Old Shark he had learned the difference between sport for sport's sake
and killing for killing's sake. Actually, as Gramps had explained, it
was not only fair, it was wise to harvest some creatures. Old Shark, for
instance, had been a ravenous old tyrant who had consumed vast amounts
of food, including smaller trout; now that he was gone, the trout left
in the pool would have a better chance. Gramps had made Bud see that it
was, in fact, kind to harvest the surplus game crop because there is
enough food for only a limited number of wild creatures. The rest must
die, and the ways of nature are almost always crueler and more prolonged
than death at the hand of a hunter.
Bud thought that the swift-winged grouse were among the most fascinating
of wild creatures. He almost never saw them until they thundered into
flight, a thing that never failed to startle him. They were birds of
mystery to him and he could not help being excited because he and Gramps
were going to hunt grouse when the season opened. Safe in its case in
Bud's room was a trim little double-barreled twenty-gauge shotgun, and
as soon as the last of the crops was in, Gramps had promised to show him
how to use it.
Shep bounced ahead to frolic around Gramps, and Gramps stopped work as
Bud came up to him.
"Hi, Bud."
"Hello, Gramps. I hurried so I can help load the rest of the pumpkins."
"Well now, that's right decent of you. But you won't be sorry. A man
ain't lived 'til he's helped load and haul punkins. Did you ever stop to
consider what a remarkable thing a punkin is? You can look at 'em and
tell what the weather's been by the looks of the punkin, so they're a
weather table. You can just about tell the season by the looks of a
punkin, so that makes 'em a calendar. You can bounce one off somebody's
head and knock him sillier'n the cow that jumped over the moon and still
not hurt him, so they're a weapon. You can turn 'em into goblins on
Halloween, and you can eat 'em. Yep. A punkin's a right remarkable
outfit."
"How are they most remarkable?" Bud asked.
"In punkin pie. Let's get to work."
When they had loaded the wagon, Gramps unwrapped the reins that had been
around the wagon's center post, drove to where the great, outer cellar
doors yawned wide, and two by two they carried the pumpkins into the
cellar. Then, while Bud stabled and cared for the horses, and pitched
hay down the chute for the cows, Gramps milked.
That night, after the evening meal, Bud gave himself to the complexities
of English, arithmetic and American history while Gram knitted and
Gramps pored over the latest issue of _The Upland Gunner_. Bud's eyes
stole from his textbook to the magazine in Gramps' hands, and although
he made a prodigious effort to return to the conjugation of irregular
verbs, he found it a hopeless task. He raised his eyes again to the
magazine, which had a gorgeous front cover showing a woodcock in flight,
two English setters on perfect point and a hunter who was obviously
about to add the woodcock to his bag.
Gramps spoke from behind the magazine, "That was a mighty fine report
card you fetched home, Bud."
"Thanks, Gramps."
"You fetch home reports like that, and you'n me will have a whack at Old
Yellowfoot sure after we're done with the grouse."
Without bothering to find out how Gramps had managed to peer through the
magazine and discover that he was not studying, Bud returned to his
textbook. Gramps had given him the incentive he needed at the moment,
but on a farm everybody has his tasks and Bud knew without being told
that his chief one was to get everything he could from his school work.
When Bud came home from school the next day, Gramps was sitting on the
back porch with the twenty-gauge shotgun, Bud's gun, across his knees.
Nearby was a wooden cleaning rod, some strips of white cloth, a can of
nitro solvent and a can of oil. As though such an occupation was too
commonplace to call for any explanation, Gramps said,
"Best get moving."
"Moving?"
"Now doggone! You didn't think I'd take you grouse hunting 'thout you
know which end of the gun the shot comes out of, did you?"
Bud changed his clothes in frantic haste, gulped down the milk Gram had
waiting and caught up some cookies. Gramps looked at him reprovingly as
he burst out the back door.
"You ain't going to a fire. Slow and easy's the way you take her when
you're hunting. Come on."
He led the way to a windmill behind the barn. Before the farmers along
the road had organized to form their own water company, the windmill had
pumped all the Bennetts' water. The wind furnished power when it blew.
When it did not, a gasoline engine operated the pump. Even though there
was another supply of water now, Gramps had not let the windmill
deteriorate in case it should be needed again.
