OLD JOE UP
Raw Stanfield with the lantern, Butt Johnson with a torch for shiningtreed coons and a .22 rifle for plinking them out of the trees, Mun withhis coon-hunting axe, Melinda with serene self-assurance, and Harky witha miserable feeling that it couldn't be very long now before the wholeworld went to pot, they set off through the night.
Misery was Harky's only feeling. If he had another, he told himselfsourly, he wouldn't dare put stock in it. When girls horned in on coonhunts anything could happen and it probably would.
Harky comforted himself with thoughts of what can happen on coon hunts.He had a soul-satisfying vision of a cold, wet, mud-spattered, andhungry Melinda wandering through the night pleading for Harky to come toher succor. Harky heard, but he let her wander until the last possiblesecond. Then, just as she was about to sink into mud from which shewould never rise had it not been for valiant Harky, he lifted her to herfeet, took her home, and scuffed scornful feet on Mellie Garson'sthreshold.
"There!" he heard himself saying. "Let that teach you that girls oughtnever horn in on coon hunts!"
Harky breathed a doleful sigh. Delightful as this mental image was, inno way did it erase the fact that a girl had horned in on a coon hunt.Harky sought solace by tearing his thoughts away from Melinda andfastening them on something pleasant. He considered the four hounds.
Queenie was a slow and methodical worker who'd never been known to losea trail she started. Of course they did not get every coon Queeniestarted; some went to earth in rock-bound burrows and some escaped bydevious means. Queenie, who tongued on a trail, was one of the fewhounds who'd followed Old Joe to his magic sycamore.
Glory, as yet untried, might and might not adopt her mother's huntingstyle. Duckfoot--neither Harky nor anyone else had any reason to believethat he'd already tracked Old Joe to his sycamore--was another unknownquantity insofar as his own special way of hunting was concerned. ButHarky had no doubt that, after adequate training, Duckfoot would shine,and Glory would do well enough.
Thunder, next to Precious Sue the best coon hound ever to run theCreeping Hills, couldn't be doubted. Big, long-legged, and powerful,Thunder was another hound who'd distinguished himself by tracking OldJoe to the big sycamore. A silent trailer but a tree barker who didcredit to his name, Thunder was so fast that he often caught coons onthe ground. With six years of hunting experience behind him, he wasprobably the best of the four hounds on this current hunt.
They were, Harky thought, a pack fit to run in any company. With Thunderto run ahead and jump the coon, Queenie to work out the trail at her ownpace and at regular intervals to announce the direction Thunder hadgone, and quality pups like Duckfoot and Glory, any coon they strucktonight, with the probable exception of Old Joe, would find hisstretched pelt on the barn door tomorrow. Maybe even Old Joe would havea hard time with this pack.
Thinking of coons, Harky was pleasantly diverted for a few minutes more.
Creatures of the season, coons availed themselves of the most of thebest of whatever was handy. When they emerged from their dens atwinter's end, they liked to fill empty stomachs with buds and tendergrass and flower shoots. As the season advanced, coons conformed. Theynever spurned vegetation if it was to their liking, but as soon as thespring freshet subsided, they did a great deal of fishing and frog,crawfish, and mussel hunting. When gardens started to bear, the coonsvaried their diet with green vegetables. As they ripened, both wild anddomestic fruits received the attention of properly brought up coons.They were always ready to raid poultry.
At this time of year, with frogs already gone into hibernation, fishinclined to linger in deep pools where even Old Joe couldn't catch them,the crawfish and mussel crop well picked over, and vegetation withered,coons concentrated on fields of shocked corn, such fruit as might clingto branches, and beech and oak groves, where they foraged for fallenbeechnuts and acorns.
It was to a beech grove that Raw Stanfield led them.
The black thunderheads that had been surging through Harky's brainchanged suddenly to a sky of dazzling blue. Rubber boots were notunknown among coon hunters of the Creeping Hills, but except by a feweccentrics, they were unused. A man trying to make time to atree-barking hound did not care to be slowed by boots.
