Big Red

by Jim Kjelgaard

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  Read the Sign

  the next morning danny and red ran the traps in Lonesome Pond, and brought back two muskrats and a mink. Ross was sitting in front of the stove, bent over. He straightened up, revealing a red flush in his cheeks and dry, cracked lips. Ross tried to get up, and caught the back of the chair.

  “How did it go? Did you take some pelts, Danny?” Ross spoke with forced casualness.

  “Two ’rats and a mink. You’re sick, Pappy!”

  “Me!” Ross scoffed. “I ain’t been sick in twenty years!”

  “Well, you are now.” Danny left his fur-laden coat on the porch. “Come over here, Pappy.”

  Ross said stubbornly, “I’m not goin’ to bed.”

  “Now you just quit actin’ like a two-year-old and use your head!” Danny scolded. “What good’s it goin’ to do if you get yourself pneumonia?”

  “Aw, it’s a foolishness.”

  “Sure!” Danny said sarcastically. “A man as has laid under a snowdrift for five or six hours shouldn’t ought even to feel it. Get in bed, Pappy.”

  “Oh, all right! I’d rather than have you jawin’ at me!”

  Ross took off his clothes and crawled into bed. Danny felt his hot temple, then took from the cupboard a quart bottle of whiskey that had stood there unopened for five years. He broke the seal, poured a water glass half full, and filled it with hot water.

  “Drink it,” he commanded.

  Ross drank, grimaced, and sputtered. “Whew! You’re either goin’ to kill or cure a man, ain’t you?”

  “Stay covered,” Danny ordered. “If you’re not better by the time two hours has gone, I’m goin’ to call Doc Smedley.”

  “It’ll cost you twenty-five dollars to get him ’way up here!” Ross protested.

  “I don’t care if it costs two hundred and fifty,” Danny said. “We can’t have you sick.”

  “It’s a foolishness,” Ross mumbled. He settled drowsily down in the blankets. “John Allen was here. He wants you should help him get his cows out of those grass meadows up on the plateau. I told him you’d help. He’ll give you a quarter of beef for the helpin’.”

  “I—I can’t help him,” Danny protested.

  “Why not?”

  “I got to run the Stoney Lonesome line come mornin’. Deer season opens next day, and I got to get us a buck for winter meat. Next day I got to go back to Lonesome Pond.”

  “Stoney Lonesome’ll wait,” Ross said. “It’s mostly a fox line, and there ain’t goin’ to be too many foxes runnin’ for two-three days after that storm. You help Allen in the mornin’, get your buck next day, and go up Stoney Lonesome the day after if you have to. Course, I think you won’t have to on account I can go up myself by then.”

  Danny said severely, “You’re goin’ nowhere until you’re well. But I’ll help Allen anyhow.”

  Danny pelted the muskrats and the mink, skinning them carefully and stretching them on boards that were exactly suited to them. Furs were much more valuable if they were properly handled. He inspected his work critically, and went back into the cabin. Ross was asleep. Some of the angry red was gone from his cheeks and his forehead was cooler. The next morning he ate three soft-boiled eggs that Danny prepared for him and drank a bowl of warm milk. He got out of bed to sit in front of the stove, while Danny fumed at him.

  “You fuss like an old settin’ hen with sixteen chicks,” Ross observed drily. “I’d rather be up than down.”

  “You should be in bed, Pappy.”

  “Ah, I’ll just set here. The minute I get tired, I’ll go back to bed.”

  “Well …”

  “I knew you’d see it my way,” Ross smirked. “You go on and help Allen; he said he’d meet you in the meadows.”

  “All right. The mule’s fed and the cow’s milked. I’ll go. But if you’re worse tonight, I’m goin’ to call Doc Smedley anyhow.”

  “Shucks. No need to do that.”

  “Take care of yourself and I won’t have to.”

  “I’ll take care of myself.”

  “Well, you been warned.”

  Danny put on his hat and coat, and with Red beside him went outside. For a time he pondered the advisability of wearing snowshoes, but the snow in the valley was only eight inches deep. Only in open places where the wind had a long sweep had it drifted. Of course it would be deeper in the uplands and on the tops of the mountains, but not much this early in the winter. Danny left his snowshoes on their hanger, walked down the valley, and climbed the face of Staver Plateau.

