The Forester’s Daughter
When he is getting into his car, a stranger who holds his cards close to his chest approaches.
‘I understand you have a dog you’d sell.’
‘A dog?’ says Deegan.
‘Aye,’ he says, ‘a gun dog. Do you still have him?’
‘Well, I do.’ Deegan is set back on his heel but he recovers quickly. ‘I bought him last September but I’ve little time for hunting and it’s a shame to see him wasted.’
Deegan goes on to describe a retriever. He begins to talk easily about pheasants and how his dog can rise them, how the soup off a pheasant tastes finer than anything you can find in a hotel. He talks about the turf basket and how it is never empty since the dog came to the house. As soon as he mentions turf, the man smiles but Deegan does not notice, for he is remembering the girl on her birthday and how she and the retriever now bathe in the same water. But it is too late to back down.
From the archives
·
1964
A Confederate General from Big Sur
The girls had come from a small college somewhere in eastern washington, and at first they allowed their attentions to be taken up by college and post-college types, mostly the clean-cuts.
then as the girls grew more sophisticated, as they acclimated themselves to the throbbing pulse of a cosmopolitan city, their attentions naturally switched to bus drivers.
Read more of this excerpt...
A Confederate General from Big Sur
The girls had come from a small college somewhere in eastern washington, and at first they allowed their attentions to be taken up by college and post-college types, mostly the clean-cuts.
then as the girls grew more sophisticated, as they acclimated themselves to the throbbing pulse of a cosmopolitan city, their attentions naturally switched to bus drivers.
Read more of this excerpt...