pheasant

For me, though, the essence of Heartland Lodge was captured in the final image of our last day’s hunt, a perfect blue-sky December day spent in the field with guide Terry Abney: the sudden blaze of sunset on a cackling rooster’s wings, the gun’s thump against my shoulder, and out there beyond the dogs, right where the hillside falls away, the sight of golden feathers bursting like a firecracker and the big bird tumbling, tumbling down.