When Spiders Talk

Photo courtesy D. Humburg

The old wooden duck blind has a hole in its side where the critters have gnawed through the wood and it leans a little to the south. Flood water has lifted and shifted it a bit over time although the anchors still hold it firmly in place. And the racoons like it having made it their communal latrine; piles of droppings filled with seeds and crayfish remains scattered about. No one hunts it anymore but it’s easy to remember a day when decoys bobbed out front, mallards arriving orange feet down, the smell of hot coffee poured from a thermos and pipe tobacco wafting through the air.

Every year the old man threatens to tidy it up a bit and to give it another try but never does. There are better places to hunt on the marsh yet he wonders, maybe the reason ducks no longer come to this spot is because there are no hunters. Maybe it’s "esse est percipi" (to be is to be perceived), a rendering of the question, if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

His theory - things happen only when someone is there to see it, hear it, or remember it. Or maybe it’s less complicated. The ducks don’t come because the hunter doesn’t come, and the hunter stopped coming because of his secret. So it was a surprise when he told me we were going to hunt the old blind. Like one of those dilapidated farmhouses you see in the distance, I always viewed it as a dysfunctional relic biding its time until the forces of nature decide to use this earthly space differently, waiting to be washed away for good during one of the big spring floods.

It took us a while to gather up enough grass and willow branches to cover up the front of the blind and by the time we heard the first shooting in the distance, we had created a fairly good hide. The old man using a prop waded out with a dozen timeworn wooden decoys in tow, scattered them a bit, looked at their deployment with satisfaction and returned to his station in the blind near the dog’s chute.

He scanned the sky as far as his sight would allow, but the expression on his face told me he was looking for something more than ducks. He was focused on something further away, something deep behind his clear blue-gray eyes, caught in the desiderium for a time and friend not forgotten.

He began reciting a story mostly to himself, mostly exactly the same as I’ve heard before, best I can remember. Maybe a new detail or something omitted, not wanting to burden me with the repeat but nevertheless compelled to repeat it one more time. And as I listened, I wondered what parts were untold. The pieces that make it more than just a story. The details that make it worth remembering and retelling. Some joy or sorrow, a shrouded secret or maybe a confession that lay within.

I wanted to know more but I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to belittle the story with sterile facts, truths, or an unwanted realization. You don’t suggest colors to an artist, notes to a musician, or words to a poet. You let them create and receive their gift as presented, even if it seems imperfect or incomplete.

The old man never stopped watching the sky as he spoke, prairie grass brushing against the bill of his cap, tiny spiders creeping upward at eye level between blades and stems, listening, transforming the words and mist of his breath into silk. And when the story ended, and in a moment of silent reflection, the spiders without hesitation or polite consideration aimed their spinnerets upward and extruded threads of gossamer. One by one, as if by command, we watched as each was snatched by the warm air of the morning sun, ballooning upward and downwind, quickly disappearing from our view.

I glanced at the old man and saw him look down at his shotgun, then at the floor of the blind with its hardened mud and mixed debris and I heard a stifled titter. He shot a mischievous glance my way and I smiled back. The mood of my hunt had changed. Dipped into his story, coated in my own, I was now part of the lore of a worn-out duck blind.

I want to tell you the story but I can’t, it’s not mine to tell. You’ll have to wait your turn. You’ll have to put in the time and effort to be there in the marsh, enduring whatever, standing in the weathered blind, waiting for the ducks and tale to arrive at their own pace, if ever.

Others know the story. Facing stoically into the breeze the old wooden decoys heard it. So did the eagle and the harrier as they glided by but I don’t think they cared much. I know the kingfisher was listening as he hovered nearby, rattling off a sarcastic comment or two. But none will ever tell it, at least not in the way the old man did, except for maybe the spiders.

Not far off I could hear the subtle muffled trumpets and coos of the swans. Effigies of gentle eloquence and the perfect audience for the newly dispersed spiders, their silk wrapped around nearby stems of millet. The swans listened attentively, respectfully, and in a pocket of silence I heard them clap the water with approval as they rose above the marsh over the grass and into our view banking to the north, passing above us by only feet, our presence acknowledged as they flew by.

I don’t know if the swans shared the story. Certainly, they weren’t gossips, were they? They’re not crows, after all. But someone talked because later in the morning a wave of ducks moved south, several groups arriving in our quiet little corner, working the decoys, approaching with orange feet down.

Later when we gathered our gear to head out I could see a corroded brass head of a shotgun shell squashed and lodged into the dried mud in the bottom cracks of the blind. I squinted a bit and wondered if any cremains were still present or had they all been washed away with floods and time. I grabbed my leather duck strap, balanced by the weight of four mallard drakes and said goodbye. You see, things only exist when someone is there to see it, hear it, or remember it, and in the future I’ll watch for the for the spiders. They’re real talkers.