Outlaw Red

by Jim Kjelgaard

  He stopped short, tested the winds, and advanced at a walk. This was no hill man’s clearing and shack, but broad and cultivated acres much like the Haggin estate. Sean drank in the odors of cattle, horses, and sheep. He savored the scent of men and dogs. Cautiously the big Setter trotted out of the forest and into the clearing.

  Only night lights glowed in the big house and about the barns and tenant houses, and at best they cast only a feeble glow. The people who were active about this house by day had been driven by night to the comfort and safety of their beds. Sean tested all the odors again and again, hoping to find one he knew. There was none.

  Unafraid, knowing by instinct and from recent experience that the night is a friendly protector of the fugitive and the hunted, Sean padded across a meadow and onto a velvet lawn. Suddenly homesick, he whined uneasily. Many times had he trotted across a lawn exactly like this one. Keeping out of the glow of the night lights, he went to the tenant houses and sniffed them carefully.

  Totally unaware of the fact that, by accident, he had reached Jordan Acres, the place he would have gone anyway had not his crate fallen out of the truck, Sean left the tenant houses for the big house. He ventured onto the porch, heedless of the fact that his dew-wet paws left muddy prints, and thoroughly investigated everything about it.

  Somewhere in the house a man coughed in his sleep. Sean froze where he was and did not move again until he was sure that the man was not chasing him. He trotted toward the dog kennels.

  Vaguely visible in the night, a white and black English Setter stalked stiffly down to the end of his run, thrust his muzzle against the wire, and sniffed noses with Sean. Sean met him as stiffly, but after they became acquainted two tails began to wag. The English Setter by wriggling his body invited Sean to frolic.

  A sudden overwhelming scent jerked Sean’s head sidewise. He lifted his front paw, like a bird dog on a point, and stood very quiet for ten seconds. He shook his head to clear a bit of dust from his nose, and ran his tongue out. Sean whined softly. At a slow but steady walk he began to move along the row of kennels.

  Other dogs came in the night to meet him. Most were suspicious, alert, as though there clung to Sean something that the rest of them did not have. But there was no growl or snarl and only normal barks; the dogs were ready to fight or be friendly. Sean passed them by, all his senses concentrated on the one scent that had lured him. He came to the end of the row of kennels and stood transfixed.

  She stood inside her wire run, alert and trembling. Not coweringly, but expectantly, her tail drooped in a graceful curve. Even in the dim starlight her gorgeous coat shimmered and reflected a soft glow. There she stood, Penelope of Killarney. One of the most wonderful of her wonderful breed, Penny had been Sean’s appointed mate. Taut as a fiddle string, she watched him sidle gently toward her.

  Gone was Sean’s loneliness and the uneasy feeling that he was deserted. Staring hard at Penny, his tail wagged stiffly. He bounced forward, holding his legs rigid like those of a mechanical toy. Then he began to wag everything behind his nose. Sean pressed hard against the wire and a pleading little whine broke from him.

  She came slowly, so taut and so tense that her slim flanks fluttered and her pounding heart could be heard. Through the wire she sniffed noses with him, and her tail started to wag.

  Sean did a gallant little dance, tail high over his back and ears alerted. He pirouetted and came back to her.

  She stooped, hind quarters in the air and front feet stretched on the ground in front of her. Dashing madly away, she raced at top speed to the end of her kennel run and flew back. Suddenly coy, she stopped five feet from the wire, where he could not reach her.

  Sean barked at her, a sharp and pleading little sound that again brought her close. He poked at the unyielding wire with his big front paw. Then, with a warm, wet tongue, he licked as much of her face as he could reach through the wire mesh.

  Dawn was in the sky before he would leave her side to hide himself in the forest. He loved this place, so like his old home, and he would gladly have stayed. Had there been anyone around that he knew, he would have stayed. But there were only strangers.

  Bitter experience had taught Sean not to trust them.

