Big Red

by Jim Kjelgaard

  Danny remembered vividly the trimming bench in the Wintapi. Red had been under Fraley’s hands then, and he had been only an animated statue instead of a dog. The wonderful thing that lived in Red, and made him what he was, just didn’t show when Fraley was handling him. The first gray streaks of dawn stole through the windows and, outside, the quiet street came to life. Danny dropped into a dream-troubled sleep.

  He was awakened by the sound of music, playing through a loud-speaker in the wall, and sprang up in bed. For a moment he rubbed his eyes, and looked bewilderedly about the room in which he found himself. Some of the notes coming from the radio were almost exactly like those of the bell-throated thrush that used to sing outside his window when early dawn came to the Wintapi. He oriented himself and swung his bare feet to the floor. This wasn’t the Wintapi. It was New York. Red was here to win a blue ribbon so that for all time to come sportsmen who loved dogs would know how fine he was. Danny was here, if for nothing else, to cheer while he won it. He entered the bathroom, washed, and was knotting the blue tie about a clean shirt he had taken out of the carpetbag when someone knocked softly on the door. It opened a crack, and Mr. Haggin called cheerfully,

  “Good morning, Danny. How goes it? Sleep well?”

  “Fine, sir.”

  Mr. Haggin entered the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. He lit a cigarette, puffed twice on it, and pinched it out. His shoe beat a nervous little tattoo on the floor. Danny looked at him, and away again. Mr. Haggin, obviously bothered by something, rose to pace around the room and again sit down on the edge of the bed.

  “How do you like New York?” he asked.

  “I haven’t seen much of it.”

  Mr. Haggin laughed. “A good enough answer.” For a moment he was silent. Then he said, “Danny, Boy’s going up today. And, let me tell you, he’s going to fight for any wins he makes. The best Irishmen in the country, and some from other countries, are here. But, Danny, if Boy can win his three points today, we’ll have a champion!”

  Danny knitted a puzzled brow, “I thought he was that before.”

  “No,” Mr. Haggin admitted. “I always called him champion, and thought of him as such, but he isn’t written as champion into the records of the American Kennel Club. You see, according to the competition he meets, a dog can win points at every show. He has to win two three-point shows under different judges, and nine other points, before he is officially a champion. Boy has his nine points, and one three-point show. He can win five points at this show. He’s got to win three!”

  “How are such things rated?” Danny asked.

  “By the general excellence of the dog. A judge will examine his head, eyes, ears, neck, body, shoulders and forelegs, hind legs, tail, coat and feathering, color, size, style, and general appearance, and rate him accordingly. If two dogs are equal physically, the one with the most ‘dog personality’ will win. I want you to watch the judge, and the handlers with their dogs, and ask me any questions you care to while the judging is in progress. You’ll learn that way. Danny, Boy’s as good as any Irish setter in the show!”

  “I know that, sir.”

  Mr. Haggin was looking at him, and Danny felt strangely drawn to the older man. They were not a wealthy dog fancier and his apprentice handler, but two men who could be brought very close by a common bond—the love of a good dog. Danny licked his dry lips. You could get all the best dogs from all over, and have every hair in place on every one of them, and if they were all exactly alike two or three would still stand out and one would stand out from those. That thing Mr. Haggin had referred to as dog personality … Maybe every dog had it, but had no reason for revealing it.

  “Do you s’pose we can see Red before the show?” Danny asked.

  Mr. Haggin coughed nervously and looked away. “I’m afraid not. Bob always likes to handle a dog without interference, especially on a show day. You can see him right after the show.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Come on down and have some breakfast,” Mr. Haggin urged. “We’ll both feel better. Doggonit, Danny, I’m as nervous as a sixteen-year-old going sparking for the first time.”

  They ate, and Mr. Haggin retreated to an inner office to conduct some business of his own while Danny roamed about the house. Pictures of horses and dogs lined the walls of one big room, and on the mantelpiece Danny found a small folder containing one worn snapshot. It was of a fifteen-year-old boy, with bare feet thrust out of tattered overalls, and a cane pole in one hand and a string of sunfish in the other. Danny peered closely at it, and held it up to the light. When he replaced it on the mantel he knew that it was a boyhood picture of Mr. Haggin. The lord of this luxurious manor and the great Wintapi estate had not, then, always been wealthy.

