First Birds at Winters

Opening day, Runnels County. You don't come to a season like this — you come to the land.

Four of us, the same faces that make a season feel like coming home. Birds on the strap, the double barrel watching the flat horizon, the crane cap right there beside the morning's take.

The first hour is always the best lie. Birds pour off the roost and across the field edges faster than anybody can swing on them, and every man is sure he's about to shoot a limit before the coffee goes cold.

Then come the small, perfect things — the gray and buff of a mourning dove in your hand, the exact color of the land itself.

By midday it's honest work. Heat coming off the ground, birds picking their moments, long waits broken by a single dove that shows up from nowhere and makes you earn it.

Good country, good friends, good fun. The season is open. The flyway is calling. See you in the field.

— The West Texas Drifter, September 1, Winters, Texas