  6. Hound Pack

  FOR A FULL TWO weeks Sean kept close to Tom Jordan’s estate. By day he lay up on one of the beech ridges, but he spent every night outside of Penny’s run. During those two weeks the weather underwent a radical change.

  The big beech trees, that had started dropping their podded nuts shortly after the first frost, shed their leaves, too. The wind at night was always cold and even at mid-day there was a cold tang in the air. Almost every night there was a hard freeze, so that ice formed around the edges of the shallower pools and quieter streams.

  Sean had easy hunting during this last great feast before snow covered the wilderness and brought empty bellies to the forest dwellers. Squirrels by the hundred were busy from dawn to dark gathering and storing fallen beechnuts. Shuffling black bears, deer, raccoons, chipmunks, all creatures that wanted to eat the ripe nuts, came to the beech forests to have their fill. Four-footed and feathered meat-eaters, not interested in the nuts themselves, gathered to take their toll of the gentler creatures that were in the woods to harvest.

  It was there that Sean learned to hunt and catch grouse. A born bird dog, numberless times he had stalked grouse and tried to catch them. Always they had drummed away before he came even close. But the grouse that came to the beech woods, and there were dozens of them, stuffed their crops so full that their chests were swollen like pouter pigeons and they were reluctant to fly. Instead they preferred simply to walk out of the way. Much of the time a quick sidewise jump and one snap of the jaws would result in a capture.

  For the first time since his crate spilled out the back end of the truck, Sean was contented. No longer restless, he had no urge to roam. Penny’s companionship filled the gnawing void of loneliness that was so difficult to bear.

  Well-fed and warm, Sean burrowed a little farther into the pile of leaves which he had chosen for his bed and tucked his black nose a little deeper into his warm flank. The wind that keened out of the valley was a sharp one with a real bite in its teeth. Since early morning the sky had been shrouded in a blanket of ominous black clouds, and a few snowflakes had pattered down. Frost glittered on the north side of all the trees.

  Protected by his heavy coat, Sean felt none of the wind’s bitterness or the frost’s numbing chill. Born in the Wintapi anyhow, and recently conditioned by running wild, he cared little what the bitterest weather could offer. Sean could live through a cold snap that might leave a short-haired dog frozen in its bed.

  The pattering snow fell faster, rattling crisply against the shriveled beech leaves as it struck. Sean’s red fur was speckled with white, and finally covered completely, as two inches of the season’s first snowfall piled up in the beech woods. Sean slept on, uncaring. The snow covering him served as an insulating blanket, and he was warmer than he would have been without it.

  Toward evening the snow stopped, leaving a three-inch fall in the forest. Sean rose from his bed, shook himself prodigiously, and in the space of half a second he transformed his white coat back into Irish Setter red. He stood a moment, testing the winds to find what lay about, then started down the slope.

  The snow had interfered only partially with the bustling activity of the numerous hungry creatures who had come to feast on the beechnuts. Sean passed a craggy-horned buck, somber in his gray winter coat, who was pawing through snow and leaves alike and licking up the tiny nuts he exposed. Squirrels scurried back and forth. Striped chipmunks, their cheek pouches filled to the bursting point, dived into holes and crevices to add to the store of food they had already hidden.

  Only the grouse were gone, driven by this first snow to the warmth of evergreen thickets where they huddled unhappily. Later they would emerge and until spring would eke out a precarious existence on buds, bittersweet, frozen rose hips, and whatever el
se they were able to find. Grouse did not like the first snow because they knew too well what would follow.

  Turning aside for nothing, his eagerness to see Penny overcoming his hunger, Sean cut a straight course down the slope. Lights glowed in the tenant cabins and the big house, and the pungent odor of burning logs hung heavily in the air. Sean did not hesitate. Shortly after he came the first time he had learned that almost never were the kennels visited after dark. There was really no need for visiting them. The kennel men saw to it that everything was in order before they retired, and should anything go amiss the dogs themselves would give warning.