While Bud had been at school, Gramps had hung cans by eight-foot cords
from each of the vanes of the windmill and hooked up power belts so the
engine would turn the windmill. A hundred feet away he had also put up
two wooden standards that looked like sign posts and covered them with
newspapers. Two boxes of shotgun shells were laid out on the engine
mount. Gramps picked up one.
"Some people practice shoot on live pigeons," he said. "I don't hold
with that 'cause I don't hold with killing anything for no good reason.
Some shoot at tin cans tossed in the air, but that's no way to learn
'cause tossed cans just ain't fast enough. Some shoot clay pigeons,
which is all right if you got the money. I have my own way. Now you know
about choke?"
"Yes, Gramps."
"Tell me."
"The left barrel of this gun is full choke, which means that it has a
narrower opening than the right and will shoot a closer pattern, but it
also has a longer range. It's to be used for birds flying a considerable
distance away."
Gramps nodded and took two shells from the box. "Load her."
Bud flipped the lever that broke the barrels and slipped a shell into
each. He tried to do it very calmly, but in spite of himself his hands
shook. He had broken the barrels a hundred times before and in
imagination he had loaded the gun and sighted on a speeding bird a
thousand times. But this was the first time he had ever held the gun
armed with live ammunition. He did not forget to check the safety, and
Gramps noticed but said nothing.
The old man said, "So you can see for yourself what pattern means, and
the difference between a full and modified choke, shoot your left barrel
into the left paper and the right into the right."
Bud braced the gun stock against his shoulder, sighted on the right-hand
paper, braced himself, and pulled the trigger. The gun's blasting roar
was much louder than anything he had expected, but the recoil was almost
negligible. He shot the left barrel with more confidence.
"You flinched on the first but held steady on the second," Gramps
pronounced. "Now let's see what happened."
They walked forward and Bud studied both papers. The one to the left
shot with a full choke bore a roughly circular pattern of evenly
distributed pellets that had gone through the paper and imbedded
themselves in the wood backing. The target shot with the modified barrel
was pock-marked with such a wide circle that it was obvious not all of
them could have struck the paper.
"Understand?" Gramps queried.
"I understand."
"Then we'll get on, and since anybody who'd shoot a bird on the ground
would catch a trout on a grasshopper, like a certain party did on Skunk
Crick, we shoot 'em on the wing. Just a minute."
Gramps started the gasoline engine. The windmill vanes began to whirl
and the dangling cans, gaining momentum, strained at the ends of their
strings. Taking the shotgun, Gramps fired one barrel, then the other,
and two of the whirling cans leaped wildly. He gave the shotgun and a
pair of shells to Bud.
Bud shot, but although he knew he was on target, he missed the can at
which he had aimed. He shot again and again until he had scored
twenty-three consecutive misses. Then, all at once, he found the feel
and balance of his gun. It was no longer a separate thing but a part of
himself. With Gramps' coaching him on leading, or shooting ahead of the
target, he scored two hits, missed three and scored ten straight.
"You're real good at shooting tin cans on the wing," Gramps pronounced.
"Now we'll see how good you are on grouse. Saturday's the day, Bud."
chapter 5
The friday after the target practice the sky was overcast when Bud came
home from school and the wind was variable. There was a wintry tang in
the air. The day that Bud had thought would never come was tomorrow.
Less than half aware of what he was doing, or of how he was doing it,
Bud helped with the nightly chores and made no serious mistakes simply
because by now he could do them by rote. He returned to earth long
enough to enjoy Gram's excellent supper and afterward tried to
concentrate on his school books, which might as well have been written
in Sanskrit. Finally he gave himself up to dreaming.
Shotgun in hand, he was walking slowly through crisp autumn woods. A
grouse, a wary old cock bird that had been taught by experience how to
avoid hunters, rose in front of him. The grouse flew into a rhododendron
thicket and, keeping brush between Bud and himself, was seen only as a
hurtling ball of feathers and at uncertain intervals. Bud, the master
sportsman, made a swift mental calculation of the bird's line of flight,
aimed where he knew it would reappear and scored a hit so perfect that
even Gramps was impressed. With complete nonchalance befitting a hunter,
Bud retrieved his trophy and said casually, "Not a bad grouse."
"And not a bad hunter!" Gramps ejaculated. "I've been practicing on
these babies for more than forty years, and I never saw a finer shot!"
