Big Red

by Jim Kjelgaard

  “He’s hurt, right enough,” he murmured to himself. “It looks like he’s hurt mortal bad. But he might go a smart piece yet.”

  He followed the trail to the top of Blue Sag, and stood pondering. Badly injured, the buck would not be likely to climb any hills or seek any other hard going. He would choose the easiest way, and that was straight around the rim of the mountain. If he deviated from that course he would go downhill. Danny followed the trail, walking swiftly where scuffed leaves made it plainly visible and painfully studying it out where the buck crossed hard or rocky ground. Red walked beside him, and when he would have gone uphill to hunt some partridges that he smelled there, Danny called him back.

  By late afternoon they were far around the side of Stoney Lonesome, in a region of big and little boulders. The buck was walking more slowly now, and lying down more frequently. But he was only a little way ahead, floundering and working mightily to keep away from the pursuer that he knew was on his trail. Danny kept his rifle poised, ready for the first shot that might offer.

  Then he walked around the edge of a boulder and placed his foot within six inches of the prostrate buck. For one brief second he had a glimpse of a huge, tortured gray body surmounted by a superb rack of horns. In split-second decision he raised his rifle and shot. At exactly the same second the buck, able to run no more and prepared to fight, hurled himself up and over. Danny scrambled wildly, and felt his flailing hand brush the side of the boulder. His head thudded against the rock and blackness enfolded him.

  When he awoke it was night. His head throbbed painfully, and a great weight seemed to be crushing his right foot. For a few seconds he lay quietly. There was motion beside him and Red’s anxious whine sounded in the darkness. Danny flung out a hand, found the dog, and felt Red’s wet tongue licking his arm. Slowly he raised himself to a sitting position, and as soon as he did that his head cleared.

  But when he tried to move his right foot, he could not. It was bent around the boulder, and held there in an unbreakable grip. Danny fumbled in his pocket for the box of matches that he always carried, and struck one against the boulder. In its wavering glare he saw the buck’s head, upper body, and one of its huge antlers. The other antler was pressed tightly against the rock. Danny gulped. The antlers ended in a wide fork, and when the deer had thrown itself over on its back the fork on the right antler had closed over his leg, then wedged itself deep into the earth and against the rock to form an almost perfect trap.

  Danny moved a little down the hill to ease the strain. Sweat rolled from his forehead, and sharp pain travelled the length of his body as he strove with all his strength to pull himself loose. But the dead buck did not even move; the antler that pinned his foot was firmly wedged. Danny sat up, and leaned forward. By extending his fingers he could reach around the edge of the rock and touch the dead buck’s throat and muzzle. But there was nothing on which he could get a firm hold. He lay back down.

  “No time to lose your head, Danny,” he murmured to himself. “You can’t do a thing by flyin’ off the handle.”

  A sharp wind blew around the side of Stoney Lonesome, and fluttering leaves rustled. Red snarled fiercely and rushed, barking, into the night. Danny whistled him back.

  “Don’t get excited,” he murmured. “Little old leaves a-blowin’, that’s all. Take it easy, Red.”

  Suddenly Danny was afraid. That wind would carry all along the side of Stoney Lonesome, and blow leaves before it. It would cover whatever trail he had made so thoroughly that nothing could follow it. Nobody, not even Ross, could guess exactly which way this buck had come or where he was. A search party would certainly be organized and in time would find him. But how much time would that take? Danny felt as far as he could in every direction, but his groping fingers could not touch the rifle. Probably he had flung it when he fell.

  He snapped his fingers. Almost immediately Red stood over him, half-seen and quivering in the darkness. The dog lowered his cold nose to touch Danny’s cheeks, and whined. Danny lifted a hand to stroke his shoulder.

  “Listen,” he said, slowly and emphatically. “Listen careful, Red. Go home!”

  Red whined and backed away. Danny waited eagerly, his fingers crossed and an unsaid prayer in his heart. If Red went home alone, Ross would know that something was amiss. He would also bring Red with him when he came to look for Danny, and almost certainly the big setter would lead him back here. But Red only sat on his haunches and bent his head down.

