Ричард Деминг - The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

She didn’t make any comment.

When the alarm buzzed at four-thirty, I let it buzz long enough to arouse Nora before shutting it off.

She watched sleepily as I dressed in breeches and boots and pulled on the brilliant red jacket. When I put on the bright red and green cap, she made a face and closed her eyes. She had drifted off to sleep again before I left the room.

Downstairs I took off the new jacket and cap and neatly repacked them in the box they had come in. From the hall closet I got out my old black and white checkered hunting jacket and my solid red cap.

There was no danger of Nora awakening and seeing from her window that I had changed clothes, for her window was on the opposite side of the house from the garage.

Harry Nelson was waiting on his front porch when I got to his house. But Tom Wright wasn’t ready when we reached his small apartment, of course, because we arrived twenty minutes earlier than I had told him we would. He came to the door buttoning his flannel shirt.

“I thought you said five-thirty,” he complained.

“I did. We’re a little early. Happy birthday.”

I handed him the suit box.

“Oh, thanks.”

Leading us into the front room, he laid the box on the sofa and opened it. His eyes widened in surprise as he drew out the jacket and cap.

“Cripes, George,” he said. “You shouldn’t have spent this much.”

“I got them for a special price and didn’t want to pass it up,” I said. “See if they fit. I figured you were almost exactly my size, so I used myself as a model.”

Both the jacket and cap fitted perfectly.

Grinning at himself in a mirror, Tom made almost the same remark I had made to Nora the evening before. “I guess nobody will mistake me for a deer in this outfit.”

Werle’s Woods was only about eight miles from town. The area consisted of a strip about three miles wide by ten long, bordered by a nearly impassible dirt road on one side and a railroad track on the other. It was a rough section, pitted by ravines and with much underbrush, so that it had to be worked slowly, but it was full of deer, and occasionally some hunter even flushed a bear.

At the south end of the woods was a ramshackle frame building containing a restaurant and bar where hunters invariably had coffee before starting out and a drink or two at the end of the hunt. It bore no sign to indicate its name, but was known to its patrons as “Joe’s Place.”

While we were having coffee at the counter, I excused myself and went to the phone booth in the far corner of the restaurant.

It was only a minute or two after six a.m. and Nora was still in bed. She sounded half asleep when she answered the phone.

Calling on my talent for mimicry, I said in Tom Wright’s voice, “Nora?”

She came fully awake at once. “What is it?” she asked. “Where are you?”

“At Joe’s Place, at the edge of Werle’s Woods. Listen fast, because I haven’t much time. This is it, honey. The opportunity we’ve been waiting for.”

“You mean… Tom! Don’t do anything dangerous!”

“This is the safest plan we’ll ever find, honey. It’s a natural. Can you get hold of a rifle?”

“A rifle?” She sounded scared. “I guess. George has three, and I don’t suppose he took more than one with him. Why?”

“Can you shoot?”

“I have. I’m not an expert.”

“Could you hit a man at a hundred yards?”

“Of course. Anyone could. But what…”

“Then listen close,” I interrupted. “George, Harry and I will follow the standard procedure of one of us taking a stand while the other two drive game ahead of us. You know where Highway Sixty curves in toward the trestle over Fallon Creek?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a high knoll covered with evergreen about a hundred yards from the trestle. It’s a perfect spot for a stand because it covers a ravine where there’s a deer trail. I estimate we’ll reach there about ten, and I’ll arrange for George to be on the stand. You can get to within fifty yards of that trestle with your car, slip under the trestle, get off a shot and be back in your car and gone before Harry and I get anywhere near the place.”

Nora drew a deep and frightened breath. “But won’t Harry…”

“Suspect me? How can he? I’ll be right with him and he’ll know I didn’t shoot. It’s a cinch to pass as just another hunting accident. A stray shot from some unknown hunter.”

“But suppose… suppose you can’t get him to take the stand?”

“Then don’t shoot,” I said impatiently. “You can’t mistake him very well. With that red jacket and red-and-green cap, he’ll show up like a Christmas-tree ornament.”

“All right,” Nora said in a low voice. “We’ll try it.”

I hung up and went back to finish my coffee.

On my suggestion Tom Wright took the first stand while Harry Nelson and I drove through the brush. The procedure was simple enough. Tom walked alone along the tracks for a half mile to a pre-designated spot we all knew, as we were all three familiar with the woods. When Harry and I figured enough time had elapsed for Tom to get into position, we started moving toward him through the woods. Tom’s stand was in sight of a deer trail, and our hope was that any game we startled would take that trail.

The going was rough and, for me, a little ticklish, for I had to take into consideration the possibility that Tom might decide to open fire on me when he spotted me in the underbrush and claim it had been an accident. After all, there was no reason to believe he too hadn’t been considering the unique opportunity a hunting trip offered for an “accident.”

To minimize the risk I stayed within sight of Harry, and as we neared the stand I made a point of keeping the boles of trees between me and it. When we finally came within sight of Tom, and Harry halloed to warn him of our presence, I fell in behind Harry as we worked forward the last hundred yards.

Tom told us we had flushed two does, but no bucks.

Again at my suggestion, Harry took the second stand. In a different way this left the situation just as ticklish, for I was now alone in the woods with Tom. It would be a simple matter for him to stumble over a stick and accidentally discharge his rifle while it was pointed at me.

The only defense against this possibility was alertness. Carefully refraining from getting ahead of my drive partner, I constantly kept him in the corner of my eye, ready to drop flat the moment his rifle started to swing in my direction.

But if Tom had any homicidal plans, apparently he was not yet ready to put them in operation. He concentrated strictly on the hunt, paying more attention to the ground ahead than he did to me. We reached Nelson’s stand without incident.

This one had been a dry run, for Harry hadn’t even spotted a doe.

The third stand was mine, and under ordinary circumstances I would have bagged my buck. I had barely been settled ten minutes when a big ten-pointer bounded along the trail not fifty yards from me. But I hadn’t been watching the deer trail. I had been scanning the underbrush for Tom Wright, and the buck was past before I even realized I had a target.

When Harry and Tom rejoined me, I didn’t mention the chance I had missed.

Now it was Tom’s turn again to take a stand, and we were less than a half mile from the knoll I had described to Nora. Tom knew the knoll too, and I didn’t even have to suggest it to him.

When Harry asked him where he meant to set up, Tom said, “You know the trestle over Fallon Creek? There’s a hill covered with evergreen about a hundred yards straight out into the woods from it. I’ll be there.”