THE LEAF

By ROBERT F. YOUNG

Illustrated by RICHARD KLUGA

Even his present desperate situation couldn't spoil his memories of other days in the woods: like the lovely, lazy day he shot eleven squirrels....

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Infinity March 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

He could remember the afternoon as if it were yesterday. It wasn't, of course—actually it had been several years back. It had been around the middle of autumn, about the time when the last incarnadine leaves were making their fluttering journeys earthward. He had taken his .22 and gone into the woods where the hickory trees were, and he had settled himself comfortably against the shaggy trunk of one of the hickories, the .22 balanced across his sprawled knees. Then he had waited.

The first red squirrel had come out on one of the high limbs and posed there. That was the word all right—posed. It had sat there on its haunches with utter immobility almost as if it had been painted on canvas against a background of leafless naked branches and milk-blue sky.

He had raised the .22 lazily and sighted along the slender barrel. There was no hurry. There was all the time in the world. He didn't squeeze the trigger until he had a perfect right-between-the-eyes bead, then he squeezed it ever so lightly. There was the sharp sound of the report, and then the small body falling swiftly, bouncing and glancing off limbs, tumbling over and over, making a rustling thump in the dry leaves at the tree's base.

He hadn't even bothered to go over and examine it. He knew he'd got it right where he'd aimed. They didn't die instantly like that unless you got them in a vital spot. They thrashed and kicked around after they hit the ground and sometimes you had to waste another shell on them if the noise bothered you. Of course if the noise didn't bother you, you could save the shell for the next one, but it was better in the long run to get them right between the eyes because that way the others wouldn't be frightened away by the thrashing sound, and you didn't have to get up.

That had been the first one.

The second one had been coming down the trunk of the 

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