The Black Fawn Part 12

"Did I scare you, Bud?" Gramps said, raising his head and smiling.

"Uh-huh."

"Shouldn't have," Gramps said. "Wasn't any good reason for it. Just a pile of blamed nonsense."

"Can you sit up without help?" Bud asked.

"What do you think I am? A baby? Sure I can sit up."

"I'll make a sled and have you back to the house in a jiffy."

"You'll make a sled?" Gramps said in something like his old voice. "Just how do you aim to make it?"

"I don't know," Bud said grimly, "but I'll make one."

"I believe you would," Gramps conceded. "I believe you would do just that, but it ain't necessary. I'll walk back."

And with a sudden lurch, Gramps heaved himself to his feet. He teetered uncertainly, but before Bud could help, Gramps found his balance and stood steadily. His face was pale, but he was no longer sweating and his grin was warm.

"See? Sound as a yearling colt. Now you stop troubling your head about me and find those two pat'tidges you dropped."

Then Bud remembered the pair of grouse that had fallen to his two shots.

He looked at his shotgun, which was still leaning against the little pine very near his shooting position when he scored his double. He reconstructed the approximate positions of the two grouse when he shot, and the angle at which each had pitched into the snow. He looked uncertainly at Gramps.

"Go ahead," the old man said. "You put 'em down and now you get 'em.

There's two things you don't leave in the woods; one's wounded game and t'other's dead game. You get 'em."

Bud caught up his shotgun, cradled it in the crook of his arm, and walked to where he thought the first bird would be. He found it almost at once, pitched against a little cl.u.s.ter of blackberry canes with its wings still spread as though it were ready to fly again. For the second bird Bud searched five minutes. He put both in the game pocket of his jacket and returned to Gramps.

"I found them."

"Good." Except that he was still pale, Gramps seemed almost his old self. "That was nice shooting, Bud."

Bud nodded, too worried even to smile. Any other time Gramps' admission that Bud had shot well would have been overwhelming, for although Gramps seldom condemned harshly, he almost never praised at all.

"I guess," Gramps said with forced cheer, "we might as well go tell Mother the hunt's over."

Bud said nothing. Gramps had recovered sufficiently so that he could risk running to the house for the toboggan that lay across two wooden horses in the barn. But he did not offer to go, for he sensed something that did not appear on the surface. It was something that had taken root the day Gramps was born and grown stronger with every day of his life.

Gramps had walked here; he would walk back, and Bud knew that to suggest Gramps could not walk out without help would wound him deeply. Even while he felt guilty because he did not ignore Gramps' wishes and go for the toboggan anyway, Bud still sympathized. He, too, thought that a man should stand on his own feet.

Trying not to appear obvious, Bud adjusted his gait to the old man's. It was far slower than usual, but Gramps seemed not to notice that everything was not as it should be, and Bud was grateful. Shep came out of the woods to join them. He trotted twenty feet ahead, looked back to make sure they were following, and then set a pace that kept him about twenty feet in the lead. They were halfway to the farm when Gramps spoke,

"There's no call to say anything to Mother 'bout this."

"She should know," Bud said.

"She should," Gramps agreed. "If it was anything bad she sure should.

But it's just a heap of blamed nonsense. Doc Beardsley told me that himself. 'Most twenty-five years ago a horse kicked me in the head. It never fazed me then, but seems like it's showing up now, and Doc says I can expect these little cat fits every now'n again. They don't mean any more than a headache or sore tooth. You wouldn't want to worry Gram, would you?"

Bud said reluctantly, "No."

"She will worry if you tell her."

Bud looked down at the snow. Gram couldn't have known that Gramps would be stricken, but she had certainly known that he _might_ be. Bud stole a look at Gramps, who had started to walk almost at his normal pace and who now bore only faint traces of his recent ordeal. If it was serious, Gram should know. But if, as Gramps said, it was only a trifling incident, it would only worry Gram to know. Bud reached his decision.

