David Eddings
High Hunt
Dedication
For JUFELEE
The more things change
The more they remain the same.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
The Gathering
1
I guess that if it hadnt been for that poker
2
THEY werent ready to start processing us yet, so they
3
A car pulled up outside, and Jack turned his head
4
THE following Saturday I got out of the Army. Naturally,
5
MIKE Carter and Betty, his wife, lived in a development
6
IT wasnt until Thursday that we finished up the deal
7
ON Friday morning I went up to Seattle and picked
8
WHATS this doing here? Clydine was standing over me the
9
I workedoff and onat the gun all the next week,
10
I picked up Clydine about three thirty the next afternoon,
11
THE following Wednesday, the first of September, we were all
12
BY the next Saturday we were all getting things pretty
13
ON Tuesday night we gathered at Sloanes with all our
14
IT rained all the next day. The sky sagged and
The High Hunt
15
SLOANES Cadillac was still leading, and at the summit he
16
IT took us the better part of an hour to
17
ABOUT three thirty that afternoon we crossed the second ridge
18
WHEN the gun went off I think we all came
19
MILLER split us up then and sent us on back
20
TIME to roll out. Clints head blotted out the looming
21
YOU see any with any size? Miller asked when he
22
I woke up the next morning before Clint came around
23
MAN! Jack said when I got back down to camp,
24
SLOANE was much worse the next morning. Much as he
25
I got up at the usual time the next morning
26
DAN, Sloan gasped when I got up to him, Im
27
IT drizzled rain all the next day. Miller had told
28
AFTER he got back from taking Jack and Lou up
29
AT lunchtime I rode up the ridge to pick up
30
CLINT woke me the next morning, and I rolled out
31
I went straight on down into the ravine, leaving Jack
32
I dont think either Jack or Lou said more than
33
I dont know how the hell were gonna get all
The Parting
34
AFTER she left for class the next morning I called
35
I didnt see Stan until the next weekend. Im not
36
ON the first of October I moved to Seattle and
37
I write a lousy letter. I always have. I knew
38
AND so, after the holidays, Clydine Stewart, the terror of
39
IT was a Thursday morning several weeks after Mothers visit
Epilogue
About the Author
Praise
Other Books by David Eddings
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
WHEN we were boys, before we lost him and before my brother and I turned away from each other, my father once told us a story about our grandfather and a dog. We were living in Tacoma then, in one of the battered, sagging, rented houses that stretch back in my memory and mark the outlines of a childhood spent unknowingly on the bare upper edge of poverty. Jack and I knew that we werent rich, but it didnt really bother us all that much. Dad worked in a lumber mill and just couldnt seem to get ahead of the bills. And, of course, Mom being the way she was didnt help much either.
It had been a raw, blustery Saturday, and Jack and I had spent the day outside. Mom was off someplace as usual, and Dad was supposed to be watching us. About all hed done had been to feed us and tell us to stay the hell out of trouble or hed bite off our ears. He always said stuff like that, but we were pretty sure he didnt really mean it.
The yard around our house was cluttered with a lot of old junk abandoned by previous tenantsrusty car bodies and discarded appliances and the likebut it was a good place to play. Jack and I were involved in one of the unending, structureless games of his invention that filled the days of our boyhood. My brothereven then thin, dark, quick, and nervouswas a natural ringleader who settled for directing my activities when he couldnt round up a gang of neighborhood kids. I went along with him most of the timeto some extent because he was older, but even more, I suppose, because even then I really didnt much give a damn, and I knew that he did.
After supper it was too dark to go back outside, and the radio was on the blink, so we started tearing around the house. We got to playing tag in the living room, ducking back and forth around the big old wood-burning heating stove, giggling and yelling, our feet clattering on the worn linoleum. The Old Man was trying to read the paper, squinting through the dime-store glasses that didnt seem to help much and made him look like a total strangerto me at least.
