Big Red Page 8

  “Danny, don’t worry if we ain’t back tonight. If we jump a long runner, we may stay two days.”

  Danny went out on the porch to look at the weather. The maple tree in the pasture, under which Asa and the black and white cow rested when the sun shone hot, had streaks of red running through its leaves. The leaves on the beeches hung listless and yellow. A cold wind blew down from Stoney Lonesome, and Danny whistled happily. Autumn was surely the finest time of all. Partridge season opened in just a little more than three weeks, and he could go shooting with Red. Afterward he and Ross would lay in their winter’s supply of venison, and when the deep snows came they’d don snowshoes and hit the long trails into the back country. Spring and summer in the Wintapi just couldn’t compare to fall and winter.

  Danny prepared breakfast, fed the big setter, and did the few other chores that needed doing. Then he took a pack basket from its hooks on the shed wall, and dumped thirty number-one steel traps into it. Ross was worrying about the Lonesome Pond trap-line, but he could stop worrying when he came home to find it finished. That was the last line; the others were done.

  Danny shouldered the basket, and the big setter frisked happily before him as he set off through the beech woods. The cold wind sighed down from Stoney Lonesome, and far off Danny thought he heard the mournful baying of a hound. He stopped to listen, but the sound was not repeated. Red walked toward a small hillock that was carpeted with winter-green, and looked invitingly over his shoulder. But Danny snapped his fingers.

  “Come back here, dog. There’s work to be done.”

  He strode up the valley, following the course set by Smokey Creek through the huge beeches. A buck deer, with the last shreds of summer velvet gone from its branching antlers, stood silently as a wraith in the trees before him. The buck snorted, stamped the ground with a forefoot, and bounded away. A couple of crows cawed raucously from the top of a beech, and flew on the devil’s business that their kind are always about. Then Danny broke through the last of the beeches on to Lonesome Pond.

  The beech woods ceased abruptly, and in an almost perfectly straight line flanked the edge of a weed-grown meadow. Here and there, ragged tamaracks reared their green heads through the great expanse of withered cattails and bulrushes that lined the suddenly widened valley.

  The pond itself was a mere widening of Smokey Creek, a mile and a half long by a half mile wide. Lonesome and sluggish, it rested between the acres of reeds and was flanked by the straggling tamaracks. It was a desolate place, but the little, conical houses that muskrats had built were strewn thickly wherever there was shallow water, and freshly cut reeds floated almost everywhere. Every year Ross and Danny took a hundred muskrats from the pond, and caught eight or ten mink on the little mud paths around it. Danny knelt to examine the bank.

  Muskrats had been digging there, coming out of the water to root for the succulent bulbs that grew so abundantly around the pond. Danny deposited his pack on the bank, and went to one of the discouraged tamarack trees. With his knife he cut half a dozen forked branches from it, and from a grove of willows beside the pond took twenty more. He returned to the water, took a trap from the basket, and thrust one of the sticks through the ring at the end of its chain. He drove it deep into the bank, pounding the fork down until nothing showed, and cast the trap into the water. Even muskrats were sometimes wary and hard to take. But they would become accustomed to the trap by the time the season opened, and pay no attention to it when it was set.

  Danny worked slowly around the pond, leaving an unset but firmly staked trap at every likely place. He already knew the narrow paths under the banks where wandering mink ran, and he set the basket down forty feet from the first one. Red looked questioningly at him.

  “Down!” commanded Danny.

  The big setter crouched by the basket, and Danny took out a trap. He waded into the water, thirty feet from where he was to make the set, and made a long half-circle toward the spot. Careful to touch nothing that might retain human scent—mink were among the wariest of beasts—he staked the trap chain in the water. Then, with the blade of his axe, he lifted the trap onto the path and splashed water over it. He and Ross would be along later to set the traps, but when they did they would use deodorized gloves.

  The sun was sinking when Danny straightened up from the last trap and swung the empty pack basket to his shoulders. He sighed, and stretched his cramped muscles. But the Lonesome Pond line was finished and ready. There remained only the setting of the traps. Danny grinned down at Red.

  “I feel like supper. How ’bout you?”

