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

"A party of Frenchies on the warpath could'a snuck
up on him."

"They'd not leave his scalp and musket." As if
toying, Joseph fit bone fragments together.

"Probably he fell down drunk," muttered a man.

"Aye," Paul added, "Elias and Rob always took grog
in their canteens to keep 'em from freezin', even in
July." At the first threat of war, Elias Somers and
Robert Macintosh had shooed their families back to
Massachusetts, given up farming for frontiering.

"So, hey, where is Rob? Could the wolf'a got both?"

"Eureka!" Joseph held up a curved rib. Both ends
looked gnawed, but when he fit the fragment to the
ribcage, a neat half-moon appeared along the upper
edge.

"Bigod! A musket ball!"

"Square in the brisket!"

Paul muttered, "Damn, but you've got good eyes,
Joe."

In Latin, Joseph quipped, "`Nothing is so difficult
but that it may be found out by seeking.' A ball
broke this rib and dealt the deathblow. I doubt the
wolf was armed."

"So who done it? And where the hell's --"

"Hoy, there he is! Hey, Rob! D'ja hear the..?"

The hail died in the air. Stamping down the road
came a haunted scarecrow in a filthy hunting shirt
and floppy hat. His face was unshaven and
insect-bitten, his eyes sunken from a night in the
woods. A rusty musket trailed in his bony right
hand.

Men fell back from the apparition, leaving Joseph
and Opechee to rise slowly to their feet. Opechee
cradled his musket. "What does this woods man --"

Rob Macintosh halted, raised his musket, racked
back the hammer, and pulled the trigger.