  “Go home!” Danny ordered angrily. “Go home!”

  Red whined again, and stood up to face into the darkness. The wind increased, and another gust of leaves blew around the side of the hill. A snarl rippled from the big setter’s throat, and again he raced, barking, into the darkness. Danny felt cold despair creep through him, and then anger. For the first time Red had shown a flaw. Afraid of leaves blowing through the darkness! Danny choked back the sobs that rose in his throat. Red emerged from the night to lie beside him, and Danny brought his right hand up to cuff the dog on the head.

  “Go home!” he yelled. “Go home!”

  Red backed a few feet away and sat down uncertainly. Danny writhed on the ground, but the antler that imprisoned him could not be moved. He was as helpless as if he had been tied.

  “No time to lose your head,” he repeated. “If that fool dog won’t go home, think of somethin’ else.”

  But there was nothing else except the darkness, the great pain in his foot, and the long, endless minutes. He bent his head toward the dog, and snapped his fingers. Red came cringing in to lie beside him, and Danny stroked his back.

  “I’m sorry, Red,” he muttered, “sorry I hit you. But, oh dog, if you’d just go home!”

  The long night hours dragged painfully by, and twice more the leaves rustled. Each time Red ran, barking, into the darkness. At long last gray morning spread itself across the sky. With it, so suddenly and unexpectedly that Danny jumped, came the clamor of hounds. They were very close, baying within a few hundred feet of where Danny lay. Ten minutes after they arrived there was the sharp snap of a rifle. Danny sat painfully up and shouted.

  “Hall-oo-oo!”

  And he heard Ross Pickett’s answering, “Hall-oo!”

  Danny sat very still, listening to the rustling leaves that told him his father was on the way. He saw Ross, followed by the three hounds, appear among the trees and toil up the hill. Ross knelt to examine Danny’s foot, and the concern on his face changed to a grin.

  “It’s what you get for shootin’ deer out of season. But you ain’t hurt bad. How long you been here?”

  “All night.”

  “I’ll get you out.”

  Ross caught the dead buck’s antlers and heaved upward. Danny felt his foot come free, and rolled gratefully over. He sat up, and leaned forward to watch Ross massage his cramped foot. Red stretched full length in the leaves and watched approvingly. Danny glanced reproachfully at him.

  “I’m sure glad you came, Pappy,” he said. “I thought you might be home, and tried to send that fool dog there. But he wouldn’t go. Mebbe he ain’t as much dog as I thought he was. Every time the leaves rustled, he ran towards ’em barkin’ like all get out. A dog, scared in the dark! ’Tain’t right.”

  For a moment Ross looked steadily at him. “I got the varmint,” he said at last. “It’s a big lynx.”

  “Yeah? I heard you shoot. How’d you get him, Pappy?”

  “I kept the hounds on leashes, and slow-tracked him all day and all night,” Ross said soberly. “When the trail freshened, I let the hounds go and they bayed him. Danny, that trail freshened within five hundred yards of where you’re sittin’ now, and there wasn’t no low wind to rustle the leaves last night. That varmint was studyin’ you, and the smell of the dog, and the smell of that dead buck, all night, and tryin’ to figger if he was safe. It was him you heard, rustlin’ the leaves when he came towards you. If it hadn’t been for your dog … How you goin’ to make it up to him, Danny?”

  But
just at that moment Red came forward, buried his nose in Danny’s cupped hand, and closed his eyes blissfully while Danny scratched his ears.

  There was nothing to make up.

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  Partridge Dog

  for a week, after ross had helped him back from the side of Stoney Lonesome, Danny hobbled about the cabin with his right ankle swathed in bandages that were regularly soaked in an epsom salt solution. The Picketts could seldom afford a doctor, and even though they now had the fifty dollars a month that Mr. Haggin was paying Danny to take care of Red, it never occurred to either of them to pay another man to do what they could do themselves.

