The Black Fawn Page 8

  chapter 8

  Gramps took a turn for the better soon after the Christmas guestsdeparted, but his improvement was not an unmitigated blessing. Thebetter he felt, the more his enforced confinement chafed. Sores thatwere opened because he had to stop hunting Old Yellowfoot after only oneday were rubbed raw because he could not go into the winter woods atall. There was little he could have done there if he had gone, but hestill fretted to go.

  He read and reread _Africa's Dangerous Game_, the book Bud had given himfor Christmas, and criticized each chapter as he read it. The book wasthe abridged journal of an obscure professional hunter, and Gramps hadno sympathy at all for the hardships the author had suffered or theperils he had faced. After all, Gramps said, he didn't have to golooking for rogue elephants, man-killing lions or short-temperedbuffalo. And since he had gone after them of his own free will, heshould have known about the perils he would have to face before he hadever started out. Of course he could expect trouble--what huntercouldn't?--but the book would have been far more interesting if he hadgiven more space to hunting and less to the unendurable agonies that hadbeset him. In fact, Gramps thought the long chapter in which the huntercrossed the desert might better have been condensed into a singlesentence reading, "Don't cross this desert unless you carry plenty ofwater."

  Although the stature of the hero of _Africa's Dangerous Game_ dwindledwith each perusal, reading was a way to help ease the long hours whenGramps could do little. And so Bud brought home books from the schoollibrary. Usually he chose books with outdoor themes, and instead oftaking them to his room, he purposely left them on the kitchen tablewhere Gramps would see them. Gramps was always volubly critical andoften openly scornful of the books Bud brought home for him, but he readthem all.

  When he was not reading or helping with the chores if Bud had notmanaged to get them all done, Gramps devised endless cunning schemes forgetting the best of Old Yellowfoot next season. For Old Yellowfoot, hisone failure, galled Gramps every bit as much as Sir Lancelot would havebeen galled had he been unhorsed by a downy-cheeked young squire. Thefact that illness had given Gramps only one day to hunt Old Yellowfootdid not worry him. All that mattered was that Old Yellowfoot still worethe rack of antlers that Gramps had sworn to hang in the living room.

  Although the next deer season was still months away, Gramps gave hiscampaign all the care and attention an able general would lavish on acrucial battle. He carried a map of Bennett's Woods in his head and timeafter time his imagination took him through every thicket in which thegreat buck might hide. He pondered ways to drive him out and the variouscountermoves Old Yellowfoot might make to try to elude him. Gramps madelists, not only of the ways in which Old Yellowfoot could be expected tobehave differently from young and relatively inexperienced deer, butalso of his individual traits.

  One evening in early April Bud read one of the lists that Gramps hadleft on the kitchen table:

  Old Yellowfoot knows more about hunters than they do about him.

  He will not be spooked and he cannot be driven.

  Don't expect to find him where such a buck might logically be found, but don't overlook hunting him there. He does the unexpected.

  If the weather's mild, look for him in the heights, especially Hagerman's Knob, Eagle Hill and Justin's Bluff.

  If there's plenty of snow, he'll be in the lowlands. (Though I've yet to find him in Dockerty's Swamp during deer season, Bud and me will look for him there.)

  Old Yellowfoot's one of the very few deer I've ever run across who's smart enough to work against the wind instead of running before it. I'm sure he does this the better to locate hunters.

  Hunt thickets close to farms. I've a hunch he's hung out in them more than once while we looked for him in the deep woods.

  He will never cross an open space if he can help it, and he always can.

  Then glancing once more at the list, Bud returned to his own figuring.He frowned and nibbled the eraser of his pencil as he looked at thesheets of paper scattered on the table in front of him, and finallyarranged them in a neat sheaf and started over them again.

  He knew pretty well what Gram and Gramps had paid for his pen of WhiteWyandottes, and the price was high. They were the best chickens thatcould be bought and, in terms of what they would bring in the market,the cockerel was worth any two dozen run-of-the-mill chickens and eachof the pullets was worth any dozen. But expensive as the WhiteWyandottes had been, so far they had been anything but a bonanza.