Harky licked his lips. God tempered the wind to the shorn lamb, but icewater felt like ice water even to a coon hunter and the grove towardwhich Raw headed was on the far side of Willow Brook. The water wasautumn-low with plenty of exposed stones, but jumping them by daylightand jumping them under lantern light were different matters. Harkywasn't sure that even he could cross at night without getting wet.
It looked as though ladies' night at coon hunts would terminate abruptlyand soon. Harky hoped so, and it would be a nice touch indeed ifMelinda scraped her shins when she fell in.
Willow Brook glinted in the light as Raw Stanfield held his lantern highto see whether they were approaching a pool or riffle. It was a rifflethat purled lazily, and coldly, around exposed stones. Harky grinned inthe darkness. It _looked_ easy, but there was a trick to it.
Once you started jumping there was no turning back and the stones wereunevenly spaced. You had to adjust your jumps accordingly, so that ittook a really experienced stone jumper to cross in reasonably drycondition.
Contemplating the joys of watching Melinda come reasonably neardrowning, Harky made a shocking discovery.
Thunder, Queenie, and Glory still trailed at the heels of the hunters,but Duckfoot was no longer present. Harky gulped, then used the thumb ofhis left hand to trace a circle on the palm of his right. Less than halfa shake ago, Duckfoot had pushed his cold nose into that dangling palmand the circle Harky made there would certainly close him in and bringhim back from wherever he had gone. At any rate, it should.
It didn't. Chills never born of the frosty night chased each other upand down Harky's spine. Mun claimed Duckfoot was half duck, Miss Cathbysaid that couldn't be, and Harky wavered between the two. He lookedagain, but only three hounds waded into the riffle to join the huntersgathering on the other side. Harky jumped.
If he had his mind on his work, he'd have crossed in perfect safety. Butjust as he made ready to strike a humpbacked boulder with the sole ofhis left foot, he miscalculated and struck with the heel. That broke hisstride to such an extent that the next jump was six inches short, andinstead of landing on a flat-topped rock where he could have balanced,he came down in ten inches of ice water.
Only vast experience as a rock jumper prevented an allover bath; Harkythrew himself forward to support his upper body on the flat rock. Then,since it was impossible to get his feet any wetter than they were, hewaded the remaining distance.
"Really, Harold," said Melinda, who was dry as a shingle under the Julysun, "you did that rather clumsily."
Harky made a mental note. It was easy to work the pith out of anelderberry stick. Small stones were plentiful. One of the latter,placed in the mouth and blown through the former, was never forgotten byanyone with whom it collided. The next time Harky attended Miss Cathby'sschool, Melinda was in for an unforgettable experience.
For the moment, since he could do nothing else about her, he couldimagine she wasn't along. Harky turned his back on Melinda and addressedMun:
"Duckfoot's gone."
"Danged if he ain't," said Mun, who noticed for the first time that theyhad only three of the four hounds with which they'd started. "When'd younote it?"
"Other side of the brook," Harky said in a hushed voice. "One minute hisnose was in my hand, the next it wasn't. Do you figure he took wings andflew off?"
"It could," Mun began, but his about-to-be-expressed opinion that such apremise was wholly reasonable was interrupted by Melinda's, "Nonsense!"
Harky blazed, forgetting his sensible plan to ignore her. "Watta youknow about it?"
"Now don't lose your temper, Harold," Melinda chided. "It's silly tosuppose Duckfoot's half duck."
Harky drew his arm back. "Silly, huh? I've a good mind to--"
"Hark
y!" Mun roared. "Men don't hit wimmen!"
"Why don't they?" Harky growled.
"You're being childish, Harold," Melinda said sweetly. "Duckfoot'ssimply gone off somewhere. Perhaps he got tired and went home."
Harky tried to speak and succeeded only in choking. If it was insult toassert that Duckfoot could not be half duck, it was heresy even to implythat he left a hunt and went home because he was tired. Harky recoveredhis breath.
"Duckfoot didn't go home!" he screamed.
"Really, Harold," Melinda said, "it isn't necessary to make so muchnoise."
Harky was saved by the bell-like tones of a suddenly-tonguing hound.
"Queenie's got one," Raw Stanfield said.
"That's Glory tonguing," Melinda corrected. "She's pitched just a shadehigher than Queenie."
