Big Red

by Jim Kjelgaard

  The trail cut sharply upward, along the side of a shallow gulley that sloped from the top of Stoney Lonesome. Danny saw a jack pine beside the trail with three blazes in its gnarled trunk. He stooped, and shaded his eyes with his hands while he peered across the gulley at an unfreezing spring where there was a water set for fox. Nothing had disturbed the trap. With Red padding behind him, he resumed his journey and broke over the top of the mountain.

  The character of the country changed abruptly. The valleys were laden with massive beech trees. Farther up, the mountain sides supported groves of aspen and an occasional jack pine. But here, on top, a veritable jungle of twisted laurel covered everything. Only an occasional pine reared above it, and the only way through was on the path that Danny and Ross kept open. But the laurel was the abode of numberless rabbits, both cottontail and snowshoe. Foxes and weasels had gathered to live on the rabbits, and an occasional marten or fisher drifted through. Useless for any other purpose, the top of Stoney Lonesome was a trapper’s paradise.

  Danny started snowshoeing along the twisted, snake-like trail. Presently, twenty feet ahead, he saw another of the triple-blazed trees that marked a trap in the brush. Red plunged around and ahead of him, wallowing chest-deep through the piled snow. Suddenly the dog’s tail stiffened, and a snarl rippled from his throat.

  Danny slipped a mitten from his hand, and let it dangle from the string around his neck. He drew the belt axe from its sheath, and with that in his hand crept forward. Carefully, the axe poised, he went into the brush and came to the set. Another snarl gurgled from Red’s throat, and the big red dog edged around Danny to stand with his tail stiff and his hackles raised.

  Danny paused, the axe held high, while his eyes darted around the brush and back to the fox set. The two traps that composed it had been carefully buried in the snow, and covered with tissue paper so they would not freeze. The bait, a scented bit of snowshoe rabbit, had hung over the set. But now, for ten feet around, the snow was beaten down and stained with blood. Bits of red fur and particles of flesh were scattered about. The two traps hung over a bush, and from them dangled the ripped carcass of what had been a fine red fox. Danny advanced, knelt beside the fox, and examined it closely. Its pelt was torn beyond hope of repair, and even half of its red tail had been bitten off. A rank, musty odor defiled the air and the traps had been scored by sharp teeth. Danny twirled the axe in his hand, and spoke softly to the dog.

  “Injun devil!”

  With his hands he pressed down the springs of the two traps, let the fox slide from them into the snow, and put the traps in his pack. Not often did an Indian devil, or wolverene, invade the Wintapi. But when one did, and found a trap-line, the unfortunate trapper had either to kill the pirate or pull his traps. Danny looked angrily across the laurel, and spoke again to the dog.

  “Injun devil, by criminey!”

  It was bad, very bad. Four years ago another wolverene had come into the Wintapi and established a run on two lines of Ross Pickett’s fox traps. Ross had set for it every trap that a lifetime spent in the woods had revealed to him. But still the Indian devil had triumphed. That year Ross and Danny had taken less than half their normal catch of fur, and summer had brought lean times to the cabin in the beech woods.

  Red stalked forward, plowing through the deep snow. He stopped beside a laurel bush, whined softly, and waited for Danny to advance to his side. The wolverene had left the ruined set here, and the broad trail plowed by its stubby body was plain where it had gone into the laurel. Danny looked speculatively back toward the cabin in the beech woods. His father’s hounds, taking a trail so fresh, might bay their quarry. But it would take three hours to get the hounds, and three more to bring them back here. Nothing was more diabolically cunning than a wolverene. If the hounds took a trail six hours old, they would stand little chance of overtaking the Indian devil. Besides, there were the rest of the traps to think of. This was the wolverene’s first appearance on the line. He might not have found all the traps. The thing to do was make the rounds, take any good pelts that were in the traps, then come back with the hounds to try and hunt the wolverene down.

  Danny snowshoed back to the trail, and set off down it at a fast pace. For a little space Red crowded ahead to plunge through the deep snow beside him, and Danny let his mittened hand trail along the red setter’s back. But the going was too rough; Red dropped back again to walk where Danny’s snowshoes had packed the trail.