  Danny sat down on a sofa, looking about at the books, the pictures, the trophies, all the things that throughout the years Mr. Haggin had gathered. He leaned back to close his eyes, and thought curiously that he was no longer the same person who had come out of the Wintapi. He had learned, and with added knowledge seemed to have grown. He thought of Red, and his eyes glowed. Back in the Wintapi, no matter what it looked like, a dog was esteemed according to its hunting ability. But to have a dog with hunting ability, and all the brains, the courage, and the heart that a dog like Red had too! If such dogs came about as a result of competitive dog shows, then certainly only a fool would scoff at or belittle them.

  Danny’s eyes clouded, and again he seemed to see Red beside him, in trouble and needing help. He rose to pace about the room, peering into wall cases at Mr. Haggin’s books and trophies. If only he was back in the Wintapi he would know exactly what to do and nobody could tell him that he was just an onlooker. Danny clenched and unclenched his hand. Try as he would to please Mr. Haggin, he could not feel like just an onlooker here either. Red had something great at stake, and Danny must help him triumph.

  It was an eternity before the butler came in to announce lunch. Mr. Haggin was more composed, but an excited little light that he could not control still danced in back of his eyes. Danny ate broiled steak, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and a wonderful kind of pudding that floated in whipped cream. He made a mental note to inquire about that kind of pudding, so he could make some for Ross when he got back to the Wintapi. He looked up as Mr. Haggin started to speak.

  “As I’ve already told you, Danny, the basic idea of a dog show is to determine the best dogs. It’s really an elimination contest, with the inferior dogs being weeded out and the best ones winning the awards. Naturally you can’t take seventy-five dogs, throw them all together, and pick out the best. So the dogs are divided into classes. The puppy class is open to any qualified dog more than six months and less than one year old. No imported dog, except those from Canada, may be entered in that class. The novice class is open to any dog that has not won a first prize at an American Kennel Club show, and a surprise winner often comes from it. The limit class is open to any dog except A.K.C. champions, and imported dogs may enter it. The winner’s class, of course, determines the best of winners. As a general rule, in all of these classes, dogs and bitches are judged separately. Do you know why?”

  “I think so,” Danny answered gravely. “They aren’t alike. A dog wants to be big, strong, and husky, same’s a man. A bitch can be strong but … There’s the same difference between them as there is between a woman and man. It would be hard to judge them together.”

  “That’s right,” Mr. Haggin nodded approvingly. “Although of course the winner’s dog competes with winner’s bitch for best of breed. But there’s another class, the open, and Boy’s entered in that. The open’s where you usually find the hottest competition, and it’s certainly here this time. Imported dogs may enter it, and Art Maugin came from London with Heatherbloom.” Mr. Haggin closed his eyes. “Wait until you see Heatherbloom, Danny. He moves like a flame, and except for Boy is the finest Irish setter I’ve ever seen. Are there any questions you’d like to ask?”

  “I can’t rightly think of any,” Da
nny admitted. “Probably I will after I’ve seen the show.”

  “Then let’s go. Every man has a right to his own private superstitions, and I’d like to go in just as Boy’s going into the ring. He needs luck, and we should time it just about right if we leave now.”

  They went out the front door, and entered a sleek, black limousine that awaited there. The chauffeur drove off, while Mr. Haggin relaxed in the back seat with closed eyes. Danny looked out of the window, eagerly drinking in all the things that were New York by day. He missed nothing from the blue-uniformed policemen at intersections to the newsboys who scooted along the sidewalks. The chauffeur stopped suddenly, and Danny looked ahead to see a uniformed officer directing traffic down a side street. Bright red fire trucks were huddled on the street from which they had been shunted, and smoke rolled from the fourth story of a building there. Mr. Haggin muttered to himself and looked at his watch. Finally the car rolled to a stop before the big building—Danny recognized it even by daylight—into which Robert Fraley had taken Red. He gulped, and tried to quiet the frightened little butterflies that were in his stomach. It was a huge building, big as all the buildings in the Wintapi, including Mr. Haggin’s barns, and he didn’t even know his way into it.

