“Are you making fun of me, Hugh?”
“Not at all. Mechanics were building level and square centuries before you could buy instruments. We’ll build a plumbbob level. That’s an upside-down T, and a string with a weight to mark the vertical. You can build it about six feet long and six high to give us a long sighting arm-minimize the errors. Have to take apart one of the bunks for boards. It’s light, fussy work you can do while your ribs heal. ~While the girls do the heavy, unfussy excavating.”
“You draw it, I’ll build it.”
“When we get the building leveled we’ll mount it on the roof and sight upstream. Have to cut a tree or two but we won’t have any trouble running a base line. Intercepts we run with a smaller level. Duck soup, Joe.”
“No sweat, huh?”
“Mostly sweat. But twenty feet a day of shallow ditch and we’ll have irrigation water when the dry season hits. The bathroom can wait-the gals will be cheered just by the fact that there will be one, someday. Joe, it would suit me if our base line cuts the stream about here. See anything?”
“What should I see?”
“We fell those two trees and they dam the creek. Then chuck in branches, mud, and some brush and still more mud and rocks and the stream backs up in a pond.” Hugh added, “Have to devise a gate, and that I do not see, with what we have to work with. Every problem leads straight to another. Damn.”
“Hugh, you’re counting your chickens before the cows come home.”
“I suppose so. Well, let’s go see how much the girls have dug while we loafed.”
The girls had dug little; Duke had returned with a miniature four-point buck. Barbara and Karen had it strung up against a tree and were trying to butcher it. Karen seemed to have as much blood on her as there was on the ground.
They stopped as the men approached. Barbara wiped her forehead, leaving a red trail. “I hadn’t realized they were so complicated inside.”
“Or so messy!” sighed Karen.
“With that size it’s easier on the ground.”
“Now he tells us. Show us, Daddy. We’ll watch.”
“Me? I’m a gentleman sportsman; the guide did the dirty work. But- Joe, can you lay hands on that little hatchet?”
“Sure. It’s sharp; I touched it up yesterday.”
Hugh split the breastbone and pelvic girdle and spread the carcass, then peeled out viscera and lungs and spilled them, while silently congratulating the girls on not having pierced the intestines. “All yours, girls. Barbara, if you can get that hide off, you might be wearing it soon. Have you noticed any oaks?”
“There are scrub forms. And sumach, too. You’re thinking of tannin?”
“Yes.”
“I know how to extract it.”
“Then you know more about tanning than I do. I’ll bow out. There are books.”
“I know, I was looking it up. Doe! Don’t sniff at that, boy.”
“He won’t eat it,” Joe assured her, “unless it’s good for him. Cats are fussy.”
While butchering was going on, Duke and his mother crawled out and joined them. Mrs. Farnham seemed cheerful but did not greet anyone; she simply looked at Duke’s kill. “Oh, the poor little thing! Duke dear, how did you have the heart to kill it?”
“It sassed me and I got mad.”
“It’s a pretty piece of venison, Duke,” Hugh said. “Good eating.”
His wife glanced at him. “Perhaps you’ll eat it; I couldn’t bear to.”
Karen said, “Have you turned vegetarian, Mother?”
“It’s not the same thing. I’m going in, I don’t want that on me. Karen, don’t you dare come inside until you’ve washed; I won’t have you tracking blood in after I’ve slaved away getting the place spotless.” She headed toward the shelter. “Come inside, Duke.”
“In a moment, Mother.”
Karen gave the carcass an unnecessarily vicious cut.
“Where did you nail it?” Hugh asked.
“Other side of the ridge. I should have been back sooner.”
“Why?”
“Missed an easy shot and splintered an arrow on a boulder. Buck fever. It has been years since I used a-‘bow season’ license.”
“One lost arrow, one carcass, is good hunting. You saved the arrowhead?”