“The world just keeps moving faster and faster,” Hans muttered as yet another sleek sedan zoomed past him.
“Uncle Hans, you need to speed up,” Angela urged. “You are driving too slowly!”
The trip coincided with a fall break in Angela’s school, so the timing was perfect. Ordinarily, Cole suspected, a hunting trip would not be something that the girl would want to go on, especially not with her aged uncle, but spending time with Danny seemed to be the main attraction. The two sat together in the back seat, deep in conversation.
Cole kept quiet and let Hans concentrate on the road.
Hans had turned out to be full of surprises. Not the least of which was that he had agreed to accompany Cole in the first place.
“I would have thought that you would want to spend time with your family, Hans.”
“You know what Benjamin Franklin said about fish and company,” Hans replied. “After three days, they both start to smell. So, I am giving them a break until I smell fresh again. Besides, I have Angela with me and she was excited about taking a trip.”
Before leaving Munich, he had brought Cole around to the trunk of the car and quietly showed him a rifle case, which he opened to reveal a beautiful hunting rifle. Cole realized it was a “sporterized” version of a Model 1903A Springfield. Essentially, someone had customized the military surplus version of the rifle with which Cole was so familiar. Germany’s gun laws allowed hunting rifles and shotguns, but not the private ownership of military weapons. As a result, many surplus rifles from WWI and WWII had been transformed into hunting rifles in order to skirt the law.
This rifle had been designed with more than function or legal loopholes in mind, because it was a pleasure to behold. The stock was made of burled walnut, intricately checkered, with end caps for the nose and grip done in a blond wood to create an interesting contrast. As a craftsman himself, Cole couldn’t resist reaching down and running a finger along the beautiful grain of the stock. As a nod to comfort, the stock was fitted with a ventilated rubber Pachmayr recoil pad. His old battlefield Springfield had lacked any such niceties, and he’d often had the bruised shoulder to prove it.
The action and barrel were of polished bright steel rather than blued, which was a little showy for Cole’s taste. Even the bolt had been upgraded to include a jeweled pattern rather than a plain knob. The rifle’s receiver had been drilled and tapped to accommodate a high-powered Leica scope. Such expensive optics had never been in Cole’s budget, but from his perusal of gun magazines, Cole knew that the scope alone must have cost as much as the down payment on this Volvo.
“She’s a beauty,” Cole said. “Where did you get her?”
“My nephew is a hunter. Angela’s father,” Hans explained. “He is a banker.”
“Ah. Well, your nephew has good taste.”
“I want you to use it for the hunt,” Hans said. “I’m sorry, but I could not get another rifle for your grandson.”
“I don’t think Danny is so keen on hunting,” Cole said. “But what about you? What are you going to hunt with?”
Hans shook his head. “What am I going to do, traipse up and down the hills? I am an old man. I have a bad heart. No, I am going to sit in front of the fire at the lodge, drink warm schnapps, and keep an eye on those two.”
“Then why did you bring me the rifle? Hauer said that he would have a shotgun for me.”
“I suspect that you are a better shot with a rifle,” Hans said. “Which would you rather have in the woods?”
“No argument there.”
“You know, if this was a duel, I suppose that I would be your second.”
“It ain’t a duel.”
Hans shrugged. “If you say so.”
As they left the city behind, Cole was struck by the beauty of the countryside. They passed through the heart of Bavaria with its rolling hills and neatly kept farms. When Cole had first seen Germany, it had been been a war-ravaged, defeated, muddy country in late winter. Now, although they had missed the best of the fall colors, he still spotted the pale fire of aspens in the hills. The autumn sunlight gave the landscape a crisp appearance.
The Vosges Mountains themselves rose to the south of the Ardennes region and straddled the border between Germany and France, in the region known as Alsace-Lorraine. Hans explained that the area had passed back and forth between Germany and France many times over the centuries. They crossed the Rhine into France, drove through the small city of Strasbourg, then continued into the Vosges.
Cole felt some small sense of relief at leaving Germany and entering France, although he knew that was foolishness in this day and age. But deep down, he had always liked the French and found them to be a welcoming people. After all, it was the French who had helped Americans win the Revolutionary War. Americans had returned the favor in 1944. Spending a few days in France was just fine by him.
Slowly, the road gained altitude as they climbed into the mountains. Cole felt right at home because these peaks felt more like the Appalachians, with rounded hilltops rising to elevations of around twelve hundred feet. The road grew narrower, following the valleys, with dense forests creeping closer. The afternoon grew darker. In the back seat, the conversation between Danny and Angela grew softer, then fell quiet. The grim mountains and woods seemed to demand silence.
“Where is this place?” Angela asked her uncle, sounding a bit nervous.
“It’s just—”
At that moment, a stag came bounding out of the woods, directly into the path of the car. Hans stomped on the brakes. It wasn’t the best reaction because the car began to skid on the damp fallen leaves littering the road. He fought for control of the wheel as the car slewed sideways.
From the backseat, Angela gasped. Danny swore.
Hans had braked, but it hadn’t been enough to keep them from hitting the stag, which more or less ran right into the car. The big animal hit them with a solid thud, then bounced off the grill into a roadside ditch.
By some miracle, the car stopped skidding just before following the stag into the ditch.
“Well, I ain’t had a ride like that since my rocking chair fell through the front porch last summer,” Cole remarked. “Everybody all right?”
“All right,” said Hans, whose hands still gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles.
Angela and Danny were fine. Like a good German, she had made them both follow the rules and buckle their seatbelts, even in the backseat.
“What about the poor stag?” she asked.
“You wait here. Let me go see about that,” Cole said.
Cole got out, along with Danny. After a minute, Hans followed, although Angela had to help him — he was still shaky after hitting the stag. Cole had the worrisome thought that Hans had complained of heart trouble before.
The stag lay in the ditch, tangled in the ferns and bracken, still alive, but barely. When it saw Cole, the stag struggled pitifully to rise, but then gave up and lay there, its ribs heaving with labored breathing. Cole studied the animal with interest because he had never seen one up close. He recalled that a stag was more closely related to an elk than to a whitetail deer.
“Maybe there is an animal hospital nearby,” Angela said, close to tears. “We can get help.”
Cole and Hans exchanged a look. Cole was a hunter and Hans was a farmer. They both knew what needed to be done.
“I will get the rifle,” Hans said.
Hans walked back to the trunk and got out the rifle, then returned and fed a single round into the chamber. Hans aimed down at the injured stag, then lowered the rifle. “I cannot do it,” Hans said.
He held the rifle out to Cole, who took it, immediately enjoying the feel of the rifle in his hands. Damn, but he would never be too old for that.