  Careful only to keep out of the golden light that escaped through unshaded windows, Sean went directly to the kennels. He paused to sniff noses with the big English Setter, and with a few more dogs along the way. Grown used to his visits, sure of his friendly intentions, they did not snarl or even bark now when he came. Sean increased his walk to a trot. A little whining sound of joy escaped him.

  She was not only there to meet him, but the snow at the end of her kennel run was trampled and scuffed where she had awaited his visit for two hours. Her tail wagged a happy greeting and she came at once to press her cold nose against the steel wire. When she gave, Penny gave her whole heart. She was just as anxious for Sean’s visits as he was to see her.

  They pressed very close together while Sean whimpered softly to her. He sat down, plumed tail straight behind him and as close to the wire as he could get. Penny licked his lacerated ear, the souvenir of his fight with Slasher. She whirled to race along the wire run, inviting him to frolic, and he accepted her invitation. For two hours, while the lights in the various houses slowly winked out, they romped and played. Side by side they lay down, but there was still the wire between them.

  Sean had studied the wire from every angle. He had bitten it with his teeth, poked it with his paws, brushed against it, and tried to push through it. The wire was the only thin barrier between himself and his love. But it might as well have been a brick wall ten feet thick, for he did not know how to break it down or how to bring Penny completely to his side.

  The black autumn night was giving way to the late autumn dawn when he unwillingly left her side and returned to the beech woods. Had he been sure of a welcome from the human beings around the place, he might have stayed. But Sean had had too many harsh lessons from men to trust any of them. There was no promise that the men who lived at Jordan Acres would receive him with any more kindness than Jake Busher had shown. He dared not take a chance.

  Veering away from his bed of the day before, Sean entered a thicket of beech brush. The bigger trees, bare of leaves, were gaunt and naked against the cold sky. But crisp leaves still clung tenaciously to the lower beech brush, and would cling there until they were finally banished by the new foliage of spring. Sean went into the thicket hoping to find game, but by luck he was spared even the necessity of hunting his own breakfast.

  Just outside the thicket a feeding rabbit made a wild dash for safety as a cruising hawk struck him. The rabbit came within a split hair of reaching shelter, for at the very edge of the thicket the hawk had to let go or risk colliding with a beech sapling. But the hawk’s sharp claws had already done their work. Tumbling end over end, propelled by its own momentum, the rabbit died within six feet of Sean.

  At once he sprang up to claim it, and was standing over his prize when the hawk recovered himself and turned back for the rabbit. The hawk glared at Sean, the thief who had taken his dinner. But he could do little except snap his mandibles and fly away. Sean ate and lay down to sleep.

  The sun was still low in the eastern sky when he jerked his head erect. The winds brought him the scent of two men, and Sean knew that they were two who lived at Jordan Acres. They were still strangers to him, and no stranger had good intentions. Sean kept his head up, following with his nose the progress of the pair.

  They came nearer. The sound of their footsteps was plain in the crisp air and their voices carried dearly.

  “Don’t shoot it, just find it, Jordan says,” one of the men remarked sarcastically. “Could be Haggin’s Irish Setter. Hah!”

  “Yeah,” the second man snorted. “Can you imagine one of them oversize lap hounds livin’ this long without anybody to tend him? Haggin’s dog has been dead this good while. For my money this is some wild hound that’s been livin’ in the woods and took a shine to Penny.”

  “That’s my notion, too. Wish Jordan had let us pack a gun.”

  Sean composed himself in his bed, alert but not concerned. He caught flitting glimpses of the pair as they walked among the big beech trees. Both wore knee-length boots, red woolen coats, and had wool caps pulled over their ears. Little puffs of vapor trailed every breath they exhaled, for the day was very cold. Sean could not know that his nocturnal visits to Penny had been discovered, due to the fact he had left tracks in the snow.

  As the men came nearer, Sean grew more anxious. Most times, when he did not move, men passed right by him. But this pair showed no sign of passing. Rather, they were exactly on his trail and coming straight to the thicket.

  As they entered one side, Sean slipped out the other. Plainly there were times when he could escape detection by lying perfectly still and times when he could not. Snow seemed to have a bearing on whatever happened, and from now on he would have to watch himself in snow.