  A quarter of a mile farther on was the next set, which had caught nothing. But sprung and empty, the two traps lay on top of the snow where the wolverene had left them after it had contemptuously scratched particles of ice and snow over them to spring them. Danny’s eyes were cloudy, and little angry flecks washed back and forth in them as he examined the trail where the Indian devil had again disappeared into the laurel. The wolverene was not only on a trap-line, but he knew that he was and apparently was determined to find and defile or spoil every trap on it. Danny left the traps where they lay, and took the axe from its sheath to swing it in his hand.

  “Damn him!” he gritted. “Damn his ugly hide!”

  A fresh burst of wind, casting whirling flakes of snow before it, roared across the flat top of Stoney Lonesome. Danny blinked, and bent his head as he plodded forward. Ross, if he was here, would probably have some idea of what to do with an Indian devil on the rampage. But Ross was not here, and whatever was to be done Danny had to do. The dangling chain of one of the traps in his pack caught on a bush and fell to the snow. Danny retraced his steps to pick the trap up, and Red brushed against his knees. Another almost inaudible growl bubbled from the dog’s throat as Danny swerved from the trail to the next set.

  Again Red lunged ahead of him, plowing through the snow and snarling. Danny ran on his snowshoes, the axe in his hand raised and ready to strike. He saw the trapped fox, a shining bit of red-gold, crouched flat in the snow and staring fixedly into the laurel. Red stopped. His body stiffened. His hackles rose, and for a moment he stood on point. Then a great, thunderous battle challenge rolled from his throat and he lunged forward again. Danny made a wild swing with his free hand, and slipped his mittened fingers through Red’s collar.

  Red fought his restraining hand, and snarled almost continuously as he strained toward the laurel. Danny stopped, trying with his eyes to pierce the almost impenetrable brush. But all he could see was the laurel.

  He spoke to the raging dog. “Easy. Take it easy.”

  Red quieted, but stood trembling and tense. Slowly, a step at a time, they went forward. There was a momentary lull in the wind, and Danny snapped his head erect. Behind him, a sudden rattle of steel sounded as the fox in the trap leaped sideways. Then, twenty feet away, the brush rattled. Red snarled, and for a moment struggled to be free. Danny settled slowly down on his snowshoes, and again tried to peer through the matted tangle of laurel stems.

  At first he could see nothing. Then, among the boulders and snow-covered ends of logs that were scattered through the laurel, he caught the dark sheen of fur. Danny fixed his gaze on it, and very slowly the head and fore-quarters of the marauding wolverene assumed distinct outline. It stood beside a log, its front paws on a rock, staring steadily at him. Then as suddenly and silently as it had come, it was gone.

  Red strove forward, but Danny pulled him back. A little shiver travelled up and down his spine, and an icy hand seemed to clutch the back of his neck. Not for nothing had trappers who encountered them considered the wolverene as the incarnation of everything evil. There had been evil in its attitude, hate in its steady stare. Danny shivered again.

  “Come on,” he murmured to Red. “That thing would kill you quicker’n you could kill a mouse. We got to get that fox.”

  Once on the trail again, Danny unbuckled Red’s collar, slipped it through the ring on the end of a trap chain, and put it back on the dog. He looked back down the trail, toward the cabin in the beeches, and again wished mightily that Ross was here to guide him. He had no weapons with which he m
ight successfully fight a wolverene. But when a man didn’t have what he wanted, it was his place to make the best use of what he had. Of one thing he was certain; Red must not be allowed to go into the brush and fight the wolverene. If he did he would be killed.

  Danny looked up the trail toward the overnight cabin at the end of the trap-line. There might be more pelts in some of the traps, and if he did not get them today the wolverene surely would. Besides, he and Red had never yet been run out of their mountains, not even by the huge Old Majesty. Of course, at least to a dog, a wolverene was much more dangerous than any bear. Most dogs knew enough to keep out of a bear’s way, but would not hesitate to close with an Indian devil. But he could keep Red on the chain. Danny started up the trail, holding his hand behind him so Red would have plenty of room to walk in his snowshoe tracks.

