Irish Red Read online

  Mike came tearing back across the clearing, intent on some senseless errand of his own. Danny caught the protesting, puppy and dropped him into the cage. As soon as his son was safely behind wire, Red came down from the porch.

  The pups, interested in everything that went on, gathered at one side of their cage. When Red started toward them, they broke into a yapping chorus of greeting. Danny unlatched the gate and entered the cage.

  Getting his face thoroughly licked in the process, and both his ears nipped, Danny stooped to pick up the puppies’ big feed and water dishes, then beat a hasty retreat. He latched the gate while all five pups scrambled furiously against it. Danny filled the water dish with clean, fresh water and replaced it. He fed the puppies, left them gobbling their meal, and looked around the yard. His eye fell on the hens.

  The Picketts had twenty-nine chickens of all sizes and colors, and it was a tribute to Red and Sheilah’s vigilance that they were able to keep any at all in the beech woods. Furred and feathered raiders came at frequent intervals-none of them averse to a chicken dinner. Furthermore, once such pirate n became accustomed to easy meals, they came again and again. The only way to stop them was to kill them.

  Danny had been missing one chicken, a yellow game hen, for some time. It did not necessarily follow that she had made a varmint’s dinner; game chickens had a liking for the woods and, even though it was late in the season for a hen to feel broody, this one might have stolen her nest somewhere. Danny wondered what had happened to her.

  “Reckon we’d best go hunt for that yellow hen,” he murmured to Red. “How about it?”

  Coming to the creek, they swung up it. Danny studied the soft mud banks as he passed, and found fresh tracks of mink, coon, and otter. However, as nearly as he could tell, none had veered toward the clearing. Nor did Red, ranging through the beech woods, give any sign that he found anything amiss. A half-mile up the creek, he came in to join Danny.

  It was unlikely that anything would carry food this far before stopping to eat, and there had been no yellow feathers scattered around. Danny swung into the forest, and waved an arm. At the signal, Red ranged out to hunt.

  He came to a beautiful point in a patch of winter-green, and edging up behind him, Danny flushed two grouse. He grinned expectantly. Ruffed grouse were the peer of all game, and Red was far and away the peer of partridge dogs. Shooting grouse over Red was Danny’s favorite sport, and the fact that there were so many grouse foretold good things for the hunting season to come.

  Danny swung back, paralleling the course he had taken up the creek. Red still ranged from side to side, finding and pointing another grouse. Then he found a covey of bob-tailed, half-grown young birds. Danny licked his lips. Unless it was freshly caught brook trout, there was no finer eating than young grouse. But the season was closed on them.

  Aided by Red’s keen nose and hunting instinct, Danny searched the beech woods thoroughly. He neglected no cranny or crevice where a raiding beast might have eaten the yellow hen, but he found no feathers and Red detected nothing except more grouse. The yellow hen, true to the instincts of game fowl, must have stolen her nest somewhere. He should know definitely in a day or two. If the hen did not come in to feed, and more chickens were missing, it would be proof that a raider was at work.

  “Let’s go in and see if Pappy’s back from his bee hunt,” Danny told Red.

  Side by side they swung back toward the cabin and broke out of the beech woods. The five pups, disinclined to further exercise because their bellies were filled, sprawled in’ the sunshine. Sheilah wagged a dainty welcome from the porch, and Red joined her. Danny entered the cabin. Ross was at the sink, washing up. Two pails of wild honey were standing on the kitchen table.

  “Hi, Pappy. Where’d you find it?”

  “Trap Log Hollow,” Ross said. “It was in a big old oak, and I had to chase a bear ‘n’ two cubs out before I could get at it. Right up in the tree they were, takin’ turns dippin’ their paws in. Never paid no mind to the bee stings, either.”

  “Mr. Haggin wants some,” Danny said. “Will you take him a jar?”

  “Sure. You saw Haggin?”

  “Went down this morning. Had to find out where we stood.”

  “Well?”

  “We’ve got a job. Mr. Haggin’s going to put you on the payroll, too. We’re supposed to take one of the pups and make him into a hunter. That is, with Joe Williams’ help.”

