She heard the shot and then the guns fell silent, and it was at that precise moment that fellow hunter Nancy Negley realized "a perfectly glorious and fabulous day" had come to an end.
She was lamenting not only that the vice president had accidentally wounded one of their friends on a quail shoot in South Texas last weekend, but also the possibility that Dick Cheney might never hunt again.
To those who have stalked through the brush with the vice president in bright orange vests and with shotguns held aloft, at private game reserves and large sprawling ranches and swamps from Texas to South Dakota, Cheney is never more in his glory than when he is hunting.
Born in Nebraska and raised in Wyoming, Cheney says he cherishes the West as his home, the well from which he draws his independent streak. A covey of quail or a pheasant on the wing, friends say, is his singular moment of release from the pressures of Washington.
Former Sen. Alan K. Simpson, a fellow Republican who grew up in Wyoming learning to fire BB guns bigger than he was, said that while other politicians took to the golf course, this one found his niche in the woods and fields.
"I tell you he is a crack shot," Simpson said. "He's an amazing marksman. He uses a 28-gauge when the rest of us are using [20-gauge shotguns]. That's a lighter gun with a smaller shot pattern, and you have to be a better shot.
"And I've seen him get doubles where you shoot doves, two for one. For me, I usually have to wait for them to land in the trees and then blast them out."
Cheney hunts with Republican fundraisers and donors, as was the case last week in South Texas. He hunts with fellow politicians, as he did during a Pennsylvania pheasant outing that attracted some unwelcome attention. He has hunted with the likes of former Dallas Cowboy quarterback Roger Staubach and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
He makes an annual pheasant-hunting trip to South Dakota, where he stays at an upscale private lodge. He has hunted ducks in Arkansas and Louisiana. He has been a regular visitor to the South Texas ranch where he shot Harry Whittington.
Cheney treats these trips as private affairs (although he travels there on Air Force Two) and hasn't said much publicly about his hunting.
In his interview last week with Fox News about the shooting accident, Cheney said he had been a hunter for 12 or 15 years. But during a campaign speech for the 4-million-member National Rifle Assn. during the 2004 election year, he described himself as a "lifelong gun owner."