Hed glance up at us from time to time, scowling in irritation. Keep it down, you two, he finally said. We looked quickly at him to see if he really meant it. Then we went on back out to the kitchen.
Hey, Dan, I betcha I can hold my breath longern you can, Jack challenged me. So we tried that a while, but we both got dizzy, and pretty soon we were running and yelling again. The Old Man hollered at us a couple times and finally came out to the kitchen and gave us both a few whacks on the fanny to show us that he meant business. Jack wouldnt cryhe was ten. I was only eight, so I did. Then the Old Man made us go into the living room and sit on the couch. I kept sniffling loudly to make him feel sorry for me, but it didnt work.
Use your handkerchief was all he said.
I sat and counted the flowers on the stained wallpaper. There were twelve rows on the left side of the brown water-splotch that dribbled down the wall and seventeen on the right side.
Then I decided to try another tactic on the Old Man. Dad, I have to go.
You know where it is.
When I came back, I went over and leaned my head against his shoulder and looked at the newspaper with him to let him know I didnt hold any grudges. Jack fidgeted on the couch. Any kind of enforced nonactivity was sheer torture to Jack. Hed take ten spankings in preference to fifteen minutes of sitting in a corner. School was hell for Jack. The hours of sitting still were almost more than he could stand.
Finally, he couldnt take anymore. Tell us a story, Dad.
The Old Man looked at him for a moment over the top of his newspaper. I dont think the Old Man really understood my brother and his desperate need for diversion. Jack lived with his veins, like Mom did. Dad just kind of did what he had to and let it go at that. He was pretty easygoingI guess he had to be, married to Mom and all like he was. I never really figured out where I fit in. Maybe I didnt, even then.
What kind of a story? he finally asked.
Cowboys? I said hopefully.
Naw, Jack vetoed, thats kid stuff. Tell us about deer hunting or something.
Couldnt you maybe put a couple cowboys in it? I insisted, still not willing to give up.
Dad laid his newspaper aside and took off his glasses. So you want me to tell you a story, huh?
With cowboys, I said again. Be sure you dont forget the cowboys.
I dont know that you two been good enough today to rate a story. It was a kind of ritual.
Well be extra good tomorrow, wont we, Dan? Jack promised quickly. Jack was always good at promising things. He probably meant them, too, at the time anyway.
Yeah, Dad, I agreed, extra, extra, special good.
Thatll be the day, the Old Man grunted.
Come on, Dad, I coaxed. You can tell stories bettern anybody. I climbed up into his lap. I was taking a chance, since I was still supposed to be sitting on the couch, but I figured it was worth the risk.
Dad smiled. It was the first time that day. He never smiled much, but I didnt find out why until later. He shifted me in his lap, leaned back in the battered old armchair, and put his feet upon the coffee table. The wind gusted and roared in the chimney and pushed against the windows while the Old Man thought a few minutes. I watched his weather-beaten face closely, noticing for the first time that he was getting gray hair around his ears. I felt a sudden clutch of panic. My Dad was getting old!
I ever tell you about the time your granddad had to hunt enough meat to last the family all winter? he asked us.
Are there cowboys in it?
Shut up, Dan, for cripes sakes! Jack told me impatiently.
I just want to be sure.
You want to hear the story or not? the Old Man threatened.
Yeah, Jack said. Shut up and listen, for cripes sakes.
It was back in the winter of 1893, I think it was, Dad started. It was several years after the family came out from Missouri, and they were trying to make a go of it on a wheat ranch down in Adams County.
Did Grandpa live on a real ranch? I asked. With cowboys and everything?
The Old Man ignored the interruption. Things were pretty skimpy the first few years. They tried to raise a few beef-cows, but it didnt work out too well, so when the winter came that year, they were clean out of meat. Things were so tough that my uncles, Art and Dolph, had to get jobs in town and stay at a boardinghouse. Uncle Beale was married and out on his own by then, and Uncle Tod had gone over to Seattle to work in the lumber mills. That meant that there werent any men on the place except my dad and my granddad.
