Free Moontrap - Don Berry by Don Berry Page B

eyes. "Meat, too. Christ, we
don't have anything."
    "Everything else we can do without. Meat, we
cannot do without meat."
    "All right," Monday said. He started taking
off the cloth shirt, his farmer's shirt, and suddenly the depression
began to lift. He reached up for the buckskin hunting shirt, and in
spite of himself began to smile.
    "By god, that's not a bad idea, Mary." In
his mind he could already see the branch moving, the faint shadow of
a buff body over the sights of the gun, could feel the waiting
tension. "The wheat can wait a day, can't it?"
    " Yes, I think so," Mary said.
    His movements became quicker, more sure. He yanked
off the stupidly heavy boots and reached under the bed for the
feather-light moccasins. Just getting the boots off, he felt ten
pounds lighter. The moccasins were his own feet, shaped by the
wearing until no other man could feel comfortable in them. He stood
up, shrugging his shoulders, loosening his body for the hunt.
    " You don't want breakfast first?" Mary
said.
    "No," Monday said seriously. "I best
get out early. " He was suddenly impatient to be gone and could
not wait.
    Mary nodded.
    Monday took down the gun from its pegs over the
fireplace and checked the flint. He poured a little powder into the
horn, and took several balls.
    " You take enough?" Mary said, watching.
    " I only need to shoot once."
    " What if you miss?"
    Monday scowled at her. "She's got hindsights and
a foresight," he said sharply.
    "Just a question that I ask," Mary said
innocently, raising her hands.
    "I c'n still shoot a gun," Monday muttered,
not seeing her faint smile. He snapped the hammer sharply several
times and nodded to himself.
    Lightly he moved to the door, stepping out into a
flood of early-morning warmth. The sun had just passed the screen of
trees to the east, and was rising quickly, losing the redness of
dawn. He stood at the door for a moment, looking at the world,
letting his eyes sharpen themselves against the wall of foliage that
surrounded his little clearing, feeling the sharp cleanness of the
air.
    "Good, I'll get goin', then."
    Quickly he saddled the horse, muttering softly to
him, rubbing his muzzle. Mary stood in the doorway watching her
husband's impatience without expression. He mounted and Mary walked
over to the horse.
    Monday bent down from the saddle and kissed her
perfunctorily on the forehead. "Got to get movin'," he said
brusquely.
    Mary stepped back and he swung the horse around,
setting off up the main trail for Peter's Mountain and the thick
cover of brush where the soft and subtle bodies of the deer were
waiting for him.
    She watched him go, then turned and went back into
the dark house. With difficulty she stooped at the cooler beneath the
floor and began to rearrange the paper-wrapped packages. She put all
the fresh packages of meat that Swensen had left near the back, where
Monday would not notice them. Then she got out the half-completed
shirt and took it to the front porch, where she could work in the
warmth of the sun.
    3
    Once on the trail he lost the tensions across the
back of his shoulders, the feeling of tightness that had slipped into
him with the thoughts of seed wheat and no flour and begging and the
mission and all the rest of it. He began to feel relaxed and easy
again. The horse's hoofs fell softly, like the pad of a cat, and
overhead the branches of fir moved slowly, a creaking, shifting roof
over the endless tunnel that was the trail.
    Here in the woods the concerns of civilized life
receded into nothingness again. No worry about Thurston or the farm
or that vicious thought of raising money that always twisted his
guts. And most of all, no question of whether he was doing the right
thing, the thing he was supposed to do. Right and wrong were merely
words again, noises of no distinct meaning. There was only the
powerful consciousness of the world around him. as it existed.
without trying to make up words to fit it. Monday realized it had
been a long time since he