  A cold wind blew up the slope, and carried a dusting of fine snow with it. The snow already there was almost knee-deep, but the ranging cattle had beaten paths through it. Danny broke out of the forest into the meadows, great open stretches carpeted with wild hay and grass, and leaned against a stump. In the distance a herd of ten cattle came out of the forest into the meadows, and turned to race back to the shelter of the trees. Danny grinned.

  “There they are, Red. Some of John Allen’s gentle bossies.”

  Every spring John Allen, a Wintapi farmer with only small acreage of his own, bought forty or fifty cattle, barren cows, calves, bulls, steers, and let them graze in these wild uplands. Every fall, shortly after snow flew, he rounded them up and sold them.

  There was a hail from down the slope, and Danny looked that way. A man with a woolly shepherd dog beside him had come out of the trees into the meadow, and was toiling upward toward Danny. Red rose eagerly, and bounded through the snow to meet and sniff noses with Shep, John Allen’s cow dog. Side by side the two dogs wagged up to Danny, and John Allen panted along behind them.

  “Been waitin’ long?” he asked.

  “Not so long. What’s new?”

  “Not much. One of them jail people they got over at Downdale broke prison. Have you seen any cattle?”

  “I just saw ten of your wind-splitters, John. They took one look at me and kited back for the brush.”

  “Shep’ll get ’em back,” the farmer said confidently. “What side do you want, Danny.”

  “I’d as soon take the other. Give me half an hour.”

  Danny followed one of the winding cow paths around the face of the hill, went through the little strips of forest that separated the various meadows, and took a stand where the unbroken forest began again. The cow path petered out in a great area of pawed snow, where the cattle had been digging for grass. Danny climbed a hundred feet above it, and sat watching. Shep would rout the cattle from their bedding and feeding places, then they would run like the wild things they were. It was Danny’s job to keep them out of the forest and headed downhill. There was a wingfence there that led into a corral.

  Presently he heard a dog bark, then a succession of hurried barks. Ten minutes later a little gray bull with a dozen cows and calves behind him came racing along the path. Red pricked up his ears, and Danny ran down to stand in the path. Seeing him, the bull braced his feet and stood with lowered head. Suddenly Red’s thunderous battle roar burst from his throat, and he hurled himself forward. The gray bull stood his ground for a second, then turned, and with his cows and calves following plunged down the hill.

  Red ran a little way after them, nipping at their heels and chivvying them on, then turned to come panting back to Danny. Danny grinned, and tickled his ears.

  “They wouldn’t of hurt me, you old fool,” he said affectionately. “But if you’ve took it in your mind to be a cow dog, go right ahead. We’ll get ’em down quicker.”

  He waited until he heard the questing Shep barking on a level with him, then ran swiftly down to the next path. Six black and white heifers came racing along it, but Red had already learned the game. He sprang happily at them, his eyes alight with mischief, and chivvied them down the hill into one of the strips of forest that separated the meadows.

  Bit by bit they worked down the hill, and as the cattle were driven below, Danny swung slowly toward the other side of the meadows. The scattered li
ttle bunches of cattle gathered into a herd that galloped away whenever he approached. Shep came racing, driving five yearlings before him. They joined the herd, and disappeared with it into a forested ravine that led down the slope. Shep ran back to hustle a reluctant bull from its cover, and Red joined in the heel-nipping as they drove the bull into the ravine. Both dogs disappeared, but their steady barking floated back to Danny. Red-faced and panting, with little tobacco-juice icicles hanging from his walrus mustaches, John Allen appeared on the other side of the ravine.

  “Any get past you, Danny?” he called.

  “Nary a one.”

  The other man grinned. “I heard your dog barkin’. Was he rousslin’ them cattle along?”

  “Yeah. He’s gone down the ravine with Shep.”

