Editor’s note:  John C. Devlin,  free lance outdoor writer and Deadwood Magazine contributor,  maintained  his offbeat sense of humor throughout his final courageous battle with cancer. John died on June 22 at the age of 48.  We can think of no more fitting tribute to his memory than reprinting this duck-hunting yarn, a favorite with readers when it appeared in a 1994 edition of Deadwood Magazine.

           It’s windy. It’s always windy out here on the flat surrounding the Black Hills of South Dakota, an area several hundred miles square, part of the prairie potholes. It’s so windy out here early settlers were said to have gone insane from the incessant howling. I try not to listen, since I’m a little close to the edge already.

            Standing on the front porch of a farmhouse, I plan to ask permission to duck hunt on the farmer’s stock ponds. “Pretty windy out here today,” I mention, attempting to find a common ground.

            “Not so’s you’d notice,” the farmer replies, spitting tobacco juice off the downwind side of the porch. It never touches the ground.

            Most folks living on the prairie are anxious to visit with someone other than barnyard animals and will invest a gallon of coffee and several pounds of food to prove it. Eating is great common ground. Some of my best meals have come incidentally when all I really wanted to do was go fishing or hunting.

            First there’s coffee and idle chat at the kitchen table.

            “Don’t we have a little of that apple pie left over from last night?” the farmer asks his wife.

            “Oh, I really couldn’t.”

            “You have to stay and have some pie, it’ll just go to waste otherwise,” Martha insists. Like there’s a big pile of leftover pie thrown out in the backyard from days when no one stopped by.

            As we talk about rainfall, stock dams and farm prices, Martha sneaks dishes of food onto the table. Sliced turkey breast and warmed-up stuffing. Hot mashed potatoes and gravy. Salad from the garden with two kinds of dressing. Green beans and steamed carrots. Apple and pumpkin pie with vanilla ice cream.

            I’ve never seen these people before. They’re either near starved to death for news from town or their refrigerator has just gone on the fritz. Regardless, I’m much too full to walk when I finally secure permission to come back to hunt.

            No wonder farmers go broke in this country, I’m thinking as I waddle back to the truck.

            A week later I return with two hunting buddies. The farmer is quick to point out where we’ll do the best, indicating a strip of ground between two large stock dams.

            (Now, let’s stop here for a word of warning to those who may be squeamish on the subject of death and dying. This is a hunting story. Duck hunting involves a certain amount of violence. We are going to kill ducks in this story. We are going to kill them, cook them and eat them, and we’re going to pluck them vigorously before we cook and eat them.)

            We settle into our spot in the mud. Ducks are lifting and circling above the ponds, occasionally flying overhead. We have the advantage of cunning and camouflage, not necessarily in that order. And it’s a good thing, too. We don’t shoot so good.

            As ducks pass overhead we let loose with the shotguns -- a lengthy barrage of loud booms. Two ducks down. It would be substantially cheaper to buy ducks at the local grocery store – and we reload our own shells at significant savings.

            Barry and Lee each claim a duck. I am duckless. I suspect I might have shot one duck two or three times, but can’t prove it, so say nothing.

            One duck fell into the water; the other crashed into the ground in an aerial display that surely left him severely tenderized. Now, how to retrieve the duck in the water? We have no boat, no dogs, and no sense.

            We use Roddy. (Not Rodney. Rodney is a duck’s name.) Roddy doesn’t jump around on the bank greeting incoming flights of ducks like that dog we were tempted to shoot last fall. No vet bills, no dog slobber on truck seats – we’re talking low maintenance here.

Roddy is in Barry’s charge, answering to him alone. I hear Barry down by the water coercing Roddy to do his job. “Okay, go get him boy! That’s a good boy! C’mon now, bring him back to me.”

            Roddy is a stout walleye rod strung with 12-pound monofilament. Barry casts the double-odd, eight-inch Daredevil spoon with boat anchor treble hooks out over the top of the duck. Unsuccessful on the first try, he reels in the line until it eventually hooks the duck. Neither Lee nor I have Barry’s talent with Roddy.

            Once the ducks are bagged, we assume our positions. The next pass yields three more possible orange sauce delights and another half-box of empty shells. As ducks fall from the sky, Barry and I yell, “I got him!” Simultaneously, we move to intercept the duck on the ground between us.

            Facing one another over the crumpled bird, our eyes meet. “I know I shot that duck,” I say loudly, conviction gleaming in my eyes.

            “No, I shot that duck,” Barry replies. Already holding one of the three birds just killed, he stoops to pick up the bird in question.

            “You were shooting at that duck when I shot this one.” I point to the duck in his hand.

While a duck is far less important than a friendship, the principal of the issue has become very important to me. We’re both holding loaded weapons, but that doesn’t concern me. Barry is a poor shot. Even at close range.

            To further complicate the matter, Barry starts fumbling with a pair of ladies panty hose, working to unravel the legs, a job much easier with the lady inside. “I’ve been looking for one of these ‘shovelers’ for a long time,” he exclaims, apparently not recognizing our difficulty.

            Freeing one leg from the knot of nylon, he pulls out a pocketknife and cuts it off, then slips the bird into the open stocking.

            As far as I’m concerned the issue of ownership remains unresolved. “You know that’s my duck, don’t you?” I insist. “Why’d you put my duck in some lady’s stocking?”

            “Specimen,” he grunts. “I’m gonna stuff him. I’ve never stuffed a ‘shoveler’ before.”

            “You haven’t stuffed this one either,” I retort. “Ducks are for eating, not stuffing. Unless it’s bread stuffing.”