  Fed according to a formula worked out by Bud and the agriculture teacherat the Haleyville Consolidated School, the pullets had averaged moreeggs for each bird than the pullets in Gramps' flock, and the cost offeeding them had been less. But Bud's pleasure at this proof thatscientifically fed chickens did more for less money was somewhatdiminished by the fact that until the past few weeks his chickens hadproduced only undersized pullets' eggs. When he accepted such eggs atall, Pat Haley would never pay more than twenty-seven cents a dozen.Gram used the surplus eggs in cooking, and Bud had taken his pay infeed rather than cash. He still owed Gramps sixty-nine cents for feed,and even though Gramps had told him not to worry, Bud couldn't help it,for after wintering his flock he was sixty-nine cents in debt, and nowthere were fresh problems.

  Since it was unthinkable to let his aristocrats mingle with the farmflock, a run was necessary. Bud could cut the supporting posts inBennett's Woods, but wire netting cost money. Besides, there would be nomore income from egg sales for some time, for now that the six pulletshad begun to lay normal-sized eggs, every one of the eggs had to behoarded against the time when one or more of the six turned broody. Toprove that there was more profit in better chickens, Bud had to increasehis flock. The arguments for incubators as opposed to the time-honoredsetting hen were reasonable but it was out of the question for Bud tobuy even a small incubator. And so, although he could expect no incomefrom egg sales, at least for a while, he was still faced with theproblem of building a run and of feeding his flock.

  It was true that the future looked bright. Something like half thechicks hatched would probably be cockerels and the other half pullets.The rooster Bud already had would serve very well for several yearsmore and the little house could comfortably accommodate him and abouttwenty hens. If the overflow were sold . . .

  "What's the matter, Bud?" Gramps interrupted. "You look as though youjust dug yourself a fourteen-foot hole, crawled in, and pulled the holein on top of you."

  Bud shook himself out of the reverie into which he had lapsed and lookedup to see Gramps standing across the table. Bud grinned. There wassomething like the old sparkle in Gramps' eye and his chin had its olddefiant tilt.

  "I owe you sixty-nine cents for chicken feed, Gramps," Bud said, lookingback at his figures.

  "Serious matter," Gramps said gravely. "But I promise not to have thesheriff attach your flock if you pay in the next day or so. If you'redead set on having that worry off your mind, why don't you sell someeggs?"

  "I'm saving them for hatching."

  "Can't save your eggs and pay your debts, too," Gramps pointed out. "Howmany you got laid by?"

  "Forty-four."

  "Pat Haley'll buy 'em, and now that your hens have started layingsomething bigger'n robin's eggs, he'll pay better. You can pay me offand still have forty, fifty cents for yourself."

  Bud looked at the old man. Sometimes he knew how to take Gramps, butthis time he wasn't sure. "I have to save them," he said.

  "You don't have to do anything of the kind," Gramps said. "If you'resaving eggs it's 'cause you want to, and if you want to, it's 'cause yougot something in mind. You aim to hatch those eggs?"

  "Yes. I think the little house will hold maybe twenty hens and arooster."

  "'Bout right," Gramps conceded. "So you have seven in there now andforty-four eggs saved. If you get an eighty per cent hatch, and thatwon't be bad for a rooster as don't yet know too much 'bout hisbusiness, you'll have thirty-five more chickens. So that makes forty-twoin a twenty-one hen house. It don't add up."

  Bud said quickly, "That isn't what I have in mind. I'll keep fourteen ofthe best pullets and sell all the rest."

  "Something in that," Gramps admitted. "Pat Haley'll pay you the goingprice for both fryers and broilers. Take out the cost of feed, and ifyou're lucky, come fall you could have ten or fifteen dollars foryourself."

  Bud said thoughtfully, "I hadn't meant to sell any for fryers. I'd hopedto sell the surplus as breeding stock."

  "Hope is the most stretchable word in the dictionary," Gramps said. "Ifwe didn't have it we'd be better off dead but there's such a thing ashaving too much. Many a man who's tried to live on hope alone has endedup with both hands full of nothing. Do you think anybody who knowsanything about poultry will pay you breeding-stock prices for chickensfrom an untried pen?"

  "But my chickens have the best blood lines there are," Bud said.

  "And it don't mean a blasted thing unless they have a lot of what ittakes," Gramps said. "Joe Barston paid seven hundred and fifty dollarsfor a four-month-old bull calf whose ancestors had so much blue bloodthey all but wore monocles. But this calf threw the measliest lot ofrunts you ever saw and finally Joe sold him for beef. Now if you had aproven pen of chickens, if you could show in black and white that yoursproduced the most meat and laid the most eggs for the breed, you couldsell breeding stock. Otherwise you're out of luck." Gramps shrugged.

