A Good Hunter

On Saturday, when the snow and plunging temperatures were still only a rumor, something whispered between people passing on the sidewalks behind their dogs, when only the lightest dusting still clung to the northward sides of the buildings, the rabbits and squirrels were still plentiful and playful. Duncan had learned all the treacherous spots in The Run––those places in the snow where my footprints had packed tightly and frozen into ice––and so gave little thought to where his feet fell as he jogged ahead of me on the gently sloping ground, hardly seeming to touch it at all, gliding above it somehow, a low kite riding the lazy tide of air hovering just above the yellowed grass which still protruded through a thin layer of crisp snow. As I do every winter, I plodded behind, my booted feet heavy, the air evading the gravity of my lungs, the morning cold like a set of fists pushing against my progress. But not Roo. He bound ahead and straight into the thicket of shrubs, scattering the little birds and rustling the squirrels out of their earthbound hiding places and up into the trees, his delight wide and ample on his face. Unlike every fisherman or hunter I have known, he cares little for quantity or size but is content in the doing. He was just as happy Saturday with the five squirrels he treed as he was on Friday with the thirteen he chased into the branches above his head. And as we all know, his happiness does wonders for my own.