By Brooks Potter
Long a member of El Rabudo, Scott was an investment banker of some acclaim.
“Look, Bob is lined up to park almost $15 million into this deal and, well, he’s my new best friend,” Scott said.
Chuckling, I well understood the jest.
Okays from at least two members were required for a guest to shoot at El Rabudo. The membership was finicky at best and didn’t cotton so much to outsiders. I told Scott I’d make the calls.
Assured Bob was a “duck hunter,” we gave Scott the green light, but the ante was a case of ’72 Stag’s Leap and a fresh box of Castro’s finest. A deal is a deal—is a deal.
Scott acquiesced. Had to.
Generally, we’d all arrive at the club not later than the cocktail hour on Fridays for a Saturday morning shoot. After a few brain darts and catch-up convo, we’d relax into the place. Proper dinners around eight.
Bob arrived about right on time. Well exceeding the unwritten speed limit rule, he left a billowing dust cloud behind him on the club’s dirt access road. He rolled up in his polished ’82 Mercedes 300D—the diesel that goes 0-60 in about a beer and a cigarette.
Though introductions were made with smiles all around, Bob was being sized-up right out of the chute.
After a hearty duck club dinner and more than a step into inebriation, we gathered for Friday-night blind assignments, made lottery-style from a squeaky old bingo cage. This was tradition. Short of an impeccable waterfowling dossier, there were no bingo balls for guests. They’d get parked where it worked. We weren’t assholean, we just had our way of doing things. Welcome to the club.
As the evening wore on, Bob got a little too liquefied and his stock started to tumble. Leaning on my elbow, I endured the yarn spin about his many waterfowling adventures. There were certain implausibilities. I shot Scott a stink-eye. He seemed to skulk like my Labrador after eating half of my daughter’s birthday cake. Enough, I thought.
“Hey Bob,” I said, “you’ll be in the special guest blind tomorrow.”
And that was that.
Mornings were pretty ritualistic at El Rabudo. The first one into the main house would start a fire in the fireplace, get Joe DiMaggio’s Mr. Coffee spooled up and put the frosted Sara Lee cinnamon rolls in the oven. I wandered in a bit after five to several already up and moving around. I poured myself a cup of coffee.
Bob stood warming himself in front of the fireplace. As a general premise, I avoid all conversation until I’ve had my coffee, but I offered an enthusiastic “Good Morning Bob,” in the spirit of cordiality.
Best foot forward.
He looked to be out of an Abercrombie and Fitch display window. The right-off-the-rack tin cloth duck pants were so stiff, he stood like he had a corncob up his ass. I was embarrassed for the guy, but quickly snapped out of it.
After giving Bob the rundown on procedures and protocols, it was time to shoot some ducks. Scott put Bob and gear into the small jon boat and ferried him out to the special guest blind. Once Bob was situated, Scott motored off into the dark.
Established in the 1940’s by two Angelenos, El Rabudo [The Pintail] was a duck club located just north of the Mexican border in California’s Imperial Valley. Situated at the southern end of the Pacific Flyway, this was pintail country—the most prolific in the U.S. In the day, the skeins of sprigs would almost blot out the sun as they pushed south to the estuarias of Mexico.
At shooting hour, there were birds in the air. After a half-dozen flybys, the first flight committed on a long, slow final. Just let ‘em come. But for the skilled soft chirp of a pintail whistle, all was to be quiet and still.
The silence was abruptly broken by a highball baying through a mallard call. It was Bob. Of course the flight went flaps-up and reckoned to another zip code. Apoplectic, the club’s patriarch yelled at the top of his lungs: “There’s no fuck’n mallards here!!” Indeed, the closest migrating mallard was some 300 miles north in the rice fields of California’s central valley.
For reasons forever unknown, the special guest blind was a magnet for the club’s coot population. And Bob shot at his fair share, sluicing a number with decoys as backstops. I’d had a feeling.
This was a no bueno situation.
Scott smartly motored across the slick water to the special guest blind. I’m not sure what was said, but no more shots were fired from Bob’s locale. Scott was in a delicate waltz between the wrath of the membership and the eight-figure dicker. The silver-tongued devil knew he could manage.
With enough nice birds taken, the hunt was called at about 11 o’clock.
We dropped our birds at the cleaning shack where Miguel—overseer of the club’s operation—would clean and package. He looked at the brace of coots as though he’d seen a ghost. Scott made quick eye contact and Miguel took the cue, “Ahh, un buen día Señor!”
Out of earshot of Bob, Scott was vociferated through clenched teeth. He had it coming. Having been one of the approving members of Bob’s guest appearance, I made myself scarce.
The air was knife-cutting thick at breakfast as Bob effused about his fantastic shoot.
“Hey, you guys wanna keep my ducks?”
Not sure a coot is a duck. I think probably not.
After a handshake or two, ol’ Bob rolled out in his polished Mercedes, trailing a cloud of dust.
It was never revealed who shoved the coot up under the passenger seat of Bob’s prized ride. By the time the source of the stench was located, the deal had already closed.