  Bud stared dully at his papers. Dreaming of getting ten dollars or morefor a cockerel that was worth a dollar and thirty-five cents as abroiler had been just another ride on a pink cloud, and his dreams ofwealth in the fall evaporated.

  "Your chin came close to fracturing your big toe," Gramps said. "Don'tbe licked before you are. Now you don't want to keep your own pullets'cause you'll be breeding daughters back to their own father, and that'snot for you. At least, it's not until you know more about such things.But you can trade some of yours back to the same farm where your pencame from. He'll probably ask more than bird for bird, but he'll tradeand the least you can figure on is starting out this fall with a biggerflock. The rest you'd better figure on selling to Joe Haley. Now howmany eggs have you been getting a day?"

  "The least I've had since spring weather set in is two. The most isfive."

  "That's all? You never got six?"

  "Not yet."

  "Have you tried trap-nesting your hens?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  Bud knew that trapping each hen in her nest after she laid and keeping arecord of her production was the only way to weed out the drones fromthe workers. He hadn't tried it, though, because he hadn't wanted toleave any hen trapped away from food and water while he was at schoolall day. He hadn't wanted to ask Gramps to look after his trap nests forhim either, but he only said lamely, "I never thought of it."

  "You should have," Gramps said. "If you're going to make out with thesehifalutin' chickens of yours you have to think of everything. Looks tome like you got a slacker in your flock and, though maybe she wouldn'tbe better off in the stew pot, you'd be better off to put her there."

  "That's so," Bud conceded, "but how do I know which one?"

  "You don't and there's no sense fussing about it now. So what else isbothering you?"

  "I haven't got any money," Bud confessed.

  "That," Gramps' serious eyes seemed suddenly to twinkle, "puts you inthe same boat with forty-nine million and two other people. Why do youneed money?"

  "I need to build an enclosed run. I can't let my chickens run with thefarm flock."

  "True," Gramps said. "High society chickens oughtn't mix with ordinaryfowl. Why don't you go ahead and build your run?"

  "I told you. I haven't any money for netting and staples."

  "Go in that little room beside the granary and you'll find a role ofnetting. Kite yourself down to Pat Haley's during lunch hour tomorrow,get some staples, and tell Pat to charge 'em to me."

  "But . . ."

  "Will you let me finish?" Gramps said sharply. "I didn't say you weregoing to get any part of it for free. That roll of netting cost me fourdollars and sixty cents. Add to it whatever the staples cost, and sinceyou want to save your eggs for hatching, somebody's got to buy feed foryour chickens. I'll take you on until you have fryers to sell, butstrictly as a business deal. Just a minute."

  Gramps wrote on a sheet of paper, shoved it across the table, and Budread,

  _On demand I promise to pay to Delbert J. Bennett the sum of ----. My pen of White Wyandottes plus any increase therefrom shall be security for the payment of this note._

  Bud looked inquiringly across the table. Gramps shrugged. "All you haveto do is sign it and go ahead; you're in the chicken business if youwant in."

  "How much will I owe you?"

  "I'll fill in the amount when the time comes," Gramps promised. "Do youwant to sign or don't you?

  "I'll sign," Bud said, and painfully he wrote _Allan Wilson Sloan_ inthe proper place and gave the note back to Gramps.

  The old man was folding it in his wallet when Gram said, "What nonsenseis this?" She had come into the kitchen unnoticed and plainly she hadbeen observing Gramps and Bud for some time. Her face was stormier thanBud had ever seen it and her normally gentle eyes snapped. NonchalantlyGramps tucked the wallet into his pocket.

  "Just a little business deal, Mother. I'm going to finance Bud's chickenbusiness and he's going to pay me back when he sells his broilers andfryers."

  "The idea," Gram said. "The very idea. Give that note back at once,Delbert Bennett."

  "Now don't get all het up, Mother. A deal's a deal."

  Bud saw that Gram's fury was beginning to touch Gramps in a tender spot,and he fidgeted nervously and said,

  "I'd rather have it this way, Gram."

  Gram answered by glaring at Gramps and flouncing out of the room. Budlooked dismally after her and turned to Gramps with a feeble smile.

  "She shouldn't be so upset. I don't want anyone except me to pay for mychickens."

