chapter 6
Although he forgot the grouse he had just shot, Bud remembered to lean his shotgun against a little pine. That was something he could not forget, for he had been too long with too little not to know the worth of whatever finally came his way, and the shotgun was precious. Having put the gun where it was safe, he went to Gramps.
Bud's heart constricted with fear as he strode forward, but he did not panic and it never even occurred to him to wish somebody else was there to help. Not once in his life had Bud been able to run or even shrink from a problem, and the pattern was set indelibly. He felt like sobbing because Gramps was in trouble, but he knew he had to do all he could to help. Wondering how Gram had known this might happen, Bud knelt beside him, passed his right arm around the old man's shoulders and took Gramps' shotgun in his left hand.
Gramps tried to speak, but he was unable to, and after relinquishing his shotgun to Bud, he sank back heavily to a sitting position. Bud tightened his right arm around Gramps' shoulder and slipped behind him to give additional support with his shoulder. He did not know what was the matter with Gramps, but he knew it was serious and that it would do Gramps no good to be allowed to fall backward in the snow. Bud had no idea what else to do except to get Gramps back to the house as soon as possible. For the present there was nothing to do but wait.
Gramps' head remained slumped forward and his breath continued to come in wheezes. He was as tense as a strung bow; even beneath Gramps' hunting jacket Bud could feel taut muscles. But Gramps did not move or even try to move.
It was unthinkable to leave him for even the short time it would take to run to the farm and return with a sled. While Bud was trying to think of a way to drag the old man back to the house, Gramps' head snapped backward and jerked forward. He coughed violently and his head slumped forward again. All at once the rattling gasps stopped, leaving silence almost as terrifying as the agonized breathing had been. Then Gramps said faintly, but with unmistakable disgust,
"I ought to be old enough to know better! Blamed nonsense!"
He raised his head and Bud saw that his face was no longer blue. But in spite of the cold wind, a thin film of sweat glistened on the old man's face. As Bud wiped it off with his handkerchief, he could see that Gramps was not so tense and that the great vein in his neck, which had been throbbing furiously, had subsided.
"Did I scare you, Bud?" Gramps said, raising his head and smiling.
"Uh-huh."
"Shouldn't have," Gramps said. "Wasn't any good reason for it. Just a pile of blamed nonsense."
"Can you sit up without help?" Bud asked.
"What do you think I am? A baby? Sure I can sit up."
"I'll make a sled and have you back to the house in a jiffy."
"You'll make a sled?" Gramps said in something like his old voice. "Just how do you aim to make it?"
"I don't know," Bud said grimly, "but I'll make one."
"I believe you would," Gramps conceded. "I believe you would do just that, but it ain't necessary. I'll walk back."
And with a sudden lurch, Gramps heaved himself to his feet. He teetered uncertainly, but before Bud could help, Gramps found his balance and stood steadily. His face was pale, but he was no longer sweating and his grin was warm.
"See? Sound as a yearling colt. Now you stop troubling your head about me and find those two pat'tidges you dropped."
Then Bud remembered the pair of grouse that had fallen to his two shots. He looked at his shotgun, which was still leaning against the little pine very near his shooting position when he scored his double. He reconstructed the approximate positions of the two grouse when he shot, and the angle at which each had pitched into the snow. He looked uncertainly at Gramps.
"Go ahead," the old man said. "You put 'em down and now you get 'em. There's two things you don't leave in the woods; one's wounded game and t'other's dead game. You get 'em."
Bud caught up his shotgun, cradled it in the crook of his arm, and walked to where he thought the first bird would be. He found it almost at once, pitched against a little cluster of blackberry canes with its wings still spread as though it were ready to fly again. For the second bird Bud searched five minutes. He put both in the game pocket of his jacket and returned to Gramps.
"I found them."
"Good." Except that he was still pale, Gramps seemed almost his old self. "That was nice shooting, Bud."
Bud nodded, too worried even to smile. Any other time Gramps' admission that Bud had shot well would have been overwhelming, for although Gramps seldom condemned harshly, he almost never praised at all.
"I guess," Gramps said with forced cheer, "we might as well go tell Mother the hunt's over."
