes and gathered his car keys and went out to the truck. Took Cedar Falls Road to the logging road, went bouncing over the uneven track. Anybody else would spend hours, maybe even a full day, trying to locate that car from the land. Ezra was different, though. A tree that looked identical to the rest stood out
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