  Every day Ross went into the hills, sometimes taking his hounds with him but more often walking the lonely trap-lines that he and Danny had already staked out, his eyes alert for possible improvement. Ross seldom rested, and never wasted time. As far back as Danny could remember he had been doing something, trapping, varmint hunting, digging ginseng, picking berries, collecting wild honey, or some of the dozen other jobs to which woodsmen turn their hands. Ross had always secretly dreamed of having fine things, luxurious things, and from the start was doomed never to get them. But he never seemed to recognize the fact that he was doomed, and always tried to bring as much as he could into the shanty in the beech woods.

  Red stayed with Danny, loafing around the cabin, going out to make restless tours of the clearing, or venturing a little way into the beech woods. But he never got very far away or stayed very long. Wild to be off and hunt partridges, the big setter still waited loyally until Danny was able to go with him.

  Danny had skinned the big lynx that had stalked him throughout the long night on Stoney Lonesome when his foot was pinned beneath the dead buck’s antler. The huge pelt was on a stretching board. There was a twenty-dollar bounty on it, but the big cat had been killed so early in the year that its pelt was all but worthless. It was going to be Danny’s after the bounty was collected, and he planned to make it into a wall decoration.

  At twilight on the seventh night, Ross came stalking into the clearing with the three hounds trailing behind him. They crawled to their kennels, were fed there, and then Ross came stumbling into the house. He sat down, and smiled wearily at Danny.

  “How’d it go?” Danny asked.

  Ross shrugged. “All right. I kept the hounds off the trap-lines on account I don’t want the traps smelled up with dog smell, and we went into some of them valleys ’way back of Stoney Lonesome. The hounds hit a trail, and went barkin’ off on it. For the life of me I couldn’t make out what they was chasin’. I let ’em go, and kept as close behind ’em as I was able. They treed and I come on ’em. Do you know what they had up, Danny?”

  “What?”

  “A big, spittin’ fisher cat,” Ross grinned. “He was only ’bout ten feet up in a pine, cussin’ the dogs and tellin’ ’em what he was goin’ to do to ’em if he got a mind to come down. When I got there he run ’way up in the tree and hid. I could of had him though, and would of ’cept his pelt wasn’t prime. You should of seen him, Danny. He’s black as the ace of spades, and silky as all get out. He’ll be worth a sight of money when the winter puts a pelt on him. I’m goin’ back there, come mornin’, and spy out some of his runs so he’ll be easy to catch.”

  “Gee,” Danny sighed. “I’d like to of been with you. I haven’t seen a fisher cat for two-three years.”

  “They ain’t so plenty,” Ross observed. “But I’d as soon kill what I run across on account they kill so many other things. When this one gets primed up, we’ll have us a fisher hunt.”

  They ate supper, cleaned and repaired a faulty ejector on Ross’s rifle, and went to bed. Danny slept late, but Ross was up with the dawn and off to locate some of the fisher’s runways. Red, who couldn’t understand why Danny should suddenly decide to loaf about the house instead of going as usual into the more interesting woods, came in to paw at his bed and wake him up. Danny grinned, and before he dressed stooped to take the bandages from his ankle. Gingerly he rested it on the floor, and finally put his whole weight on it. It pained a little, but he could stand and walk with only a slight limp. Danny mixed pancake batter, and was about to cook some pancakes when Red growled warningly. There was the sound of someone walking.

  “Hey, Danny,” a voice said.

  Danny looked around in surprise. His visitor wasn’t the casual trapper he had expected, but Mr. Haggin. The owner of the great Wintapi estate wore a pair of blue jeans, a faded gray shirt, and his sockless feet were encased in leather moccasins.

  Danny blurted, “I didn’t know it was you, Mr. Haggin.”

  “Yup,” Mr. Haggin grinned. “I’m going away tomorrow, heading south, and thought I’d drop in on you.”

  “You’re mighty welcome.”

  Mr. Haggin looked worn and tired, as he glanced around the neat cabin. Danny watched, puzzled. Mr. Haggin had money enough to buy himself anything he wanted, and he’d hardly look enviously at a trapper’s cabin in the beech woods. No, it was not exactly that. Rather it was as though Mr. Haggin had wearied of something, and come here to find peace. Money, Danny decided, could not buy everything. Then Mr. Haggin looked at Red, and the weariness faded from his eyes. He spoke enthusiastically.

