Darcy Lohmiller: A SUDDEN GUST OF WIND • Cleaver Magazine

Darcy Lohmiller
A SUDDEN GUST OF WIND

We step out of the truck into a bright October sun and a howling wind. In the field we have chosen to hunt, thick stalks of grass flatten and shudder against the gusts. Our two hunting dogs welcome the wind. It creates whorls of scent from all directions and kicks up dust in explosive bursts, and they clench their eyes against the sharp grass, snortle and snuffle the ground and air. Between their panting breath and mindless desire, Dan’s whistle is a thin reed of sound in the wind. Unhampered by our control, the dogs are feral predators chasing the blood and breath of the game birds hidden in the field.

It only adds to the general chaos of a windy day in central Montana. In this basin, the wind is purposeful, sometimes malevolent, as it races through the coulees and veers around splintered fences and livestock troughs. But we haven’t hunted in weeks, so we push past the wind. We try to get the dogs to stop for water, but they are in a frenzy, their noses driving them past basic needs of thirst and rest. Dan shouts something about the dogs, but all I hear is my jacket flapping. I shake my head and he shouts again, gesturing at a hill, so I march on behind him. I stop to blow my streaming nose, and he waits with barely disguised impatience. We are not enjoying this hunt.

When the dogs disappear over the hill, Dan checks his GPS and watches the numbers climb with the dogs’ steady run. He has given up trying to direct the dogs. The GPS in his hand is all that connects us to them now. I hear it beep over the wind, signaling a dog on point. 400 yards. We bend our heads and move toward the compass point. Wind gusts fight me while I climb the hill with straining legs and ragged breath. My ears ache with the sharp bite of the wind and I am about to stop when we finally see the dogs on the horizon. Dixie is a small white spot ahead, her tail a stick raised in the air. Lily’s feathered tail is a flag whipping behind her. Butts in the air, noses to the ground, their bodies quiver with a hunting dog’s bred-in ability to freeze when it smells a game bird’s musky fear. Shotguns raised, we walk toward them.

Game birds are prey to nearly everything: foxes and coyotes, hawks, falcons, owls and eagles, people with shotguns. They use two strategies to escape a predator: freeze or flee. Biologists call this the Optimal Escape Theory. Birds will remain still until the danger of staying is equal to the danger of fleeing. Freezing is costly to birds. They expend energy watching for shadows, listening for tiny changes in sounds. The steady crunching through dry grass, then the stillness before the predator pounces. They tremble in the grass, their wings tensed and poised for a signal—another bird’s tilt of the head, a chirp or flutter. Then the entire covey takes flight in an explosion of wings and cackling that has the added advantage of confusing a predator.

These calculations may work for a pouncing coyote, but they do not account for the force and distance of a gun. If the birds and dogs remain still, we can get within range before the birds decide to flush. If we shoot well, one or two will fall.

I rarely do. Dan has tried to teach me to focus on one bird, to track its flight with the gun barrel, and judge the distance in my sight before I shoot. But I am always caught off guard, startled by the flurry of black wings in the sky. By the time I find my aim, the birds are safely beyond my reach.

And the wind changes everything. The birds are nervous and can no longer judge the right moment to fly. The wind blocks the sounds of approaching prey and their own chirps of alarm, creates disorienting shadows, disperses scent. Because they can’t accurately assess the risk, they are less likely to wait. The covey explodes from the grass before we can reach it.

My startled squawk makes no sense to Dan. I know the birds will flush as I am walking toward them. I have seen it happen many times, and I am ready for that moment.

Life erupts in front of me and I am always surprised.

Today, Dan doesn’t smile. We watch the black flapping wings disappear in the distance. We worked hard to find this one covey, and we are weary of battling the wind and irritated with each other.

“Let’s find another place,” he shouts. Guns and heads lowered, we walk back to the truck, the dogs still scouring the fields for more scent.

The wind affects the decisions of humans as well as birds. Studies have explored how the wind affects voting decisions. In high wind, people seek safety and are less likely to vote for initiatives or new candidates. In low wind, they seek change and risk. Initiatives pass, unlikely candidates are chosen.

