On Drifting

Father's Day; bird hunting; Comanches; live-fire whitetail chops.

1. On Father’s Day, Kiddo and the Warthog made me pancakes in bed. Unable to leave the room as they prepared them, I lounged, reading Goodbye to a River. John Graves writes of Texas oak stands, clearcut, plowed, grazed, farmed — the silt washing down into the Brazos, being swept into the Gulf, swirling and dissipating as it rounds Florida and empties into the Atlantic, molecules and memories drifting, drifting…

2. After we got married, but before we had kids, Mrs. CWD and I went on a trip to Africa with the rest of my family. In South Africa, I watched the professional tracker at the front of the Land Rover, perched atop the jump seat, watching for prints in the dust. Leopard came through last night; made a kill; dragged it; look, there — and then, an impala carcass, hanging from a tree. All this at twenty miles-per-hour, through dust clouds, casually, so casually…

3. Been hiking with Doggie more frequently lately; been trying to get her into shape for mountain tops this summer. She turns nine next month — well into middle age for a dog. Still, she moves well, leaping, bounding, chasing chipmunks and squirrels, scenting deer, charging down the trails. I try — like the tracker — to follow her prints as I trail her, making note of loosed soil, the kick sign in the leaves, small imprints in the mud. All this, while moving forward, ever forward…

4. The other morning she took off — I thought deer and ran after her, calling her back. Heard her before I saw her, barking, yipping — the same yip she made as a puppy, chasing other dogs in the Boston Common. There was only one other dog faster than her, a German Short-haired Pointer mix, Stevie — after Stevie Nicks — and Mrs. CWD and I would laugh, watching them run the perimeter, circling, circling…

5. Wasn’t a deer, though, wasn’t a chipmunk — wasn’t even another dog. It was a coyote pup — caught up to them and there they were — playing, darting through the woods. I called Doggie to me and the coyote trotted over too. As we turned away, it yipped — frustrated, longing. It tailed us for the next hundred yards, looking at us through pine saplings, before it drifted away, vanishing, there, and then not…

6. Kiddo wants to catch a bird this summer, wants to put it in the birdhouse Beeba gave her, an antique wire thing, a gilded cage she keeps in her room, stocked with a porcelain figurine of an Eastern Bluebird. We’ve been reading each night from Rinella, from Seton, from the First Printing of the Ninth Edition of the Boy Scouts of America Handbook (“Total Printing Since 1910—29,060,000!”). We walked down the driveway after pancakes — Kiddo wearing floral printed shorts “for flower camouflage,” the Warthog in a duck pattern — calling, looking…

7. Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars reminds us to “walk through the woods very slowly and quietly. Stop frequently to look and listen. You can even sit down for awhile and wait.”

8. (Good advice, for stalking goldfinches and in general.)

9. I lay in bed the other night as Mrs. CWD finished her evening routine, drifting along with Graves down the Brazos. Thought of frontier and adventure and memories fading. Thought of Comanches. Thought of Jesse Veale, found dead against an elm tree (kept his scalp, at least). Thought of his friend, who thought he heard Jesse scream “Run!” and did (but maybe Jesse said “Fight!” — wonder what his friend thought, then, when he came back to retrieve Jesse’s body). Thought about Charlie Goodnight — Buenos Noches — and the bison bull he gave to a band of ragged Comanches up from Oklahoma and the Reservation. Thought about how they drove that old bull out into the prairie, lanced it, shot it through with arrows, left it there to rot. Thought about their ride home — and what they thought about on those desolate plains. Thought about Martha Sherman and how she lay dying on the trail outside her house, stabbed through with lances, scalped, raped, watching her husband and four children fleeing down the road, fading, fading…

10. Summer slips ever forward, the days drawing ever shorter. We sat near the pond after our bird hunt (unsuccessful, this time) and watched two geese and six goslings drift past lily pads. I drank my coffee, the Warthog looked for froglings in the marsh grass — Kiddo sat next to me, watching a swallow dart, back and forth, back and forth…

11. I take the last sip — sit awhile, and wait.

After a day of sitting, waiting, swimming, and savoring, I split some logs of firewood, shaved off some kindling, built a fire¹, then laid over a searing hot cast-iron griddle two bone-in whitetail loin chops my friend, Chris, cut for me last fall (his butchery skills far greater than my own for these fancy cuts).

If you, too, have a professional chef and master butcher to help you process your game (or practice enough to do it so cleanly yourself), here’s how you might replicate that process. If you don’t — a cow or lamb or pig chop would work equally well.

The night before cooking, rub vigorously over your chops salt, pepper, garlic powder, and then let rest in the refrigerator on a wire tray. The next day, heat a cast iron griddle over an open fire until very hot, add pad of butter, and then place the chops, flipping repeatedly until the outside is charred and the interior cooked through to your liking.²

Serve with fire-roasted vegetables, mushrooms, or whatever else suits your fancy.

There you go folks — simple meals for simple summers. This weekend is one of the last before the true onslaught of summer… so: we sit, we wait — we savor.

However you’re spending your weekend, I hope you give yourself the opportunity to drift.

We’ll see you back here next week.

1. In my SoloStove… sorry Jesse C. McEntee.

2. Alternatively you can do this on the stovetop in a cast-iron pan. You can also finish in the oven after searing each side — which, frankly, gives you more control and is easier — but lacks the pizazz of live-fire cooking.