Ernest Hemingway - Complete Short Stories Of Ernest Hemingway, The

“All that bastard cares about is trailing me,” he said.

“I know it, Nickie.”

“This is three times he’s made trouble.”

“I know it, Nickie. But don’t you kill him.”

That’s why she came along, Nick thought. That’s why she’s here. I can’t do it while she’s along.

“I know I mustn’t kill him,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do now. Let’s not talk about it.”

“As long as you don’t kill him,” his sister said. “There’s nothing we can’t get out of and nothing that won’t blow over.”

“Let’s get back to camp,” Nick said. “Without the berries?”

“We’ll get the berries another day.”

“Are you nervous, Nickie?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“But what good will we be back at camp?” “We’ll know quicker.”

“Can’t we just go along the way we were going?”

“Not now. I’m not scared, Littless. And don’t you be scared. But something’s made me nervous.”

Nick had cut up away from the stream into the edge of the timber and they were walking in the shade of the trees. They would come onto the camp now from above.

From the timber they approached the camp carefully. Nick went ahead with the rifle. The camp had not been visited.

“You stay here,” Nick told his sister. “I’m going to have a look beyond.” He left the sack with the birds and the berry pails with Littless and went well upstream. As soon as he was out of sight of his sister he changed the .22 shorts in the rifle for the long-rifles. I won’t kill him, he thought, but anyway it’s the right thing to do. He made a careful search of the country. He saw no sign of anyone and he went down to the stream and then downstream and back up to the camp.

“I’m sorry I was nervous, Littless,” he said. “We might as well have a good lunch and then we won’t have to worry about a fire showing at night.”

“I’m worried now, too,” she said.

“Don’t you be worried. It’s just like it was before.”

“But he drove us back from getting the berries without him even being here.”

“I know. But he’s not been here. Maybe he’s never even been to this creek ever. Maybe we’ll never see him again.”

“He makes me scared, Nickie, worse when he’s not here than when he’s here.”

“I know. But there isn’t any use being scared.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Well, we better wait to cook until night.”

“Why did you change?”

“He won’t be around here at night. He can’t come through the swamp in the dark. We don’t have to worry about him early in the mornings and late in the evening nor in the dark. We’ll have to be like the deer and only be out then. We’ll lay up in the daytime.”

“Maybe he’ll never come.”

“Sure. Maybe.”

“But I can stay though, can’t I?”

“I ought to get you home.”

“No. Please, Nickie. Who’s going to keep you from killing him then?”

“Listen, Littless, don’t ever talk about killing and remember I never talked about killing. There isn’t any killing nor ever going to be any.”

“True?”

“True.”

“I’m so glad.”

“Don’t even be that. Nobody ever talked about it.”

“ All right. I never thought about it nor spoke about it.”

“Me either.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

“I never even thought about it.”

No, he thought. You never even thought about it. Only all day and all night. But you mustn’t think about it in front of her because she can feel it because she is your sister and you love each other.

“Are you hungry, Littless?”

“Not really.”

“Eat some of the hard chocolate and I’ll get some fresh water from the spring.”

“I don’t have to have anything.”

They looked across to where the big white clouds of the eleven o’clock breeze were coming up over the blue hills beyond the swamp. The sky was a high clear blue and the clouds came up white and detached themselves from behind the hills and moved high in the sky as the breeze freshened and the shadows of the clouds moved over the swamp and across the hillside. The wind blew in the trees now and was cool as they lay in the shade. The water from the spring was cold and fresh in the tin pail and the chocolate was not quite bitter but was hard and crunched as they chewed it.

“It’s as good as the water in the spring where we were when we first saw them,” his sister said. “It tastes even better after the chocolate.”

“We can cook if you’re hungry.”

“I’m not if you’re not.”

“I’m always hungry. I was a fool not to go on and get the berries.”

“No. You came back to find out.”

“Look, Littless. I know a good place back by the slashing we came through where we can get berries. I’ll cache everything and we can go in there through the timber all the way and pick a couple of pails full and then we’ll have them ahead for tomorrow. It isn’t a bad walk.”

“All right. But I’m fine.”

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“No. Not at all now after the chocolate. I’d love to just stay and read. We had a nice walk when we were hunting.”

“All right,” Nick said. “Are you tired from yesterday?”

“Maybe a little.”

“We’ll take it easy. I’ll read Wuthering Heights .”

“Is it too old to read out loud to me?”

“No.”

“Will you read it?”

“Sure.”

An African Story

HE WAS WAITING FORTHE MOON TO RISE and he felt Kibo’s hair rise under his hand as he stroked him to be quiet and they both watched and listened as the moon came up and gave them shadows. His arm was around the dog’s neck now and he could feel him shivering. All of the night sounds had stopped. They did not hear the elephant and David did not see him until the dog turned his head and seemed to settle into David. Then the elephant’s shadow covered them and he moved past making no noise at all and they smelled him in the light wind that came down from the mountain. He smelled strong but old and sour and when he was past David saw that the left tusk was so long it seemed to reach the ground.

They waited but no other elephants came by and then David and the dog started off running in the moonlight. The dog kept close behind him and when David stopped the dog pressed his muzzle into the back of his knee.

David had to see the bull again and they came up on him at the edge of the forest. He was traveling toward the mountain and slowly moving into the steady night breeze. David came close enough to see him cut off the moon again and to smell the sour oldness but he could not see the right tusk. He was afraid to work closer with the dog and he took him back with the wind and pushed him down against the base of a tree and tried to make him understand. He thought the dog would stay and he did but when David moved up toward the bulk of the elephant again he felt the wet muzzle against the hollow of his knee.

The two of them followed the elephant until he came to an opening in the trees. He stood there moving his huge ears. His bulk was in the shadow but the moonlight would be on his head. David reached behind him and closed the dog’s jaws gently with his hand and then moved softly and unbreathing to his right along the edge of the night breeze, feeling it on his cheek, edging with it, never letting it get between him and the bulk until he could see the elephant’s head and the great ears slowly moving. The right tusk was as thick as his own thigh and it curved down almost to the ground.

He and Kibo moved back, the wind on his neck now, and they backtracked out of the forest and into the open park country. The dog was ahead of him now and he stopped where David had left the two hunting spears by the trail when they had followed the elephant. He swung them over his shoulder in their thong and leather cup harness and, with his best spear that he had kept with him all the time in his hand, they started on the trail for the shamba. The moon was high now and he wondered why there was no drumming from the shamba. Something was strange if his father was there and there was no drumming.