Bud said nothing. Gramps had recovered sufficiently so that he could risk running to the house for the toboggan that lay across two wooden horses in the barn. But he did not offer to go, for he sensed something that did not appear on the surface. It was something that had taken root the day Gramps was born and grown stronger with every day of his life. Gramps had walked here; he would walk back, and Bud knew that to suggest Gramps could not walk out without help would wound him deeply. Even while he felt guilty because he did not ignore Gramps' wishes and go for the toboggan anyway, Bud still sympathized. He, too, thought that a man should stand on his own feet.
Trying not to appear obvious, Bud adjusted his gait to the old man's. It was far slower than usual, but Gramps seemed not to notice that everything was not as it should be, and Bud was grateful. Shep came out of the woods to join them. He trotted twenty feet ahead, looked back to make sure they were following, and then set a pace that kept him about twenty feet in the lead. They were halfway to the farm when Gramps spoke,
"There's no call to say anything to Mother 'bout this."
"She should know," Bud said.
"She should," Gramps agreed. "If it was anything bad she sure should. But it's just a heap of blamed nonsense. Doc Beardsley told me that himself. 'Most twenty-five years ago a horse kicked me in the head. It never fazed me then, but seems like it's showing up now, and Doc says I can expect these little cat fits every now'n again. They don't mean any more than a headache or sore tooth. You wouldn't want to worry Gram, would you?"
Bud said reluctantly, "No."
"She will worry if you tell her."
Bud looked down at the snow. Gram couldn't have known that Gramps would be stricken, but she had certainly known that he might be. Bud stole a look at Gramps, who had started to walk almost at his normal pace and who now bore only faint traces of his recent ordeal. If it was serious, Gram should know. But if, as Gramps said, it was only a trifling incident, it would only worry Gram to know. Bud reached his decision.
"I won't tell her," he promised.
"A right smart idea," Gramps said. "A fair half of the world's trouble is brought on by people shooting off their mouths when they'd do a lot better to keep 'em shut. You have plenty of horse sense, Bud."
Bud thought suddenly of the little black buck, and he felt an almost uncontrollable yearning to seek him out. The buck was his brother, through whom Bud had discovered the first key that had helped open a series of magic doors. The black buck, Bud felt, would help him reach the correct decision now about whether Gram should know. But the buck was not at hand, and now they were too near the house not to continue.
Gramps asked, far too casually, "How do I look?"
Bud said, "All right," and Gramps did look all right—a bit tired, perhaps, and a little pale, but not like a man who had been as desperately ill as he had been. They brushed the snow from their pacs and entered the kitchen.
Gram looked intently at Gramps. "Do you feel all right, Delbert?"
Gramps said, "Nope. Anybody with half an eye can see I'm in bed with whooping cough, scarlet fever and hangnails."
Bud caught his breath, for obviously Gram had seen through Gramps' nonchalance. Normally there would have been more questions, but now Gram had something else on her mind. With a flourish, she plucked a letter from her apron pocket.
"From Helen!" she exclaimed. "She'll be here with Hal and the children on Christmas! Isn't that nice? With the other children and counting the grandchildren, there'll be at least thirty-three for Christmas!"
"Wonderful!" Gramps agreed. "Let's hope they stay more than just one day!"
"Helen Carruthers said she'll sleep the overflow if they do," Gram said. "With her children gone, too, and Joab in the hospital, she's lost in that big house. She told me so over the phone."
Gramps said firmly, "When our young'uns and their young'uns come home, they stay here."
The house would be spilling over with Bennetts, in-laws of Bennetts and grandchildren of Bennetts. Something within Bud turned stone cold and for a moment he wanted to die as he realized he did not have first claim or any real claim on the affections of these two people he had come to love so dearly. They had children of their own, natural children, and the fact that he was an orphan seemed more bitter to Bud than it ever had before. He felt it would have been better if he never had come here, for he had given his whole heart to Gram and Gramps who already had so many that there couldn't possibly be room for one more.
Gram and Gramps began a happy discussion of the coming holiday. Helen Carruthers, who was so lonely anyway, would be glad to come in four or five days before Christmas to help Gram get ready. Naturally, Helen would leave on the twenty-fourth to spend Christmas with Joab—and wasn't it a pity that he had had to be sent to a hospital almost two hundred miles from home when, if he was within reasonable distance, Helen could visit him so much oftener? But there would be plenty of help anyway. Gram hadn't raised her daughters without teaching them what to do in a kitchen.
