On the screw-on top of the flask was engraved From R. to R.C. The Colonel offered the flask to the boatman who looked at him, at the flask, and said, “What is it?”
“English grappa.”
“I’ll try it.”
He took a long drink of it; the type of drink peasants take from a flask.
“Thank you.”
“Did you have good shooting?”
“I killed four ducks. The dog found three cripples shot by other people.”
“Why did you shoot?”
“I’m sorry that I shot. I shot in anger.”
I have done that myself sometimes, the Colonel thought, and did not ask him what the anger was about.
“I am sorry they did not fly better.”
“Shit,” the Colonel said. “That’s the way things go.”
The Colonel was watching the movement the dog made in the high grass and sedge. Suddenly he saw him stop; he was quite still. Then he pounced. It was a high leap and a dive forward and down.
“He has a cripple,” he said to the boatman.
“Bobby,” the boatman called. “Bring. Bring.”
The sedge moved and the dog came out with the mallard drake in his jaws. The gray white neck and the green head were swaying up and down as a snake’s might move. It was a movement without hope.
The boatman put the boat in sharp for shore.
