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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 16, 1973)
A hunting sequence 1 ' JV if f "' 1 ' '''V " ' : " lff - Ul- . V X ' ' C f. v: v 1 !a I1 V .i u Is ' '" 4 - s'. 3 f I : V I f i IV. ' ,f -I fc. t - ... 1 yz- ??v' , -(k lull. I.. ' " " i ' 1 y ! t ' 4 I J I '.it f r 1. I live for this; awaking early for bitter coffee, eggs and hot-cakes. The cafe will open soon and I wait, here, in my truck. This is a time to think, watching my windshield fog with my breath. This day has promise with guns and shells beside me in the truck. I step out on bricks glazed with ice glaring in the morning sunlight. My wife had her dream again; searching and finding me dead in the fields corn sprouting through my rib cage my bones as brittle as dry bread. There is no death; not while bacon, eggs and hot cakes cook in Sarah's kitchen. 3. I am not old; despite my halting movements I am walking down rows of cut corn. I can still kill and no one is old while waiting for the flurry of brown wings against a turquoise sky. There! The cackle and flash of emerald neck. Aim ahead; let the bird fly into its death; and it falls, limp, denting the bright snow. Pheasants rarely bleed. Only red mottled feathers where pellets pushed through and a dribble of blood from the tongue. It is a good death to be suddenly dropped from flight. I can think of worse The grease sputters in the pan. Soon, holding the sweet meat of the breast, I will raise my plbows to the ceiling like wings. I live for this. Christopher Picard