            “If we don’t put him in the stocking his feathers will get all ruffled,” Barry points out. “Besides, we have all day to shoot more ducks. This one’s special.”

            “Dern right he’s special. He’s gonna be my dinner!”

            “This duck is mine,” Barry states firmly while tying off the open end of the stocking.

            “Not either,” I snap. Bonking Barry on the head with the soft part of my fist as a distraction, I snatch the bagged bird from his hand and make my way back to where Lee is waiting.

            Surprised at my outburst, Barry follows along behind me, attempting to barter for the shoveler. “I’ll trade you that big fat mallard for that scrawny little shovel head,” he offers, appealing to my sense of quantity concerning mealtime.

            Suspicious, I decline, remembering the adage about a duck in the hand.

            “Ah, c’mon, John. I’ve been looking for a specimen like that for the past two years,” he whines.

            Turning to face him, I ask, “Now let me get this straight, you’ll trade that big fat duck for this little bit of a duck here?”

            Suddenly the shoveler regains consciousness, however slightly. No small feat considering he’d been shot with a 12-gauge, free-falling some 80 feet to impact. He begins squirming and kicking inside the stocking. My logical reaction is to wring the bird’s neck as I try to get a firm hold on it inside the slippery nylon.

            “Don’t! You’ll wreck his neck feathers! We have to kill him gently.”

            “Why don’t we just kill him with kindness?” I demand impatiently.

            “We should try to choke him a little, without messing up his feathers,” he elaborates thoughtfully. “Do we have a trade or not?”

            “Trade. For the big Mallard,” I announce.

            I hand over the bagged duck. Barry carefully receives it. Placing his thumbs ever so carefully on the bird’s throat, he applies pressure, face contorted with what appears to be more pain than the duck is experiencing.

            The duck we now call Rodney, for distinction, commands a certain respect from us, on his way to another world for the second time today.

Anxious to get back to hunting, Lee walks over to where we stand. “Hey, what are you guys up to?”

            “He’s trying to choke that duck. He’s getting pretty close to the edge with this specimen thing.”

            “Do you guys know ducks can stay under water upwards of 10 minutes without breathing?”

            Suddenly 10 minutes seems like an eternity to Barry’s already heavily laden conscience. He releases his grip on the bird’s neck.

            Rummaging inside the Bronco, Barry produces a broken bit of cedar fence post about the size of a small billy club and gently begins clubbing Rodney on the tip of his head.

            “Are you only trying to knock him out for a little while?” Lee asks calmly.
            “He’s right. If you’re gonna whack him, whack him!”

            “I don’t want to dent his head feathers!”

            Rodney, a very serious look on his face, tries to remain calm while regaining his breath from the choking. After being shot, falling some 80 feet, nearly strangled, suffering possible brain damage, Rodney is fatigued. Any one of these techniques would have been adequate to kill an animal as big as a buffalo. It’s quite clear some serious thought has to go into killing without damaging this bird.

            Time (and numerous flocks of veering ducks) slips by.

            Sure hope you’re not one of those squeamish types mentioned earlier. This duck is going to die. He is, after all, in the hands of three accomplished duck slayers. And we can’t quit now. We have to deal with a wounded duck in a hopefully humane manner. Rodney will be coyote food tonight if we release him. He might as well die with us, although we oughta let him go to terrorize other Dakota duck hunters.

            “On the farm, Dad used to take a pocketknife and pierce the brain of turkeys we butchered,” Lee recalls.

            “I’m for that! We coulda killed 6,000 ducks by now. (An exaggeration likely to attract attention of GF&P officials.)

            Lee produces his pocketknife and opens the blade.

Now I’m getting squeamish. “Hurry up and get it over with,” I plead, unsure I’m up to more duck hunting. I wish I hadn’t traded, for Rodney’s sake and mine.

            Some additional squirming and Rodney appears to be resting peacefully, not a hair out of place on his perfect little head. Barry replaces him in the makeshift panty hose shroud, feathers neatly smoothed all in the same direction. It could have been an open coffin ceremony, good as he looked. Barry carefully places him in the back of the Bronco.

            On the way home, I detect the barest sounds of movement from the back of the outfit. Further investigation reveals Rodney staggering around in his nylon shroud, as if suffering the effects of a bad hangover.

            Lee pulls the Bronco over to the side of the road and hands Barry the knife.

            “He’s gone now,” Barry announces, almost prayerfully.

            “I thought he was gone three hours ago,” I yelp.

            Barry’s wife witnessed the rest of the story.

Returning home, Barry laid Rodney on the cool kitchen floor. After washing the ducks to be eaten, he proudly opened the stocking to show his wife the prize shoveler specimen. At first, Rodney lay perfectly still, the picture of restful serenity. Then, realizing his last possible chance for escape, he exploded from the stocking.

Barry and his wife chased the duck through the house as Rodney destroyed the living room lamp and a wall hanging. Wildly swinging a broom, Barry’s wife encouraged Rodney’s search for possible escape through an open window. Seeing other ducks lounging on mounts on the living room wall, he was inspired to join them. He probably thought he’d been released to some kind of posh Watergate game preserve.

Rodney was eventually caught in a fishing net, but not before he single-handedly wrecked a living room. I know Rodney was finally subdued, because I’ve been to see him in his new home. He stands where the knick-knack shelf used to be, about to dine on imitation aquatic plants placed there for his benefit -- about in the same spot where he dipped his wings one final time to salute the silent flock on the wall.                   DM