“This deep enough?” McKlearey asked, pointing at their hole. I noticed that he had on a fresh bandage.
“Yeah, that’ll do it,” Clint answered. “Just kick them guts and hooves and the head in and cover ’em up. We’ll pile rocks on top when you’re done.”
I looked away. It hadn’t bothered me so far, but the deer’s eyes were still open, and I didn’t want to see them kicking dirt in them.
“That’s got it,” Jack said.
Clint gave me back my knives. “Pretty good set,” he said. “Where’d you come by it?”
“In Germany,” I said. “Got it when I was in the Army.”
“Damn good steel,” he said. “Holds the edge real good.”
“They’re a bitch to sharpen.” I grinned at him. Actually, Clydine had sharpened them for me. I don’t know where she’d learned how, but she sure could put an edge on a knife.
We piled rocks on the buried remains of the deer, and then the three of us lifted the carcass onto the pack-frame saddle while Clint held the horse’s head to keep him from shying at the blood-smell.
Clint picked up his rifle, and we went on back to camp.
“Dry doe,” Clint told Miller when we got back to the corral. “Picked ‘er up on that little game trail back in there a ways.”
“Looks like she’ll last us,” Miller said.
“Should. I’ll skin ‘er out after breakfast when you fellers go up on the ridge.”
They put a short, heavy stick through the hocks of the hind legs and hung the carcass to a tree limb a ways behind camp.
After they’d unsaddled the packhorse, we all walked back on up to the fire. Clint washed up and started hustling around the cook table McKlearey’d built for him.
“First blood,” Sloane said in the kind of gaspy voice he’d developed since we’d gotten up into the high country.
“This one don’t really count.” Miller chuckled.
“At least there are deer around,” Stan said.
“Oh, there’s plenty of deer up here, all right,” Miller said.
I got the enameled washbasin and filled it with warm water from the big pot on the fire and did a little better job of washing up man I’d managed earlier. Then Clint ran us all away from the fire because we were in his way.
I walked on down to the edge of the beaver pond and looked out over the clear water. It was about four or five feet deep out in the middle, and the bottom was thinly sprinkled with matchstick-sized white twigs. I saw a flicker under the surface about ten feet out and saw a good-sized trout swim slowly past, his angry-looking eye glaring at me with cold suspicion.
“Hey, man, fish in there, huh?” It was McKlearey. I could smell the whiskey on him. Christ Almighty! The sun wasn’t even up yet!
“Yeah,” I said. “Wonder if anybody thought to bring any gear.”
“Doubt it like hell,” he said, jamming his hands deeper into his field-jacket pockets.
I squatted down by the water and washed off my knives. The edges were still OK, but I thought I’d touch them up a little that afternoon.
“Sun’s comin’ up,” Lou said.
I looked up. The very tip of the looming, blue-white peak above us was turning bright pink. As I watched, the pink line crept slowly down, more and more of the mountain catching fire. The blue-white was darkly shadowed now by comparison.
“Nice, huh?” Lou said. His face was ruddy from the reflected glow off the snow above us, kind of etched out sharply against the dark trees behind him. “I can think of times when I’d have give my left nut for just one look at snow. It never melts up there. Did you know that? It’s always there — summer and winter — always up there. I used to think about that a lot when I was on the Delta. It’s always up there. Kinda gives a guy somethin’ to hang on to.” He snorted with laughter. “Bet it’s colder’n a bitch up there,” he said.
“If it got too cold you could always think about the Delta, I guess,” I said.
“No,” he said, still staring at the mountain. “I never think about the Delta. Other places, yeah, but never the Delta.”
I nodded. “How’s the hand?” I pointed at the bandage.
“Little sore,” he said. “It’ll be OK.”
“Chow!” Clint hollered from camp.
Lou and I walked on back up toward the tents. Maybe there was more to him than I’d realized.
Clint had fried up a bunch of bacon and then had simmered onion slices in the hot grease and had fried up thin strips of fresh deer liver. There were hot biscuits and more coffee. The little old fart could sure whip up a helluva meal on short notice. We fell on the food like a pack of wolves, and for about ten minutes all you could hear was the sound of eating. The altitude does that to you.
After we’d eaten and were lazing over a last cup of coffee, watching the edge of the sunlight creep down the mountain toward us, Miller cleared his throat.
“Soon as you men get your breakfast settled, we’ll saddle up and take a little ride on up the ridge there. I want to show you the stands you’ll be usin’. You’ll need to see ’em in the daylight ’cause it’ll still be dark yet when you get up there tomorrow. Then, too, it’ll give us a chance to scout around some.”
“You think we’ll see any deer?” Stan asked.
“We sure should,” Miller said. “I’ve seen five cross that ridge since we set down to breakfast.”
We all turned and looked sharply up at the ridge.
“None up there right now though,” he said. “Your bucks’ll all be up there. Now some of you men may’ve hunted mule deer before, and some of you’ve hunted white-tail. These are all mulies up here. They’re bigger’n white-tail and they look and act a whole lot different. A mulie’s got big ears — that’s how he gets his name — and he can hear a pin drop at a half a mile. He’s easy to hunt ’cause you can count on him to do two things — run uphill and stop just before he goes over the ridge. He’ll always run uphill when he’s been spooked — unless, of course, he’s just been shot. Then he’ll go downhill.
“A white-tail runs kind of flat out, like a horse or a dog, and if you’re a fair shot you can hit him on the run. Your mulie, on the other hand, bounces like a damn jackrabbit, and you can’t tell from one jump to the next which way he’s goin’. Looks funnier’n hell, but it makes him damn hard to hit on the run. You shoot over ‘im or under ‘im ever’ time.
“That’s why it’s good to know that he’s gonna stop. As soon as he gets a ways away from you — and above you — he’ll stop and look back to see what you’re doin’. Some people say they’re curious, and some say they’re dumb, but it’s just somethin’ he’ll always do. Wait for it, and you’re likely to get a clear, standin’ shot.”
“What’s the range likely to be?” Sloane gasped.
“Anywhere from one hundred to three hundred yards,” Miller said, looking closely at Cal. “Much out past that and I wouldn’t shoot, if it was me. Too much chance of a gut shot or havin’ the deer drop into one of these ravines. He does that and he’ll likely bounce and roll for about a mile. Won’t be much left when he stops.”
He stopped and looked around. It was the longest speech I ever heard him make.
“Let’s go get the horses,” he said, almost as if he were ashamed of himself for talking so much.
We trooped on down to the corral, and he made each man saddle his own horse. “Might as well learn how to do it now as later,” he said.
I approached that knotheaded gray horse of mine with a great deal of caution. He didn’t seem particularly tense this morning, but I wasn’t going to take any chances with him. I got him saddled and bridled and led him out of the corral. The others all stopped to watch.
“Well, buddy,” I said to him as firmly as I could, “how do you want to play it this morning?”
He turned his head and looked inquiringly at me, his long gray face a mask of equine innocence.
“You lyin’ son of a bitch,” I muttered. I braced myself and climbed on his back. His ears flicked.
“All right,” I said grimly, “let’s get it over with.” I nudged him with my heels and he moved out at a gentle walk with not so much as an instant’s hesitation. I walked him out into the bottom, turned him and trotted him back to the corral.