  Together they walked back to the cabin in the beech woods. But the kennels were still empty; Ross was not back. If he didn’t come before dark it meant that he would not be back. But it was best to give him an hour or so more. A man who had been tramping through the mountains all day would be hungry, and appreciate a hot meal.

  With Red beside him, Danny walked out on the porch and sat on the top step sniffing hungrily at the fresh breeze that eddied about the cabin. It was just right, and smelled just right, with a strong hint of more frost and the barest promise of snow to follow. A straggling V-line of geese flew over the cabin, and their quavering calls drifted back down to it. Red raised his head with Danny to watch, and fell to sniffing at the bird-laden beech woods that began where the pasture ended. Danny pulled his ear.

  “Stop sniffin’ for partridges,” he admonished. “We can’t shoot ’em now anyhow.”

  In spite of his advice, he rose, and with Red circling happily ahead of him walked down the steps. The big dog snapped to a stiff point before a little group of pines that had somehow managed to find a root among the beeches, and when Danny advanced two partridges thundered out. Red danced on eager feet, watching them soar and disappear in the beech woods. Danny swung toward the barn, and passed it to enter the forest. The sun was almost gone now and the huge, gloomy trees, that had already shed a fair portion of their leaves, stood in the dank chill of an early autumn evening. Danny threaded his way through them to Smokey Creek.

  Its dark waters curled around the beech roots, running alternately in quiet, leaf-laden pools and leaping riffles. Danny knelt to read in the mud bank beside the creek the story of the wayfarers that had been most recently along it. A she coon had led her family along the stream, and under the small stones in a little back-eddy they had caught crayfish. The restless trail of a wandering mink mingled with that of the coon family; he also had been fishing. A muskrat had been digging in the bank.

  Danny wandered back to the house, cut chops from a side of pork in the spring house, peeled a kettle full of potatoes, and brewed fresh coffee. The day had been pleasantly warm, but the night was definitely cold, so he stuffed two blocks of tough oak wood into the stove. The lid glowed red, and the pleasant aroma that wood fire always creates filled the cabin. Danny put the potatoes over to boil, and laid the pork chops in a skillet. Probably Ross would not come. But he might, and if he did he would expect a hot meal ready. When the potatoes began to bubble, Danny moved them to a back lid and put the pork chops in their place. If Ross didn’t come to eat his share, Danny could always make breakfast on whatever might be left.

  He stood over the stove with a fork in his hand, and was just about to turn the sizzling pork chops when Red sprang to his feet. A little growl bubbled in his throat, and his hackles raised. Danny shoved the pork chops to the back of the stove and went to the door.

  A moment later he saw Ross swing out of the forest into the clearing and start across it. Ross’s rifle swung from his hand, and the pack was on his shoulders. Danny swallowed the lump that rose in his throat and went quietly back to the stove. His father’s hunt had gone amiss. Of the four hounds that had started out with him that morning, only three were coming home. The missing one, Danny knew, lay somewhere in the mountains and would never hunt again.

  Twenty minutes later Ross entered the house. Danny had known that he would be that long; having had hounds in the mountains all day, Ross would take
time to feed and care for them before attending to his own wants. Red rose, and padded politely across the floor to greet this other occupant of their home. Danny turned from the stove, and the cooked supper, to smile at his father. He knew better than to question Ross about his hounds.

  “Hi, Pappy. I didn’t know for sure whether you’d get home or not.”

  “Yep. I got here.”

  Ross’s face was haggard, as were his eyes. Wearily he hung his rifle beside Danny’s, sloshed water from one of the two tin pails into a tin basin, and washed his face and hands. He dropped on a chair and sat staring dully across the table. Danny tended busily to the already cooked pork chops, and glanced furtively at Red. Ross Pickett set a lot of store by his hounds, and it always cut him deeply to lose one. With the long fork Danny put the pork chops on a platter, and emptied the potatoes into a dish. He set them on the table along with butter, milk, and bread, and tried to make his voice gay.

  “Supper’s ready, Pappy. How’d it go today?”

  Ross Pickett shook his head. “Bad, Danny, bad. I lost a hound.”

  “No!”

  “Yes,” Ross corrected. “The likeliest of the three pups it was, too.”

  “How’d you lose him?”

