Tramping along the Lorton Road toward his father's house, Ted told
himself that he had been a complete fool. With a start in the only
business that interested him, he had sacrificed everything for what
suddenly seemed a trivial reason.
Carl Thornton had spoken the truth. Those who lived in the Mahela
thought that just living there gave them a proprietary interest in the
game and fish that shared the wilderness with them. But, except for
Smoky Delbert, a notorious poacher who hunted and fished for the market,
most dwellers in the Mahela confined their poaching to killing a deer
when they felt like having venison or catching a mess of trout when they
thought they needed some fish for dinner. They broke the law, but as far
as Ted knew, their chances of going to Heaven when they died were fully
as good as his. They weren't sinners.
Half inclined to turn back and tell Thornton he'd reconsidered, still
Ted went on. It wouldn't be easy, but definitely it would be possible to
shoot both of the great bucks before the hunters who invaded the Mahela
when the season opened sent them into hiding. If Ted got them, or even
promised to try to get them, he would be back in Thornton's good graces.
"If I was smart," he told himself, "I'd tell Thornton I was hunting
those bucks and not get either."
He played with the tempting thought, then put it behind him and walked
on. Nobody who called himself a man took another man's pay for doing a
job and then failed to do it. Ted asked himself questions and tried to
provide his own answers.
Was he afraid of Loring Blade, the game warden? He didn't think so. The
Mahela was a big country and the warden could not be everywhere at once.
The chances were very good that anyone who knew what he was doing could
get both bucks safely to Crestwood, where they became Thornton's
responsibility. Besides, Thornton had said he'd pay the fine if Ted were
caught.
Did he shrink from breaking the law? Yes, of course. At the same time he
knew positively that if he and his father were in desperate straits, if
they had no food and no other means of getting any, he'd shoot deer or
any other edible game he could find, regardless of whether it was in
season or out.
There seemed to be something else involved and Ted could find no precise
bracket in which it fitted. It concerned the grouse he'd held in his
hand, the cool morning breeze, the view from Hawkbill, his
father--everything Ted loved and held dear.
His mind was a whirlpool in which nothing at all was clear except that
he could not shoot the two bucks for Thornton. It would be as easy to
shoot Tammie--his lips formed a sick grin at that thought! Yesterday his
dreams had been bright as bubbles in the sun. Today all the bubbles
were burst. There wasn't the faintest possibility of getting a job at
another resort for the simple reason that there was no other resort.
Of course, if he left the Mahela--But he couldn't do that either.
Ted was a half mile from their house when he saw Al's tobacco pouch
lying beside the road. He picked it up and put it in his pocket.
Obviously his father had been here--probably he'd been scouting mink
sign along Spinning Creek and had walked back up the road--and he was
forever losing his pouch. But somehow somebody always found it and
brought it back to him.
Ted tried to put a spring in his step and a cheerful smile on his lips.
A man faced up to his own troubles and did not inflict them on other
people. He tried to whistle and succeeded only in hissing.
He was a hundred yards from the house when Tammie, who'd caught his
scent, hurried to meet him. Sleek fur rippling and short ears jiggling,
he advanced at the collie's lope, which seems so restrained and is so
incredibly fast. Tammie came to a graceful halt in front of Ted and
looked at him with dancing eyes.
"Hi, dog! Hi, Tammie!" Ted ruffled his head with a gentle hand as Tammie
fell in beside him. Plucking the tobacco pouch from his pocket, he gave
it to the collie. "Here. Take it to Al."
The tobacco pouch dangling by its drawstrings, Tammie streaked up the
road. Disdaining the drive leading into the house, he cut through the
woods and disappeared. Ted squared his shoulders, tried again to
whistle--and succeeded. His father must be home. When Ted was working
and Al went out, Tammie always went with him.
Ted turned up the drive and was halfway to the house when Tammie came
flying back to meet him. They went to the shed in the rear; Al would be
working. Ted peered through the open door and his father, shaping
another stretching board, glanced up to greet him.
"Hi, Ted!"
"Hello, dad!"
"No work today?"
"That's right."
Al bent his head to hide the question in his eyes. Something had
happened and he knew it. His voice was a little too casual as he said,
"Figgered when Tammie fetched my tobacco pouch that he'd made up his
mind to go 'round pickin' up after me."
"No, I found it beside the road and sent Tammie with it. You should put
a string on that pouch and tie it to your britches."
"Guess I'd ought. Tammie and me took a whirl down the crick to look for
mink sign. Must of lost my pouch on the way back."
"Find any sign?"
"There'll be mink on the crick this year. I can take a string of pelts
and leave enough so there'll also be mink next year."
"Now that's just swell!" Ted bit his tongue. Wanting to keep his
troubles to himself by appearing gay and careless, he'd leaned too far
in that direction and been over-emphatic. Al raised his head and
searched his son's face with wonderfully gentle eyes.
"Want to tell me?"
"Tell you what?"
"What happened to you."
"Oh," Ted forced what he tried to make a casual laugh, "Thornton fired
me."