"H. Beam Piper - Police Operation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

car, the sergeant and the private in front and Parker into the rear, laying his camera on the seat beside a
Winchester carbine.

"Weren't you pretty short with that fellow, back there, Steve?" the sergeant asked as the private started
the car.

"Not too short. 'I don't like t' use profane language'," Parker mimicked the bereaved heifer owner, and
then he went on to specify: "I'm morally certain that he's shot at least four illegal deer [Pg 3] in the last year.
When and if I ever get anything on him, he's going to be sorrier for himself then he is now."

"They're the characters that always beef their heads off," the sergeant agreed. "You think that whatever
did this was the same as the others?"

"Yes. The dog must have jumped it while it was eating at the heifer. Same superficial scratches about the
head, and deep cuts on the throat or belly. The bigger the animal, the farther front the big slashes occur.
Evidently something grabs them by the head with front claws, and slashes with hind claws; that's why I
think it's a bobcat."

"You know," the private said, "I saw a lot of wounds like that during the war. My outfit landed on
Mindanao, where the guerrillas had been active. And this looks like bolo-work to me."

"The surplus-stores are full of machetes and jungle knives," the sergeant considered. "I think I'll call up
Doc Winters, at the County Hospital, and see if all his squirrel-fodder is present and accounted for."

"But most of the livestock was eaten at, like the heifer," Parker objected.

"By definition, nuts have abnormal tastes," the sergeant replied. "Or the eating might have been done
later, by foxes."

"I hope so; that'd let me out," Parker said.

"Ha, listen to the man!" the private howled, stopping the car at the end of the lane. "He thinks a nut with a
machete and a Tarzan complex is just good clean fun. Which way, now?"

"Well, let's see." The sergeant had unfolded a quadrangle sheet; the game protector leaned forward to
look at it over his shoulder. The sergeant ran a finger from one to another of a series of variously colored
crosses which had been marked on the map.

"Monday night, over here on Copperhead Mountain, that cow was killed," he said. "The next night, about
ten o'clock, that sheepflock was hit, on this side of Copperhead, right about here. Early Wednesday
night, that mule got slashed up in the woods back of the Weston farm. It was only slightly injured; must
have kicked the whatzit and got away, but the whatzit wasn't too badly hurt, because a few hours later, it
hit that turkey-flock on the Rhymer farm. And last night, it did that." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder
at the Strawmyer farm. "See, following the ridges, working toward the southeast, avoiding open ground,
killing only at night. Could be a bobcat, at that."

"Or Jink's maniac with the machete," Parker agreed. "Let's go up by Hindman's gap and see if we can
see anything."