In the morning, they set out in separate teams, with horseback riders in front searching for coveys of quail and bird dogs along to flush them out. The terrain is rough, she said, pocked with knee-high brush that is tall and razor sharp and tough to maneuver around. The hunters dodged that problem by traversing the fields in SUVs.
At the lunch hour, they assembled under a giant oak tree for a meal of sweetbread, two kinds of salad and charbroiled nilgai, an Asian antelope that is raised and shot on the Armstrong spread. Cheney had a beer.
The shooting of Whittington at about 5:30 p.m. brought the day to a close. That night and in the morning, Negley recalled, Cheney was beside himself. He was on the phone constantly.
"We all worried he was going to have another heart attack," Negley said.
In his television interview, Cheney said he would "let some time pass" before he thinks about hunting again.
Negley said she hopes he does not give it up. "He just adores it so much."
The vice president's old friend Simpson said Cheney would never put away his shotgun. "The only way to get it out of your system," he said, "is embalming fluid."
