Outlaw Red

by Jim Kjelgaard

  For a time Sean suffered poor hunting and scant rations. But he learned from Penny. When she caught a rabbit she always ate it and then she wanted to rest for an hour or more. But after she rested she overflowed with the surging energy and lively curiosity of a healthy Irish Setter. Fresh rabbit tracks were very intriguing. If Sean was patient with her, and let her eat and rest, and then led her to another thicket, Penny bounded all over it and left not the least sprig of brush uninvestigated. Sean, waiting at any promising burrow, was able to catch his own dinner the same way she had.

  Side by side they traveled slowly on. Ten days after he stole her away from her kennel, Sean led Penny to his favorite bed in the little pines.

  Silverwing, who had been out hunting, soared gracefully into one of the big pines, sought the lee side where the seething wind did not cut quite so fiercely, and alighted on a branch. His sharp eyes spied Penny and he chuckled hoarsely, calling his mate. When she came, the pair of them balanced on a swaying pine branch while they studied thoroughly this newcomer to their domain.

  Penny looked up and barked at them. The pair of ravens, knowing perfectly well that they were out of harm’s way, chuckled and cackled to each other. With precise aim, Silverwing dropped a pine cone on Penny’s head. Penny merely nosed the cone as it rolled in the snow. The birds clucked in disappointment and flew off to see if they could find and bother the black squirrel. But the squirrel, who had no liking for winter and who ventured out of one of his several nests only to visit a cache of food, was curled up asleep.

  The air seemed to crackle with frost, and when night reached its blackest point, Northern Lights flickered lonesomely in the sky. Bears lay in their hidden dens, raccoons nestled in hollow stubs, wood-chucks were deep underground, and even the sun seemed to sleep most of the time behind a blanket of fleecy clouds. Almost it seemed that the creatures who had to stay abroad were cursed by nature. They were all hungry and getting hungrier.

  Down over the rim, the black and white heifer pawed hopefully in the snow, and time after time went over ground from which she had already eaten the last shred of browse. When Sean and Penny came in, the heifer drifted out, and moved farther down the ridge in search of a new food supply.

  Sean and Penny could not escape the Frozen Hunger, but compared to some they were in a fortunate position. In their search for food, they could at least move about freely. Rabbits, that had shivered in brush patches since rabbits were created, dared not venture too far away from them because they would be killed swiftly if they did. Deer huddled in their yards unless driven out by extreme hunger. Many deer, seeking more food, died in deep snow two days after they left packed yards. Even foxes were not as adaptable as the dogs. Foxes knew certain hunting places, and when game played out in a familiar area they were as apt as not to waste their energy on fruitless and desperate hunts rather than to seek better country.

  Sean knew no such restrictions. He and Penny were the only two of their kind that ran wild, and as such they needn’t fear trespassing on another’s hunting grounds. And Sean, like most Irish Setters, was perfectly capable of fitting the act to the need. He would go anywhere, try anything, and he feared nothing.

  Snowflakes dappled the air as he led Penny across the same meadow in which he had chased the deer herd away from frozen apples. Sean pawed hopefully beneath the trees, but the apples were long since gone and the deer had descended into a sheltered white cedar swamp to join others of their kind. The mass of deer together kept trails beaten so there was no foundering in snow, but their very numbers defeated their purpose. Only the biggest and strongest, rearing on their hind legs, could now get a full meal from overbrowsed cedar. The rest took what they could get, and starved if it was not enough.

  Sean left the apple trees and continued across the meadow into beech woods. New snow lay on top of the old crust, so that they left a well-marked trail behind them. The snow was pellet-like, icy stuff, and the snapping cold bore no promise of any early thaw.

  Again the rabbits were underground. They had been out earlier to snatch a few hasty mouthfuls of frozen grass or twigs, but they were not out now. Nor would they be until the weather softened a bit. Rabbit hunting was always at its best right after the weather broke and the sun shone for a while. This was not such a time.

  Sean and Penny trotted on to hunt snowshoes across a timbered ridge. But the big snowshoes were hard to catch and overwary of ambushes. All day long the two tried, and failed.