  Sean slipped behind the trunk of a big beech tree and was careful to keep that behind him as he raced along. There was no outburst from the men who trailed him, nothing to indicate that he had been seen. The big Setter continued his effortless lope, anxious to put as much distance as possible between himself and the men who followed him. Only after an hour had passed, and the blowing wind brought no sign of anyone on his trail, did he slow to a trot.

  From the top of a ridge he looked anxiously back. Nobody was coming, but Sean was worried. He sought another thicket and lay down, only to get out again when his trackers came within scenting distance.

  This time Sean cut straight away, with no thought of stopping or of returning to Penny. He had been discovered and he must find safety. He traveled back toward Forks Valley. Night came again and still he trotted on.

  Sean did not know that the men had followed him most of the day. Where he had jumped a snarling little creek they finally halted. They were satisfied. No pampered Irish Setter, they decided, would ever act in such a fashion. That night they trudged wearily back to Jordan Acres with the report that it was a wild dog that had come from the forest to visit Penny. The chances were that he would not come back. But, if he should come, they would be ready for him. Every night there would be wolf traps set in front of Penny’s kennel run.

  However, Sean had no intention of returning to the side of his new love in the immediate future. He had grown too wary and wise to make any foolish moves. It was best to stay away from Jordan Acres for at least a little while.

  He crossed the head of Forks Valley and bristled at a scent that rose from the ground to his nose. Slasher had come back just as the snow stopped falling. His paw prints were plain in the snow, and it was to them that his cold odor clung. Sean sniffed interestedly. Slasher was heading south, toward the clearings.

  The big Setter swung down to the creek where he had caught the suckers and unhesitatingly plunged into the ice-rimmed pool. Again the frightened fish swirled about him. Indifferent to the ice-cold spray that he raised, Sean galloped back and forth in the pool until he had caught another sucker. Emerging, he shook his heavy fur to dry it, and ate his fish.

  He trotted up the creek’s course, and stopped short as he caught the scent of Tobe Miller’s renegade heifer. His eyes sparking mischief, Sean stole toward her.

  He found her in a little field beside the creek. Scraping snow with both front hooves, she was grazing on the frozen grass she uncovered. The heifer swung her head up as she caught Sean’s odor and stood truculently, both feet braced. She grunted angrily.

  Sean circled to one side and launched himself straig
ht at her. The heifer spun on nimble feet to meet his charge and her horns raked viciously. But Sean was no longer there. Behind her, he was snapping gaily at her heels. Again the heifer whirled and again found nothing to fight. Sean was boring in from the side, nipping playfully at her flank. Finally the heifer backed to a boulder that jutted out of the slope and, her rear protected, stood ready to meet Sean should he come again.

  But he was tired of the game. Keeping one wary eye on the heifer, he circled around her and continued his course up the creek’s bed. Weary, he rested in the same copse of little pines from which he had started when his wandering steps had led him to Penny’s side.

  He stayed there until daylight had come again, then looked up into the pines to see the black squirrel practicing his endless leaps and bounds. Running up a limb to its slender tip, the black squirrel would launch himself into space just as the tip seemed ready to break beneath his small weight. Always he alighted on another limb and ran down it to jump again. Because he could not afford to take a chance, the black squirrel must teach himself over and over again every path in the pines. He knew the ones he could take and the paths nothing could leap. Now, should a winter-hungry marten pursue him to his chosen lair, the black squirrel had at least an even chance of getting away.

  From off in the distance came three evenly spaced caws as Silverwing called his mate to a dead rabbit he had found. The cold would increase and the snow would deepen, but no matter how bitter the cold, or how deep the snow, the two ravens would survive because their two sharp brains always worked for the good of both.

  Sean left the little pines and started back down the slope. He was hungry again, but he wanted no more fish if he could possibly get anything else. Fish was cold fare, but all right if eating was to be exclusively a matter of filling the belly. Red, hot meat was more to be desired.