"Hadn't you better go to bed, Allan?" Gram asked, bringing him back to
reality.
"You said," Gramps chuckled, "that you've been practicing on these
babies for more than forty years and never saw a finer shot. What were
you shooting at, Bud?"
Bud wriggled in embarrassment, knowing that he had once again invited
disaster by revealing his thoughts. But it was no longer the risk that
it would have been a few short months ago, for neither Gram nor Gramps
had shown any sign of wanting to exploit his weaknesses. He grinned and
said sheepishly,
"I must have been thinking out loud."
"You're tired," Gram said soothingly. "Now you just run along."
He said good night and for a moment before crawling into bed stood at
the window. Then he caressed the cased shotgun, got into bed and pulled
the covers up. Five minutes later wind-driven snow began to rattle
crisply against his bedroom window.
It was a magic sound that seemed to bring Bennett's Woods and all they
contained into Bud's bedroom. He imagined he saw the black buck, a
well-grown fawn now, pawing snow aside to get at the vegetation beneath,
while his mother flirted coyly nearby with Old Yellowfoot. Cottontail
rabbits played on the snow and sharp-nosed foxes sought them out. Blue
jays huddled on their roosts and dreamed up new insults to scream at the
world. Tiny chickadees, tiny puffs of feathers never daunted by even the
bitterest winter weather, chirped optimistically to one another in the
night.
Bud's imagination always returned to the grouse that left their
three-toed tracks, like small chicken tracks, clearly imprinted in the
new snow as they sought out the evergreen thickets where they would be
sure of finding food and shelter from the first biting blast of winter.
Bud followed the tracks. The grouse burst out of their thickets like
feathered bombs and each time he choose his bird and never missed.
It occurred to him suddenly that, even though no hint of daylight showed
against his window, he must have overslept. Bud sprang hastily up and
consulted the battered clock on his dresser to find he had been in bed
for only an hour. And so he returned to more dreams of grouse.
Always he found them by first locating their tracks and following them
into the thicket. Grouse after grouse fell to his deadly aim while
Gramps, who couldn't even hope to match this kind of shooting, finally
stopped trying and stood by admiringly. Then without any warning, Bud
was confronted by a gigantic cock grouse whose head towered a full two
feet over his own. Bud halted in his tracks, first astonished and then
afraid. When he turned to run, the grouse ran after him, snapped him up
in its bill, and began to shake him as Shep shook the rats that he
sometimes surprised around the barn. As the giant grouse shook him, it
said in a thunderous voice that Bud had already shot nine hundred
grouse, far more than any one hunter should ever take, and now he must
face his just punishment.
Bud awoke in a cold sweat to find Gramps shaking his shoulder. "Time to
move," Gramps said, and left.
Bud shook off the remnants of sleep as only a youngster can and
remembering the snow that had rattled against his window during the
night, rushed across the floor to look out. The barn roof was starkly
white in the early morning gloom, and the earth was snow-covered. Bud
ran to the chair beside his bed where he stacked his clothing and
dressed hurriedly, aware of the cold for the first time. He pulled on
and laced his rubber-bottomed pacs, and then took up his shotgun
affectionately and ran down the stairs.
As anxious as he was to be in the woods, it never occurred to Bud that
he was free to surrender to anxiety and be on with the hunting. It was
right to anticipate but not to fret because first the stock had to be
tended and fed. The farm creatures were utterly helpless and dependent,
and the humans whose chattels they were had a responsibility to them.
Bud came into the kitchen where Gram was busy and said cheerfully,
"Good morning, ma'am."
"Good morning, Allan."
As he was putting on a jacket so he could rush out and help Gramps with
the morning chores, Bud stopped with his arm half in and half out of the
sleeve. Gram's face was wan and her smile was tired, and sudden fear
leaped in Bud's heart. Nothing could possibly go wrong with Gram, but
obviously something had gone wrong. Bud said because he had to say
something,
"I'm going out to help Gramps."
"Wait just a minute," Gram said as though she had just made up her mind,
"I'd like to talk with you."
"Yes?" Bud said uncertainly.
"Will you watch over Gramps very carefully today, Allan?"
