The Major

    The dinner at Bookbinders was a strained and quiet affair. Major Nathaniel Peabody (USA, ret.) was sullen and barely able to disguise his petulance. I knew the reason for his ill humor. It was the last day of the month, and it was a Saturday. As usual, I had refused to give him his Spendthrift Trust remittance until the stroke of midnight. Therefore, Peabody’s arrival at the hunting camp in northern Wisconsin would be delayed. Therefore, Peabody would lose one full day of hunting. Therefore, Peabody was directing his displeasure at me.
    Because he was uncomfortable, he was determined to make sure that I, too, was uncomfortable. At Bookbinders and later at his apartment as we awaited the magical time of 12:01 am and the delivery of his remittance, Peabody’s attitude improved by degrees in direct relationship to the discomfort he was able to engender in me.
    Major Peabody knows I am a city boy, uncomfortable in the swamps and forests where he and his hunting companions chase ducks and grouse and other dangerous birds and animals. Nevertheless, he insisted on discussing subjects he suspected would frighten me. His suspicions were correct.
    He told a story about a pack of wolves that surrounded a lone hunter’s wilderness tent. He described the piercing, yellow-green eyes and blood-curdling snarls of the vicious predators as they circled just beyond the firelight. They waited until the campfire died down before attacking. Peabody took delight in describing the gore and bones the wolves left behind when they finished their feast.
    Then he informed me that he would be hunting in that very spot when I delivered his next Spendthrift Trust installment. Not satisfied with the tale of wolf horror, he described other dangers I might encounter when I had to visit the camp. He spoke of venomous late-autumn white snakes so well camouflaged by October snows that people unwittingly would tread upon them, only to be bitten and die terrible lingering deaths in the cold Wisconsin forest.
    He told of hunters who had disappeared in the woods near the same cabin, leaving behind nothing more than their hats on the carpet of leaves that covered woodland quicksand deposits. Like the La Brea tar pits, the quicksand trapped and slowly dragged its victims down to suffocating deaths. He told of how he had recovered the body of a fellow hunter by carefully probing the quicksand with a hay rake, piercing the sunken man’s rib cage and hauling him up into the daylight—too late, of course, to save his life.
    It was well after 11 o’clock when the Major asked me if I knew anything about porcupines. Of course, he wasn’t looking for an educational comment from me. (Doc Carmichael, one of the Major’s hunting friends, had told me that the animals are disagreeable, short-tempered and armed with an arsenal of sharp needles. He’d said they would shoot the needles at me if I ever got close to them. I don’t know how far the needles will fly, but if I ever encounter a porcupine, I will stay at least 15 feet—make that 20 feet— from it.)
    I answered the Major’s question with an entirely truthful statement. “More than I care to know,” I said, and I attempted to direct the conversation in a more pleasant direction by adding, “I’ll bet you come across some very interesting wildflowers during your hunts.”
     “The porcupine is an interesting animal,” Peabody responded. “The Spanish call it puerco espino—spiny pig—but it was the French who named it porc d’epine. The word ‘porcupine’ is a direct descendent of the French term.” The Major continued to give me unwanted information. “Baby porcupines are called ‘porqupets.’ Don’t you find that interesting?”
     No, I didn’t find it interesting. My interest in any aspect of the animal was limited—to the point of being non-existent. “Yes, Major,” I answered, “I find it fascinating. Now about those wildflowers . . . .”
    Peabody would not be distracted. “A group of porcupines is called a ‘prickle.’ A prickle of porcupines! What a great expression. The English language is full of such inventive descriptions: a pod of whales, a gaggle of geese, a murder of crows, an exultation of larks. More recently, new grouping terms have been coined: an incompetence of bureaucrats, a posturing of senators and a thievery of representatives come to mind.”
    “They shoot needles at you, don’t they?” I said.
    “Porcupines?” the Major asked. “Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. They can be quite painful. Let me tell you about it.”
    “Wildflowers,” I said, showing a touch of panic. “You were going to tell me about the forest flowers you can find in the fall.”
    “You’ve met Mike Stoychoff?” the Major asked, completely disregarding my attempt to change the subject. “I don’t believe you’ve met his hunting buddy Amos. Well, I was hunting with them when Amos got swatted by a porky. Not swatted . . . I mean the porcupine shot its quills at him—from 15 or 20 feet, as I recall. Amos had quills in his head, in his ear, in his cheek—all along the left side of his face.
    “A porcupine’s quill is built with lots of barbs along its shank. Like arrowheads, the barbs all point in the same direction. As they dry, the barbs collapse into the shank of the quill. The collapse of the barbs has the effect of moving the quill forward inside the flesh. If not removed before they begin to dry, the results can be terribly ugly and nasty.”
    Peabody noticed my shudder.
    “Yes,” he said, “as you can imagine, Amos was in pain, and it was going to be more painful. We had to pull the quills out, and it was like removing fishhooks by jerking them out backward.”
    I shuddered again.
    “I tied a rope around Amos’s neck and pulled it close to the base of a nearby maple tree. I looped the rope around the tree so tightly that Amos couldn’t move his head. Then I laid down on top of him and, while he yelled in agony, Mike pulled the quills out of his head with pliers.”
    I was aghast. “Good heavens!” I exclaimed. “The poor man! Did he get proper medical attention? Did he live through it? Were the pliers sterilized? Were there any after-effects?”
    Before the Major could answer, the clock struck midnight. Peabody extended his hand. I gave him the check and left. I did not want to hear any more about Amos’s encounter with the porcupine. And I was not looking forward to the following month’s trip to Mike’s cabin.

    A few weeks later Mike and Amos were hunting along a creek bottom near Thunder Mountain in Oconto County. In that part of Wisconsin the ruffed-grouse cycle was at its nadir. Only two birds had flushed, and they were heard but not seen.
“Well, Amos,” Mike said, “it’s time for us to call it a morning. Let’s have lunch and take a snooze. We’ll try again this afternoon.” The hunters turned and walked back toward Mike’s cabin. Amos was in the lead, with Mike close behind. Then it happened. Amos saw movement on the ground and immediately recognized a porky lumbering toward a tree. He ran to it.
     Amos had a purpose. He did not like porcupines. He intended to grab it by the neck and give it a good shaking. In the past, every time he’d tried this, the porky had swatted him and won the fight. This time the dog believed he surely would win.

Galen Winter’s favorite Major stories have been collected and anthologized in The Best of the Major, available for $25 (plus shipping) from 800-685-7962; www.shootingsportsman.com.