  “Let ’em go,” John Allen said. “It’s where I want ’em. They think they’re awful smart, gettin’ in that wooded ravine. But it runs right into my wingfence, and comes out in the corral. We got ’em goin’ our way, Danny.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  Side by side they walked down the ravine, and found the two dogs sitting together in the gate of the corral. Fenced at last, the cattle were milling about. A few awkward, spraddle-legged calves were standing still and facing outward. John Allen closed the gate, and Red came wagging back to Danny. He was surprised to find the sun sinking and the valley in shadow. There had been swift action nearly all day, and time had flown quickly. John Allen leaned on the gate with his hands folded.

  “There they are,” he said. “Tell Ross that I’m goin’ to butcher the biggest and fattest steer, and I’ll bring him a hind quarter. Will you come down to my place for supper, Danny?”

  “Thanks,” Danny said, “but I ought to be gettin’ back. Pappy’s sick.”

  “I know he is. Let me know if I can do anything.”

  “I will. So long.”

  “So long, Danny.”

  Danny followed one of the cow paths back up the slope, cut around the nose, and retraced the tracks he had made that morning. He ran the last five hundred feet up the valley, and stopped running, reassured, when he saw the cabin. Ross was all right, for blue smoke was curling from the chimney. Danny entered, and Ross grinned at him from the bed.

  “Your supper’s warmin’ on the stove, Danny.”

  “How do you feel, Pappy?”

  “Half dead,” Ross said disgustedly. “Half dead from uselessness. Did you git all of Allen’s cows hazed out of them meadows?”

  “Every one, down to the last spindlin’ calf.”

  “What in tunket has Red been doin’?”

  “Chasin’ cows. He got himself full of stick-tights. But I’ll comb him after supper.”

  Danny felt his father’s forehead, which was still hot but lacked the raging fever of yesterday. He ate his supper, washed the dishes, and spread a newspaper on the floor. Red sprang up to stand in the center of it when Danny took a comb and brush from a shelf, and shivered in delighted anticipation. Red didn’t like baths, but loved to be brushed and combed. Danny worked carefully over him, removing every burr, bit of dirt, and all the loose hair. In the flickering light cast by the kerosene lamp, Red gleamed like burnished copper, and from the bed Ross smiled wan approval.

  “The more I see that dog the better he looks, Danny,” he said.

  “Yep.” Danny stood up, and Red moved off the paper. Danny stooped to roll it up and thrust it in the stove. He put the brush and comb back on the shelf, and Red padded over to rub his combed flanks against Danny’s legs and look in mute appeal up at his face. Danny grinned, and stooped to scratch his ears.

  “You old lap dog,” he said. “Always want to be petted, don’t you?” He left the dog and walked over to the bed. “Can I get you somethin’, Pappy?”

  “Nah. I’ll be up and around in a couple of days, mebbe less.”

  “You will not!” Danny said. “And you won’t be outside until your cold is plumb gone.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ross said meeky. “Did Allen have anything new to say?”

  Danny shrugged. “Nothin’ special. There was a jail break at Downdale, and Allen said he’d send our beef up here.”

  Danny took his rifle from its rack and sat down to oil the action. He looked through the barrel, to make sure that nothing obstructed it, and swabbed it out with a ramrod. Carefully he counted out ten shells, and set them in a row on the table. Red padded happily over, and stood with his eyes level to the table, looking at the shells.

  “You aimin’ to down a buck, huh?” Ross asked wistfully.

  “Yup.”

  Danny kept his eyes averted from the bed. Ross was aching to go deer hunting. But he couldn’t, and Danny had to. The venison they got every year was an important food staple to the Picketts. No doubt Ross would be well enough to go out and hunt the last part of the season. But the deer would be wild and scattered by that time, and regardless of how good a hunter he was no man could be sure of a buck. Red came over again to rub his combed flank against Danny’s shins, and Danny played his fingers over the big dog’s back. Of course he would take Red with him, not to help hunt deer but for company.

  “Don’t you worry,” he said. “You’ll get your chance at a buck, wait and see. I bet you’ll get a bigger one than I do.”

  “Sure,” Ross gulped, and then grinned. “Don’t even trouble your head about me. I’m no tenderfoot deer hunter, as has to git his game the first day or he don’t git it.”

  “Go on now,” Danny scoffed. “Quit your braggin’.”

  Ross said soberly, “You better git to bed, Danny. You mebbe got a long day ahead of you.”