  He got out with Mr. Haggin, and the chauffeur drove away down the street while they joined one of the lines of people moving through the doors. From somewhere Danny faintly heard the frenzied barking of a dog that was either excited or in distress. He listened attentively. But it wasn’t Red. Close behind Mr. Haggin, he passed down an aisle to take his seat directly before one of two dog rings. Almost as soon as he sat down, he saw Red.

  The dog had a short leather leash about his neck and was walking, to the left of Robert Fraley, around the ring. Danny skipped the thirteen dogs whose handlers were also gaiting them for the judge, and fastened his eyes on Red. His finger nails bit deeply into the palms of his hands, and his knuckles whitened. It had happened—exactly what he had feared most. The dog in the ring was not the one that had come wagging up to greet him, the dog of the Wintapi. He was not the Red Danny knew, but only an animated plaything that walked around the ring because he had been taught to do so. Beads of sweat gathered on Danny’s brow.

  A tiny piece of paper, borne by a gentle wind current, whirled over the ring and settled on the floor of the amphitheater twenty feet beyond it. Three of the dogs looked at it, but Red did not. Danny tore his eyes away from his idol to look at the other dogs.

  He swallowed hard. Never before had he seen so many magnificent dogs—unless he had seen them it would be hard to believe that there were that many. His eyes skipped over two whose feet turned out slightly at the pastern, and whose gait was in a very slight degree erratic as compared to Red and the rest of the setters in the ring. He looked sideways at Mr. Haggin, and tried to keep from looking back into the ring. But he couldn’t. His eyes were arrested by the third dog behind Red.

  A rich, golden chestnut, with a narrow white blaze down his face, the dog at first glance seemed almost as magnificent as Red. He was big, with a long neck and a lean head. His front legs were very straight and strong, with beautifully symmetrical feathering flowing from them as he walked. His feet were tight, strong, and small, his chest deep with ribs well-spread for lung space. Long loins had a nice tuck-up before strong rear legs. His tail, extending slightly downward, waved gently as he walked.

  Danny nudged Mr. Haggin and whispered, “Is that third one behind Red Heatherbloom?”

  “It is,” Mr. Haggin said. “I told you he was magnificent.”

  “He sure is,” Danny breathed.

  Another wisp of paper blew across the amphitheater as the dogs were lined up, head to tail, before the judge. Danny saw the judge confer with the two handlers whose dogs turned out at the pastern, and one of them led his dog around the ring again. Then both withdrew their entries. Danny looked approvingly at the judge. Such a defect wasn’t easy to see, but if a show was to determine a dog’s perfection then it was right that these two be withdrawn. The judge knelt beside the first dog in the row, and opened its mouth. Danny saw white teeth flash, and thought he saw the lower jaw protruding slightly ahead of the upper. He whispered to Mr. Haggin.

  “That dog looks undershot.”

  Mr. Haggin grinned. “Maybe I should ask you questions. Where’d you learn the A.K.C. rules, Danny?”

  “I didn’t. But a body knows what’s the matter with a dog. Fifteen dollars is a right smart heap of money to spend for a hound if you get one that can’t run, or bite, or has no wind. A body’s got to look for things in a dog.”

  The judge ran his hands over the dog’s head and ears, on down the neck, and over the chest while the handler knelt at the rear, pulling gently on the tail. The judge moved to the rear, and the handler stepped quickly in front of the dog to grasp its head firmly and extend it.

  “He’s showing the neck-line,” Mr. Haggin explained, “and steadying the dog.”

  The judge returned to the front, picked the dog up under the chest, and dropped him easily to the floor. Then he moved to the next dog, while the handler knelt before the one that had already been examined and stroked his charge. The judge went on down the line, and Danny watched wildly as he bent over Red. The big dog posed perfectly. His front legs and feet were set perpendicular on the floor, and from the hock down, his rear legs were also perpendicular. His neck stretched up and forward, his head and muzzle were level and parallel with the floor, and his tail sloped gently downward. But there was still something missing, something that should be there and was not.

  The judge finished the last dog, and at a little trot the first handler ran his dog around the ring. He stopped, and again the judge knelt to examine the dog’s jaws. The handler led his dog back to the bench, and one by one the rest of the handlers gaited their dogs.

