Quail were Golly's only game and that's a good thing. Grouse or pheasants would have made him a nutcase. Once he locked on point there was no self-relocation. We speculated that, at some time during Golly's formative years, Gary had had some harsh words with the dog concerning staunchness--perhaps over some of those "Mexican" quail. In any event, if Gary wanted Golly to move on from a rabbit or a skunk the dog had pointed, he'd have a fight on his hands. I've seen Gary lead the big screwball half a mile at heel to keep the dog from going back to the scene of some unfortunate find.

Doc was a snapshooter who liked to dust his birds right off the top of palmettos.

Golly was a product of his place and time, an era in which Dixie bird hunters had access to dozens of wild coveys every weekend of a long season. Backyard breeders gained regional reputations for their "meat dogs," most of which slept under the porch all summer while blue-blooded trial competitors went to Canada to be trained on sharptails.

After stoking up on grits and gravy, cracker bird hunters and their dogs launched leisurely excursions into pine flatwoods and wire-grassed, red oak ridges riding some of the damnedest jeep contraptions imaginable. Forgetful gunners spent their midday break treating chigger bites (how anyone could forget those cussed critters, I'll never know) while repellent-doused hunters snoozed in the soothing shade. The bird dogs, staked or chained to slash pines, napped on pine straw next to their overturned water dishes.

Gunners, gun dogs and wild bobwhites were as integral and complete as anything in nature can be, and Golly staunch on a single was a perfect picture of the day, frozen in time. Such times are gone from the Old South forever, replaced by urban sprawl and pen-raised bird-shooting operations.

I liked it better the way it was but those of us who fancy wild bird hunting must either take to the Texas, Kansas or Oklahoma hills or adapt to commercial shooting preserve hunts. Golly and his boss, along with Doc and his dogs, were the perfect wingshooting associates for my pointers and me. The shorthairs I have followed since Golly have never failed to remind me of him and his times and, though I'd rather not have gotten so darned old, I am awfully glad I didn't miss out on those days.