  “Killed by a varmint, a cat varmint. We jumped him in that sag just under Stoney Lonesome, and I heerd the hounds bay him a mile back in the brush. Time I got there, they’d gone. The pup lay by a rock, ripped to ribbons. We followed the varmint all day, but I never got a shot.”

  Danny said, “I’m right sad about it, Pappy.”

  Ross pecked at the food before him, still staring aimlessly across the table. Danny busied himself with his own food, avoiding his father’s face. Whoever hunted dangerous game with hounds was sure to have one killed once in a while. But Ross always grieved over such mishaps, and blamed himself for them. He picked up a pork chop, gnawed on it, and put it back on his plate.

  “It’s a big cat varmint, Danny,” he said. “A big lynx or catamount.”

  He resumed his vacant staring over the table. Never given to futile outbursts, he would not now storm and rage. But Danny knew that his present moodiness was not wholly grief. The varmint that had killed the hound was still running free in the mountains. And even while he mourned the loss of one of his cherished dogs, Ross could still lay plans to avenge it. Danny knew that he was plotting the varmint’s downfall now, and also that he was quite capable of pursuing it until he finally did overtake it, regardless of when that might be. No varmint of any description ever killed a Pickett hound and went scot-free.

  Danny finished eating, and sat silently at the table until Ross, by pushing his plate aside, signified that he wanted no more. Danny flipped the half-eaten pork chops to Red, and the big setter carried them to the porch where he lay gnawing on them. Ross turned the kerosene lamp a little higher. He took his best hunting knife, one that he himself had made of tool-steel and that was always reserved for special occasions, and began to whet it on the fine side of an emery stone. The next time he went into the mountains he would carry that knife, and its next function would be to remove the pelt of the varmint that had killed his favorite pup. Danny shivered. There were grim depths in his father that only an occasion such as this could bring to the surface.

  Quietly Danny gathered up the dishes, poured hot water from the tea kettle into a basin, and washed them. He glanced dubiously at his father, still sitting at the table whetting his knife to a razor edge. Ross raised his head, and stared fixedly at the flickering lamp before he spoke.

  “Danny, I think that’s a bad varmint.”

  Danny listened attentively as he always did when Ross spoke of varmints. He had hunted them all his life, and certainly no man knew more about them. Ross rested his chin on his hand.

  “I do think so,” he said, more to himself than to Danny. “It’s no ordinary cat. It trapped that hound, and waited until it could trap it without hurt to itself. Then it got slick and clean away. It’s a cunnin’ thing, and a big one, and I think it aims to make itself boss of Stoney Lonesome. Danny, do you go up there, you carry a gun.”

  “I won’t go without I’m ready for it,” Danny promised.

  “Don’t,” Ross admonished.

  He fell to whetting the hunting knife again, and Danny stood uneasily watching him. Tomorrow morning, with his three remaining hounds, Ross would be again on the trail of the varmint. There was no use in even asking to accompany him because Ross would flatly refuse all aid. The varmint was a personal affair, and one that concerned him only.

  “Guess I’ll go for a walk,” Danny said.

  “Sure. Go ahead.”

  Danny walked down to the creek with Red, and took a swing through the beeches. When he came back to the cabin it was dark. Without striking a light Danny sought his own bed. In the black hours of the next morning, so early that the first hint of dawn had not even begun to show in the sky, he was awakened by Ross kindling a fire in the stove. Danny lay sleepily on his cot, and reached over to caress Red, while he watched his father prepare breakfast. Ross ate, and made a small pack in which he put bacon, salt, bread, and tea. He rolled the pack in his fringed hunting jacket, slung it across his shoulder, strapped the knife about his middle, and took his rifle from the rack. Quietly he stole out the door and closed it behind him.

  Danny heard Old Mike, the leader of the hound pack, whine eagerly as Ross went to the kennels to release the hounds, and his father’s gruff command to be quiet. Then there was silence, and Danny turned over to sleep until a more reasonable hour. There was nothing special to do today, aside from splitting a little wood, and therefore no reason to be up so early.

