SAM
In the beginning, Sam would take off at some point during almost every hunt. His departures were completely random, and not unlike those scenes in science fiction movies when a ship makes the jump to hyperspace. He’d blast off in a straight line at top speed, turn into a liver-and-white streak, and then disappear.
Sometimes he would come back after a few minutes. Other times, I’d find him on the steps of our farmhouse, waiting for me when I got home. Even after he outgrew his random bolting, Sam never accepted the fact that he couldn’t catch birds once they were airborne. His worst offense came one November afternoon when I took him on a short hunt behind the house.
The best cover was in the creekbottom, and we were almost there when I heard the whine of an engine above and behind us. I looked up to see a single-engine plane passing overhead, several hundred feet up. Sam saw it, too—and was gone.
The fields were fall-plowed, making it easy for me to track Sam’s progress until he was a tiny white speck against the black dirt. I yelled. I blew the whistle. I may have thrown my hat. Sam stopped only after a three-quarter-mile chase because he ran into the line fence. Otherwise, he would have kept after that plane until it landed.
On his way back, as I was about to start yelling at him again, Sam bumped