Simon Reinhold - Into the Wild: Quail Hunts, Verdant Valleys, and Hidden Graves [7 min listen]

Voices of the Countryside

We pay a high price for the privilege of getting lost in the back country - but is it worth it?

I was not new to it - it was my third day hunting quail in Arizona so I knew what I should expect, but the frigid air that hit me was a surprise. I had never had to travel in the small hours before. It was necessary to get where we were going and leave enough of the early morning for hunting.

Joe appeared out of the night. His Ford F150 truck, fully tricked, crept into the parking lot off the interstate. Nothing that big should move that quietly in the dark.

Joe’s wife had been up early, and she had been busy. “That’s bacon, eggs and French toast”. He handed over breakfast. There was a confident air about Joe that made him almost certain of finding his quarry and getting home, no matter what happened; no matter how deep in the back country he went. His mountaineering days were numbered when his boy was born, and when his little girl came along, they were finished. Hunting and guiding had taken over.

When he bow hunts in these hills for Mule deer he wears a .45 on his hip – “you never know who you'll meet out here” he explained – but that extra precaution isn’t necessary when quail hunting with a shotgun. He had what the grey, middle-level management of the mundane, bill-paying desk job he’d left behind would have described as ‘transferable skills’. No manager was needed for Joe; he was his own performance review and he had the only key indicators that mattered in the dog box of the truck.