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Show Deer nunc 6 And one quick flash (caused no doubt by slightly tired legs and clammy feet) of green-trees or home or something-blinked on and off as Dog whispered, "Let's creep up to that one." His needless whisper. The doe looked larger than we thought it should, some thirty yards away. It wasn't fright I felt. We took several stealthy steps, as though we stalked some wild thing, and stopped. "Do you suppose it's dead?" Was Harry as hesitant as I? "Oh yeah. Look." Dog grabbed a chunk of dead scrub oak and slung it hard. It thudded dully on the deer and ricocheted to scare a group of magpies watching. We approached in silence not of reverence. "Hey look; it's all bloated up!" "Yeah!" "I'll bet it sure does stink!" But I smelled no awful smell, just general undefinable odors, decay and wet and rot. "Naw, it don't smell much at all. Probably not been dead that long." The air seemed charged with thoughts unspoken-not frightening thoughts or terrible, just something, something undefinable as the smells. Portentous. And then Dog reached his left hand in his levis' pocket and pulled out his Boy Scout knife. Now it seemed my brain quivered actually and ambivalently, and I saw as if in slow motion Dog stick his right thumbnail into the little groove on the blade's edge, place his right forefinger on the other side of the blade and suddenly spring the blade open. Holding the naked knife up. Suddenly all those amoeba thoughts hovering in the turgid air coalesced, shone upon that blade and sprang into my eyes. For a moment the knife confiscated in the silent air before it moved forward. And then we had purpose. We all walked up close, Dog a step or two ahead. Harry and I stopped; Dog took another step, hesitated, turned and grinned then plunged the |