  “Where’s Williams come in?”

  “He’s a dog trainer, Mr. Haggin said. We’ll work with him and find out how he does things.”

  Ross hung up the towel and turned to Danny.

  “Haggin don’t figure we’re goin’ to train those pups the way Williams trains his dogs, does he?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Because,” Ross said, “the first time you take a whip to those pups is the last time they’ll be good for anythin’. That ain’t the way to make an Irish setter work for you.”

  “I know that.”

  “What’d you tell Haggin?”

  “That we’d try it.”

  “Goshamighty, boy! We won’t get anywhere doin’ that! I’ll grant you that Williams knows his dogs, but he don’t know these red ones! He’ll ruin ‘em complete!”

  Danny remained silent. Ross swivelled on his heels to look out of the window, and for a moment he did not speak.

  All his life Ross had been a Wintapi hunter and trapper. It was a good life, the only one he would have wanted, but it was also a hard one. He wanted something else, something better, for Danny. Maybe taking care of a rich man’s dogs was the answer. Danny could go far in such a job. When he spoke, Ross’s tones were more gentle.

  “I’ll take some honey down to Mr. Haggin, Danny, and have a talk with him myself. There could be somethin’ in his offer. Don’t fret.”Picking up one of the pails, Ross departed. Dully Danny stoked the stove and began to assemble the ingredients for a hunters stew. He put them into a pot, poured water over them, added seasoning, and pushed the pot over a hot lid.

  If Ross refused to accept Mr. Haggin’s offer, then of course Danny couldn’t either. They were partners. Danny watched his simmering stew. Then he heard Red bark and Ross came back up the trail.

  “We talked it over,” he said, “and there’s somethin’ in it at that. Push your mulligan on the back of the stove, Danny. We got things to do.”

  “What things?”

  Ross turned his back so Danny couldn’t see his face. “I told John Price that we’d fetch Sheilah and the pups down right away. Tomorrow we start workin’ with Williams.”

  4. Joe Williams

  The sun was high when Danny awakened. For a few minutes he lay drowsily, watching a fly that had somehow managed to get through the screens into the cabin, and that now hung upside down on the ceiling. It had been a cold night, Danny remembered, and once he had awakened to get another blanket. Now the cabin was warm. Danny sat up.

  A rush of memory overwhelmed him, so that he suddenly knew what he had been vaguely trying to place when he awakened. Sheilah, who had been in the cabin for many months, was no longer there and the cabin in the beech woods seemed strangely empty and deserted. Danny’s eyes strayed to the mat Sheilah had occupied, then he looked toward the stove. Ross was cooking flapjacks.

  “Morning,” Danny called.

  “Huh,” Ross grunted, “the way some people around here sleep, maybe they’d best practise to say ‘afternoon’ instead. Thought you were goin’ to pound that pillow until next Tuesday, Danny.”

  “Wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

  Danny swung out of bed and absently tickled Red’s ears when the big dog padded over to him. He looked again at Ross. His father had had many dogs, but never one like Sheilah, and last night Danny and Ross had locked Sheilah and the pups in separate runs down at the big house. Still, though Ross felt the loss, he was not showing it.

  “Haul your bones out of there,” Ross ordered, “and pack a mess of these flapjacks into you.
Half the day’s gone and we start our new job this mornin’.”

  Danny laughed. “Don’t be in such a sweat, Pappy. It’s only twenty past seven.”

  “Well,” Ross grumbled, “when I was your age we expected to have half a day’s work behind us come that time. Don’t know what you young whipper-snappers are comin’ to. Rustle now.”

  Danny dressed in a hurry. The cabin glowed with warmth from the big cook stove, but little tendrils of cold air skulked about the windows and entered the cracks. Summer was at its height, but throughout the weather had been unseasonably cold. Danny washed and sat down behind the huge stack of pancakes Ross had ready for him.

  “Cold night,” he observed.

  “Sure was, and it looks like we’re in for a passable tough winter. Be a long one, too. Squirrels are already layin’ up a store of winter grub. We’ll see snow in plenty before the trilliums bloom again.”

