Father taught us to never leave home with an empty firearm, for one never knew when it might be needed. So, standing on the porch in the dim pre-dawn light, I cocked the hammer on my rifle and checked by “feel” that the flint was sharp and tight in the jaws of my rifle’s hammer. After placing the leather cover over the frizzen, I drew a cartridge from the case and bit off the end. In a motion that was second-nature to every hunter in the valley of Virginia, I poured a small amount of powder into the flash-pan, closed the frizzen, poured the rest of the charge down the barrel, drove home the ball and linen wad with my ram-rod, and set the hammer at half-cock.

Satisfied with my preparations, I walked to our stable, saddled my favorite mount, Midnight, a steady, sure-footed mare, tossed my saddlebags across her rump, and mounted. As we departed the stable, Casey, my faithful female spaniel—and the best pointing-flushing-retriever a hunter could ever want—started whining frightfully. I relented and turned her loose to accompany us.

We were barely out of town when Casey suddenly alerted, hunched down, and pointed into the wind toward the underbrush on the left of the path. I dismounted, cocked my rifle, checked the pan to ensure I hadn’t lost any powder, and walked slowly up behind her.

Though I could neither hear nor see anything, she remained frozen in place as I crept forward. Save the slight quiver in her hindquarters and the anxious furrow in her brow, the dog might have been carved of wood. After peering into the foliage without glimpsing anything, I shrugged and said quietly, “get ’em up!”

As my little brown dog charged into the brush, I hoped she wasn’t about to flush a polecat or worse, a bear. My concern was instantly dispelled by several sharp “putts” as a large tom turkey ran out on the trail with Casey in close pursuit. The big bird took flight in a rush of wings, heading straightaway down the path, high enough to give me a clear shot. The fowl dropped like a stone into the underbrush—followed by a retriever on a mission.

My satisfaction at hitting a fast-flying bird with a single ball was instantly quashed by the sound of a furious fight between fur and feathers. From the sound of things, the turkey was far from dead when it hit the ground. To further my lesson in humility, I then noticed my horse was no longer behind me. In my excitement at the prospect of fresh game, I had failed to tether her reins when dismounting and she bolted at the sound of my shot.