The Adventures of Silk and Shakespeare Read Free Page B

darn lad.
    “Wagh! That’s where a child gets himself ready for something big. Like seeking a dream grizzly and slaying it and getting medicine from it.
    “So I set out into these hills to find the holy grail of a griz.” Hairy spread his arms to the sky. “And get a squaw for my connubial cave.”
    He chuckled, and his chuckle rolled like distant thunder. They both took more meat.
    “Hoss, it was some. I cut sign. I tracked, and tracked. I could smell griz. Could smell it wasn’t just some old bear but my dream bear, my medicine bear, the beast of the silver ring.
    “Got a glimpse of him two days ago. Silver ring, right there, yea verily. Wagh!”
    This last sound was a sharp bark, like the bark of a bear if bears could bark, beginning softly and throatily and growing to a pop like a bullwhip’s. It made Tal jump.
    “Waa-a-gh!” Hairy repeated, popping it with satisfaction.
    “This morning I cut fresh sign. Stowed my pack horse. Closed in. Moved dainty-like, got real close.”
    Tal considered putting in that it was the bear that moved dainty-like and got real close, but thought better of it.
    “Next, as you say, I did my medicine dance. How say? A coon imitates the animal he’s hunting to be more like it, get in good with it, get close like a brother. Some such anyway.”
    Hairy’s face suddenly dropped, like he’d changed from comic mask to tragic. He was a perfect pose of glumness.
    “Well, hoss, you saw what happened after that. I missed.” He stared at his stony knuckles. “You shot him and saved my skin.”
    Hairy whipped his skewer at the ground, where it stuck like a knife. They watched it quiver.
    “Can’t you make medicine of the griz anyhow?” Tal ventured.
    “Ho-o-o-ss,” said Hairy in an aggrieved tone. “That would be a dissembling.” He pierced Tal with a reprimanding eye. “Dissembling. Besides, you toy with medicine like that and it will toy with you. Wagh!”
    All the slices were gone. Hairy poked at the simmering roast with his knife and shook his head.
    “Tell you what, though, tell you what. You conquered the mighty griz in fair and furious battle. You make medicine of him.”
    Well. Tal kept his face straight. Who-o-o-o-p-e-e-e-e! he shouted in his head.

CHAPTER THREE
    but all in honour
    — Othello , V.ii
    Hairy showed Tal how to take the claws off—big ones, the size of Tal’s fingers. “Takes a lot of griz to make a whole necklace,” Hairy observed. “And a lot of man to get a lot of griz.” Just let the claws lie in your possible sack, Hairy said, until the extra skin dried and then peel it off.
    “Lad,” said Hairy, catching Tal in the act, “you don’t actual eat the hair of the bear. A man with the ha’r of the b’ar in him—that’s just a manner of speaking.” Tal spit the dry, gritty hairs into his hand. He didn’t think he could have swallowed them anyway.
    Hairy skinned the head, a delicate job if you wanted to use it for a hat. He handed Tal the skull. “Hang the skull in front of your lodge,” he advised, “and use the jawbones for knife handles.”
    Hey—a knife handle. Tal started drying off a jawbone. Hairy was fingering the head skin. Made Tal think.
    He lifted the head skin on the point of his knife and faced Hairy ceremoniously. “Friend Ronald the Hairy Giant,” Tal said, “known to comrades as Shakespeare, as a token of my admiration for your bear-like courage, I hereby give you the head of this grizzly bear. May it protect your bare head from the enemy sun.”
    Hairy took it, his face tangled in feeling.
    “Being as I shot heck out of your previous hat,” added Tal, grinning.
    Hairy extended one arm, made quick circles with the hand, and gave a deep bow. “True, this child tracked Old Silver Ring, didn’t he?” He sat down, looking reflective.
    In a few minutes he had the head on, and Tal had to look at him through those huge teeth.
    They made camp right on the spot of the kill, a plenty good place, said Hairy.
    “We’ve told