Buck
Smith’s Options
Part Six
By Tom Word
The
stakes had been predrawn, and Buck and Kyle picked up draw sheets from
Doctor Hawthorn. Their entries were reasonably disbursed, a
relief since with only four mounts between them they could easily wear
out their horseflesh. The derby stake ran first; Buck got a
second with Whiparound, which he promptly sold—he had become convinced
the attractive white and liver pointer male had too short a nose to
make it as an all-age. The $2,000 check for his proceeds felt
good in Buck’s pocket. Kyle got a third with Whipstitch, a white
and yellow pointer female he had become attached to. “She loops
too much to make an all-age,” Buck had said just before they left camp
for the North Dakota trials. “She’ll outgrow that,” Kyle had
countered.
In
the all-age, both men’s entries disappointed until Headstrong’s brace
was called at the end of the stake. He’d drawn the first course
as a bye. Released at the homestead, he coursed for the cemetery;
Buck found him on point to the left of the course near the north-south
section road that passed by the cemetery and the one-room schoolhouse.
He looked like a million and had a gravel-seeking pheasant pinned
roadside. It squawked at flush, but Headstrong just got taller.
Released west of the road, Headstrong used the big open pasture
to show his heels, then came around nicely to Kyle’s call to go south,
passing west of the old house and going deep toward the east-west
section road beyond the big wheat field, recently harvested and flat as
an ironing board. He left a dust cloud at his heels.
Buck
was riding the left flank near the old house. He went to a slight
rise in the prairie that gave him a good view of Headstrong’s expected
route into the rising prairie pasture beyond the wheat field and across
the section road. He saw a dark vehicle, probably a Chevy
Suburban, moving slowly west on the section road. It stopped
briefly and resumed its way west. Buck figured the driver had
seen Headstrong approaching and stopped to allow the dog to safely
cross the section road, though the distance and Buck’s weakening
eyesight made this speculation. They were thirty minutes into
Headstrong’s hour now, and Kyle and Buck were both thinking that with
another good find, preferably two, Headstrong should be in the money.
But
that was not to be—Headstrong did not reappear, and before they knew
it, the judges signaled he was “gone too long,” unseen by them more
than the allowed twenty minutes. They’d given him an extra five
minutes of grace, for they liked his race and hoped he’d be found
pointing.
Kyle
got his tracker from the judges with a “Thank you for lookin’ at him.”
He could not get a signal. He and Buck spent an hour riding
and calling, figuring the collar’s battery had failed. Finally,
they gave up and rode for headquarters. Kyle was worried.
“That’s
the first time I’ve lost him, except on point, since he was a derby,”
Kyle said. “He may be on point now,” Buck said, but he doubted
it.
They
took care of the horses and fed the dogs, then headed in the truck for
town, Buck driving and Kyle using the tracker to search for a signal.
Three miles from trial headquarters, Kyle got a signal. It
led to the collar, unbuckled and in a roadside ditch.
The
conclusion was inescapable. Headstrong had been stolen, and the
thieves had thrown his tracking collar away. “Dumb
sons-of-bitches. They didn’t even have the sense to unscrew the
battery,” Buck said with bitterness.
Kyle
was on his cell phone to the highway patrol. “Tell them to be on
the lookout for a black or blue Suburban,” Buck said. Then he
told Kyle what he’d seen from the old house site. When the
thieves’ vehicle had stopped on the section road, it was not to let
Headstrong pass; it was to pick him up.
To
be continued in Part Seven.