“I have lost count of the days that Hodge and I walked from dawn to dusk for one rooster.”

“Touched by McKenzie’s unrepentant tail wagging, she softened. ‘No, I can’t rent to you, but here, call this number, he has what you need.’”

“A full, pale orange hunter’s moon shimmered above the eastern horizon as we waded into the tall grass and moved uphill.”

“There is no way Star and I can walk the twenty miles back to Pierre in the dark and at that moment, Hodge proves his friendship.”

“I don’t know how Star manages to separate one molecule of pheasant from ten trillion of skunk, but she suddenly locks.” 

It took Jim Hodge, the dogs and I four hours to fly from Ketchum, Idaho over the Grand Tetons, Mount Rushmore and the empty badlands to Pierre, South Dakota. “McKenzie” the Labrador and “Star” the Wire Hair were asleep on the rear seat when the yellow hills rolling beneath the Comanche’s low wings, give way to the blue glint of Pierre’s Lake Oahe. The Cherokee dropped as it hit the cold air above the Missouri River causing the dogs to wake, rise in their seats and stare confusedly out the windows at the passing montage of prairie grass, cottonwoods, wild plums and glistening water.

In Pierre, the Ringneck Pheasant is venerated as a kind of avian Santa Claus. Imported from Shanghai, China to North America in the late 1700’s, the Ringneck quickly adapted to the midwest’s vast, cultivated fields. Two centuries later, the pursuit of pheasants now fills Pierre’s hotels, restaurants and sport shops with earnest men and excited dogs. During South Dakota’s sixty five day season, hunters will spend an astonishing $110 million to harvest 1.6 million birds. And this year promised to better than most. Following a mild winter and beneficent spring, South Dakota’s pheasant population was forecast to meet, or exceed 1999’s numbers which offered record survival rates, and excellent concentrations. In a statement prescient for its accuracy the South Dakota Fish and Game forecast that, despite scattered declines, hunters would likely witness the highest pheasant populations in recent memory.

In contrast to South Dakota, pheasants around Hagerman, Twin Falls and Gooding, Idaho have been decimated by factory dairies. To avoid California’s strict environmental quality standards, the dairies have moved lock, stock and piles of reeking manure to the fertile Snake River Plane. The practices of cutting green corn for feed and fence to fence factory farming has destroyed what was once excellent habitat. I have lost count of the days that Hodge and I walked from dawn to dusk for one rooster.

In a sign of the times, family farms are beginning to protect the exotically fledged birds. “Well… in years past I’d have been glad to let you hunt,” one farmer admitted when I asked permission to walk his forty acres of standing corn. “But heck I see so few cocks any more, they’re kind’a like pets. I’d sort of miss them if they weren’t around.”

Turned away from farmhouses with No Hunting signs lining the driveway, I envied other hunters who gained access to ditch banks and cat tails that might or might not shelter birds. If it hadn’t been for my teenaged sons, I would have quit the sport years ago.

Hodge’s successful Ketchum, Idaho dental practice keeps him close to home and when he called in late September, I couldn’t remember the last time we’d hunted pheasants together. “If the weather holds I’m planning to fly to South Dakota,” he said. “Can you spare the time off?”

Now, as the Comanche crossed the Missouri River, Hodge eased back on the throttle and squared off the down wind leg into Pierre’s regional airport. The small plane sank toward a sliver of concrete, the wheels touched down and we taxied to the tie downs where a woman who ran the local National Car Rental was waiting with a late model Chevrolet. Taking one look at our shotguns, duffles and dogs, she sadly shook her head.

“I’d like to help you,” she admitted with the unyielding voice of experience, “But we don’t rent to pheasant hunters. There’s been way too many times when our cars are returned with the back seats full of mud and burrs and pheasant feathers. “You wouldn’t believe the mess……they’re just destroyed!”

Hodge didn’t miss a beat. “OH……we’re not that type,” he assured her. Then nodding toward Star and McKenzie he promised, “These are nice dogs, well behaved. We’ll take good care of your car. Just like it was our own.”

Touched by McKenzie’s unrepentant tail wagging, she softened. “No, I can’t rent to you, but here, call this number, he has what you need.”

Half an hour later we met Walt, of Walt’s Rental Cars. He was driving a repainted blue 1984 Suburban he insisted was the jewel of his small fleet. “You will take good care of her?” he nervously inquired as we shoved our gear and dogs in back.

“You bet!” we promised as we turned toward the nearest sports store where we bought two hunting licenses, four boxes of sixes and a map of the National Grasslands.

Administered by the U.S. Forest Service, the 116,000-acre Fort Pierre National Grassland is located ten miles south of Pierre across the Missouri River. This remnant of the Great Planes still provides excellent habitat for pheasants, hungarian partridge, sharp tail grouse and the Greater Prairie Chicken, whose range has declined to less than ten percent of what it was when Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery parlayed with Chief Black Buffalo and hundreds of Sioux near the mouth of the Bad River.

