Читать книгу Never Cry Halibut. and Other Alaska Hunting and Fishing Tales онлайн

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A brown bear superimposed against the mountains of Admiralty Island.

He traveled slowly over windfallen trees and through blueberry brush, alert and focused for any movement or sound. After hours of sneaking along without seeing a deer or meeting a bear, he came to the edge of a meadow and stopped to look and listen. The wind was still. A raven croaked, and an eagle cried its strange, haunted cry. Nothing unusual. He eased through shore pines and deciduous brush, and his rubber boot sunk into the muskeg. Slowly, he pulled his boot out, making a soft sucking sound. A flash of brown streaked across the meadow. Seeing it was a buck, he instinctively raised his rifle, and when the crosshairs rested on the blur of its vitals, he pulled the trigger. A moment later, the deer disappeared.

He hurried across the meadow, skirting sinkholes and small ponds, to where he’d last seen the deer. There was no snow for tracking, and after a long fruitless search for blood, he began to walk in circles, regretting taking such a rushed shot. More than an hour later, the light had faded, and the meeting time the friends had agreed on passed. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a raven and an eagle standing next to each other on a hummock. Investigating closer, he found a big buck, its antlers reddened from rubbing against alders, lying still atop wet moss and Labrador tea.