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

Beyond the kitchen doorway, one of my shadowy dogs crept slowly toward the warmth of the pilot-light campfire, his eyes sad and friendly, like the eyes of the hound some kid up the block owned.

"Well, Dad watched him for a minute or two, and then he took his rifle, pulled back the hammer, and shot Old Buell right between the eyes."

The world beyond the doorway shattered like a broken mirror and fell apart back into the kitchen again. I jerked up and looked straight into my father's face. It was very grim, and his eyes were very intent on Jack, as if he were telling my brother something awfully important.

He went on without seeming to notice my startled jump. "Old Buell went end over end when that bullet bit him. Then he kicked a couple times and didn't move anymore. Dad didn't even go over to look at him. He just reloaded the rifle and set it where it was handy, and then he and Old Pete climbed up into the wagon and went to bed.

"The next morning, he hitched up the team, loaded up the deer carcasses, and started back home. It took him three days again to get back to the wheat ranch, and Granddad and Grandma were sure glad to see him." My father lifted me off his lap, leaned back and lit a cigarette.

"It took them a good two days to cut up the deer and put them down in pickling crocks. After they finished it all up and Dad and Granddad were sitting in the kitchen, smoking their pipes with their sock feet up on the open oven door, Granddad turned to my Dad and said, "Sam, whatever happened to Old Buell, anyway? Did he run off?"

"Well, Dad took a deep breath. He knew Granddad had been awful fond of that old hound. 'Had to shoot him,' he said. 'Wouldn't hunt  wouldn't even hunt his own food. Caught him feeding on Pete's kill.'

"Well, I guess Granddad thought about that for a while. Then he finally said, 'Only thing you could do, Sam, I guess. Kind of a shame, though. Old Buell was a good dog when he was younger. Had him a long time.'"

The wind in the chimney suddenly sounded very loud and cold and lonesome.

"But why'd he shoot him?" I finally protested.

"He just wasn't any good anymore," Dad said, "and when a dog wasn't any good in those days, they didn't want him around. Same way with people. If they're no good, why keep them around?" He looked straight at Jack when he said it.

"Well, I sure wouldn't shoot my own dog," I objected.

Dad shrugged. "It was different then. Maybe if things were still the way they were back then, the world would be a lot easier to live in."

That night when we were in bed in the cold bedroom upstairs, listening to Mom and the Old Man yelling at each other down in the living room, I said it again to Jack. "I sure wouldn't shoot my own dog."

"Aw, you're just a kid," he said. "That was just a story. Grandpa didn't really shoot any dog. Dad just said that."

"Dad doesn't tell lies," I said. "If you say that again, I'm gonna hit you."

Jack snorted with contempt.

"Or maybe I'll shoot you," I said extravagantly. "Maybe some day I'll just decide that you're no good, and I'll take my gun and shoot you. Bang! Just like that, and you'll be dead, and I'll betcha you wouldn't like that at all."

Jack snorted again and rolled over to go to sleep, or to wrestle with the problem of being grown-up and still being afraid, which was to worry at him for the rest of his life. But I lay awake for a long time staring into the darkness. And when I drifted into sleep, the forest in the kitchen echoed with the hollow roar of that old rifle, and my shadowy old dog with the sad, friendly eyes tumbled over and over in the snow.

In the years since that night I've had that same dream again and again  not every night, sometimes only once or twice a year  but it's the only thing I can think of that hasn't changed since I was a boy.




The Gathering




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