"David Eddings - High Hunt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

"He was our great-granddad," Jack told me importantly.

"I know that," I said. "I ain't that dumb." I leaned my head back against Dad's chest so I could hear the
rumble of his voice inside my head again.

"Great-Granddad was in the Civil War," Jack said. "You told us that one time."

"You want to tell this or you want me to?" the Old Man asked him.

"Yeah," I said, not lifting my head, "shut up, Jack, for cripes' sakes."

"Anyhow," the Old Man went on, "Granddad had to stay and tend the place, so he couldn't go out and
hunt. Dad was only seventeen, but there wasn't anybody else to go. Well, the nearest big deer herd was
over around Coeur d'Alene Lake, up in the timber country in Idaho. There weren't any game laws back
then — at least nobody paid any attention to them if there were — so a man could take as much as he
needed."

The wind gusted against the house again, and the wood shifted in the heating stove, sounding very loud.
The Old Man got up, lifting me easily in his big hands, and plumped me on the couch beside Jack. Then
he went over and put more wood in the stove from the big linoleum-covered woodbox against the wall
that Jack and I were supposed to keep full. He slammed the door shut with an iron bang, dusted off his
hands, and sat back down.

"It turned cold and started snowing early that year," he continued. "Granddad had this old .45-70
single-shot he'd carried in the war, but they only had twenty-six cartridge cases for it. He and Dad
loaded up all those cases the night before Dad left. They'd pulled the wheels off the wagon and put the
runners on as soon as the snow really set in good, so it was all ready to go. After they'd finished loading
the cartridges, Granddad gave my dad an old pipe. Way he looked at it, if Dad was old enough to be
counted on to do a man's work, he was old enough to have his own pipe. Dad hadn't ever smoked
before — except a couple times down in back of the schoolhouse and once out behind the barn when he
was a kid.

"Early the next morning, before daylight, they hitched up the team — Old Dolly and Ned. They pitched
the wagon-bed, and they loaded up Dad's bedding and other gear. Then Dad called his dogs and got
them in the wagon-bed, shook hands with Granddad, and started out."

"I'll betcha he was scared," I said.
"Grown men don't get scared," Jack said scornfully.

"That's where you're wrong, Jack," the Old Man told him. "Dad was plenty scared. That old road from
the house wound around quite a bit before it dropped down on the other side of the hill, and Dad always
said he didn't dare look back even once. He said that if he had, he'd have turned right around and gone
back home. There's something wrong with a man who doesn't get scared now and then. It's how you
handle it that counts."

I know that bothered Jack. He was always telling everybody that he wasn't scared — even when I
knew he was lying about it. I think he believed that growing up just meant being afraid of fewer and fewer
things. I was always sure that there was more to it than that. We used to argue about it a lot."