  Danny tore into his breakfast, aware that now a certain eagerness had come over him. Gone were his doubts. Working closely with a professional dog trainer was really-a wonderful opportunity. Dogs were to be his job, and he could learn a lot from Williams.

  Ross finished and pushed his plate back. “I’ll feed the chickens and pigs while you’re feedin’ your own face,” he said.

  Ross put on his faded blue jacket and his battered old black hat with fishing flies stuck in the band. He opened the door, and stopped short.

  “Holy thumpin’ wildcats!” he ejaculated.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Danny slipped across the floor and looked over his father’s shoulder. He whistled softly.

  Last night he himself had locked Mike in one of the kennel runs down at the big house, but now Mike lay on the porch. He half rose, thumping the boards with his tail and beaming happily. Again Mike had performed the impossible, and escaped from a cage that should hold any dog.

  “Seems to me I remember things,” Ross chuckled. “They couldn’t keep Red at the big house either, not when he’d rather be up here with you. That Mike pup, he’s sort of stickin’ by the Pickett family, too.”

  “Yeah,” Danny said ruefully. Of Sheilah’s five children, it had to be Mike the worthless who would come and seek them out. Then he forgot his displeasure. The fact that Mike had come back, and preferred the cabin in the woods to the luxuries of the big house, was enough in his favor, “What are we goin’ to do with him?” Danny asked.

  “Take him back, of course.”

  “You know what I wish?” Danny said. “I wish Sean, or Eileen, or either of the other two, was our pup to do with what we want.”

  Ross knelt on the floor and tickled the white star on Mike’s chest. The puppy rolled over, playfully biting Ross’s caressing hand. Danny watched, and because he knew dogs he understood something about the red puppy. Mike had proven that he liked the Picketts better than anyone else, but he wasn’t really anyone’s dog. He was a rebel.

  Ross straightened, and said, “If I had the pick of the litter, I’d take this one.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s all dog. I’ll grant you that he ain’t ever goin’ to win any blue ribbons at any fancy shows. But you and Mr. Haggin tried to get a dog with all that’s best of both Red and Sheilah in him. Mike’s got it. He ain’t much for looks, but he’s got it inside.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Look at him,”

  “I can’t see it, Pappy.”

  “I’ve been wrong, but I ain’t this time. If any man ever gets sense enough to bring out what Mike’s got, he’ll have a dog to beat the field.”

  Danny made no comment. When Ross fell overboard he went all the way, and he had always liked Mike. Maybe that was because few other people did. Maybe it was because Sheilah was gone.

  “Reckon I’ll finish my breakfast,” Danny said.

  He did, and gave Mike a heaping plateful of food. The red puppy gobbled everything and licked the tin plate. Then he leaped up to spring at Red, and Red beat a hasty retreat into the cabin. Mike pawed enthusiastically at the closed door, then turned to bite Ross’s trouser cuffs when Ross came back from the outbuildings.

  “Well,” said Danny’s father, as they finished the dishes, “if you’re ready, we’ll go let Haggin’s trainer learn us about dogs.”

  “I’m ready.”

  Danny slipped a training collar over Mike’s head, snapped a leash onto it, and fell in beside Ross. When Red would have gone with them, Danny ordered him back. The best trainer in the world couldn’t possibly teach Red more about hunting than he already knew, and besides it was just as well to leave a guardian at the cabin.

  “Damn!” Ross said as they neared the kennels.

  “What’s eating you?”

  “I feel sort of funny. This marks the first time in twenty-five years that I’ve gone to do another man’s biddin’. I sort of don’t like the feelin’.”

  “You’ve been running the woods so long that you’re wilder than a buck deer!” Danny scoffed. “You’ll tame down.”

  “Hope you’re right.”

  They swerved to the kennel runs, and came upon Sheilah, imprisoned in a run all by herself. Her tail wagged furiously, and she uttered anxious little whines. Sheilah adored only one man, and now she was telling him how happy she was to see him again. Ross thrust a hand through to stroke her, and Sheilah flattened an ecstatic head against the wire.

  “All right, old girl,” Ross said soothingly. “We all got to do things we don’t like. Shucks, even dogs got to.”

