"Happy birthday Penna Biancaaa, happy birthday to you". Alberto [Penna Bianca, ed.] Blows the symbolic candle on the small fortune cake, surrounded by friends of the team, on the log table in front of the “hut”. His eyes are a little sweet and a little sad, like those of a Maremma shepherd. Today the team took a "coat" of the historical ones: it went hunting twice, and not even one animal was found. "Guys, I'm sorry, that's how it went today. Tomorrow we will hunt in Monte Cardello, and you will see that it will be a whole different music".
In the morning at 8.30 they are almost all on off-road vehicles. The operations of filling out the team register, which usually drag on for many coffees, this morning are fast and straightforward. They all arrived more than on time for the appointment, there is an atmosphere of hope, grit and determination.
The area that is being fought today is very beautiful: the thickets of brambles where dogs and canai will enter are surrounded by cesse and tall woods. "Thank god! Finally a joke without that damned sarracchio! ”, I let myself slip in the car with Alberto. "Well yes! With a territory like this it's a whole other hunt: you have time to aim for wild boars and you don't find them on you as happens further down!"He echoes.
Of course, we are still in Capalbio, and calling this area "mountain" makes a little smile.
Alberto accompanies me on a dirt road that runs along a fairly deep ditch beyond which the ground climbs up to the ridge that separates us from the rest of the post offices, which are explained parallel to us but on the opposite side of the hill. "It's just you and me on this side."- he explains to me-"The canai will push the other side up to the post office, but there must be someone here to stop the animals that try to get out of the way. Are you ready to take this responsibility?"Penna Bianca teases me with a wink, and then goes to position itself higher, almost a hundred meters from me.
I am in a wonderful place: I have an open 180 degree view, I can shoot safely and above all I will have all the time to aim the wild boars that will certainly emerge from the ditch, but then they will have to come out for several meters and there: bam! "I'm sure I'll take it today!" I tell myself.
Tick, tock, toc. Tick, tock, toc. I turn to the right and notice the origin of this strange sound: it is an elderly man, who barely advances on two crutches, has a rifle on his shoulder. "Wild boars?”He asks me with a question that is almost a statement, given the orange that dominates in my clothing. "I was in pigeons, but with this wind and the low clouds nothing was seen". And with his cadenced and shaky step he overtakes me to disappear in the direction of Alberto. "Our Customers loose!”The canai communicate on the radio. I load the rifle, remove the safety and concentrate on waiting for the big boar that I'm sure to catch today. After a few minutes I feel the ground always on my right. They are not clogs. "Good morning! How are you? Are you a wild boar?”Shouts the man who comes towards me. Another hunter. "Sshhhhh !!! Speak slowly! The joke has begun!”And with a nod of apology the second passer-by leaves as well. "Careful Pen that there is another hunter around!”I whisper on the radio, and I hope tourism is over for today!
In the meantime, a very short steady bark has already turned into a thunderous canizza. A barrage of shots roared from behind the mound. "Taken? Post office? So, tell us you did!". Comments on whoever offers at the bar portend that the recipient of all those balls is breathing a sigh of relief from the griffin!
Strong wind hinders the sense of hearing. Like a lookout soldier I look to the right, then to the left, then to the right again. Out of the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of something dark moving to my left. The moment the boar leaps into the woods behind me, I'm ready to shoot. It's too late. I glimpse its shadow among the black branches that intertwine and overlap. Penna Bianca is up there, out of the way. "I try? But yes !!”, I think quickly. I practically shoot at the trunks, and the crafty animal slips away, slipping fluidly between the purposes. I count a hundred steps and find the living wood that the ball of 30.06 tore apart. "What did you get Pina?"Tractor driver [Mario, ed] asks me on the radio,"A plant!"I reply sportily. "Don't worry, you won't be alone paying for a drink at the end of the joke!”He chuckles on the radio. "Come on! It was a scalloped animal, which came quatto quatto along the ditch ... it was a desperate shot, between the branches, I tried!"I whimper, but now my clumsy hunting action has been archived as a pan, and I keep it! Meanwhile, the joke continues and other animals are pushed to the post office.
At about 15:00 pm Alberto picks me up with the jeep to go and strengthen the post office on the other side: the canai have released fresh dogs and will go to probe the lower part of the hillock, where several "hot" dogs have been found. In fact, here it is full of animals, the canizze follow one another closely, sometimes breaking down into smaller canizzes behind the gnawed animals.
The step of a large animal resounds in front of my mail. I feel crushed. I concentrate: two small eyes on either side of a large muddy griffin seem to be looking at me through the leaves of the undergrowth. "I can't shoot him head-on, I hardly see anything, I have to have the cold blood to wait for him to move where I can aim for the chest ... if I shoot him now I will almost certainly miss him and he will come back out of the expulsion ... ". All these thoughts last less than a second. Then the animal turns on itself and lets itself be swallowed by the brambles from which it emerged. I don't see or hear it anymore. "Another wasted opportunity!”I think with disappointment, but in my heart I am happy not to have let myself be taken by the craving for a risky shot. A few seconds later the Secretary's Browning [Andrea, ed] "sings" the last music for the big white-griffin boar.
It is almost dark, the dogs are almost all at the carts and the last wild boars are being recovered. Days like this, with fantastic friends, the rifle always braced, the dogs always on the go and the bated breath, are really to be framed!