Two centuries later the Grasslands are surrounded by cultivated fields of wheat, sorghum and sun flowers. Stopping to ask permission at a wind swept farm house, we parked below a grassy hill where wild plum trees shaded a small stock pond.

As soon as Star cleared the Suburban she quartered away through the tall grass, lifting her nose into a breeze that rustled among the dry, dun colored blades. Breaking my Beretta over and under, I slipped through the fence while Jim and Mckenzie followed the gravel road to the hill’s far terminus. Our plan was to pinch the birds between us.

Star has always exhibited a talent for pointing the odd. Fed by a stream of scent molecules that keys into her genetic history, Star’s points consistently signal something alive and hidden off the end of her nose. The exact what, however, often comes as a surprise.

When she was younger cats, porcupines, squirrels, rabbits, steelhead trout and garter snakes triggered a fevered, three feet down, front leg up, wagging bobbed tail alert. If I was bothered by her need to point things with claws or spines, for every cat or porky she found, she pointed hundreds of chukkers, quail, sage hen and pheasants. And it is true that as she aged and the gray guard hairs softened the dark liver in her coat, she conserved her energy. Rabbits no longer drove her to distraction, chipmunks did not call her name and ground huggers of all types were noted only with the briefest of flash points.

A full, pale orange hunter’s moon shimmered above the eastern horizon as we waded into the tall grass and moved uphill. Two white tail bucks jumped from their beds beneath the wild plums and trotted away through the deep grass. When I looked from the deer back to Star, she was leaning into a solid point.

South Dakota is defined by paintings of ringnecks roosting on rusted hay rakes next to abandoned farm houses or scratching beneath snow covered sun flowers. In 1999, with a 65 day season and three birds in possession, hunters chased an approximate 61,000,000 pheasants for roughly 4.46 birds per spare mile. South Dakota’s avian fecundity filled me with an undeniable confidence and I greeted Star’s first point with a sense of imminent reward. Approaching on her left, I waited for the blur of a red head and thick body trailing eighteen inch tail feathers to break from the waist high grass. In the seconds before the flush, I remembered to swing through the bird, to gently squeeze the trigger. Then something moved in the grass and Star broke.

A flash of yellow squirted through the grass and I am blistered by the acrid stench of burning tires. Other than profanity, there is no describing the blindingly strong smell. Star has grabbed the business end of a skunk and is now gagging and clawing at her muzzle with both paws. As the huge Polecat reloads and takes aim, I grab Star by the collar and drag her into the stock pond. Standing knee deep in the muddy water, I dunk her body and scrub at her muzzle with the thick mud. The stench immediately jumps from her muzzle to my hands, vest and favorite hunting pants. After ten minutes of dunking and scrubbing, I lead her out of the pond back to the SUV.

Hodge is twenty feet from Walt’s Suburban when he staggers, puts his forearm across his face and stumbles backward. “Damn!!!!!” he coughs as he distances himself from us.

I start to explain how Star tangled with the skunk but Jim waves me off. “You don’t need to tell me what happened!,” he chokes. “Just don’t come any closer!”

There is no way Star and I can walk the twenty miles back to Pierre in the dark and at that moment, Hodge proves his friendship. Smelling as bad as we do, I wouldn’t let either of us in Walt’s Suburban, but while I load Star through the back door, Jim rolls down the windows, starts the engine and drops the transmission in drive. At forty miles an hour with our faces in the air flow, the stench is still so overpowering–so cripplingly strong–it makes me want to flee, not only the area, but the memory.

The irrepressible McKenzie, passionate lover of dead sheep, immediately falls under Star’s spell. Most of the time Star is a willing, happy girl, but still smarting from being yelled at and with her nose knocked out of commission, she is in no mood to be courted. She responds to McKenzie’s repeated attempts to roll on her by raising her lip and showing her teeth. A dog fight is brewing until I turn around and yell, “Knock it off.” Stars ears go down, she refuses to look at me and simply wallows in her shame.

With our heads hanging out the window and our eyes watering in the wind it is a wretched ride back to Pierre. Our spirits are so low we almost ignore the three roosters that sprint across the road into a weed choked stream course. I’m desperate to get back to Pierre and get cleaned up but stink or no stink, Hodge observes, “We just flew a thousand miles to hunt pheasants….. you’re not going to let a little skunk stop you?”

A check of the map reveals it is National Grasslands, uncultivated, unfenced, unposted…..no farmhouses on the horizon….we park the Suburban and lead the dogs to opposite banks.

