Walter was going duck hunting for bear. It wasn’t easy. It was much simpler, and less risky, to hunt bear with bullets. Walter didn’t go for simple. He liked life to be complex. Hunting was a thing of beauty. Stalking an animal, or waiting in hiding for one to appear, and killing it was a joy passed down from the beginning of time. But, if you do it long enough, it gets boring. You have to reinvent the sport. Make it more interesting.

It was the same way with marathoners Walter had read about. Not professional runners, just folks in it for the joy. They had to change things once in a while to make it more interesting. Maybe run a race dressed as a clown, or Elvis, or in a business suit carrying a briefcase, or in a nude suit, or in full combat gear. That last one was fun if you never had to do it for real, in the military.

Walter’s solution, his way of keeping things interesting, was to hunt with ducks. It was his art so to speak, just like his wife had her art, painting with kits from the hobby store. The numbers told her what colors to use and where. It made her feel good. Made her feel like she was more than just a part-time waitress at a diner with two kids nearing junior high. Duck hunting made Walter feel like more than just a maintenance man who shot things on the weekends for fun.

Duck hunting required a special gun. Walter carried a muzzle loader designed by a craftsman who catered to the needs of modern duck hunters. Flint locks were preferred. Walter’s duck gun had been expensive, but worth it. The kids could get braces another year, or not at all. Walter’s teeth were a bit uneven and had always stuck out a bit. It never bothered him. If anyone teased him about his teeth while he was growing up he decked them. Walter had always been big for his age, and strong from all the chores he was made to do by his parents, like chopping down trees in the middle of the night and hauling them home from public parks and private lawns where they once stood, to fuel his family’s wood stove.

The muzzle loader had a wide bore, wide enough to fit a duck. When Walter first tried duck hunting, he had bought ducks from local farmers and live produce stores. That got expensive quick as it could take more than one duck to take down a deer unless you got off a perfect shot. Bears were even harder. Walter and his wife had taken to raising ducks in the backyard. Their kids helped with the feeding and care, but got tearful during hunting season when many of the birds disappeared. So far Walter had been able to persuade them that their pets had fallen victim to local predators: hawks, foxes, dogs, the strange man who lived alone around the corner. 

In order to hunt, Walter would drive to the mountains, then hike deep into the woods. He carried his ducks in a basket with a lid. He kept the basket strapped to his back. The bills of the ducks were tied shut to keep them quiet and allow for greater penetration. The wings of the ducks were taped close against their bodies to aid with aerodynamics. On his waist belt hung a powder horn, a container for wadding, a kit for butchering animals, a canteen, and a Scooby Doo lunch pail. Walter would find a clearing. He would place bait in the clearing to attract a bear. The type of bait depended on what was available. Berries. A salmon. A picnic basket full of goodies. An open bottle of malt liquor. Experience had taught him that bears were drawn to the scent of a variety of consumables. After placing the bait, Walter would conceal himself on one side of the clearing and carefully load his gun. First he poured gunpowder into the barrel. Next came wadding. Then the duck. Getting the duck in wasn’t easy, even with a ramrod. With his gun ready, Walter waited.

Sometimes he waited all day with no luck. On other days he was lucky. His luck was with him today. A bear came out of the woods sniffing the air. It headed towards the bait. Walter did not let the hat and tie sway him none nor the fact that it was walking upright. He had learned that bears could be masters of disguise. Evolution. The laws of survival. It was a constant race between hunter and prey. The bear reached down with its paw and poked at the picnic basket set in the grass. Walter squeezed the trigger. The hammer holding the flint slammed down. A spark lit the pan with its small amount of powder. There was a flash, an explosion and a cloud of smoke. The duck flew from the barrel at twelve hundred feet per second.

The bear looked up from the sandwich it had grabbed from the basket. The bear’s eyes widened as the gagged duck shot toward him. The duck’s eyes were filled with terror. The bear opened it’s jaws as if to say, “What the fuck?” That’s assuming the bear could talk, an unlikely event, but not unheard of. More likely it was a growl that died in the bear’s throat when that duck ripped into its chest. The bear collapsed.

Walter reloaded with speed and precision in case a second shot was needed. The bear raised itself on its forepaws. Walter fired again.

His children would be missing two ducks when he got home. “Skunks this time,” he’d tell him. The meat would fill their bellies for months. Fried, barbecued, baked. Beats beef in a burger or ham on a sandwich or in a stir-fry. The skin would be sold, as would the gallbladder. The cash would be useful, maybe even enough for a down payment on braces for one of the kids. The hat and tie he kept for himself.