Black Diamond - Martin Walker [30]
A narrow footpath through the trees led to the small shack that was formally known as the hide. In reality, like most such structures used by the region’s hunters, it was more of a club-house, with a long table and battered benches, a cast-iron stove and barbecue stand. In a locked cupboard they kept tin plates and enamel mugs and an old shovel that did service as a frying pan on the hot embers of a fire. A stream tumbled down the hillside nearby and offered running water. Over the years they had built a little dam that provided a pool large enough for two or three tired hunters to stand and sluice off under the tiny waterfall. Below that was a washing place for utensils and for the knives used for bleeding and gutting the deer and wild boar. The dogs they brought ensured that there was little left to bury.
The rule among Bruno, the baron and Hercule was that the guests provided the casse-croûte, the hunters’ morning snack. As always, they erred on the side of generosity. In the baron’s rucksack were two cans of his own duck pâté, three beefsteaks and some of his crop of apples. His hip flask was filled with cognac. Bruno carried two bottles of the Lalande de Pomerol that he and the baron bought each year in a barrel, to spend a happy afternoon bottling it themselves. He also supplied half a dozen of his own eggs, hard-boiled, two baguettes of fresh bread and half a Tomme d’Audrix, a local cheese made by his friend Stéphane.
Leaping from the back of the jeep as soon as it was parked, their dogs were already sniffing up the trail after Hercule as Bruno and the baron pulled out their rucksacks and guns and followed. The baron used his father’s old gun, a venerable English-made Purdey that was worth more than Bruno’s annual salary. Bruno had a secondhand St. Etienne model from Manufrance, a serviceable gun with a walnut stock that had still cost him a month’s pay. For hunting bécasse, the elusive game bird that could dart almost from beneath one’s feet, they carried shells of standard small-gauge bird shot. Each man had a couple of slug rounds in case they met wild boar. They’d done the tests and safety courses required by the Fédération de la Chasse to receive a hunting permit, and they carried their guns safely broken open at the breech as they followed their dogs up the trail to the hide.
“Quiet,” said the baron, stopping. “Listen to the dogs.”
A well-trained hunting dog is silent until his master authorizes the animal to give voice. Bruno’s Gigi and the baron’s Général were very well trained, and yet they were whining from the trail up ahead.
Something was wrong. The baron moved on cautiously while Bruno automatically stepped out to his side. They saw their dogs backing hesitantly away, with haunches low and tails down. Bruno circled slowly, trusting the baron to take care of whatever lay ahead while Bruno peered through the trees behind them and up the slopes on both sides. He kept his gun open but gently eased two shells into the barrels. The dogs had stopped their whining, and the woods were almost silent but for the distant sound of running water. Nothing stirred except the faintest of breezes, and then Bruno caught the first scent of something on the wind. His back to the baron, he sniffed again; fresh blood.
Too well trained to turn and look, Bruno moved his eyes first and let his head follow slowly. Their rear and both flanks were clear. But still Bruno did not turn. The baron, an Algerian War veteran who had seen combat and knew its rules as well as he knew the skills of the hunt, would warn him when he was ready.
Bruno heard rather than saw the baron’s dog, alerted by a hand signal from his master, start ranging out to flank the clearing and come in from the other side, exactly as he would if the baron wanted a bécasse cleared from a thicket. His own Gigi had come quietly to his side, awaiting orders. Bruno went down on one knee to hold his gun steady against his thigh and signaled Gigi to skirt around the other flank.