My brother Reid is much excited. He has the perfect present for me, and he can’t wait till Christmas to tell me about it. “Priscilla,” he phones, “I’m taking you duck hunting on the Santee-Cooper for your Christmas present. It is wonderful—so beautiful, and you have never seen such duck shooting in all your life. Just ask Tasa [Reid’s wife].” Reid’s talent for hyperbole is, even for a Buckley, well developed, so I take the last with a grain of salt. He also lets drop that the Santee-Cooper is an hour-and-a-half ride from his home in Camden, South Carolina, which means we will have to leave “a mite early.”
As the days roll by, that “mite early” throbs dully like an aching tooth. It won’t go away. Reid, as a matter of course, rises at an ungodly hour, and a ninety-minute drive with Reid can be a long ninety minutes. Not that he’s not a lovely man, but Reid’s conveyances are by Travelall out of Land Rover, camouflage-green hunting vehicles with
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