  Hunger pinched their bellies and cramped their throats. In this arctic weather a lot of food was needed just to maintain body heat, and neither had eaten in almost eighteen hours. Then it had been a skimpy meal of a grouse they had found frozen in the snow.

  Three miles away, Slasher, who had not been on Sean’s range since the hound pack chased him, was enjoying rich living in the deer yard. But Sean and Penny did not know about that. They had not stumbled across any deer yard.

  There was a flutter of wings in a tree over them. Sean halted where he was, one forepaw lifted and his body tense. But the winging bird was only a blue jay that had come to rest in one of the giant beeches. Seeing the two dogs beneath him, hoping to stir up a fuss, the jay squawked a couple of times. He ruffled indignant feathers when Sean and Penny went on without paying any attention to him.

  A pale moon glowed through shredded clouds when Sean finally led Penny back into the meadow. There was no evidence of any living thing except themselves. Not even a fox was there to hunt for mice beneath snow-arched tunnels. Sean swung into the broken path that he and Penny had trod earlier.

  Without being aware of what had hit him, Sean stumbled forward in the snow so hard that his chin plowed a little furrow. He had been struck a tremendous blow on the spine, and hot little spasms of pain darted along his back. As he recovered, he saw Penny sprawl beside him. Sean whirled, his fangs bared and his ruff bristled.

  The air was filled with floating shadows as noiseless as the vapor puffs that floated from Sean’s mouth. Even as he turned, another of the shadows dived in to strike.

  Sean struck back, leaping in and slashing at the same second. The shadow drifted away. Sean worked his lips to dislodge the feathers that clung to his teeth and lips, and leaped to Penny’s side just in time to take upon himself a blow meant for her.

  Dimly outlined against the wan moon, a dozen or more great horned owls wheeled over the meadow. Weirdly silent, their flight made no tell-tale noise whatever. Ordinarily the owls, peerless hunters, flew alone and contented themselves with hares, mice, and small birds. But now, famished, and driven by starvation, this wolf-flight of owls was attacking the two dogs.

  His muscles tense, ready in a split second to launch himself, Sean awaited the next attack.

  Like a night shadow, and no creature of flesh and blood, one of the owls detached itself from the ghostly flight and descended to strike. Sean met it head on. His great jaws filled with fluffy feathers and sank through them into flesh. The owl snapped its beak in a chip-chop cadence, and powerful wings beat Sean’s head and jaws. Sharp talons sank like hot irons into both his cheeks.

  Sean relaxed his hold, surged forward, and bit deeper. He dragged the owl down onto the snow, clenched his jaws, and the owl’s talons relaxed. The powerful wings spread out on the snow, and then the only sign of life was fluttering wing tips twitching feebly through shimmering layers of frost.

  Locked in mortal combat with another of the raiders, Penny rolled over and over on the snow. Sean leaped again, fastened his teeth in an owl’s thigh, and dragged it down. He held it with his paws while he unclenched his jaws to bite through its head. Sean saw Penny get up, leave the owl she had killed, and turn to face the others.

  An owl dived squarely between them. Penny and Sean sprang from opposite sides. Each seized a wing and dragged the big bird down on the snow.

  The rest departed on noiseless wings. In less than three seconds the only indication that the meadow had recently been a scene of savage strife were four dead owls on the snow.
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  Sean nosed one, tumbled it with his paws, and pulled out a mouthful of feathers. He bit deeply into stringy flesh and through small bones, and swallowed whole what he tore loose. The big Setter ate all except the legs and bill, left feathers tumbled on the snow, and then ate a second owl. Only when he had finished did he think to lick his wounded jowls with a soothing tongue.

  Penny, working on the second of the two remaining owls, finished it a moment later. She nosed about for any stray bit that she might have missed, licked satisfied chops, and came over to caress Sean with her muzzle.

  They trotted as far as the forest and lay down on the sheltered side of a big beech trunk. Tomorrow would bring its own problems, but tonight they had eaten.

  Their only business was hunting, and if they did not hunt they could not stay alive. Always they were hard-pressed and usually their bellies were pinched. But they did eat and in their snowy beds they kept each other warm while the winter wore on. It was when snow lay deepest, and the situation was most desperate, that they had their biggest windfall.

