A Place Called Freedom - Ken Follett [22]
He spoke in a low voice. “There are four stags and five guns, so I shan’t shoot this time, unless one of you should miss,” he said. He could play the perfect host when he wanted to. “Henry, you take the beast on the right here. Robert, take the next one along—it’s the nearest, and the easiest shot. Jay, you take the next. Miss Hallim, yours is the farthest, but it has the best head—and you’re a pretty good shot. All set? Then let’s get in position. We’ll let Miss Hallim shoot first, shall we?”
The hunters spread out, slithering across the sloping mountainside, each looking for a lie from which to take aim. Jay followed Lizzie. She wore a short riding jacket and a loose skirt with no hoop, and he grinned as he watched her pert bottom wriggling in front of him. Not many girls would crawl around like that in front of a man—but Lizzie was not like other girls.
He worked his way uphill to a point where a stunted bush broke the skyline, giving him extra cover. Raising his head he looked down the mountain. He could see his stag, a youngish one with a small spread of antlers, about seventy yards away; and the other three ranged along the slope. He could also see the other hunters: Lizzie to his left, still crawling along; Henry to his far right; Sir George and the keepers with the dogs—and Robert, below and to Jay’s right, twenty-five yards away, an easy target.
His heartbeat seemed to falter as he was struck, yet again, by the thought of killing his brother. The story of Cain and Abel came into his mind. Cain had said My punishment is greater than I can bear. But I feel like that already, Jay thought. I can’t bear to be the superfluous second son, always overlooked, drifting through life with no portion, the poor son of a rich man, a nobody—I just can’t bear it.
He tried to push the evil thought out of his mind. He primed his gun, pouring a little powder into the flash-pan next to the touchhole, then closed the cover of the pan. Finally he cocked the firing mechanism. When he pulled the trigger, the lid of the flashpan would lift automatically at the same time as the flint struck sparks. The powder in the pan would light, and the flame would flash through the touchhole to ignite the larger quantity of powder behind the ball.
He rolled over and looked across the slope. The deer grazed in peaceful ignorance. All the hunters were in position except Lizzie, who was still moving. Jay sighted on his stag. Then he slowly swung the barrel around until it pointed at Robert’s back.
He could say that his elbow slipped on a patch of ice at the crucial moment, causing him to drop his aim to one side and, with tragic ill fortune, shoot his brother in the back. His father might suspect the truth—but he would never be sure, and with only one son left, would he not bury his suspicions and give Jay everything he had previously reserved for Robert?
Lizzie’s shot would be the signal for everyone to fire. Deer were surprisingly slow to react, Jay recalled. After the first gunshot they would all look up from their grazing and freeze, often for four or five heartbeats; then one of them would move and a moment later they would turn as one, like a flock of birds or a school of fish, and run away, their dainty hooves drumming on the hard turf, leaving the dead on the ground and the wounded limping behind.
Slowly Jay swung the rifle back until it was pointing at his stag again. Of course he would not kill his brother. It would be unthinkably wicked. He might be haunted all his life by guilty memories.
But if he refrained, might he not always regret it? Next time Father humiliated him by showing preference for Robert, would he not grind his teeth and wish with all his heart that he had solved the problem when he could and wiped his loathsome sibling off the face of