The truck is a welcome refuge. The dogs leap into the backseat and flop down, tongues lolling on the floor as they pant heavily in the sudden stillness of the closed truck. Our breathing becomes more even; our bodies quiet and relax.

We decide to find a more protected field, someplace where the birds will hold. Dan checks the weather while I drive. The wind is forecast to continue through the afternoon, with gusts up to forty mph. The truck shudders with each gust, two tons of metal buffeted by a force stronger than machines. I have seen photos where high winds have uprooted trees, overturned semis, and crumpled buildings. Wind is unpredictable, uncontrollable, and can be devastating.

At an intersection of highways, I stop and wait for traffic. To the left, a small white truck inches its way along the road with a long line of traffic behind it. The headlights look odd—too many or too few, at strange angles. I look to the right and wait for the last car to pass, then look again to the left and judge the slow speed of the truck. As I turn onto the highway, I face the white truck and odd tangle of headlights behind him.

An abrupt movement behind the small white truck and black pieces explode into the air. The pieces coalesce into the shape of a motorcycle with a man holding the handlebars. The shape soars off the road and crashes into the ground.

“Oh no,” I breathe. Dan looks up.

“Pull over,” he says. I ease the truck into a gravel turnout. The dust is still settling. The event probably lasts three seconds.

Dan calls 911 while the line of motorcycles pulls over and riders in leather jackets and heavy boots jog up the road. A man begins directing traffic while cars slow and passengers strain to see the accident. Two young men run to the fence line and kneel in the grass where I can see the victim’s legs encased in black leather, his heavy boots pointing towards the sky. One of them begins CPR, pumping his arms in a steady rhythm.

I shake my head. “I don’t think he’s going to make it.”

“He might be all right. They can do CPR until the ambulance arrives.”

But I saw his flimsy human body propelled into the air until gravity and the steel machine he held thrust him into the hard dirt. I felt the silence in the billowing dust left behind.

We pull out and join the slow line of traffic.

Dan folds up his map. “Let’s just go home.”

While Dan sleeps against the window, I maneuver through winding roads while the wind continues to howl. I keep seeing leather and steel rise into the air then plunge to the earth. See the man’s leather pants and boots from beneath the rescuer pumping his chest. See the shape of the man on top of the motorcycle high in the air above the truck before he is flung to the side of the road.

The next day, I search for information about the accident and find a news article announcing the man’s death. His face smiles at me from the photo.

Months later, an investigator calls us to get our report. Did I see the motorcyclist passing the small white truck? Did I see him in the lane heading towards me? Did I see another motorcyclist beside him?

I try to explain how quickly everything happened, how difficult it was to remember any details. But I vividly recall how the motorcyclist flew into the air, suspended high above us, the violence of his fall to earth, the long stillness afterwards.

“I will never forget it,” I tell the investigator.

But the investigator doesn’t care about this moment. He wants to know what happened on the road. They are analyzing police reports and gathering witnesses. I am a witness, part of the puzzle of this man’s death. They are looking for fault.

The motorcyclist’s speed indicated he had floored it. He had less than two seconds to calculate his own speed against the oncoming traffic, the distance he could cover, the effect the wind would have on that distance. I can imagine his gloved hands at the handles, impatient with the small white truck in front of him, tired from battling the crosswinds. He accelerated into the fury of the wind, the engine screaming as he began to pass. Perhaps a gust hit him, and he lost his nerve. Convinced him to release the throttle and veer back to the safety of his own lane where he collided with the motorcyclist beside him.

I can still see the black leather exploding into the air, stark against the brilliant blue sky. Then the man on the motorcycle high in the air, his hands still on the handlebars, his life about to empty in the dirt-packed field. I wonder if he saw the road and cars sparkling below him on that beautiful sunlit day, and those of us witnessing his mistake. Maybe the earth swirled so fast he never realized what it cost him to pass that truck.

Did he see me watching his rise and fall? Did he hear my startled shout when he exploded into the air? Did he know his shape would be etched in my mind? The shape of a man in his last moment of flight before he was shot down to earth.

Darcy Lohmiller’s essays have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review Online, Minerva Rising’s The Keeping Room, The Flyfish Journal, and The Drake. Her work can be found at darcylohmiller.com. She lives and writes in southwest Montana.