  “If he’d been in that shape when we took him to New York he’d have won best in show, Danny.”

  Danny relaxed. Mr. Haggin wasn’t a millionaire any more. He was like Ross, or any other man who could know and love a good dog. But Mr. Haggin knew more about some kinds of dogs than Ross had ever dreamed. Very clearly there rose before Danny the vision that was never far from him. He remembered the dog show, down to the least detail, and the great triumph he had felt when Red won best of breed. But still there seemed to be something lacking from that show.

  “Red looks right good,” he agreed. “I was thinkin’ …”

  He hesitated, and Mr. Haggin asked, “What were you thinking?”

  “Why, I was thinkin’ that there’ll be more dog shows to come,” Danny said lamely.

  “You and I think alike, Danny. Do you remember the little bitch that went up with Red for best of breed?”

  “Oh!”

  “Yes,” Mr. Haggin sighed. “And there still isn’t enough money to buy her from Dan MacGruder. But I’m keeping my eyes open. As soon as I can get hold of a good enough bitch I’ll send her up here. There’ll be dog shows next year, and the year after, and twenty years from now.”

  “Yes, sir,” Danny said soberly. He glanced at the stove and asked, “Would you like some breakfast?”

  “Sure thing. What have you got?”

  “Flapjacks.”

  “Wahoo! It’s been a long while since I’ve sunk my teeth into a good mess of flapjacks. My cook calls ’em—never mind. It’s an insult. Have you got maple syrup too?”

  “Pappy tapped the trees and boiled the sap himself.”

  “Lead me to it!”

  Danny cooked a great platter of flapjacks, and put them on the table. He opened a can of maple syrup, poured a pitcher full, and set it before Mr. Haggin. Mr. Haggin took a plateful of the flapjacks, spread butter on them, drowned them in amber maple syrup, and ate. He took another plateful, and ate more slowly while Danny told him all about Red, the big setter’s partridge hunting, and all the hopes he had for him. When he was finished, Mr. Haggin leaned back in the chair.

  “Now I’ve got something to remember,” he said. “But I’ve also got to go. I’ll see you in the spring.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll take good care of Red.”

  “I knew that three months ago,” Mr. Haggin said. “Good luck, Danny.”

  They shook hands, and Mr. Haggin strode back down the Smokey Creek trail. Danny sat on the top step of the porch, watching him go. Red came to sit beside him, and Danny pulled his ears. He was vaguely troubled because the memory of the dog show would not leave him, and he still was unable to identify positively the thing that should have been there and was not. It seemed to be anoth
er dog. Of course, no matter what happened there was never going to be another dog like Red. But …

  Danny stamped back into the house and washed the dishes. He went to the wood lot, took a buck-saw from its hanger, and began to saw into stove-length blocks the trees that Asa had dragged out of the woods. Red sat near, watching. Danny worked doggedly on, trying by hard labor to drive from his mind the troublesome thought that refused to be driven. It was four o’clock in the afternoon when Red, who had been nosing around the wood pile, barked sharply. Danny looked up and saw Ross run out of the beech woods into the clearing.

  Ross’s hat was off, and he carried his jacket in his left hand. His face was red from exertion, his eyes glowed with excitement. Red ran to meet him. Danny dropped the buck-saw and stood erect. Ross panted to the wood shed, and leaned against the door to catch his breath.

  “Danny …” he said.

  Danny grasped his arm, and looked concernedly into his father’s face.

  “What’s wrong, Pappy?” he asked.

  “I—I went back in the ridges,” Ross gasped. “I went back to look for the fisher cat, and I found his runs. But I was standin’ on the side of a little stinky gully, and the wind was to me. I looked over and I saw that big hellin’ bear, Ol’ Majesty. He ain’t been in these woods sinst you and that Red dog run him out. But he’s here now! He was feedin’ off a dead deer, and when he finished feedin’ he crawled in a hemlock grove. Danny, that bear’s got his belly full and he ain’t goin’ to move before mornin’. That Red dog bayed him once, and he can do it again. I’ll take him up there come dawn and put an end to that raidin’ bear!”