The Black Fawn Part 23

"I don't think so," Bud said.

"Something is chewing on you," Gramps said. "What is it?"

"Nothing," Bud said, turning his face away because he could not look at Gramps and tell an untruth.

"You ain't going to stop hunting?" Gramps asked.

"Two grouse are plenty for the three of us."

"I hope you don't feel like hanging fire when we go after the black buck."

"I'll hunt him with you," Bud promised.

"Then we'll get him." Gramps seemed relieved. "Well, let's mosey home and see how Mother's doing."

In his first free period the following Monday, Bud sat in the princ.i.p.al's outer office at Haleyville High School. After five minutes Mr. Thorne's secretary told him to go in. Bud, who had always been at ease with Mr. Thorne, was nervous.

"I'd like permission to be excused from school for as much of the deer season as necessary, sir," he said stiffly.

"Want to get yourself a buck, eh?"

"Well, partly."

"Do you think that hunting is more important than your academic career?"

"No, sir."

"Then what is it?"

"There's a big buck in Bennett's Woods," Bud blurted out. "Gramps--Mr.

Bennett, that is--has always dreamed of killing just such a deer. It's sort of like a dream he's always had. Gramps had been sick and he isn't exactly young. No one can be sure he'll be able to hunt next deer season. He has to get the black buck this year. He thinks I can help him."

"In other words you want to stay out of school for an indefinite period to help Delbert Bennett get this buck. Well, I think it can be arranged." Then, before Bud could thank him, Mr. Thorne went on. "In fact, I think it will be a very important part of your education. You may not see what I mean now, but maybe you will later."

Gramps, who was splitting wood when Bud got home that afternoon, yelled "Hallelujah!" when he heard the good news and threw a stick of firewood in the air. "The black buck's as good as ours," he said.

Not long afterward the school bus was crawling up the highway behind the snowplow that was clearing four inches of new snow that had added itself to the four inches that had fallen yesterday. Bud was staring out the window, almost oblivious to Goethe Shakespeare Umberdehoven who sat beside him as usual. He saw little since wind-blown sheets of snow obscured everything more than twenty yards from the highway, but he was thinking of the caterpillar that had crawled up the log when Gramps scored his double on grouse. Bud had been a little skeptical when Gramps had predicted a harsh, early winter from the caterpillar's markings, but now it looked as if they were in for the earliest and harshest winter in ten years.

When Get Umberdehoven asked if he was going deer hunting, Bud said "Yeah" without turning away from the window.

"You don't seem so excited about it."

"Why don't I?" Bud snapped.

"Always before when deer season came you couldn't hardly sit still. Now you act like you'd rather not go."

"Oh shut up!" Bud said. Then, feeling remorseful, he turned to face Get.

"Are you going deer hunting?"

"Everybody goes the first day and we got to get a deer because if we do"--Bud waited for what he knew was coming next--"we can sell another pig."

"I'm going to stay out and hunt for as long as I want to," Bud said loftily. "I'll hunt the whole season if I feel like it."

"I wish I could," Get said. "School, it's hard for me. But if I don't go, I fall behind, and if I fall behind . . ." He shrugged eloquently.

Bud thought of Mr. Thorne's saying that he thought it would be a very important part of Bud's education to hunt the black buck, but he still had no idea what Mr. Thorne really meant. There were a lot of things he did not understand, Bud decided as the bus stopped in front of the Bennetts' driveway.

"Good luck," he said to Get to make up for having snapped at him.

"Yeah," Get said listlessly.

Bud left the bus and made his way through the eight inches of fluffy snow that blanketed the driveway. The snow was loose and easy to plow through. But still it would either keep the more timid hunters out of the woods entirely or make them concentrate in the fringe areas so that there would be fewer hunters in the deep woods.

Shep came to meet him as Bud stomped the snow from his overshoes and took them off on the porch, and for a moment Bud wished he could change places with Shep, who wasn't allowed to go out into the deer woods during the season. Then he opened the door and went into the kitchen.

A heavenly smell from the loaves of freshly baked bread that Gram was tumbling out of baking pans filled every corner of the kitchen and overflowed into the nearby rooms. Gramps sat at the table fussing with some minor adjustment of his deer rifle.

"All set, Bud?" he said, grinning.

"All set."

"Good. Tomorrow we get on his tail! Give us four days together, just four days, and you and me'll tag that black buck."

Gram said, "Oh, Delbert. You'd think that buck was more important than the President of the United States."

"Right now, and as far as I'm concerned, he is, Mother. 'Sides, who'd want the President's head hanging on his setting-room wall?"

Gram appealed to Bud. "That's all he's been talking about, just that black buck. And if he's been over his rifle once today, he's been over it a hundred times."

"Got to have it right, Mother," Gramps said. "We'll get one chance and no more. If we miss when the chance comes, we'll have only ourselves to blame."

"After all this fuss and bother you'd just better get him," Gram said dryly. "There'll be no living with you the rest of the winter if you don't. I'd give you a slice of b.u.t.ter bread, Allan, except that it's still too hot."

"I'm not hungry," Bud said. "I'll change my clothes and do the ch.o.r.es."

"I'll give you a hand," Gramps offered.

"No, you stay right here."

Bud went to his room, glad to escape. If only a miracle would occur. If only the snow would melt and the leaves would appear and deer season would be over with the black buck still in Bennett's Woods. There would be no miracle, Bud knew. There was just one thing he could do if the black buck came in range--shoot straight. Gramps wanted the head to hang in the living room and Bud would do his best to see that it hung there.

It made no difference whether he or Bud shot the buck, since they would be working as a team.

Bud lingered at the ch.o.r.es, and for one of the very few times since he had come to live with the Bennetts, he had almost no appet.i.te for supper. Gram looked at him with concern, but Gramps was too excited to notice.