  Another blast of wind rolled across the mountain top and whirled down the slope. It left more snow in its wake, ice-edged, whirling bits of half sleet that slithered crisply against the green laurel and rattled on Danny’s hood. He bent his head, keeping his eyes fixed on the left side of the trail. Ross had certainly known what he was doing when he insisted on marking all sets on one side of the trail. Three blazes meant the trap was on the left, three blazes with a bar on top meant the right. But in a storm like this it was right handy when a man had to look only one way. Danny looked back at his snowshoe tracks. Ten feet behind, they were already filling with snow. Red bumped his leg, and looked at him through snow-filled eyes. Far off, the wind howled in a shriller key. He moved on.

  The next trap held a brown marten, and hope began to rise in Danny. The wolverene must have come on the trap-line only that morning, and had not found all the traps. Danny thrust the marten into his pack beside the fox, and shouldered it to continue up the trail. He felt better. He had had every reason for leaving the mountain top. But he hadn’t left it. Ross would not have left either, and anything Ross would or would not do must be the right thing.

  The howling wind abated a little, but the swirling snow fell more thickly. The gray sky had added more layers of color to its overcast self. Danny took another fox from a trap, and passed by half a dozen sets that were still undisturbed. As he passed a huge pine beside the trail, he nodded in satisfaction. Despite the storm, and deep-snow travel, he had made good time. There was one more set between this pine and the cabin, which he should reach shortly after dark. Suddenly, snapping the chain taut and jerking Danny’s arm around, Red crowded up beside him.

  Now in semi-darkness, the laurel rattled and whispered mournfully as the snow beat against it and the few little breezes that had not kept pace with the gale whispered through it. Red stood beside the trail, hackles bristled and lips raised. Another snarl came from his throat. Danny knelt beside him, and stroked the dog’s ear with his mitten.

  “Don’t go off half-cocked,” he murmured. “Easy.”

  Red crowded very close to him, whimpering softly, while Danny reached down to unfasten the snap cover of his axe sheath. The wolverene had not deserted the trap-line, then, but had circled it to come in from the other end. He was ahead now, possibly waiting and possibly destroying the last trap. Danny reached out to encircle the dog’s neck with his arm. If it came to a fight, he and Red would fight together. But Red must not be allowed to go into the brush alone. In the gathering darkness, the laurel jungle seemed almost a solid mass on either side of the shimmering white trail.

  Danny glanced back toward the big pine, but its top was invisible against the night sky. With his left hand, he took a firmer grip on the trap attached to Red’s collar, and with the belt axe in his right began to snowshoe up the trail. Red walked beside him, still tense and alert as he plowed through the deep snow. He stopped, and strained toward the brush, while again the thunderous battle challenge rumbled from his throat.

  Danny paused for a fraction of a second while some cold sixth sense functioned within him. He knew that the wolverene was there, very close, and that its intended prey this time was no helpless trapped creature but himself and Red. Danny began to run, racing up the trail, half-dragging Red with him. He saw the dark mass of the overnight cabin looming ahead. Danny pulled the latch string and opened the door.

  He stumbled into the cabin, slammed the door behind him, and leaned, panting, against it. He dropped the trap that was attached to Red’s collar, and heard the dog dragging it across the floor.

  After a few seconds Danny took off his mittens and stooped in the darkness to unlace his snowshoe harnesses. He stepped out of them, and reached into his pocket for the box of water-proof matches that he carried wherever he went. Striking one on the side of the box, he stepped to the table and touched the flaming match to the wick of a candle that stood upright in the neck of a syrup bottle. The candle’s glare revealed in dull yellow outline every nook and corner of the cabin.

  It was an eight by ten shack, with a bunk at one end and a fireplace, built of stone gathered on Stoney Lonesome, filling the other. A few simple cooking utensils hung on wooden pegs driven into the wall beside the fireplace, and folded blankets were piled at one end of the bunk. The cabin had never been intended for anything except a sleeping place when either Ross or Danny might be at this end of the Stoney Lonesome trap-line.

