"Clayton Emery - Joseph Fisher - Inwardly Ravening Wolves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emery Clayton)

Inwardly Ravening Wolves
a Joseph Fisher Colonial America Mystery
by Clayton Emery

"Hall-ooooo, the wolf!"

"Where is he?"

"There he goes! Get him, Joe! Block him!"

Lacking a musket, tangled armpit-deep in sumac,
pin oaks, and bittersweet, Joseph Fisher saw a gray
blur lolloping straight at him.

He glimpsed a striped muzzle and molten golden
eyes, flapped his arms and hollered to slow the wolf,
but the canny animal bounced on its toes, skipped
sideways in mid-air, bounded a rod's length. Joseph
heard thrashing from either hand, men swearing in
two languages. He dove headlong.

Twin muskets exploded KA-BUFF! KA-PLAM! above
his head. Buckshot shredded branches and a lead
ball slammed the earth. The wolf vaulted over
Joseph and vanished into the puckerbrush, a loping
shadow, gone, unharmed.

Strong hands hoisted Joseph to his feet like a child.
English boomed, "Woof! Almost tagged you 'stead'a
that chicken thief!"

Algonquin joked, "Your head would look ill adorning
the longhouse door!"

Coughing, Joseph brushed his shabby snuff-brown
coat and breeches, combed back his long brown
hair. Big Paul Hopkins sported a tricorn, stained
hunting smock, shot bag, powder horns. Opechee,
or Robin, wore a deerhide mantle, blue breechclout
and leggins, a coating of vermilion and fish oil, a
cockscomb black with soot. He toted a scalping
knife, bearskin warbag, and short musket gaudy
with brass tacks.

"A circle of hunters like ducks in a pond," swore
Paul, "and that bloody wolf picks the only fellow not
carrying a firelock!"

"No accident," Joseph husked. "A wolf can recognize
-- a man -- without a gun."