Bud was speechless, for Gramps was like one of the great white oaks that
grew in Bennett's Woods, or one of the granite boulders that reared
their humped backs on the hills. He watched over everything and
everybody. With Gram, he made the Bennett farm a happy fortress where
people could live as people were meant to live. Being asked to watch
over Gramps made Bud feel small and incompetent.
"Is Gramps sick?" he asked.
"No," and he knew that she was speaking only half the truth. "It's just
that he isn't as young as he used to be and I don't like to see him go
in the woods alone."
"Perhaps we should stay home?"
"Oh no!" Gram said vehemently. "That would be far worse than going.
Gramps was never meant for a rocking chair. Just watch over him."
Bud threw his arms around her. He was a little surprised, now that they
stood so close together, to discover that he did not have to rise at all
to kiss her seamed cheek. He had always thought of Gram as being far
taller than he, but now he knew she wasn't at all.
"Don't you worry, Gram. I'll take care of him."
"Now I just knew you would!" There was a sudden, happy lilt in Gram's
voice and her weariness had disappeared.
Bud kissed her again and went into the snowy morning, and if some of his
zest had evaporated, something better had taken its place. He had known
almost from the beginning how desperately he needed Gram and Gramps, and
his greatest fear had been that, somehow, he would be separated from
them. The thought of parting from them had worried him endlessly, and he
had schemed to make himself indispensable. But there seemed to be no
way, for he was not indispensable; he wasn't even important. Now,
miraculously, the way had opened. Without understanding just how it had
been brought about, Bud knew that Gram and Gramps needed him, too, and
the knowledge gave him new stature and strength, and broke the final
barriers that had held him aloof. It was impossible to remain distant
when Gram's very heart cried out to him.
The brisk wind whirled little snow devils across the yard and the barn
roof was covered with snow. Shep came out of the partly open door to
meet him, and Bud stooped to ruffle his ears. The collie remained by his
side as Bud entered the barn, which was warm from the heat given off by
the animals' bodies.
As he was milking Cherub, the only cow of the four that would kick if
she caught the milker off guard, Gramps looked up and said happily,
"It's a great day for it."
"It looks that way, Gramps," said Bud, his apprehension lessening in the
face of Gramps' enthusiasm. "I'll get to work."
He got his own pail and started milking Susie, thinking of the time when
milking had seemed an art so involved that only a genius could master
it. Now Bud could match Gramps' milking skill. He rose to empty his
full milk pail into the can standing in the cooler. In another hour or
so, Joe Travis would be along to collect it with his truck and carry it
to the creamery at Haleyville. Household milk for both drinking and
churning was always saved from the last pail. Gram still poured milk
into shallow pans in the cool cellar, and separated milk from cream by
skimming off the cream with a great spoon when it rose to the top of the
pan.
Coming back to milk the last cow, Bud stood aside so Gramps could pass
with his brimming pail and said,
"If you want to finish Clover, I'll take care of the horses and
chickens."
"Hop to it," Gramps said cheerfully. "Though I'd like to get going
there's no tearing rush. Those grouse are going to stay where it's
warm."
Breathing a silent prayer because his ruse had worked--it was easier to
milk another cow than to fork down hay for the horses and care for the
poultry--Bud went to the horse stable. Tied to mangers, the two placid
horses raised their heads and nickered a soft welcome when he entered.
Bud filled the mangers with hay, gave each horse a heaping measure of
grain, filled their water containers, groomed them and went on to the
poultry house.
The turkeys, geese and ducks had long since gone to one of the freezing
lockers Pat Haley kept in the rear of his store, where, dressed and
plucked, they awaited the various winter holidays and the homecomings of
the Bennetts' children and grandchildren. Most of the chickens remained
alive, however. A few were still on the roosts, and in the dim light,
none was very active.
As Bud filled the mash and grain hoppers and checked the supply of
crushed oyster shell, he daydreamed about the flock he hoped to have.
Instead of these mongrel chickens, he visualized an evenly matched,
evenly colored flock. This morning he favored Rhode Island Reds, but
sometimes he was for White Leghorns, or Anconas, or one of the many
varieties of Plymouth Rocks or White or Buff Wyandottes. Bud had not yet
decided whether it was better to breed for eggs or meat, or to choose a
species of fowl that would supply both. But he did know that he wanted
chickens. Although he never saw himself reaping great wealth from them,
in his imagination he often heard himself assuring Gram and Gramps that
the egg money, or the broiler money, depending on the breed he happened
to fancy at the moment, was ample to pay all the current bills and leave
a substantial reserve.