  When he awoke again, sunlight was streaming through the windows and a bluejay in the maple tree was shrieking invective at the mule. Red padded over to Danny’s bed and scratched with his front paw at the blanket that covered it. Danny looked at Ross’s empty bed, and the space on the deer horn rack that was usually occupied by Ross’s rifle, and sighed. Ross would be far back in the mountains by this time, looking for the trail of the varmint that had killed his hound. Danny swung out of bed, and opened the door to let Red make his usual morning tour of the clearing. He washed, put on his clothing, and was preparing breakfast when he heard Red bark.

  The dog barked again, and a series of challenging barks rolled from his throat as he ran toward the Smokey Creek trail. Danny reached for his rifle, and went to the door. Red stood just at the edge of the clearing. There was motion within the trees, and Red trotted forward with his tail wagging. A moment later John Bailey, the game warden who patrolled the Wintapi, broke out of the trees and with Red beside him started toward the cabin. He paused at the bottom of the steps, and grinned up at Danny.

  “Are you going feuding?”

  Danny grinned back. “Pappy had a hound killed by a varmint yesterday, and he allows it’s a bad ’un. When I heard Red, I just thought I’d be set for anything. That’s how come I got a gun.”

  John Bailey nodded. “What kind of varmint?”

  “A cat varmint. Pappy’s back in the hills huntin’ it now.”

  “Hope he gets it,” the warden said thoughtfully. “We can’t have any cats killing deer in the Wintapi. Danny, are you too busy to do a little job for me?”

  “Reckon not. What do you want?”

  “There was a big buck hit by a car on the highway yesterday afternoon. Almost certainly he has a broken leg and internal injuries. But he isn’t hurt so badly that he can’t run. I tracked him a ways, to Blue Sag up on Stoney Lonesome, and marked where I left off with a handkerchief. He laid down three times, and there was blood in each bed. Do you want to pick up the trail and finish him?”

  Danny nodded. A wounded beast, left alone, would run until it thought itself safe from pursuit. Then it would lie down, usually to suffer days of agony that would only end in death. It was far better to put the buck out of its pain as swiftly and mercifully as possible.

  “Sure,” Danny agreed. “Red and I’ll go after hi
m.”

  John Bailey reached down to tickle Red’s ears. “Aren’t you afraid the dog will learn to hunt deer?”

  “No, sir,” Danny said stoutly. “That dog hunts just what I want him to.”

  “Okay. When you get the buck, bring him here to your house and I’ll come get him. Of course the meat will have to go to a hospital or the county home, but I’ll pay you for your time.”

  “Sure thing.”

  John Bailey disappeared back down the trail, and Danny took his own rifle from its rack. He gave Asa a measure of oats, milked the cow and put the milk in the spring house, packed a lunch, and with Red careening happily before him set off through the beech woods toward Stoney Lonesome. A gray squirrel scampered around the side of a tree, and Red looked interestedly at it but let it go. He glanced back at Danny, and grinned foolishly. Danny grinned back. Red had learned his lesson well.

  Danny toiled up Stoney Lonesome’s steep slope, and halted before a huge, gray-trunked beech to get his bearings. Red stopped beside him, sitting on the ground with his plumed tail outstretched. A pileated woodpecker hammered on a tree, and a chipmunk with his cheek pouches stuffed full of beech nuts dived backward off a stump. A little gust of wind blew across the forest floor, and ruffled the fallen leaves. Danny cut a little to the left, and came to the edge of the shallow gulley that was called Blue Sag. He stood on the rim, his eyes roving up and down. Red walked into the gulley, sniffed interestedly along it, and raised his head suddenly to stare toward one of the big blue rocks from which the sag took its name. Danny’s gaze followed his, and he saw a corner of John Bailey’s white handkerchief beside the rock. Danny snapped his fingers and called Red to him.

  “Heel,” he ordered. “If there’s tracks, I don’t want ’em messed up.”

  With the dog walking behind him, he made a slow way to the rock and knelt to study the ground. A low whistle escaped him. John Bailey hadn’t exaggerated when he called this a big buck. The imprint of its cloven hoofs were huge and plain beside the rock. But there was a little line where it had dragged one hind foot, and it had fallen twice in climbing out of Blue Sag. Danny put his hand in the scuffed leaves, and brought it away wet with blood.