  As usual when they left a bed, they were hungry. Haunting rabbit thickets, trying unsuccessfully to catch or ambush snowshoes, their bodies were crying for food when Sean struck purposefully off across the snow. Suddenly he raced forward.

  A beech forest lay ahead. In the trees, snow heaped over her back, stood a doe so old that her head was white with age.

  The doe had left a deer yard three days before. It was a rich and sheltered yard, where no deer died of starvation and few fell to predators. Yet, with plenty of food around her, fat in spite of the winter, the old doe had still chosen to strike out through the drifts. Spring was still a long way off, and this year its warmth would hold no promise for the old doe. She was that rare wilderness creature, one who has lived a full life and must die from old age. She had left the yard because some prompting within herself had bade her, in her last extremity, to die near this beech forest where she had been born and had taken her first wobbling steps.

  She made no attempt to run or fight back when Sean and Penny swept upon her. The old doe was wise in the ways of the wilderness and its law. She knew when she left the yard that this, or something like it, must be her end anyway, and she did not care.

  For a full week Sean and Penny ate well, until nothing but the old doe’s bones were left to mark the place where, long ago, she had begun her life’s journey. Then hunger, a seldom-absent companion, was with them again.

  On a sparkling, frost-filled night when a full moon showed its round fatness to the snow-locked forest, Sean raced beside Penny as they crossed a frozen meadow on their nightly hunt. When a shadow exploded in front of him, Sean leaped full at it.

  He missed, and cast cautiously about. A flock of grouse that by day filled themselves with buds from the nearby trees, by night had left the trees to plummet into the snow. As they struck, the impact of each body made a hole that became a warm bed.

  The grouse were no fools. In spite of the fact that it was night, when grouse should be sleeping, the scrape and rattle of the racing dogs’ paws alerted them. Each grouse lay in its bed, ready to burst into flight when the dogs came too near.

  Sean was ready for the next one. He timed his leap perfectly, and when he descended a grouse fluttered in his jaws. Sean left the bird where it lay and leaped for another. He caught it, looked around, and trotted back to Penny.

  Dragging by one wing the first grouse he had caught, she was investigating a wind-felled tree that had brought down more trees with it. Snow had arched the heaping trunks so that they formed a sort of cave.

  When Sean came near, Penny snarled at him.

  10. Wolf Trap

  AS WINTER wore on, Billy Dash tended his traps, picked up his supplies where Crosby Marlett had left them in the twisted pine, and tried not to think about the future. Early one morning, carrying enough furs to pay for a new load of supplies, he started for the pine at Allerton Creek. Crosby was already there, sitting beside a small fire he had built and blowing short, angry puffs out of a blackened pipe. The trapper glanced at Billy.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi,” Billy answered. Something was wrong, and if he waited long enough he might find out what it was. On the other hand, he might not. It was never a good idea to ask Crosby questions. The trapper took the pipe out of his mouth and held it in his hand.

  “I’ll get him this time!”

  “That so?” Billy murmured politely. “Yeah. He hit my trap line for a while last fall and then left it. Now he’s back.”

  Billy’s interest quickened. Crosby Marlett’s private affairs were his own, but a trap-line pirate could easily concern both of them. Furthermore, Billy didn’t like the idea of another visitor in these parts. “Who is he?”

  “ ‘Tain’t a he,” Crosby snorted. “It’s a it. Wolf, I reckon. Pirated my trap line last fall and spoilt I don’t know how many sets! Now it’s back!”

  “A trap-robbin’ wolf?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Nevah heah tell of such a thing.”

  “Nor did I, until now. Come on; I’ll show you. The critter crossed the trail no more’n a hundred yards up.”

  Billy followed him, and squinted at the trail in the snow. He got down on his hands and knees to examine it. Wolf tracks and dog tracks were almost exactly alike, but there were minute differences that were sometimes revealed when the tracks were plain. Besides, wolves usually stayed as far as possible from anything that even looked like a trap. Billy furrowed his brows and looked up at Crosby Marlett.

  “You shuah that’s a wolf?”

  “What else?”

  “Dog.”