"I won't tell her," he promised.

"A right smart idea," Gramps said. "A fair half of the world's trouble is brought on by people shooting off their mouths when they'd do a lot better to keep 'em shut. You have plenty of horse sense, Bud."

Bud thought suddenly of the little black buck, and he felt an almost uncontrollable yearning to seek him out. The buck was his brother, through whom Bud had discovered the first key that had helped open a series of magic doors. The black buck, Bud felt, would help him reach the correct decision now about whether Gram should know. But the buck was not at hand, and now they were too near the house not to continue.

Gramps asked, far too casually, "How do I look?"

Bud said, "All right," and Gramps did look all right--a bit tired, perhaps, and a little pale, but not like a man who had been as desperately ill as he had been. They brushed the snow from their pacs and entered the kitchen.

Gram looked intently at Gramps. "Do you feel all right, Delbert?"

Gramps said, "Nope. Anybody with half an eye can see I'm in bed with whooping cough, scarlet fever and hangnails."

Bud caught his breath, for obviously Gram had seen through Gramps'

nonchalance. Normally there would have been more questions, but now Gram had something else on her mind. With a flourish, she plucked a letter from her ap.r.o.n pocket.

"From Helen!" she exclaimed. "She'll be here with Hal and the children on Christmas! Isn't that nice? With the other children and counting the grandchildren, there'll be at least thirty-three for Christmas!"

"Wonderful!" Gramps agreed. "Let's hope they stay more than just one day!"

"Helen Carruthers said she'll sleep the overflow if they do," Gram said.

"With her children gone, too, and Joab in the hospital, she's lost in that big house. She told me so over the phone."

Gramps said firmly, "When our young'uns and their young'uns come home, they stay here."

The house would be spilling over with Bennetts, in-laws of Bennetts and grandchildren of Bennetts. Something within Bud turned stone cold and for a moment he wanted to die as he realized he did not have first claim or any real claim on the affections of these two people he had come to love so dearly. They had children of their own, natural children, and the fact that he was an orphan seemed more bitter to Bud than it ever had before. He felt it would have been better if he never had come here, for he had given his whole heart to Gram and Gramps who already had so many that there couldn't possibly be room for one more.

Gram and Gramps began a happy discussion of the coming holiday. Helen Carruthers, who was so lonely anyway, would be glad to come in four or five days before Christmas to help Gram get ready. Naturally, Helen would leave on the twenty-fourth to spend Christmas with Joab--and wasn't it a pity that he had had to be sent to a hospital almost two hundred miles from home when, if he was within reasonable distance, Helen could visit him so much oftener? But there would be plenty of help anyway. Gram hadn't raised her daughters without teaching them what to do in a kitchen.

Bud slipped out un.o.btrusively, and Shep followed him. As soon as they were hidden by a corner of the house, Bud hugged the collie fiercely.

Then, with Shep beside him, he set off down the old tote road to find the black fawn.

The afternoon was waning when he returned, having seen five deer but not the black fawn. Although it was still early for ch.o.r.es, Bud cleaned the cow stable, fed and milked the four cows and took care of the milk. He looked to the horses and went to the chicken house, where this time he saw only the usual flock of mongrel chickens.

He collected the eggs from the nests and emerged from the chicken house to see Munn Mackie coming up the drive in his truck. A small building was chained securely onto the body of the truck. Gramps came from the house, b.u.t.toning his jacket as he came, and Munn stopped his truck.

"Where do you want her, Del?"

"Beside the hen house."

Munn's truck growled across the snow and came to a halt. Munn jumped from the cab, made a ramp of two-by-sixes and jockeyed the building onto the two-by-sixes until it skidded safely to the ground beside the hen house.

As Gramps paid Munn and the trucker drove away, Bud glanced at the little building beside the hen house. Until this afternoon he would have been eager to know why Munn had brought it and what it was for. Now he did not care.