He finished and he had no sooner shut the henhouse door than he ceased
being a poultryman and became a hunter. The light was stronger now, the
new snow was soft beneath his pacs and the wind was cold enough so that
the season's first snow would not melt. The snow gave a special glamour
to the forthcoming hunt, for in all the hunting stories Bud had liked
the hunters had worked on snow. Moreover, the snow and the cold wind
would keep the grouse concentrated in or near their evergreen thickets,
and since Gramps knew every thicket in Bennett's Woods, the shooting
would be fine.
Gramps was at the table paying no attention to what he ate or how he ate
it. Gram started to fill Bud's plate as he came in, and she looked at
him meaningfully: he was to watch over Gramps and Gram knew that he
would. But all she said was,
"Get them while they're hot, Allan."
"Sure, Gram," Bud said cheerfully.
As he was about to stuff two pancakes rolled around two strips of bacon
and doused with syrup into his mouth, Gramps stopped with the food
halfway from his plate.
"What'd you call Mother?"
"Gram," Bud said, and now it seemed that he had never called her by any
other name.
"Why of course, Delbert," Gram said. "Where have your ears been?"
"Wish I knew," Gramps said, and resumed eating.
They finished, pushed their plates back, and Bud donned a belt-length
wool jacket over his wool shirt. He stuffed the pockets full of shotgun
shells, caught up his shotgun and kissed Gram again.
"'Bye. We'll bring you back something nice."
"Just bring yourselves back safely, and have a good time."
They left the house, and when Shep fell in beside them, Gramps did not
order him back. Bud said nothing. He had learned long ago why Shep
scared trout, for the smallest shadow that fell across their pool would
send trout scurrying for the shelter of overhanging banks or into
crannies beneath rocks. It stood to reason that Shep would also frighten
grouse, but that was a different matter. When Bud and Gramps approached,
the grouse were sure to be frightened anyway and a dog prowling about
was as likely to offer shots by sending grouse rocketing skyward as he
was to frighten them out of range.
Bud stole a sidewise glance at Gramps and saw nothing amiss. But he was
troubled by Gramps' silence until the old man spoke,
"When'd it happen, Bud?"
"When did what happen?"
"You called Mother 'Gram.' You kissed her when we left."
"Well," Bud said, and then he came out with it, "I've wanted to do it
for a long time."
"A body ought to do what he wants more often," Gramps said. "Maybe it'd
make a heap of people feel a heap better a lot sooner. Do you like it
here with us?"
"Oh, yes!"
"So'd our young'uns, but after they grew up, they couldn't wait to
leave. That's right and as it should be; the old have no call to tell
the young what they must do. What are you aiming to be when you grow
up?"
"I haven't thought."
"Don't you want to do anything?"
"Yes. I want to raise chickens," Bud said recklessly.
"Raise chickens!" Gramps was surprised. "How come? Tell me."
Bud told him of the agricultural journals he had found in the closet off
the living room and of the articles he had read about chickens, which
had convinced him that the farm's present flock ought to be exchanged
for purebreds. At any rate, he told Gramps, as soon as he could somehow
earn enough money to buy a small pen of purebreds, he wanted to test his
theory, if he could have Gram and Gramps' permission.
"Guess we can find room for a few more chickens. We'll think about it,"
Gramps said when Bud finished. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper.
"We'd best take it easy. Should be grouse round this next bend."
Noting that Shep had left them for an excursion of his own, Bud balanced
the shotgun with both hands and poised his thumb to slip the safety
catch. They rounded the bend and stopped in their tracks.
About a hundred and fifty feet away there was a dense thicket of young
hemlocks, small bushy trees about eight feet high. Ten feet from the
thicket, so still that at first he seemed to be a statue rather than a
living thing, stood a mighty buck. His head was turned toward them and
his ears flicked forward as he tested the wind with his black nose. From
the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail, every line was graceful and
yet brutally powerful. His craggy antlers curved high and spread wide.
As little as he knew about deer, Bud knew his antlers were superb. From
the hocks and knees down, each of the buck's feet was a light yellow.
An instant later the buck had melted like a ghost into the hemlocks and
Gramps said in awed tones,
"Old Yellowfoot!"