Camouflage caps. Yellow vests. Shotguns angled across their chests. Four hunters stroll down the dirt road that leads past the ranch.      

            I’m hauling hay with my dog. I pull beside them and roll down the window.

            “Think your dogs could teach mine a thing or two?”

Three catahoula’s smile from the bar ditch and sniff the air.

            “He like the taste of feathers?” asks the youngest hunter whose face I recognize from the feed store.

            “You look familiar.”

            “Name’s Kirk.”

            I step out of the cab and shake his hand.

            Kirk introduces me to his grandpa, Melvin, who takes a seat on the boulder next to my mailbox. The other two men hail from Virginia. Kirk is their hunting guide.  

            “Any luck so far?”  

            They shake their heads. “Just getting started,” mumbles one of the Virginians. He glances toward my barn, then eyes the stockers in pasture alongside the road. “This your place?”

            “Yes, sir. But these calves belong to my neighbor.”

            Kirk scans the white faces and black-rimmed eyes staring at us. “Rodney’s a friend of mine.”

            “Best neighbor in the world,” I reply.

            Melvin butts in, his voice gravely and hoarse. “My family runs Lacy’s Dry Goods.”

            He’s referring to the sole remaining business on Main in the neighboring town.

            “Good store,” I tell him, hoping he catches my sincerity. Any investment in this hard-scrabble region deserves support.

            “Been in business since 1916.”

            The day gleams bright about us. No trace of wind. No sound of rival gunfire. Having just recovered from a bout of flu, my senses are keen, taking in every flash of miraculous life.

            The Virginians shuffle their feet and look to the horizon. Kirk helps his grandad to his feet and whistles for the dogs.

            “Tell Rodney Hey for me.”

            I nod and watch them head down the road.

            Back inside the truck, I scratch my dog’s ears and check the position of round bales reflected in the side mirror. Driving up my lane, I ponder items in my soul like folded socks inside Lacy’s store: calves rollicking in the morning sun, scissor-tail swallows winking and blinking at the wonder of flight, roadrunners bolting down hardpan trails as though they were fleeing the long reach of sin, coyote choirs yipping high praise at sunsets red as sanctuary lamps.

            Nighttime hikes in an outdoor basilica constructed of stars.

            Some hunters stalk grass for mourning doves. Others listen for Pentecost wings.