Preacher John Part VII - A Home Cooking

The time came to leave the prairie camp behind.  It had been a great summer for Bobby Pickett and his string of dogs.  Rebel Yell, on his way to winning the Prairie Award, qualified for the National that summer.  His littermate Rebel Girl, who they called Sal, only needed a second qualifying placement as she had won the last championship they’d run.  Two other dogs on the string, Tort Reform, a dog that belonged to a lawyer from Chicago, and Sub Prime, owned by a developer from Atlanta who was almost underwater himself, had qualified in the spring.  There were other dogs in Bobby’s string that had the potential but just weren’t quite there yet.  Four dogs in the National would give him a good chance to hit that magical moment in February when the weather in West Tennessee cooperated and the birds at Ames were out on the edges feeding.  And then there was Buster.

      Bobby had brought his mentor, who had been called Preacher John back in the day when he’d been one of the top all-age trainers on the circuit, north for the summer.  John had quit field trialing when he was 50 to stay close to home after his wife had a stroke.  Now 25 years later his wife, Etta Mae, had passed and Bobby had convinced John to return to the prairies with him for the summer and had gotten him to work with Buster.  Under John’s tutelage, Buster had become the hottest derby on the prairie and had come very close to winning a championship.  Bobby tried to look at Buster objectively without the emotions he felt for John, for Buster, and for Trey Sutton who had saved Buster from going to another trainer.  When he stepped away from all that, he still came to the same conclusion.  Buster was the best young dog he’d ever had on his string — maybe the best prospect he’d ever seen.  He knew a lot could happen along the way — an injury, snakebite, a desire to hunt porcupines, a different owner, and many other things could cause Buster’s career to go awry — but with a few breaks Buster could be a great one.  As he analyzed it he knew that John was responsible for making all the right moves with Buster and would be critical to the dog’s future.  Some dogs didn’t care who blew the whistle on the horse behind them, but Buster was one of those dogs that feed off the bond felt with a trainer.  In Bobby’s mind the real hurdle for Buster was making sure that John stayed around long enough to help the dog realize his potential.

      Bobby really didn’t know what to expect from a 75 year old man: his own father had died young and in many ways John had been the father figure in his life when he had first brought him north all those years ago.  The return to the prairies and the success with Buster was just a down payment on what Bobby felt he owned John.  And now he was talking about going home.  They were packed up and ready to head out in the morning to go to a small qualifying stake to the south.  As John, Bobby, and Mack, John’s scout and full time assistant, sat around the dinner table in the old farmhouse that had originally been leased by John almost 50 years ago, John seemed distracted as he pushed the food around on his plate and half-heartedly ate a few bites. 

      “You feeling alright?”  Bobby asked with genuine concern.

      “I’m fine.” The old man said to his food.

      “Then what’s bugging you?”

      “I’m just wondering how I’m going to get home.”

      “We’ll get there. We just got some trials to go to along the way.”

      “I came for the summer on the prairies.  It seems like summer’s over and I should get back to Georgia.”

      “What’s your rush?”

      “Bobby, it was real special of you to bring me up here, but you don’t need to be taking care of me while you’re on the road.”

      “Seems like you pretty much took care of yourself this summer.  You pulled your weight and then some.”

      “Yeah but. . .”

      “But nothing, John. What are you going to do at home?  Besides, what happens to Buster if you leave?  Are you planning to take him with you?”

      “No.  I figured you’d take over from here on out.”

      “I don’t think he’ll do for me what he does for you.  Trey may own him, but he’s your dog and you know it.  You can’t just up and leave him.”

      “Bobby, I love you like you were one of my own children, but I’m 75 years old and I’m well beyond the time when I could live out of a suitcase and eat diner food every night.”

      “How do you know?”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Look, John, we can argue this all night, but we’ve got a long drive tomorrow to get to the next field trial grounds.  I’ll make a deal with you.  You come along on the road with us and if at anytime you’ve had enough I’ll drive you to the nearest airport and buy you a ticket to Albany.”

      John didn’t answer right away.  He thought about the summer.  The joy he had felt riding good horses and watching great dogs.  The camaraderie of working dogs with Bobby and Mack and the excitement of running Buster and seeing what he was becoming.  It really did come down to the dog.  Buster had given everything John had asked of him and now John had to make a commitment of his own.

      He looked at Bobby and held his stare for a long moment before he spoke, “You knew back on the first day we got here that it would come to this.” Bobby started to answer as he fought the grin on his face, “Don’t even bother to come up with some slick story.  I’ll ride along and see what comes of it.  But I’m holding you to your offer.  If I say enough, you put me on a plane home.”

      Bobby looked at Mack who had also grown fond of Preacher John and they grinned at each other, “Deal.” Bobby stuck out his hand and John shook it.

      John excused himself from the table and went out to the kennel as he did every night after dinner and let Buster out in the yard.  When the dog had done his business, the two of them headed back into the house where Buster went to his spot on the rug between the couch and the TV.  The three men talked a little about the upcoming trial and which dogs they were going to enter.  As this was not a championship, but still a qualifier for the National, Bobby planned to leave out the three dogs that were already qualified.  He would run Rebel Girl and some of the other all-age dogs on the string along with his derbies.  He convinced John to run Buster in both the derby and the all-age.  Bobby looked down at his list of entries and pulled out his cell phone.  John got up and headed to his room with Buster following.  As he got ready for bed, John looked down at the dog curled up on the rug in his room and before he turned out the light he said, “I’m going to stick with you a little longer, Buster, but if I can’t keep up on the road, Bobby’s going to have to take over for me.  I’ll give it my all if you will.”