Bud slipped out unobtrusively, and Shep followed him. As soon as they were hidden by a corner of the house, Bud hugged the collie fiercely. Then, with Shep beside him, he set off down the old tote road to find the black fawn.
The afternoon was waning when he returned, having seen five deer but not the black fawn. Although it was still early for chores, Bud cleaned the cow stable, fed and milked the four cows and took care of the milk. He looked to the horses and went to the chicken house, where this time he saw only the usual flock of mongrel chickens.
He collected the eggs from the nests and emerged from the chicken house to see Munn Mackie coming up the drive in his truck. A small building was chained securely onto the body of the truck. Gramps came from the house, buttoning his jacket as he came, and Munn stopped his truck.
"Where do you want her, Del?"
"Beside the hen house."
Munn's truck growled across the snow and came to a halt. Munn jumped from the cab, made a ramp of two-by-sixes and jockeyed the building onto the two-by-sixes until it skidded safely to the ground beside the hen house.
As Gramps paid Munn and the trucker drove away, Bud glanced at the little building beside the hen house. Until this afternoon he would have been eager to know why Munn had brought it and what it was for. Now he did not care.
"Shall we get the chores done?" Gramps asked.
"They're all done," Bud said.
The snowplow panted ahead of the school bus like a prehistoric monster. In some places there was only a dusting of snow and the plow raced along. In others there were drifts up to four feet deep, and the plow shifted into low gear and attacked the deep snow with its blade, growling like an angry dog attacking an enemy.
In a seat next to a window Bud studied the falling snow and could not help sharing in the excitement that had set in almost three weeks ago and had mounted ever since. The opening of the deer season was one of the major events of the year in Dishnoe County. Everybody who lived in the county and had a firearm was sure to be out that day and there would be many hunters from other places as well.
The Haleyville Consolidated School was not exempt from the influences of the season. Some boys from the fourth grade, more from the fifth and practically every boy from the sixth grade through high school would be absent on the opening day, and no excuse would be expected or required from them. Many of the girls would be out, too, and only a state law prevented the teachers from closing the school and joining their pupils in the cutover woods.
A surging bank of heavy clouds had covered the sky when Bud had left home in the morning. At noon a high wind had risen suddenly and snow had followed. Although only about four inches had fallen so far, the wind was making heavy drifts. Bud turned to his seatmate, a youngster who was tackling the complexities of the eighth grade for the third time. His name was Goethe Shakespeare Umberdehoven.
"Look at her come down, Get!"
"Yeah."
"There'll be tracking tomorrow."
"Yeah."
"You going out?"
"Yeah. We get a deer we can sell another pig and have more money."
This translation of getting a deer into financial terms was too much for Bud, who went back to staring at the snow. Soon only his physical self remained in the bus as his imagination took him into the deer woods with Gramps and the little thirty-thirty carbine Gramps had taught him to shoot. They were hot on the fresh trail of Old Yellowfoot and before long—by a clever ruse, the details of which Bud's imagination skipped over—they had outwitted the ruling monarch of Bennett's Woods. Knowing that there was no hope unless he ran, Old Yellowfoot raced away, eighteen feet to the jump, and Bud followed with his rifle. With the first shot Old Yellowfoot crumpled in the snow.
Then Bud heard the bus driver saying, "Hey, Sloan. You aim to get out in the next hour or so?"
Bud looked up to see that the bus was parked at the Bennett's drive. He squeezed past Get Umberdehoven and ran up the drive, stopping long enough to ruffle Shep's ears when he came bounding to meet him.
Daydreaming about Old Yellowfoot had made him feel better. The arrival of Gram and Gramps' children and grandchildren was as certain as the rising of the sun. Bud knew that they would displace him, for they belonged and he did not. But Christmas was not yet at hand and, maybe, if he wished hard enough, it never would come. Anyhow, there were at least the days before Christmas, and he decided to live for today and let tomorrow take care of itself.
In spite of the snow, Gramps was working on the little building that Munn Mackie had brought in his truck. Gramps had installed new and larger windows, put in insulation and rebuilt the door and hung it on new hinges. He was replacing some of the outside boards when Bud came up.
Bud asked no questions although now he wanted to. But he had ignored the building the day it was delivered, and pride prevented his asking about it now.
"By gummy," Gramps said over the blows of his hammer, which were strangely muffled in the storm, "sure looks as though we hit it right."