  "She'll be a long while mad 'less she gets over it," Gramps said, stillsmarting. "Anything else, Bud?"

  "Yes. How many eggs can you put under a setting hen?"

  "Depends on the size of the hen. A small one'll take eleven, amedium-size can handle thirteen and you can put fifteen 'neath a bighen."

  "When do you think my hens will turn broody?"

  "Hard telling," Gramps growled. "A hen's a female critter and when itcomes to doing anything sensible they ain't no different from otherfemale critters. Hell and high water can't make 'em do anything 'thoutthey put their mind to it, and nine cases of dynamite can't stop 'emonce they do."

  Two days later, when he had carried five more eggs to his hoard that nownumbered forty-seven, Bud found only two eggs left. He was sure thatGram or Gramps had mistakenly sent the eggs he had been saving toHaleyville along with the regular farm shipment. He went sadly out tothe barn where Gramps was going over his gardening tools.

  "You look like you'd swallowed a quart of vinegar," the old man said ashe glanced up.

  "It isn't that," Bud said forlornly. "Somebody sent most of my hatchingeggs to market."

  "No they didn't," Gramps said. "Three of my hens went broody and I took'em. Put fifteen eggs under each, seeing they were big hens."

  "But they're your hens."

  "Don't trouble your head," Gramps said. "Setting hen rent'll be on thebill when time comes to settle up."

  * * * * *

  The following autumn, when Bud had been at Gram and Gramps' for morethan a year, he strode down a tote road into Bennett's Woods with Sheptagging at his heels. Bright red and yellow leaves waved on everyhardwood and swished underfoot as he plowed through them. The evergreenswere ready for the frigid blasts to come, and the laurel andrhododendrons, touched but never daunted by frost, rattled in the sharpnorth wind.

  A gray squirrel, frantically harvesting nuts and seeds before deep snowcame, scooted up a tree, flattened himself on a limb and chirred whenBud went past. Three grouse rose on rattling wings. A sleek doe snortedand, curling her white tail over her back, bounded away.

  Bud was oblivious, for he had come into Bennett's Woods to try to solvethe problems that were bedeviling him.

  That summer he had succeeded in hatching seventy-nine chicks.Seventy-four had survived, a far better percentage than was average,because Bud had watched his flock constantly for disease, predators andaccidents.

  The poultryman from whom Gram and Gramps had bought the original stockhad traded fourteen young pullets for fourteen of Bud's pullets andthree of Bud's cockerels, with Bud paying express charges both ways. Therest Bud had sold to Pat Haley. After paying Gramps every penny he owedhim and interest as well, Bud had $8.97 to show for his summer's toil,and his problems were not yet ended. For even after they started to lay,it would be a long while before his pullets would produce full-sizedeggs.

  Shep curled up beside him on the bank of Skunk Creek as Bud sat thereand stared moodily at the stream wondering how he would see hisincreased flock through the winter with only $8.97 and perhaps some eggmoney.

  All he wanted from life was to stay on the farm with Gram and Gramps. Heknew he would never even be well off if he reckoned success in financialterms alone, but the whirr of a winging grouse, the snort of a deer andthe leap of a trout meant more to him than money, and he knew theyalways would. Still dreams have to have a practical side, too. Even ifmoney is the root of all evil, it is indispensable, and Bud thoughtagain of the $8.97 that he had earned that summer.

  Suddenly he froze in his place. Back in the trees across the creek hesaw a flicker. Then the black buck appeared. Bud sat spellbound,recalling the day when, heartsick and lonely, he had ventured into thewoods and found a brother in the black buck. The buck now camecautiously down to the creek and Bud's eyes widened with delight.

  Although this was his first year, the black buck was as big as some ofthe two- and three-year-old bucks that Bud and Gramps had seen in thewoods. And instead of the spikes or fork horn that young bucks usuallyhave, the black buck had a very creditable pair of antlers with threesymmetrical tines on each. The buck drank and then, raising his drippingmuzzle, caught Bud's scent and raced back into the woods.

  Bud rose and started homeward, his depression gone. The black buck hadfaced his problems, too, and many of them had surely been desperate. Buthe had triumphed magnificently. This made Bud feel better and to seethat his own situation was far brighter than he had thought. Foralthough he had very little cash, he had more than tripled his flock.Moreover, he had the run and he owed nothing. Best of all he had thefuture.