He was our great-granddad, Jack told me importantly.
I know that, I said. I aint that dumb. I leaned my head back against Dads chest so I could hear the rumble of his voice inside my head again.
Great-Granddad was in the Civil War, Jack said. You told us that one time.
You want to tell this or you want me to? the Old Man asked him.
Yeah, I said, not lifting my head, shut up, Jack, for cripes sakes.
Anyhow, the Old Man went on, Granddad had to stay and tend the place, so he couldnt go out and hunt. Dad was only seventeen, but there wasnt anybody else to go. Well, the nearest big deer herd was over around Coeur dAlene Lake, up in the timber country in Idaho. There werent any game laws back thenat least nobody paid any attention to them if there wereso a man could take as much as he needed.
The wind gusted against the house again, and the wood shifted in the heating stove, sounding very loud. The Old Man got up, lifting me easily in his big hands, and plumped me on the couch beside Jack. Then he went over and put more wood in the stove from the big linoleum-covered woodbox against the wall that Jack and I were supposed to keep full. He slammed the door shut with an iron bang, dusted off his hands, and sat back down.
It turned cold and started snowing early that year, he continued. Granddad had this old .45-70 single-shot hed carried in the war, but they only had twenty-six cartridge cases for it. He and Dad loaded up all those cases the night before Dad left. Theyd pulled the wheels off the wagon and put the runners on as soon as the snow really set in good, so it was all ready to go. After theyd finished loading the cartridges, Granddad gave my dad an old pipe. Way he looked at it, if Dad was old enough to be counted on to do a mans work, he was old enough to have his own pipe. Dad hadnt ever smoked beforeexcept a couple times down in back of the schoolhouse and once out behind the barn when he was a kid.
Early the next morning, before daylight, they hitched up the teamOld Dolly and Ned. They pitched the wagon-bed, and they loaded up Dads bedding and other gear. Then Dad called his dogs and got them in the wagon-bed, shook hands with Granddad, and started out.
Ill betcha he was scared, I said.
Grown men dont get scared, Jack said scornfully.
Thats where youre wrong, Jack, the Old Man told him. Dad was plenty scared. That old road from the house wound around quite a bit before it dropped down on the other side of the hill, and Dad always said he didnt dare look back even once. He said that if he had, hed have turned right around and gone back home. Theres something wrong with a man who doesnt get scared now and then. Its how you handle it that counts.
I know that bothered Jack. He was always telling everybody that he wasnt scaredeven when I knew he was lying about it. I think he believed that growing up just meant being afraid of fewer and fewer things. I was always sure that there was more to it than that. We used to argue about it a lot.
You aint scared of anything, are you, Dad? Jack asked, an edge of concern in his voice. It was almost like an accusation.
Dad looked at him a long time without saying anything. You want to hear the story, or do you want to ask a bunch of questions? It hung in the air between them. I guess it was always there after that. I saw it getting bigger and bigger in the next few years. Jack was always too stubborn to change his mind, and the Old Man was always too bluntly honest to lie to him or even to let him believe a lie. And I was in the middlelike always. I went over and climbed back up in my fathers lap.
The Old Man went on with the story as if nothing had happened. So theres Dad in this wagon-bed sledseventeen years old, all alone except for the horses and those two black and tan hounds of his.
Why cant we have a dog? I asked, without bothering to raise my head from his chest. I averaged about once a week on that question. I already knew the answer.
Your mother wont go for it. They always called each other your mother and your father. I cant think of more than two or three times while we were growing up that I heard either one of them use the others name. Of course most of the time they were fighting or not speaking anyway.
Well, Uncle Dolph had loaned Dad an old two-dollar mail-order pistol, .32 short. Dad said it broke open at the top like a kids cap gun and wouldnt shoot worth a damn, but it was kinda comfortable to have it along. Uncle Dolph shot a Swede in the belly with it a couple years laterput him in the hospital for about six months.