"We sure did," Bud agreed.
Gramps said solemnly, "Got the same feeling in my bones as I had just before we caught Old Shark. Only this feeling's 'bout Old Yellowfoot. We'll nail him sure before the season's out."
"Gee! Are you sure?" Bud said, his reserve gone.
"Sure's a body can be 'thout putting it down on paper and swearing to it in front of Squire Sedlock. Yep. We're going to lay that old tyrant low."
"Gee!" Bud said again. "That'll be something! I'll run along and change."
"Come out when you're set if you've a mind to."
The storm-muffled thumps of Gramps' hammer were magic in Bud's ears as he ran around to the kitchen door, for in his imagination they had become rifle shots, widely spaced and well aimed, as Bud the master hunter once again maneuvered Old Yellowfoot into a corner from which there was no escape. Then he burst into the kitchen.
"Hi, Gram."
"Allan! I thought sure you'd be late, the way the wind's drifting this snow."
"We followed the snowplow up," Bud said, going to the table where his after-school snack always waited. He took a long drink of milk and a bite from a ginger cookie. "What's Gramps doing?"
"Trying to keep from driving himself and me too crazy," Gram said, sniffing. "I do swear, he's more anxious than a boy on his first hunt! All day long he hasn't done much of anything except ask me if I think you'll get Old Yellowfoot. It's a good thing he's working it off."
Bud asked, "Do you think we'll get Old Yellowfoot?"
Gram smiled. "Let's put it this way. I think you'll have fun hunting him."
Bud finished the last cookie, drained the glass of milk, and sat silently for a moment. Then he asked a question that he had often been on the point of asking.
"Was Gramps ever kicked by a horse?"
"Land yes! Every farmer who uses horses has been kicked. At least, I never heard of one who hasn't."
"Was he ever kicked in the head?"
Gram laughed. "Lord love you, child. Who's been telling you fairy tales?"
"I just wondered."
Gram said dryly, "I've tended Delbert for a good many ailments but never yet, thank the Lord, for a horse-kicked head. What are you getting at, Allan?"
"I just sort of wondered," Bud said noncommittally.
He went up to his room more puzzled than ever. On the grouse hunt Gramps had said that a horse had kicked him in the head twenty-five years ago. But now Gram said there had never been any such kick, and Gram never lied. Still, if Gramps had not wanted her to worry after the grouse hunt, he had probably felt the same way twenty-five years ago. Perhaps he had never told her that he had been kicked in the head.
When Bud went out again, Gramps was in the cow stable and had already begun the milking. He was bubbling with enthusiasm. Gramps did everything with zest, but whenever there was anything exciting in prospect, he almost exploded with energy.
By the time they had finished the chores and eaten supper, Bud was almost giddy with excitement, for now the hour was at hand. He knew as he went to bed that he would never sleep a wink, but the next thing he knew Gramps was shaking his shoulder.
"Time to get moving, Bud."
It was dark outside, but that did not seem unusual because daylight did not come until after seven these days, and every morning for the past several weeks Bud had awakened in darkness. When he looked at his clock, however, he saw that it was a quarter to four. He sprang out of bed, instantly awake and exhilarated by the mere thought of starting anywhere at such an hour. But by the time he had reached the stable, Gramps had already milked three of the cows.
There was still only a faint hint of daylight when, the chores done, breakfast eaten and sack lunches in their jackets, they started into Bennett's Woods. Moored with a ten-foot hank of clothesline, Shep rolled his eyes and mournfully watched them go. Bud felt sorry for him until Gramps explained that, although most hunters are sportsmen, there are always a few who shoot first and look afterward. Two years ago some of that kind had shot one of Abel Carson's Holstein heifers, and said afterward that they thought it was a pinto buck. Since Shep liked to wander into the woods when there was nothing more interesting to do, it was better to leave him tied than to risk his being shot.
The snow had stopped falling, and here in the woods it had drifted less than in the open country where the wind had a full sweep. There were few drifts and no deep ones, and the five inches of soft snow made a pleasant cushion beneath Bud's pacs.
By almost imperceptible degrees the day lightened. They were perhaps a half mile from the house when Gramps stopped. He raised his rifle and sighted on a stump about a hundred yards away. Then he lowered his rifle and said, "We'll wait here a bit, Bud."