      The dog had raised his head and listened attentively.  John felt the dog understood almost everything he said to him, but he was never sure if he was going to pay attention.  This was part of the thrill of running a big going all-age derby.  You never knew for sure when he went over the next hill if you’d find him standing his birds or long gone out on his own.  There was the time earlier in the summer when just before time Buster had disappeared to the front only to be found a few miles away chasing waterfowl out of the shallows of a lake.  There needs to be a long string between an all-age dog and its handler, it needs to be thinner than on a lot of the other circuits and it could break at any moment.  This was why those who understood it loved the all-age — being on the edge.  The margin between winning and gone-over-the-hill was always razor thin.

      In the morning they loaded up the dogs, horses, and their travel bags.  Everything else had been packed up the day before.  The four-wheeler had been stowed in one of the sheds.  Bobby made a final check of everything as Mack and John cleaned and washed the kennels for the last time until next summer.  They had come north with 32 dogs and 6 horses.  Over a dozen of the dogs had already been sent back.  Some were plantation dogs that Bobby had worked for the summer, others were field trial hopefuls that didn’t make the string.  They were left with 10 shooting dogs and 7 derbies to go on the road with.  Other pros carried more, but Bobby had learned long ago from John that quality beat quantity almost all of the time. 

      When they pulled out in the morning, Bobby was behind the wheel with John in the passenger seat.  Mack and Buster were in the back seat.  As the big dually ate up the miles, the three men talked of the grounds they were going to.  It was a good size ranch with some crop fields, CRP, and lots of range land.  It was pretty much a regional trial and according to the trial chairman, Bobby would be the only major circuit pro there.  It was in a transitional zone that was still far enough north for pheasants and sharptails, yet far enough south to provide a chance on a covey or two of quail.  The grounds weren’t as wide open as the northern prairie venues but there was plenty of room for a true all-age dog to run.  The only thing that worried Bobby was the judges for the all-age were both local guys and customers of the one pro in the region.  The local pro wouldn’t be running the judge’s dogs, but he had plenty of others that he’d put down for them to look at.  If that wasn’t enough home cooking, the grounds were leased by the pro who trained on them in the summer and guided hunters there during the bird season.

      Bobby hadn’t shared all this with John and Mack, but it was enough that he had seriously thought about skipping the trial.  He hoped that Buster, Sal, or one of the other dogs he had entered would shine enough that they could not be denied a placement.  He wasn’t as worried about the derby: the judges for that were men he’d run under in the past and above reproach, and besides all the derbies that were still with him had at least placed over the summer and were now qualified to run in most championships when they were ready.  It was Buster and Sal that he worried about.  The National was still months away but the time would fly by as they tried to get both dogs qualified.  Not many derbies have run at the National and few have shined in the three hour endurance stake, usually the victims of their own youthful exuberance, but he knew if they could get Buster there he just might be the exception.  It was the one trial that John had failed to win in the 30 years he had been on the circuit.  It would be a heck of an accomplishment for a 75 year old man to do it with a dog that wasn’t yet three.

      When they arrived at the grounds they ran out their chains and got the dogs out and watered them.  The horses were each led over to a water trough and then staked out in the field around the trailer.  All the animals were fed and left to relax while the three men walked over to the old bunkhouse that had been fixed up over the years to be used as a clubhouse.  The trial chairman shook their hands and invited them to have a bowl of chili that he had made for the evening meal. 

      This was the annual party for the locals and it had started well before Bobby, Mack, and John had arrived.  One of the revelers came over to the table as the three of them were finishing their chili.  He held a copy of the draw sheet in his hand and looked down at it and then at Bobby, “Aren’t we good enough for your ‘A’ team?”

      Bobby thought about not answering the man.  There was no right answer here.  It was obvious to everyone why he left out the dogs that were already qualified for the National and to wave the draw sheet in front of him and ask the question was just intentional belligerence fueled by too much alcohol.  He wanted to tell the man what to do with his attitude and his draw sheet.  In fact in his younger days he would have been happy to stuff the paper into the guy’s mouth, but that was then.  This time he just smiled up at the guy and said, “My customers decide which trials their dogs are entered in, I just run ‘em.”

      That left the guy speechless for a moment.  He had come for at least an argument.  He looked at Mack and Preacher John and couldn’t see any use in trying to provoke them.  He turned to leave, then stopped and looked back down at Bobby who was spooning up the last bite of his dinner, “Let me tell you, Mr. High and Mighty big time pro, we got some damn fine bird dogs around here and they’ll show yours how it’s done.”

      “If they do, it won’t be the first time I’ve been beat, and it will definitely not be the last.”  It was not what he really wanted to say, but that really didn’t matter.  It had taken Bobby a long time to reach the understanding that all that mattered was the time between “let ‘em go” and “pick ‘em up.”

      After the guy weaved back to his table full of drinkers, they finished their meals and went out to the trialer.  The horses and dogs were used to the routine.  The horses would be fine on the stakeouts for the night but the dogs always went back in the trailer and the doors to their kennels locked.  Buster was the exception; he would ride into town and sleep on the floor next to John’s bed.  There were enough stories of dead or sick dogs left out on the chains that most pros kept their dogs locked up at night.  It was after dark before they reached the motel in town and it would be very early when they headed back to the grounds to get ready for the day’s running.  Bobby followed Mack and John into their room with the draw sheet.