  “Well, dog or wolf, I aim to get him. He leaves the line to cross on that big rock down Fordyce Crick. Next time Mr. Trap Robber puts his paws on that rock, he’s goin’ to put ‘em right smack in a wolf trap.”

  Billy nodded. “I know wheah the rock is: by a thick stand of hemlocks.”

  Crosby adjusted his pack. “Can’t stand gabbin’, Billy. Got to look at more sets, then I’m goin’ down Fordyce Crick and set me a wolf trap. Want to come along?”

  “No, thanks,” Billy said.

  Crosby disappeared. His brow still creased, Billy Dash watched him go.

  *

  Sean, carrying in his mouth a snowshoe hare that he had stolen from one of Crosby Marlett’s traps, leaped over a snow-covered log, balanced lightly on the other side, and raced away. His course took him adross a fire-scorched area that was almost devoid of trees and brush. Knowing very well that he was entirely visible as long as he remained in the burned place, Sean ran across it as fast as he could.

  He ducked into some laurel on the other side of the burn and slowed his run to a fast trot. He was in a great hurry, but not so hurried that he could afford to overlook anything that might be on his back trail. Reaching the top of a hillock, the big Setter sought a place where he was well-screened by brush, and stopped. He sat down, the hare’s dangling legs almost brushing the ground on either side of his jaws, and surveyed his back trail.

  Finally, satisfied that he was not being followed, Sean trotted into a valley, stepped into a racing little rill that bubbled down it, and walked in the water for a hundred yards. He leaped out on the same side he had entered, and landed on all four feet in the center of a laurel patch. He slunk through the brush, crouching, and emerged from the laurel onto a razorbacked ridge. During the winter Sean had learned a lot about trails, and how to hide his own, and he put all his knowledge to use.

  Six days ago, for the first time since winter had set in, the south wind had blown and the temperature had risen to spring-like heights. Much of the snow had melted, and for a while every little ditch and streamlet had fairly burst its banks with an excess of snow water. The bigger streams and creeks had become snarling torrents that rushed over the ice and would have melted it had not a sudden cold snap set in and frozen everything again.

  The razor-backed ridge was bare of snow save for a few shady spots here and ther
e, and Sean avoided those as he trotted on. When he came to the end of the ridge, he leaped to a boulder, climbed to another one, and looked down on his favorite grove of pines. Almost in their center was a nest of boulders, across which a great pine had fallen so that its massive trunk overthrust one end. Pine needles and forest litter had blown against both sides to form a cave that kept out much snow and cold.

  It was there that Penny lay. Yesterday morning she had sat down beneath the pine’s overhanging trunk and refused to move. When Sean had tried to coax her into a frolic, she had set upon him with lifted lips and punishing teeth. Penny had busied herself carrying some sticks and litter out of the cave and more back in. For three hours she worked, arranging the cave to suit herself. Nor had she allowed Sean to come near. A hundred feet from the cave marked a deadline beyond which she would not let him approach, for this was now sacred territory.

  All day long Penny had stayed in the cave, suffering her own ordeal. The night had been half wasted when Sean finally set out to do her hunting for her. It was the way of the fox and the wolf, both of which respect and aid their mates in time of stress, and Sean was close enough to both so that he could make it his way.

  Now, very respectfully and very slowly he started toward the cave. Reaching the deadline, he was warned by Penny’s fierce snarl. Sean dropped the big hare and beat a hasty retreat.

  At a safe distance he sat down, paws braced and tail straight behind him. He pricked up his ears and lolled his tongue as he heard a faint series of squeaks and mewlings, not unlike those of young kittens. Interested as he was, he knew it was not for him to come any nearer at the present time. Penny would decide the proper moment for him to become acquainted with the nine pups that she nursed beneath the fallen pine.

  Sean lay down and rested his head on his paws. He saw Penny appear at the end of the pine’s trunk. She hesitated there a long while. Only five feet from the pups, she was terribly worried about them. Before she went farther away, she wanted to be sure that nothing able to harm them lurked within striking distance. Satisfied that there was nothing dangerous present, Penny raced to the snowshoe Sean had left, snatched it up, and immediately ran back to the cave.