The dog days.
I’m annually confounded when this time of year rolls around. It’s late July/early August, and a mere gander out the window brings beads of sweat to the brow. There’s not an outdoor activity that’s desirable that doesn’t involve water that’s at least neck-deep.
Yet we here at the Sportsman spend these days planning for our autumn issues. Right now, the walls of my office are my friends, more dear to me than water or sustenance. Their insulated cores hold in the wonderful result of rapidly moving, condensed freon, and protect me from the undulating waves only a few feet away that have surely radiated through the very ceiling of Hades.
But when those stories that find their genesis under the blaze of an August sun actually show up in print, these same walls will be my arch enemies. Like a convict with a life sentence, I’ll scheme endlessly for ways to leave their tight grip, forever desperate for just one more breath of the crisp air of autumn — and freedom.
That time is coming. It’s right around the corner. But we must earn it.
The dog days.
What can save us from this awful time, this season of baked woe?
Gordon Hutchinson thinks he knows.
The long-time Louisiana Sportsman contributor has penned his first novel, and for those of us who are fans of his writing, it was way too long in coming.
But trust me, it’s well worth the wait.
Faithful Louisiana Sportsman readers probably remember a lengthy story Hutchinson published in the December 2000 issue titled “The Quest and the Quarry.” It was the finest piece of outdoor prose I had ever read in my life, and scores of you wrote to tell me you felt similarly.
“The Quest and the Quarry” followed a young buck from birth through maturity, and chronicled its evolving habits throughout its life. Not only was the tale extraordinarily well-told, Hutchinson infused his knowledge and research of deer biology throughout the story, perpetually educating the reader and making him an exponentially better hunter in the process.
During the years after penning that original Louisiana Sportsman story, Hutchinson conducted more research — both in the field and in more controlled settings — and melded the original story into an entire novel about growing up along the Mississippi River delta before and during the deer-population boom. It’s titled — appropriately enough — “The Quest and the Quarry.”
The book, in a word, is spectacular, and is a must-read for anyone who has taken to the woods, rifle in hand and hope in heart, eyes scanning for spectral movements from the white-tailed ghosts of the forest.
“This is a hunting story in the tradition of Hemingway, Ruark and all the greats, and that’s a dying genre,” Bryan Hendricks, outdoors editor for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, said of “The Quest and the Quarry.” “In this era of how-to, where-to, you don’t see this kind of writing anymore. The story is authentic, and it’s also irresistible.”
To order a copy, log onto www.thequestandthequarry.com, or call (800) 538-4355. It sells for $19.95 plus $2.95 for postage and packing.
It’ll get you through the dog days, and open long-clogged sinuses in your hunting psyche, allowing you to soak in even more of the changing air of autumn.
