The Adventures of Silk and Shakespeare Read Free Page A

carrying on in this exuberant manner for some time, started cutting thin slices of meat. The naked bear lay on the stretched-out hide, pathetically male, looking not at all like a thousand pounds of terror.
    Tal was building a squaw fire nearby—he was hungry. Despite his aw-shucks gestures, he was not sufficiently embarrassed by Hairy’s carrying on to get him to stop. After all, he had killed griz, hadn’t he? And saved a man’s life? With a single clean shot in desperate circumstances? A tale for his notebook, a brag for the book he meant to make of his adventures.
    The old hands of the mountains had distinctive nicknames, Tal knew, names like Old Bill, Bad Hand, Blanket Chief, and Cut Face. Tal wondered if someone would name him Old One-Shot. He tried it on the tongue a little. Not bad. Old One-Shot. Or Man-in-a-Pinch. More Indian style—Man-in-a-Pinch. He didn’t like it as well. Old One-Shot.
    “Fire’s about ready,” Tal said.
    Hairy slid a couple of bacon-thin slices onto skewers and handed one to Tal. “Make sure she’s done, lad, make sure.” Hairy eyed Tal. “You ain’t slew bear before, have ye?”
    Tal, keeping his eyes down, shook his head no.
    Hairy put a shoulder roast into a pot of water and set it in the fire. “Well, great balls of fire,” he said, “how many eighteen-year-old kids have gone against Old Ephraim and won?” He eyeballed Tal, who in fact was only sixteen and looked less than that, but didn’t like to be called a lad, which sounded like kid.
    Just who’d saved whose tail here, anyhow? “How come you were luring that bear with that, uh, was it a medicine dance?”
    “That bear was big medicine, lad, big medicine.” Hairy watched the bear grease make the fire spit for a moment.
    “Let me tell you. I been hanging out with these ’Rapahoes up in North Park, living with them and all.” He looked up at Tal. “You lived with Injuns much?” Tal shook his head.
    “Hoss, it’s good living. Good living. The women are whoo-ee!” Hairy eyed Tal, who nonchalantly took a bite off his slice.
    “Well, this Red Horse, he’s got a daughter I fancy. Name of Sweet Spring. This child wishes to drink deep of that girl, he does.
    When birds do sing, hey ding-a-ding-ding, Sweet lovers love the spring.”
    Hairy orated these words musically, and glanced shyly at Tal, who was gape-mouthed. Hairy orated the words once more, even more musically.
    “Red Horse, however, took no fancy to this child. Though this child had pleasured a severalty of the ’Rapahoe women, Red Horse thought him not man enough for Sweet Spring. So I set a course to show myself a Launcelot” (he broadened it to Lawncelot) “for Sweet Spring, and perhaps Red Horse’s two younger daughters at the same time.”
    Hairy checked out Tal’s reaction, but Tal was a study in indifference. He reached for another slice.
    “Women have trouble keeping up with my appetites,” Hairy explained softly. (This turned out to be one boast of Hairy’s that could be verified.) “I could use three wives.” Hairy skewered two slices.
    “So I dreamed this griz. Dreamed him over and over, night after night. If I saw Sweet Spring in the evening, this child was sure to dream bear that night. Couldn’t say for sure what sex my dream bear was, but it had a big silver ring around its neck.”
    He pointed at the skin on the ground with his skewer and grinned. The bear had a wide silver ring around its neck.
    “This child had an idea. Conquer the mighty grizzly in fair and furious battle.” He made this phrase ring. “Make griz medicine. Eat the hair of the bear. Tote the talon of the silvertip.” He thumbed the necklace he was wearing, made of black-bear claws. “Give Red Horse a present of something griz. Give the robe to Sweet Spring for our bed. Big medicine.” He pondered that. Tal did too, and turned red.
    “So I took a sweat bath—you done a sweat bath?”
    Tal mumbled no. Felt he hadn’t done anything, being just a gosh