"Clayton Emery - Joseph Fisher - Inwardly Ravening Wolves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emery Clayton)

Joseph brushed his bloody chin, his dirty chest,
waved black hands, shouted, "Never mind! Give me
another musket! And hurry! It's still alive!" A lie.

Men gabbled like some pantomime. Staggering,
Joseph snatched away Rob Macintosh's musket. The
woodsman's lips puckered in outrage, but the
student ignored him, shouldered the weapon, aimed
at the cedars above, fired. The gun banged his
bruised shoulder silently.

Forgetting they could hear, Joseph gestured to Paul
for buckshot and powder. Paul offered a musket
ball, but Joseph refused it, bellowed, "I don't want
the ball to ricochet inside the cave!" Another lie:
he'd apologize later.

Loading buckshot, wadding with cedar needles,
priming the pan, checking the flint was sharp,
Joseph dropped to his knees, was handed another
birch candle, wriggled back inside.

The cave stank of earth and blood and smoke and
bowels. The candle was almost useless, but Joseph
saw the dead wolf on its side, unmoving.

This time the student cradled an arm around his
head before firing. Afoul in smoke and dust, Joseph
coughed as he drew his clasp knife. Propping the
birch candle in the dirt, he attacked the hammer of
Robert Macintosh's musket. Nose to the ground, he
found a gray-striped rock and spent a minute
clamping it tight.

Gunsmithing done, still retching, he crawled deeper
to latch onto the wolf's greasy tail, hauled the heavy
body and two muskets, Opechee's and Macintosh's,
backwards.

Outside, the wolf bore no trace of its former
magnificence, just lay like a gritty fleece daubed
with scarlet. Joseph muttered, "`No beast so fierce
but knows some touch of pity.'" Rob Macintosh
snatched his dirty musket and set to reloading.

Joseph hunched over and hacked his lungs clear. A
villager bent to chop off the wolf's head, a trophy be
to nailed above the meetinghouse door, but Joseph
slapped his hand away. The colonists expected "the