I don’t know how Star manages to separate one molecule of pheasant from ten trillion of skunk, but she suddenly locks. A cock busts from the deep grass and crosses in front of Jim who drops it with a single shot. While McKenzie is retrieving the bird, another rooster lifts cackling from the grass. I miss it with the first barrel then drop it with the second.

The banks of the small creek are choked with birds. Wading through the grass, beneath cottonwoods and willows brushed yellow by October’s frosts, Hodge and I shoot five roosters before the light fades. It is a wonderful hunt– a perfect hunt and we slip the birds into a burlap bag and hanging our heads out the window, follow the gravel farm roads back to Pierre.

Everyone knows that tomato juice neutralizes skunk and stopping at a local market, I buy two gallons of tomato sauce, a bottle of cheap shampoo, sponges and a towel. For two aisles around, people try to fix the source of the foul odor and when I drop my supplies on the counter, the pretty checker nearly chokes then backs away and starts to giggle.

I try to explain, “It’s my dog……” but by now she is breathless with laughter. Keeping one hand over her nose and mouth, she rings me up and waves me toward the door.

I manage to sneak Star down the motel hallway then return to the car for my bags. On the return trip, I hear a puzzled voice behind a closed door ask, “Do you smell skunk?”

By the time I finish dousing Star in tomato sauce, shampoo and air fresheners, the shower, walls, floor and toilet resemble a slaughterhouse. The exorcism, however, does little to neutralize the polecat’s powerful perfume. Star’s head and shoulders still reek. Even her breath smells of skunk.

Returning to the grocery for scented candles, flower scented sprays and industrial deodorizers that nearly knock me off my feet, I fill Walt’s Suburban with a flowery fog of aerosol, push Star in and slam the rear door.

Though it is mid-October and frigid in Pierre, the only way Hodge and I can sleep is by spraying the room with something called “Spring Bouquet”, opening both windows and shivering beneath the thin blankets. The dangerous thing about skunk, is your nose eventually focuses on more pressing matters and the next morning I shower and shave and trot confidently down to breakfast. I figure I’m pretty much over the worst until a good old boy sipping coffee at the counter inquires, “Say bud, you tangle with a skunk?”

And then after I’m seated, I hear one waitresses whisper to another, “You think he has any idea, how bad he smells?” By the time I finish breakfast, I have cleared the adjoining three tables.

A Pierre outfitter and a dozen of Jim Hodge’s friends have gathered in the motel parking lot before driving to a farm near Midland. I grin and bear a half a dozen skunk jokes, before the guide pulls me aside.

“The only way to kill the smell of skunk is to make a paste of peroxide and a little shampoo to bind it all together, rub it into your dog, and let it sit until it dries then wash it off. Repeat it in a day and the smell should be tolerable.”

“Won’t peroxide bleach her orange?” I ask.

“It could,” he nods. “But I’d say that’s the least of your problems.”

Climbing into Walt’s Suburban, I note that, despite the industrial deodorizers, it still smells like the exhaust end of a skunk. Ignoring the early morning cold the windows quickly come down and, with our faces risking frost bite in the air stream, we drive south along a maze of gravel farm roads.

Pointers struggle in driven hunts. The beaters move too quickly, the pheasants run and, in the last hundred feet, pandemonium erupts. Guns fire, cocks fall and any hard won staunch sails out the window as the birds beat and glide, beat and glide onto distant hills. When we reach the corner of a long strip of millet and sorghum, pheasants pour from the fields. Not just one or two, but first dozens, then a hundred explode from the thick crop. It appears Star’s nose has come back online and I lose her in the millet until she returns with a cripple.

Forced to hunt at the beater’s fast pace, Star starts to flush birds. I call her back to heel until the line reaches the end of the field, then release her. Hunting the sweet no man’s land between the lines, she quickly points one hen, then another as dozens of pheasants begin to rocket from the field. Wary of the gunners in the group–men who shoot at any cock that flies–I lead Star to a remnant stretch of grasslands where she settles down and casts across the dun colored field until she locks. When I move next to her, a rooster lifts cackling into the evening light, my over and under comes up and the bird folds.

Because we dumped the Suburban at the airport with a note of apology, I never heard what Walt had to say about how it smelled. He was naturally more upset about the crinkled left front fender, hood and broken windshield. How were we to know that a farmer had left an open goose pit in the middle of a fallow field? One minute the Suburban was cruising along smelling like skunk, the next it was hood down in a hole smelling like skunk. Either way Hodge’s insurance agent made it more than right.

And that night as Hodge eased back on the throttle and followed the evening light into Hailey’s Friedman Memorial Airport, Star stretched and exhaled deeply in the back seat. For a moment the Comanche was filled with a strong, familiar cologne. And just as music defines an era and roasting turkey evokes home, for me, road kill always makes me dream of pheasants.