  Danny leaned excitedly forward. Heatherbloom, Red, and two dogs that Danny could not identify were up for the final judging. Mr. Haggin had said that Red needed luck. Danny crossed his fingers, but when he looked over his left shoulder to spit, he looked directly into the eyes of a fat and perspiring man behind him. Danny flushed, and swung around to watch while beads of perspiration gathered on his forehead. These four dogs were the best of all that had been entered in the open class. But the best of the four …

  Danny stared beseechingly at Red, still an animated and beautiful statue under the expert hands of Robert Fraley. Heatherbloom lifted his head to look imperiously at the judge, and sweep the spectators with a commanding eye. Danny sucked in his breath, and once more his fingers bit deeply into the palms of his hands. The dog from England was alive, alert, challenging everyone to dare do anything but give him the blue ribbon. But he was still not so alive and alert as Danny had seen Red. Danny gripped the front of his seat, as though the very intensity of his will and thought would carry to Red the message that Danny wanted him to have. The judge leaned over Red, and passed on to Heatherbloom.

  Danny said suddenly, “I’ll be back, sir.”

  He arose and ran along the narrow corridor before the seats while people stared curiously at him and an usher made as if to stop him. Danny ran on, unheeding and uncaring. Finally he stopped in an aisle to stand and stare breathlessly back toward the ring. And he saw a miracle.

  Red came suddenly alive. Physically he was the dog that Robert Fraley had led into the ring. But there was something about him now that had not been there before. Red was once more the dog of the Wintapi, the glorious dog that Danny had first seen when he went down to report to Mr. Haggin that the outlaw bear had killed another of his bulls. Danny saw the judge smile, and hand the blue winner’s ribbon to Robert Fraley.

  For a while Danny stood very still, watching the happy dog in the ring strain toward him. Ross had said that a smart hound could hunt anywhere if he kept his nose into the wind. And Ross was right. The pieces of paper, blowing across the amphitheater, had shown Danny which way the wind was blowing. All he had had to do was go stand in the wind current, and le
t his scent be carried by it, to prove to the dog that the boy he worshipped was still standing by.

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  Danny’s Humiliation

  for three happy days danny wandered about the amphitheater, whenever Robert Fraley was absent, stopping at Red’s bench, and when Fraley was present drifting about to study with fascinated eyes the many marvels that offered.

  He saw dogs the like of which he had never dreamed before: mosquito-like little Chihuahuas, three of which would not equal the weight of one big Wintapi snowshoe rabbit; lumbering St. Bernards, good-natured beasts that might have swallowed the Chihuahuas whole; stately Irish wolfhounds, that he studied carefully with a view to getting one for hunting bears; clean-limbed hounds that shamed his father’s varmint dogs; greyhounds, made of whipcord and steel; collies too beautiful for words, dachshunds, beagles, poodles, bassets, spaniels, and from each he learned a little more of the fascinating story of dogdom. He saw Red go up to compete with the winning Irish setters of all classes and get the purple ribbon for the best of dogs. Then he watched him compete with the winning bitch, a vivacious little vixen of a setter almost as perfect as himself, and win the blue and white ribbon of the best of breed. Danny was present when Red missed by a hairsbreadth being the best in show, and started happily home with Mr. Haggin to dream of the great days through which he had lived. Red hadn’t won all the honors, but he had won enough. He was an official champion.

  Danny relaxed in the back seat of Mr. Haggin’s limousine, watching New York. It was a fascinating new world, and one that he must see again. When he had learned enough to handle Mr. Haggin’s dogs at these shows … The picture faded slowly, and in its place Danny saw Smokey Creek, above the bridge where it purled black against the beech roots and carved out deep little recesses in which the trout hid. He saw the last rays of the setting sun painting Stoney Lonesome bright gold, and thought of thunderheads gathering over Smokey Mountain. New York was right nice, but the job he had come there to help do was done and there was another waiting back in the Wintapi. Ross would be planning his trap-lines, and needed help. Red, who certainly was going to be a hunter as well as a show dog, would have to be getting into the beech woods and learning more about the ways of the various creatures that lived there.