Read Brian's Hunt for Free Online

from the north.
    He began to work in that direction, making small arcs, but he found only one more mark, again to the north about a hundred yards from the first one, a dog footprint in soft dirt and just a tiny touch of blood on a leaf.
    That was it.
    It would have been easier in the fall, and of course much easier in the winter, in snow. In the fall there were no leaves and the grass died back and it was much easier to see things. Now, with thick foliage, you had to be standing almost on top of a track to see it, and he could find no more.
    Maybe, probably, the dog had come from the north. That was it. He didn’t know from where, how far, or even if that was the true direction. The dog might have come from the east and turned south when it heard or smelled Brian. Or from the west.
    And no deer either.
    Oh, he saw sign. He found one pile of dung that was still warm to the touch but the brush was too thick to see a deer, let alone get close enough for a shot.
    He came on a snowshoe rabbit and decided to take it. He changed to a field-point arrow—he’d been walking with a broadhead ready in the bow—but the arrow caught a twig on the way and deflected slightly so the rabbit was hit low, in the gut, and had time to scream before he got a second arrow in and killed it. They gave a piercing scream sometimes when they died. Brian had heard it many times at night when predators caught them—it was nerve-wrenching and sounded like a baby screaming for its mother. He hated it.
    But more to the point, the scream—and this was probably why it had evolved—alerted all animals within a quarter mile that a predator was hunting and that was the end of hunting, for two reasons. One, all the small animals went into hiding and the deer left the area. Two, the scream brought other predators that were curious about the kill. All wolves, coyotes, hawks, cats, weasels, fox, owls, eagles, marten, fisher—any predator—in the immediate area headed for the scream and that ensured that the rest of the small animals
stayed
in hiding. Probably the only exception to this rule were ruffed grouse, which seemed to be so dumb that nothing really affected them, but they had excellent camouflage covering and in this thick foliage it would be next to impossible to see one, though they had good meat, dark meat.
    So rabbit it was, and fish, and aside from chastising himself for making a shot when there was a twig in the way, Brian was grateful and thanked the rabbit.
    He worked his way back to the campsite, keeping one eye open for a grouse, but he saw none. He found the dog sitting by the end of the canoe, still tied—she had heard the rabbit scream, and Brian coming, and gotten up to greet him.
    “Hi, dog,” Brian said. “We have food. I’ll get some more in a bit and make a stew. . . .”
    The dog wagged her tail and stood, moved against the rope and Brian untied her and had to lift the rabbit high to keep the dog away from it.
    “Not raw,” he said. “Not the meat. I’ll give you the guts in a minute. . . .”
    He set his bow aside, took out his knife and made a neat incision up the middle of the carcass, scooped the entrails, heart, liver and lungs out and gave them to the dog, which virtually swallowed them whole and then cocked her head, tail wagging gently in the puppy begging stance, asking for more.
    “Some manners . . .” Brian smiled and thought of himself when he had first come to the bush. Watching a dog eat raw guts would have brought his stomach up.
    But he had seen both wolves and coyotes kill now and the entrails were their favorite part. And this dog was more wolf than not; a pure, friendly carnivore.
    He skinned the rabbit and stretched the skin high in a tree to dry. The hide was thin and fragile and very far from prime and would not wear well, but he had in mind trying to make some lures with the hair and tiny hooks he had brought to see if he could use a willow as a pole and fly-fish some of the streams between the lakes