"Now, Miss," Raw stuffed his tobacco into a corner of his mouth, "I knowmy own hound."
"There she is," Melinda said.
A second hound, almost exactly like the first but with subtledifferences that were apparent when both tongued at the same time, beganto sing. Raw Stanfield promptly swallowed his chew. Butt Johnson and Munwere momentarily too shocked to move.
Harky gasped. There was witchery present that had nothing to do withDuckfoot. Raw didn't know his own hound when he heard it, but Melindadid. Then Harky put the entire affair in its proper perspective. Whatelse could you expect when you brought a girl on a coon hunt? Raw wasjust so shook up that he might be pardoned for failing to recognizeQueenie even if he saw her.
"Le's git huntin'," Raw muttered.
Guiding himself by the blended voices of Queenie and Glory rising intothe night air, and seeming to hover at treetop level for a moment beforethey faded, Harky began to run. The cold air whipped his face. The nightwhispered of all the marvels that have been since the beginning of timeand will be until the end. For a moment, he even forgot Melinda.
This, he thought, was what coon hunting really meant. Listening to thehounds and trying to keep pace; knowing that somewhere far ahead, swiftand silent-running Thunder was also on the coon's trail; drawing mentalpictures of the coon and his scurry to be away; Thunder bursting uponand surprising the coon, who'd be listening to the tonguing hounds; thechorus as all hounds gathered at the tree. Harky laughed out loud.
Now he knew what a running deer knew, he told himself, and almostinstantly the swiftest deer seemed unbearably slow. He was the winditself, and he exulted in the notion that the other plodding humans,who would surely be running, would just as surely be far behind. Theyhadn't had his experience in running away from Mun.
Glory and Queenie, who seemed to run at the same pace even as theytongued in almost the same pitch, drew farther ahead but remained wellwithin hearing. Harky frowned thoughtfully as he sped through the night.The way that coon was running, and the way the dogs became quiet atintervals, as though they'd been thrown off the scent, he had a feelingthat they were on Old Joe himself.
When he climbed a knoll and was able to hear nothing, he no longerdoubted. Queenie and Glory were casting for the trail, and Old Joe wasthe only coon that could keep Queenie puzzled this long. Harky halted.
"Old Joe sure enough," he said out loud.
"Don't you think," Melinda asked calmly, "that we should go directly tohis big sycamore?"
Harky jumped like a shot-stung fox. He blinked, not daring to believeshe'd kept pace with him but unable to discredit his own eyes. Suddenlyhe felt far more the plodding turtle than the speeding deer, but heextricated himself as neatly as Old Joe foiled a second-rate hound.
"If I hadn't slowed down on accounta you," he said belligerently, "I'dof been at Old Joe's tree by now."
Melinda said meekly, "I know you were running slowly, Harold, but youneedn't have. I could have gone much faster."
Harky gulped and felt his way. Melinda, he decided, must have broughther rabbit's foot with her and probably she'd rolled in a whole field offour-leaf clovers. Beyond any doubt, she'd also observed the phases ofthe moon and conducted herself accordingly.
"What do you know about Old Joe's sycamore?" he asked.
"What everyone knows," she said casually. "Old Joe runs to it every timehe's hard pressed by hounds."
"He's probably lost a thousand hounds and two thousand hunters at thattree," Harky said.
"Pooh!" Melinda scoffed. "There haven't been a thousand hounds and twothousand hunters in the Creeping Hills during the past hundred years!"
"Old Joe's been prowling that long," Harky declared.
"Rubbish!" said Melinda. "He's just a big raccoon who's smart enough toclimb a tree that can't be felled or climbed. Even my own fatherbelieves he's been here forever, but you should know better. You've beentaught by Miss Cathby."
Harky sneered, "Miss Cathby don't know nothin' about nothin'."
"Harold!" Melinda was properly shocked. "Don't you dare talk that wayabout Miss Cathby!"
"Ha!" Harky crowed. "I'll--"
The battle that might have resulted from this impact of Miss Cathby'seducation with the lore and legend of the Creeping Hills was forestalledwhen two hounds began to bay at Old Joe's sycamore. They were Thunderand Duckfoot.
The Duck-footed Hound Page 9