  Danny felt for the axe at his belt, and with a shock discovered that it was gone. It had been in his hand at the last place Red had scented the wolverene. He must have dropped it during the ensuing wild flight. Danny clenched his hands. A trapper did not necessarily have to have a gun, but an axe was almost indispensable. Well, he would have to get along without one tonight. There was a stack of wood piled beside the door. He could bring in an arm load, shave kindling sticks with his skinning knife, and have a fire. Usually they left kindling sticks in the cabin. But the last time, for some reason, they had been overlooked.

  Red padded over to him. Danny unbuckled his collar, slipped the dragging trap from it, and put the collar back on. Snow rattled crisply against the sod-thatched roof, and outside the angry wind was again shrieking its rage. Danny set a pan before the candle, so it would not blow out when the door was opened, and turned to lift the latch. The candle flickered slightly, and a dull thud sounded as the wind blew a loose branch against the side of the cabin. Then Red trotted to the center of the floor and stood looking at the roof. A low growl rolled from him. Danny took his hand from the latch and backed against the door.

  The wind was attacking in short, angry charges that blasted the cabin and staggered, spent, from it. But during its split-second lulls there was another and very distinct sound. Something that was neither wind clawing at the thatch nor hard snow rattling against it, scraped on the roof. Danny listened, open-mouthed. He felt sweat start from his temples and roll down his face. His throat tightened. The wolverene was on the roof, trying to claw a hole through it.

  Danny moved from the door to the center of the hut. His eyes roved about it, alighting in turn on each of the objects it held. He lifted the coffee pot, and balanced it in his hand. A few bits of frozen dirt sifted through the poles that supported the thatch. Danny swung the coffee pot in a long arc. It was a poor weapon, but better than his short-bladed skinning knife.

  He licked his dry lips, and knelt beside Red with his hand on the dog’s ruff. Both their glances strayed to the roof. Danny clenched his free hand. Even bears feared wolverenes, and if this one got into the cabin … But Ross had always said that if a man didn’t have what he needed, he could make out some way with what he had. Danny fumbled in his pack, and moved away from Red, toward the fireplace.

  Abruptly, the scraping on the roof ceased. There was the sound of something moving across it, and a second’s silence. Red sprang forward, and Danny warned him away.

  “Stay back! Back here!”

  Red stopped. The pan that sheltered the candle fell down, and the candle’s glow again filled the room. Bits of soot and dirt tumbled into the fireplace, and Danny stared in terrified fascination at the wide chimney. There was a little thud, and the
wolverene tumbled from the chimney into the open fireplace, to stand blinking. In one mighty leap Red bridged the distance between them and closed. Danny felt the trip-hammer beat of his own heart as he ran forward with the coffee pot poised.

  He danced on the balls of his feet beside the fighting pair, awaiting a chance to strike. But they were rolling over and over on the floor, and Danny’s heart seemed to stop beating as he saw the wolverene’s powerful jaws fastened in Red’s chest. He stooped, and with a wild stab grasped one of the wolverene’s back paws. The other plowed a bloody row of furrows down his arm. Danny jerked, and the wolverene arched his body to bring his jaws back and snap. His slashing teeth closed on Danny’s trousers, and Danny kicked hard as the fighting beast fell to the floor with a strip of wool cloth in his mouth. The wolverene’s foul musk filled the cabin. Danny stumbled, as a little clod of chinking fell to the floor beside him.

  Almost at once he was on his feet again, back to the wall. Red had not known how to fight a wolverene when he started to fight this one. But he knew now. The big setter had dived in, closed his teeth on the side of the wolverene’s neck, and was straining backward. The wolverene’s rage bubbled through his constricted wind pipe, as he strove to bring his back claws into play. But Red had learned the deadly danger of those claws, and whirled aside whenever they struck. The big setter’s jaws ground deeper.

  Danny watched the wolverene try frantically to rip the dog apart with his front claws. But they were encased in the only weapons Danny had had with which he might have any chance of fighting this thing successfully—the two steel fox traps he had picked up and set before the fireplace when he heard the wolverene coming down it. The wolverene’s breath came in wheezing gasps, and Red dived in to take a firmer hold.