The Black Fawn Part 8

Bud had discovered the ruffed grouse, known locally as "pat'tidges," the thickets where foxes hunted and the places where black-masked racc.o.o.ns washed their food. He had come to understand what sportsmans.h.i.+p means as opposed to hunting, and instead of recoiling when Gramps asked him to go grouse hunting, he had accepted eagerly and was looking forward to the opening day of the season.

Finally, he had found a dream of his own.

Gramps had a half-dozen turkeys, as many geese, a few ducks and a large flock of mongrel chickens that ranged from fussy little bantams to huge dunghill roosters. The flock was allowed to wander at will and to interbreed freely. According to the articles in the farm journals Bud had found stacked in the little closet off the living room, that was not the proper way to raise chickens. Although purebred fowls cost much more in the beginning, the returns were said to repay the initial investment many times over if the flock was correctly fed and housed. So far Bud had not broached the subject with Gram or Gramps because it was useless to talk about a project until you had the means to carry it out.

Nevertheless, he had privately decided that, if and when he got both the money and Gram and Gramps' permission, he would buy a pen of purebred chickens and try to build up a flock.

That was for the future, but this was now, and when he saw the school bus approaching, Bud drew a deep breath. Then he clenched his teeth and boarded it.

The trip to Haleyville was over before he thought it could be, and the children a.s.sembled in little groups in front of the school. Bud went up alone to the entrance to the building and stood by himself with his back against the wall pretending to lounge nonchalantly. He was the only one who did not seem to know exactly where to go or what to do. Bells rang at intervals and the crowd of boys and girls thinned until the only ones left were Bud and a tall man who was obviously a teacher.

When Bud told him he was in the eighth grade, the teacher led Bud down several long corridors and past rows of closed doors with frosted gla.s.s panes in them. Finally he paused before one of the doors and, opening it, propelled Bud through ahead of him. A man with the physique of a wrestler but with gentle eyes looked around.

"I have one of your lost sheep, Mr. Harris," Bud's escort said.

"Come in and join the cla.s.s, sheep," Mr. Harris said, smiling.

The cla.s.s t.i.ttered and Bud writhed. The only refuge he knew was defiance.

"Don't call me names!" he shouted. "I'm not a sheep!"

"You're not very polite, either," Mr. Harris said without raising his voice. "What is your name?"

"Bud."

"Is that all your name? Just Bud?"

The cla.s.s t.i.ttered again and Bud's mortification mounted as he choked out,

"Bud Sloan."

Mr. Harris consulted his cla.s.s roll. "It says here you're Allan Sloan."

"I don't care what it says!" Bud shouted again. "My name's Bud!"

All at once he found himself sitting on the floor. Lights danced in his head. He blinked owlishly, and as if from a great distance, he heard Mr.

Harris say,

"Get up, Allan. Your seat is the third one in the first row. Take it."

Bud walked to his seat and the cla.s.s was subdued. Bud sat in sullen silence for the rest of the morning. When noon came, he ate a lonely lunch and when the dismissal gong sounded at the end of the day he was the first to rise.

"You're to stay after school, Allan," Mr. Harris said.

Scowling, Bud sat down again and watched his cla.s.smates whoop out to freedom. As though he had forgotten all about Bud or perhaps because Bud was too insignificant to notice, Mr. Harris methodically and calmly put his desk in order. Finally he looked up and said,

"Come on."

Mr. Harris led the way out through the rear entrance and Bud gulped as they neared the parking lot. He would have run if his legs would have obeyed him, but since they would not, he got into Mr. Harris's car. They started up the road toward the Bennetts' farm, and after they were out of town, Mr. Harris said,

"You needed that cuffing I gave you."

Bud said nothing as Mr. Harris continued, "You had it coming and you know it. I know exactly what you were thinking and why. Stop thinking it.

"Let me tell you about another boy," Mr. Harris said, "another orphan.

He was farmed out when he was just about your age, and he went to a new school exactly as you did. Inside, he was frightened as a rabbit with five dogs and nine cats backing him into a corner, but he was afraid to let anyone else know that. The teacher reprimanded him and he shouted at him. Then, because he was convinced that only tough guys can get along, he hit the teacher with a chair. The boy was twelve when it happened. He was eighteen when he finally got out of reform school, and it was a reform school even if they called it a training school for boys."

Bud said nothing and Mr. Harris went on, "It's a true story, as I should know. The boy's name was Jeffrey Chandler Harris, who now teaches eighth grade at Haleyville Consolidated School. I've wished many a time that that teacher had had sense enough to clobber me when I most needed it."

Before Bud could recover or reply, Mr. Harris eased his car to a stop in front of the drive leading to Gram and Gramps' house and was holding out his hand.

"Friends?"

"Friends," Bud said, and shook hands.

The autumn days were literally golden days. Gold leaves clung to the aspens and birches and to some of the maples. Goldenrod bloomed. A golden moon shone down on a field where golden pumpkins lay among shocked corn. The sun rose golden every morning and set in a golden blaze every night.

Most of the crops were harvested and the fields lay bare. The cellar beneath the farmhouse was bursting with the fruits and vegetables that could be stored, and every shelf was filled with jars in which Gram had canned those that could not be stored. Split and neatly corded wood was stacked up to the roof of the woodshed and now the wood boxes on the back porch and in the kitchen were kept heaping full.

The warmth the kitchen range radiated was welcome these days, for even at high noon there was a sharp tang in the air. The cattle preferred the sunny to the shady parts of the pasture and a box, which had a hole cut in it and with a cloth hung over the hole, covered Shep's bed on the porch.

After their first encounter Bud and Mr. Harris had understood each other and Bud brought home a very creditable first report card. That afternoon he raced up to his room to exchange school clothes for work clothes and ran back down the stairs, stopping in the kitchen only long enough to gobble the cookies and drink the milk Gram had ready for him.

"I have to hurry and help Gramps get everything caught up so we can go grouse hunting," he explained when Gram remonstrated.

"Oh. That's real important. Scoot, now."

Bud drank the last of his milk and ran out. In the corn field Gramps had the team hitched to the light box wagon and was walking beside it and lifting ripe pumpkins into the box, starting and stopping the horses with his voice alone. Bud raced toward Gramps, and Shep came leaping to meet him. As he petted the big furry dog, Bud looked toward the autumn woods and for an instant he thought he had caught a glimpse of the black fawn melting away into the trees.

For Bud the fawn was outside the laws of nature, but with the taking of 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."

"h.e.l.lo, 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.