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

"That's mean," I objected. I had the shadowy shapes of my two dogs near my reflected-pilot-light fire, and I sure didn't want anybody mistreating my old dogs, not even my own grandfather.

"Dog had to do his share, too, in those days, Dan. People didn't keep dogs for pets back then. They kept them to work. Anyway, pretty soon Dad could hear the dogs baying, way back in the timber, and he took the old rifle and the twenty-six bullets and went down to the edge of the lake."

"He took his pistol, too, I'll bet," I said. Out in my camp in the forests of the kitchen, I took my pistol.

"I expect he did, Dan, I expect he did. Anyway, after a little bit, he caught a flicker of movement back up at camp, out of the corner of his eye. He looked back up the hill, and there was Old Buell slinking back to the fire with his tail between his legs. Dad looked real hard at him, but he didn't dare move or make any noise for fear of scaring off the deer. Old Buell just looked right straight back at him and kept on slinking toward the fire, one step at a time. He knew Dad couldn't do a thing about it. A dog can do that sometimes, if he's smart enough.

"Well, it seems that Old Pete was able to get the job done by himself, because pretty soon the deer started to come out on the ice. Well, Dad just held off, waiting for more of them, you see, and pretty soon there's near onto a hundred of them out there, all bunched up. You see, a deer can't run very good on ice, and he sure don't like being out in the open, so when they found themselves out there, they just kind of huddled up to see what's gonna happen."

I could see Jack leaning forward now, his eyes bright with excitement and his lips drawn back from his teeth a little. Of course, I couldn't look straight at him. I had to keep everything in place out on the other side of the doorway.

"So Dad just lays that long old rifle out across the log and touches her off. Then he started loading and firing as fast as he could so's he could get as many as possible before they got their sense back. Well, those old black-powder cartridges put out an awful cloud of smoke, and about half the time he was shooting blind, but he managed to knock down seventeen of them before the rest got themselves organized enough to run out of range."

"Wow! That's a lot of deer, huh, Dad?" I said.

"As soon as Old Pete heard the shooting, he knew his part of the job was over, so he went out to do a little hunting for himself. The dogs hadn't had anything to eat since the day before, so he was plenty hungry, but then, a dog hunts better if he's hungry  so does a man.

"Anyway, Dad got the team and skidded the deer on in to shore and commenced to gutting and skinning. Took him most of the rest of the day to finish up."

Jack started to fidget again. He'd gone for almost a half hour without saying hardly anything, and that was always about his limit.

"Is a deer very hard to skin, Dad?" he asked.

"Not if you know what you're doing."

"But how come he did it right away like that?" Jack demanded. "Eddie Selvridge's old man said you gotta leave the hide on a deer for at least a week or the meat'll spoil."

"I heard him say that, too, Dad," I agreed.

"Funny they don't leave the hide on a cow then when they butcher, isn't it?" the Old Man asked. "At the slaughterhouse they always skin 'em right away, don't they?"

"I never thought of that," I admitted.

Jack scowled silently. He hated not being right. I think he hated that more than anything else in the world.

"Along about noon or so," Dad continued, "here comes Pete back into camp with a full belly and blood on his muzzle. Old Buell went up to him and sniffed at him and then started casting back and forth until he picked up Pete's trail. Then he lined out backtracking Pete to his kill."

Jack howled with sudden laughter. "That sure was one smart old dog, huh, Dad?" he said. "Why work if you can get somebody else to do it for you?"

Dad ignored him. "Old Pete had probably killed a fawn and had eaten his fill. Anyway, my dad kinda watched the dogs for a few minutes and then went back to work skinning. After he got them all skinned out, he salted down the hides and rolled them in a bundle  sold the hides in town for enough to buy his own rifle that winter, and enough left over to get his mother some yard goods she'd wanted. Then he drug the carcasses back to camp through the snow and hung them all up to cool out.

"He cleaned up, washing his hands with snow, fed the team, and then boiled up another pan of coffee. He fried himself a big mess of deer liver and onions and heated up some more of the biscuits. After he ate, he sat on a log and lit his pipe."

"I'll bet he was tired," Jack said, just to be saying something. "Not being in bed all the night before and all that."

"He still had something left to tend to," Dad said. "It was almost dark when he spotted Old Buell slinking back toward camp. He was out on the open, coming back along the trail Pete had broken though the snow. His belly looked full, and his muzzle and ears were all bloody the same way Pete's had been."

"He found the other dog's deer, I'll betcha." Jack laughed. "You said he was a smart old dog."