"Why?"
"It ain't light enough to see the sights, and while I think Old Yellowfoot will be hanging out in Dockerty's Swamp, he could be anywhere from here on. If we jump him, we don't want to guess where we're shooting."
Just then, they heard five shots.
"Fool!" Gramps growled. "He saw something move and, though it's a lead-pipe cinch he couldn't tell what it was, he shot anyway. Those kind of hunters got less brains than the game they hunt."
Twenty minutes later there were three more shots spaced far enough apart to indicate that the hunter was taking aim. Gramps listened carefully. He sighted a second time on the stump, held his sight for a full three seconds, and turned to Bud.
"What do you make of it?"
Bud raised his own rifle, centered the ivory bead of the front sight in the notched rear, and aimed at a puff of snow that clung like a boll of cotton to the stump. He lowered the rifle.
"It looks all right to me."
"You can see?"
"Well enough for a good aim."
"Come on, and from here on there's no talking."
Gramps slowed to a snail's pace, stopping every ten minutes or so to look all around. Bud understood what he was doing, for while it is true that deer are noted for their speed, it is a mistake to try to chase them. If you slog as far as twenty miles a day through deer country, you are almost sure to see deer, but not as many as the hunter who works carefully through a comparatively limited deer cover. Slow and easy is the proper way nine times out of ten.
Rifles were cracking from all quarters now, sometimes three or four at once, sometimes only one and occasionally none at all. Gramps stopped suddenly and pointed to two deer about a hundred and twenty yards away. Both were bucks. One bore a stunted rack of antlers, but the second had a trophy that would shame no hunter.
Gramps went on. The two bucks, aware now of their presence, each sounded a single blasting snort and bounded away. Bud watched them go without regret. Either buck would have been a fairly simple shot. But they were hunting Old Yellowfoot.
They saw seven more deer before they reached Dockerty's Swamp. It covered about seventy acres and was a tangle of high bush huckleberries, cedar, balsam and a few great hardwoods, whose branches rose gaunt and bare above the surrounding stunted growth. A bush-grown knoll flanked the swamp and it was surrounded by low mountains that were covered with cutover hardwoods and patches of laurel and small evergreens. Although Dockerty's Swamp was well known as a refuge for deer, Gramps was one of the few who knew how to flush them out.
Gramps led Bud to the summit of the knoll and halted in a thicket so dense that they could see no farther than forty feet ahead of them. Gramps raised a forefinger, a signal for Bud to stay where he was. Foolish young deer might show themselves in sparse cover or even open meadows, but a buck as wise as Old Yellowfoot would make for the thickest cover when Gramps chased him out of the swamp. It was a foregone conclusion that he would come up the knoll. All other ways out of the swamp were so sparsely forested that anything emerging would make an easy shot.
Two and a half hours after Gramps left, Bud saw a deer move farther down the slope. Bud remained perfectly still. The deer was almost completely hidden by brush and he was unable to tell if it was a buck or doe or even how large it was.
Ten seconds later the black fawn stepped into plain sight.
He was a well-grown buck now, and sturdy, and his hair was so dark that the fawn spots had faded into it. Little nubbins that were his first antlers projected two inches above his head.
The black buck came on, stopping now and then to look behind him and always testing the winds. He had been chased from the swamp and, young though he was, he had planned and executed a masterly retreat instead of panicking. He passed thirty feet to Bud's right, turned and stared fixedly at him when they were abreast. Then the black buck leaped out of sight into a laurel thicket.
Three does came next, then a chesty little six-point buck that shook his antlers and rolled his eyes as though anything that dared challenge him did so at its own peril. Finally Gramps appeared.
"Old Yellowfoot wasn't there, Bud. We'll try Happy Ridge."
But Old Yellowfoot was not on Happy Ridge, or in Hargen's Pines or Dead Man's Hollow, or any other place where they looked. They might have had either one of two more nice bucks that day, but they scorned both.
Finally, sorry that a nearly perfect day was ending, Gramps and Bud turned homeward. Tomorrow was another day and there were more to follow. They entered the house and Gramps said to Gram,
"Nary a sign, not even an old track . . ."
He stopped suddenly, staggered across the floor and dropped his rifle on the table before sinking into a chair. He buried his face in his hands, and once more Bud heard the terrible wheezing that had been so terrifying back in the grouse woods.