  Danny was up long before dawn the next morning. He milked and fed the cow, fed Asa, cooked breakfast for himself, gave Ross what he wanted, and packed a lunch. Danny put on his red jacket, and pinned a strip of bright red cloth to his hat. For a moment he stood awkwardly, looking at the helpless Ross. Then he filled his rifle with five cartridges, dropped five more into his pocket, and with Red crowding close beside him went out on the porch.

  The night was lifting slowly, reluctantly. An inch of new-fallen snow was piled against the barn and springhouse, and lay in smooth mounds on the branches of the beech trees. Old Mike, leader of his father’s hound pack, came out of his kennel and stood in the snow lifting one paw after the other, only to crawl back into the warm kennel. Red ran down the steps, and sniffed at a pile of snow-covered weeds. A resting rabbit burst out of them and left a tiny tracery of tracks as he dashed away over the new-fallen snow. Red watched him go, and came back to Danny.

  Danny waited, standing quietly on the porch while the darkness faded and the daylight gathered strength. There were great herds of deer in the Wintapi, but if you wanted to be sure of getting one you had to figure on a hard and careful hunt. On the other hand, deer often grazed down to and bedded at the very edge of his father’s clearing. It was possible to jump one almost anywhere, and a man who went too early into the forest could easily miss some fine chances. Danny shuffled his feet to warm them, and spoke softly.

  “Meat hunter,” he accused himself. “You’re just a darn old meat hunter.”

  But that was all right, too. City hunters who could afford to come three, four, or five hundred miles to hunt in the Wintapi, were well able to hunt for sport alone. But, though both Danny and Ross enjoyed hunting and hunted fairly, neither could afford to overlook the fact that the creatures they hunted also furnished them with a great share of their food. Meat hunting was nothing to be ashamed of, Danny decided.

  He raised the rifle, and sighted on a thistle that rose brown and naked above the blanket of snow. The front sight blurred, just a little, and Danny took the gun down again. Cartridges cost ten cents apiece, and there was no sense in using three to do the work of one. Unless the sights could be clearly seen, you never could be sure of your aim, and it would stay dark longer in the forest than it would out here. Danny waited ten minutes and raised the gun again.

  This time he saw the sights clearly, a
nd could even discern the frost-shrivelled thorns on the thistle. He sighted on a burdock stalk, a hundred yards away, and saw that plainly. With Red padding behind him, Danny left the porch and went into the beech forest.

  He stopped, thrust a finger into his mouth to wet it, and held his wet finger straight up. The wind was steady from the north, with no little cross-currents or eddies to fling scent about. Danny pondered. The snow had stopped falling at about three o’clock in the morning. It hadn’t been an unusually severe storm here in the sheltered valleys, but the wind must have blown hard on the tops of the mountains. Therefore, the deer would be down from the wind-blasted heights to the calm valleys, and even if they had gone back their tracks in the snow would be evidence of their going.

  Danny called Red to heel, and with the rifle held ready for action at split-second notice, started hunting straight into the wind. Far off a rifle cracked, and its rolling echoes searched the forest as some other early venturing hunter got his shot at a buck. He shot again, and again, while Danny counted. Probably he had jumped the buck and it had run. Very probably it was still running. Danny grinned and thought of the old deer hunter’s adage, “One shot, one deer. Two shots, maybe one deer. Three shots, no deer.”

  Just ahead, a small grove of hemlocks waved their green, needle-tipped branches in the shadow of the towering beeches. Danny walked very softly, and cut around to one side to get a clear view of the open forest there. Nothing moved. There was no sound. Danny bent to enter the hemlocks.

  Two deer had bedded beneath them. The snow was melted and packed where they had lain and two separate lines of tracks led away from the beds. Danny followed them until he came to where they left a clear imprint in the deep, soft snow. One of the tracks was very small, the other was the oval, tapered imprint of a doe’s hoof.

  “Doe and a late fawn,” Danny murmured to Red. “We needn’t follow ’em.”

  With Red padding patiently behind him, Danny went deeper into the beech woods. He passed more fresh tracks cutting across the valley, but none that he could positively identify as that of a buck. It was that way sometimes; good hunting country would be overrun by does and fawns.