  Danny unlatched the gate to Mike’s run, picked the red puppy up, and thrust him inside. Unconcerned, Mike sat down in the center of the gravelled run, and started scratching his right ear with, his right hind paw.

  A second later Joe Williams appeared. “Good morning,” he said affably.

  “Good morning,” Danny replied.

  Ross nodded. The four pups, all in separate pens, waited expectantly. The trainer snapped his fingers at Mike, who turned his back on him with almost studied deliberation. Joe Williams frowned.

  “I can’t figure how a couple of champions threw a mutt like that. The other four are fine pups, but he’s sure a mistake.”

  “It happens,” Ross pointed out. “Why, I’ve seen lashin’ big bears trailed by cubs that wouldn’t be bite size when they were full-grown.”

  “Yes, but that pup’s brain is stunted, too. I was out here this morning and the other four came right up to the fence. That one snubbed me cold.”

  “What time this morning?” Danny inquired.

  “About quarter to six.”

  Danny said nothing. Obviously Mike had escaped after the place was astir, and had made good his escape without being seen. Maybe that was luck and maybe he hadn’t wanted to be seen. Anyhow, it would do no good to say that the red puppy could get away whenever he felt like it, especially since Danny didn’t know how he did it.

  The trainer faced them. “I hope you two don’t expect to learn any deep, dark secrets, or any black magic. As far as I know, there’s no .such thing. You have to understand your dog and work with him. That’s all I know.”

  “Sounds sensible,” Ross admitted. “That’s about all anybody has to know. Can we see how you do it?”

  “Come on. I’m going to work one of the pups.”

  They followed Joe Williams along the line of kennel runs to a gawky pup who leaped enthusiastically against the wire. He continued to leap and frolic even after the trainer ordered him to sit. Joe Williams took a leash from its hook, entered the cage, and gently forced the puppy to a sitting position. He held him there while he snapped the leash onto his collar, but as soon as he was released the puppy jumped up.

  “Sit!” the trainer ordered.

  The puppy backed two steps and looked up, obviously not understanding. Again he was pressed into a sitting position and held there. This time he remained sitting while his trainer backed two steps. The leash dangled loosely. Then a wind-blown leaf scudded across the pen and the puppy start
ed to race after it.

  “Sit!” Joe Williams said firmly.

  He tightened the leash, with the same motion tightening the collar around the puppy’s neck. The youngster strained at the leash, still intent on playing with the leaf. Patiently the trainer pressed him to the ground, and this time the puppy stayed. Joe Williams backed away. After a second he said, “All right.”

  Simultaneously he snapped his fingers, and the puppy romped happily up to him. The trainer dug into his pocket for a bit of dog biscuit. He handed it to the puppy, who ate and licked his trainer’s hand. Joe Williams turned to Ross and Danny.

  “Patience and the right amount of firmness does it,” he said. “They have to know who’s boss, and at the same time like to work for him.”

  “Yeah,” said Ross.

  Danny said nothing. Maybe some dogs had to learn this way, but never once had he tightened a collar around Red’s neck. He and his father stepped back as Joe Williams brought the puppy out of his run. Only one man could handle a dog. If two tried it, confusion was apt to result. No dog could serve two masters.

  Naturally friendly, the puppy strained toward these two intriguing strangers and possible playmates. He came to the end of his leash and continued to strain. Using more than a necessary amount of strength, Joe Williams pulled him back. Without really hurting the puppy, the tightening Collar closed about his neck and shut off his breath. The puppy turned, cringed slightly, and wagged an appeasing tail at his trainer. Joe Williams patted his head and ruffled his ears, and the next time the puppy tried to wander he went only far enough to let the collar tighten slightly. He kept one eye on his trainer.

  “A field dog is worthless if he won’t listen and obey,” Joe Williams said. “Not that this one will ever be more than a passable gun dog anyhow.”

  Danny had already arrived at the same conclusion. The puppy was not nearly as good as the young dog that had come to the cabin with John Price and Mr. Haggin. Danny was relieved; plainly not all English setters were champions. As a breed they were like any other dog, with good, bad, and indifferent individuals.