Scratch that itch

Hunting season opened last week and it didn’t take long for me to get my fix even though I had forgotten what it was.

I told myself it was simply the act of hunting, following the dogs, the weight of a shotgun in my hands, walking the prairie at first light, anticipating a shot. I had looked forward to all that for months. I didn’t need to shoot a limit, haven’t needed to do so for some time. I just needed to be out there.

Or so I thought.

What I actually needed was all that and one thing more: I needed to shoot a bird and watch it fall. Just one bird.

It rose from the sagebrush where the dogs...