Even now he would swerve to run over a possum or a cat in the road if he could. They'd writhed a long time before they died. When he was five, he used to pour rubbing alcohol on earwigs. He did things when he was alone that he never told anybody about. He sensed vaguely that his hunting was somehow different than his dad's. His dad sometimes let a rabbit go if it ran a good enough race, but that was crazy. It was a shame to end a good chase too soon. Gordie loved to watch them do it, loved to draw it out, waiting for the dog to bring the rabbit around in a circle. The rabbit bounded on, down into the dry creek bed, losing itself among the cattails.ĭamn! He wished he'd brought a dog. Gordie's rifle barked, but the slug struck the ground just behind the rabbit, kicking up dust. There was an explosion of motion, a gray-brown blur and the flash of a white tail. Breath held, he raised the rifle, centered the crosshairs. God, this was the exciting part, the gooood part. Pure happiness filled him, warmth pooling in his stomach. He was so close now that he could see the rabbit's whiskers. Gordie edged carefully around a lemonade berryīush, looking out of the corner of his eye. If you only looked at it sideways, if you walked kind of zigzag while slowly getting closer and closer.Īs long as its ears stayed down, instead of up and swiveling, you were safe. The trick was to make the rabbit think you didn't see it.
#The forbidden game exerpt how to
He knew how to sneak up on a rabbit, get so close he could practically catch it with bare hands. Little desert cottontail sunning itself near a squat of grass. A sage-covered slope rising toward a stand of oak and sycamore trees, with some good brush piles underneath for cover. Gordie just liked to come up here and kick them out of the bushes. He'd gotten a moose last year.īig game like that was worth observing, studying, planning for. A chase that had only ended when he woke up dripping sweat. Just once Gordie had dreamed that he was on the other side of the rifle sights, the one with dogs snapping behind him, the one being hunted.
He even hunted in his dreams.įor one instant, as he made his way along the dry creek bed, a memory flickered at him, like a little tongue of flame. It was like his dad said: "Good hunts never end." Every night in bed Gordie thought about the very best ones, remembering the stalking, the shooting, the electric moment of death. Twelve, and his dad took him on a real hunting trip, going after white-tailed deer with an old. When he was nine, it had been ground squirrels with a shotgun. When he was seven, he'd gotten robins and starlings with his BB gun. Gordie preferred big game, but rabbits were always available-if you knew how to dodge the rangers. It was the wet, plopping sound when lead met flesh. It wasn't the wild-flower-splashed hills, the sky blue lupines, or the fragrant purple sage. That was why he was cutting school even though he wasn't sure he'd get away with forging his morals signature on another readmit. That was what brought Gordie Wilson out to the Santa Ana foothills on a sunny May morning like this. Using the unique lens of The Forbidden Game, Washburn gleans rich insights into the politics and people of one of the most powerful and enigmatic nations on earth.It wasn't so much the hunting.
#The forbidden game exerpt professional
And for security guard Zhou, making it as a professional golfer could be his way into China’s new middle class. Western executive Martin, whose firm manages the construction of golf courses, is always looking over his shoulder for Beijing’s “golf police”. A villager named Wang sees his life transformed when a top-secret golf resort springs up next to his farm – despite the building of golf courses being illegal. Through the lives of three men intimately involved in China’s bizarre golf scene, Dan Washburn paints an arresting portrait of a country of contradictions. But, with “the rich man’s game” about to appear in the Olympics for the first time in 112 years, they also began to spend unprecedented sums on their own national golf team. In October 2015, the Chinese Communist Party banned its 88 million members from excessive drinking, improper sexual relationships… and holding golf club memberships.
0 kommentar(er)
