“Danny, why don’t you walk Angela down the road a ways,” Cole said.
Danny did just that, putting an arm around her shoulders, which were shaking a little, and led her away.
Cole gave them a minute, then raised the rifle to his shoulder to put the animal out of its misery. His jaw fit tight against the rifle, with the stock fitting comfortably into his shoulder. He took a moment, just getting the feel of the rifle. Through the expensive scope, the stag’s eye showed bright and clear.
He squeezed the trigger.
The sound of the single rifle shot echoed across the hills.
He ejected the shell and reached down to pocket the soft, warm brass.
“The lodge can’t be far,” Cole said. “When we get there, we’ll let them know in case someone wants to come back here and get the meat.”
“Good idea,” Hans said meekly. He still looked pale after the accident. Cole thought about that weak heart again.
“You doin’ OK?”
“OK.”
“Why don’t I drive the rest of the way,” Cole said. “You can navigate. I thought trying to read German was bad enough, but these damn road signs are in French.”
The car’s hood wasn’t even dented, with only some fur caught in the slats of the grill, and nothing mechanical had been affected. The car started right up. The Volvo seemed to be built like a tank. Cole backed it away from the edge of the ditch, got it pointed in the right direction, and headed for the lodge somewhere in the hills ahead.
Some might have seen the collision with the stag as a bad omen, but Cole wasn’t so sure about that. He’d had the opportunity to fire the rifle and kill with it. He and the rifle were no longer strangers. They had made a bond by blood.
Tonight, he would dismantle the rifle and clean it carefully. He would get to know it that much better, inside and out.
Tomorrow, it would be time to hunt.
Chapter Twenty
Cole drove them the rest of the way to the lodge, which turned out to be built of stone and timber, making it both stately and comfortable. Woodsmoke trailed from the chimneys, mixing with the scent of fallen leaves and fresh pine needles. Yellow lights glowed in the windows.
“Nice place,” said Cole. “Where was this lodge forty years ago? I had to sleep in my foxhole back then. Damn near froze my ass off.”
Hans laughed. After initially being shaken by the Volvo hitting the stag, he seemed to have recovered. “You can be sure some general stayed here, or at least a colonel,” he said. “Meanwhile, you got the foxhole.”
“Sounds about right,” Cole agreed. “That’s the way of the world, ain’t it?”
Hauer greeted them as soon as they walked into the lodge. He looked like an outdoorsman in his thick corduroy trousers, chamois shirt, and sheepskin vest. The clothes looked expensive and new, as if purchased for the occasion. “You are here! I was sure that you would get lost in the dark. The roads are not well-marked.”
“Hate to disappoint you,” Cole said. Briefly, he explained about hitting the stag. The hotel sent two of its kitchen staff to fetch it — no point in letting good venison go to waste.
They found that all of the arrangements had been made, but there were only two rooms available in the lodge itself, with a single room with two beds available in a converted stable.
“The stable will be just fine for me and Danny,” Cole said. It turned out that they were staying as guests of Hauer. Cole thought about insisting on paying, but then decided that if nothing else, he could hit Hauer in the wallet.
“Where did he get the money for this?” Hans muttered. “I am telling you, he was Stasi. Every last one of them lined their pockets at the expense of good Germans while they did the bidding of the Soviets.”
As they gathered in the grand hall of the hunting lodge, Hans explained that he and his grand-niece would be sitting out the hunt. “Someone needs to stay here and keep the fire going,” he said.
Hauer took the news in stride. It was clear that his only real concern was making sure that Cole was equipped for the hunt. Boots had been found, and warm hunting clothes.
“I have a shotgun for you,” Hauer announced. “A very nice 12-gauge. It is a good weapon for boar, especially. At close range, you cannot miss! However, you do need some nerve to let them get that close when they are charging.”
“I brought a rifle,” Cole said. “I guess I won’t need that shotgun, after all.”
A scowl crossed Hauer’s face, then disappeared so quickly that Cole thought he might have imagined it. “As you wish. Perhaps your grandson can use the shotgun.”
“That’s up to him.” Cole turned to his grandson. “Danny?”
“I don’t want to hunt tomorrow,” he said. “I mean, I’ll go, but I don’t want to shoot anything.”
Hauer appeared amused. “If you go into the woods, why would you not wish to join in the hunt?”
“I don’t like killing,” he said.
Hauer laughed. “I have to say, you Americans have gone soft in two generations. The boy doesn’t like to hunt! If there is ever another war, you will be in trouble. Are you sure that he is really related to you?”
“Let the boy be,” Cole said. He felt that Danny didn’t appreciate being belittled in front of Angela, although, to the German girl’s credit, she was glaring at Hauer. If looks could kill. She was clearly in Danny’s camp. “If he don’t like to hunt, so be it. It’s a new world, in case you ain’t noticed. Besides, he can help pack out whatever we shoot.”
Hauer shook his head, still grinning, clearly amused by the thought that the grandson of none other than this famous hillbilly sniper did not like to hunt — or kill. “Suit yourselves,” he said. “Get your rest. In the morning, the hunt begins.”
Crossing to the accommodations, Danny said, “I don’t like that guy Hauer, Pa Cole. It’s not just what he said about me. There’s something about him. I can’t put my finger on it.”
“You don’t like him, huh? Join the club,” Cole said. “I guess that just proves Hauer wrong about us not being related. You’re a Cole, boy. That means you have good instincts.”
“Pa Cole, if you don’t like him, then why are we here?”
“I think Hans said it best,” Cole responded. “I’m here to fight a duel.”
Danny stopped walking. “What?”
“It’s not the kind of duel where you count off twenty paces and shoot each other,” Cole said. “I suppose we’re here to show which one of us is still the best shot.”
“In that case, I feel sorry for the deer and boars.”
In the morning, Cole and Danny were up well before dawn, eating a hearty breakfast with the other hunters in the lodge. Hans and Angela were not there. Having opted out of the hunt itself, they had decided to sleep in.
This European form of hunting was unlike anything that Cole had experienced. He was used to heading off into the woods alone. As a boy, Cole had hunted for subsistence. Anything he shot that had meat on it, they ate — like as not in a stew if it was something like possum.
He still hunted deer to fill the freezer, but the truth of it was, they wouldn’t starve anymore if he came home without a buck.
At most, Americans hunted in pairs or in a trio. Like as not, even then, they would split up to try their luck alone.
The hunt in the Vosges was nothing like that. In fact, it was more of a communal event, a group hunt carried out with help from dogs and drivers. This was the traditional way that hunting had been done for centuries.
An electric current of excitement seemed to fill the morning air and Cole felt caught up in it. The entire operation gathered just past dawn on the forest edge and received direction from the master of the hunt. Their quarry today would be stags and boars. Everyone wished each other luck, and then the “dog men” and drivers started out to get into position, with the hunters to follow. To Cole’s surprise, many of the dogs were dachshunds. He didn’t know how they covered so much ground on their short legs. He never would have considered them proper hounds, but they were eager hunters and he learned that the breed had been bred for just this purpose.