Two things stand out about that day: 1) I learned what a “bro-friend” was. 2) I learned that I had one.
OK, wait, one more thing stands out: 3) The shovel. We had to take the shovel. On a duck hunt.
Who does that? Well, Wintersteen.
It was to be a duck hunt like many others Keith Wintersteen and I had shared, and would share, along the free-flowing trout waters of Crow Creek a couple of miles this side of the Wyoming state line near Beulah.
It is a gorgeous piece of landscape, busy with kingfishers and brown thrashers and red-winged blackbirds, overflown by hawks and eagles and mallards and Canada geese and sharp-tailed grouse and the occasional squadron of turkey vultures. And when the weather turns icy and most shallow waters nearby freeze up, the open water of the creek makes an enticing landing spot for waterfowl, especially the mallard ducks we were after that afternoon.
The ducks were out feeding in small, irrigated cornfields between the creek and Spearfish. But they’d be back near sundown, and we’d be waiting near the decoys, as we had before.
We were preparing for the hunt out front of Keith’s home on the grounds of McNenny State Fish Hatchery, where he then worked as assistant manager. Wearing waders, we were loading up our decoys and shotguns and shells and snacks and binoculars and Thermoses, and that fine old wooden duck call that had been given to Keith by his wife Jeana’s grandfather, Herbie, and given to me by Keith.
We were preparing and, as was Keith’s tendency, over-preparing for the hike through the snow along the creek to a spot-on private land downstream.
And the shovel? Good question. It was something new, even for Keith.
“What’s that for?” I asked. “You figuring you’ll have to dig me out of a snowbank?”
Wintersteen grinned: “Snow fort,” he said. “When things get slow, I’m going to build a snow fort.”
Well, things do tend to get slow at some point on a duck hunt, once you get the decoys set and find a place to hide. There can be a lot of waiting. And for me, that means a lot of snacks and sipping and snoozing and maybe some studying the landscape with the binoculars.
Keith preferred to stay a little busier than that. He was always on the move, always up to something. Usually it was something creative, frequently instructive, often entertaining. And with some decent snowbanks sculpted up from a recent storm, he had the natural materials for some serious snow-fort construction.
He was outlining the blueprint options when Jeana and their daughter, Kelsey, strolled up wearing warm coats and big smiles.
“Hey brofriends,” Kelsey called. “Where you going this time?”
Bro-friends? That was a new one to me. But Keith had obviously heard it before. He raised his eyebrows, cocked his head and lifted his shoulders in a shrug.
Apparently, Keith and I were “brofriends,” which means we were having a “bromance.” Both were new words, to me. And, as I would find out later when I did a little research, both were part of a new set of “friend” descriptions that, in this case, meant a very close friendship between two men, with a closeness that approached, um, yeah, well, some sort of, uh, love.
But let’s not linger on that. A guy could get uncomfortable, as both Keith and I got, which only made Kelsey’s smile that much bigger.
So, Keith and I hustled around to get things — including the snow shovel — loaded up before Kelsey had a chance to further explain our relationship. When we finally trundled off through the snow like a pair of pack mules, she and her mom watched us go with delighted smiles.
We didn’t mention the bro-friends thing on the hunt. We were too busy setting up the decoys, revamping an existing blind and testing the heat of the coffee (his) and tea (mine). Oh, I was warming up on the duck call, too.
I’m a lousy caller. But I can’t help myself. I have to blow the call. Keith never seemed to mind. Process matters in duck hunting. And calls are part of the process. And the old Vit Glodo that Herbie purchased from Herter’s was an especially important part. Besides, I usually suspended my raspy racket when the ducks flew near. I didn’t want to frighten them or unsettle any hunters in the area.
“You sound pretty good today,” Keith often said, lying with admirable aplomb. “I think you had that one drake interested.”
Despite my bursts of caterwauling that day, a few mallards came in. And we ended up shooting one or two. But things did get slow. And Keith did build a snow fort. A really good one. I suppose if we wanted to, we could have labeled it a duck blind. And it would have worked as that, too.
But we had an actual blind nearby, for the hunting. The snow fort was for the simple fun of it — an excavation dedicated to the adolescent joy at being alive and outdoors with a friend, whatever term of friendship you might use.
Keith was always looking for the joy to be found in the outdoors, and ways to share it. That’s what made him such a good mentor to kids and other beginning hunters and anglers during his 35 years with the state Game, Fish & Parks Department.
That’s what made him such a good friend to so many and such an inspiring instructor in outdoor education.
And that’s why his sudden death last Friday, apparently from a heart attack, cut so deeply into the feelings of so many beyond the broken-hearted members of his family. Keith was so irrepressibly vigorous that he seemed somehow impervious to the years and physical ailments. Even at 60, with some gray in the hair and trademark mustache, he was still more kid than man in the way he gleefully explored the outdoors. And being eight years older, I assumed someday Keith would be helping me in and out of a fishing canoe, a duck blind or a pair of waders.
I was stunned when Jeana’s dad, Wayne, called Saturday morning with the bad news. How could Keith have died the night before, when I had spoken to him just hours earlier? I had called to get some information on snapping turtles in the Black Hills for a young Rapid City Journal reporter, Arielle Zionts, who wanted to go looking for them.
Keith loved an “assignment” like that, and came up with a series of ideas, beginning close to home with the ponds out at Outdoor Campus West.
“We’ve got plenty of snappers,” he said. "I counted nine of them one time in the front pond. And you’ll sometimes see them waddling along the trail from one pond to the other.”
After the turtle talk, we discussed the big catfish he’d caught earlier in the week at “our favorite bass pond.” He had teased me with texts that day, and finally sent a picture. It was a stout, squat 14-pounder, plenty big and strong enough to tow him and his little kayak around the pond for a while.
Turned out, it was the last big fish Keith would ever catch, the last big fish story he would ever tell. I’m grateful I got to hear him tell it, just hours before he died.
That fish and that story will stick with me, just as a hundred other memories of wild things and wild places shared with Keith will stick with me: dozens of fishing trips; dozens of hunts: dozens of interviews for news stories and blogs; and countless phone calls and texts and cell-phone photo exchanges.
Oh, and a shovel hauled along on a duck hunt and one really nice snow fort, carved out joyfully by a man who never forgot how to be a kid.
