Arather pleasant morning I would say, particularly for Mississippi with June coaxing May to pick up its pace along the trail. The thermometer in my truck sat solidly at 52. The woods were quiet, mosquitoes cooperative. I primed the pan of the 20-gauge fowling piece and eased to the peak of a ridge I knew well. Buckskin leggings and long-hunter shirt and center-seam moccasins were the perfect attire: silent and protective and proper. Squirrels were my objective.
One obliged first thing after I gained that peak and sat at the base of a hickory. He was scooting along in the leaves, going to a destination that not even he showed signs of knowing. On the roots of one oak, on the trunk of another, up and down a bush. Bouncing and skittering this way and that with his tail twirling and never stopping to accommodate a shot. And then he was gone. Still, even in
