The Wolves of Winter. Tyrell Johnson
Читать онлайн.| Название | The Wolves of Winter |
|---|---|
| Автор произведения | Tyrell Johnson |
| Жанр | Триллеры |
| Серия | |
| Издательство | Триллеры |
| Год выпуска | 0 |
| isbn | 9780008210151 |
Part II: The Great White North
I have heard what the talkers were talking,
the talk of the beginning and the end, But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now, And will never be any more perfection than there is now, Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
—WALT WHITMAN
The trap was empty and the snow was bloody, which meant one of three things.
One: The animal had gotten itself loose, making a mess in the process. Unlikely. Too much blood.
Two: Wolves had gotten to it and somehow managed to drag the carcass out of the trap. Even more unlikely. Not enough blood. Or hair. Besides, their tracks would have been obvious.
Three: Conrad had poached my kill.
Thieving, asshole Conrad. Not only likely but, based on the boot prints and snakelike trails that his sled made through the bloody Rorschach marks in the snow, it was the only option. It had snowed early that morning, maybe an hour before the sun crested the hills. A thin dusting had already settled over his prints. He got up early, you had to give Conrad that much. Stealing didn’t seem like him, though. He was an ass, no doubt about it, but a thief?
The animal’s prints were teardrops, scattered about the bloody mush of snow. Teardrops meant deer. And by the size of the prints, it was a buck. My wire had been snipped too. I’d placed it between two pine trees in a small ravine. The logjams on either side were a bitch to set up, but they herded the animals into the trap. I took the broken wire between my gloved fingers. You know how rare wire was nowadays? I could repair it, but it wouldn’t hold as strong. I was always careful to remove the wire by unthreading it from the tree and the animal so that I could use it again. I was pissed.
I adjusted my compound bow under my arm and the rope over my left shoulder. The rope was attached to my sled. My uncle Jeryl—Dad’s brother—had made the sled for me four years earlier. About three feet wide, six feet long. It carried small game no problem, a deer was tough for me but manageable, and an elk, caribou, or moose I had to butcher first and