For a while afterward silence held them.
Presently Mr. Hogarth said, “I’d like to talk to Penny again, if I can find her.”
“If you can locate her,” said Mr. Owl, “I’d like to meet her.”
Clarence said, “I’d better go along with you. I want to see her myself, and there are some points of law you can straighten me out on.”
Long after they had gone, Swimmer sat glumly under the tree, watching Ripple and Willow fish in the pool, while he waited for Clarence to return. He would have joined them just to take his mind off things, only, for no reason at all it seemed, his leg had begun to hurt worse than ever. But maybe it was just the rotty situation. He had never felt so low.
Suddenly his attention was attracted by happy chirruping in the upper part of the pool. Now, instead of two dark heads in the water, there were four. The other two seemed to be a pair of much older otters who were Willow’s friends.
He had no heart for meeting them, but he watched them curiously until Ripple came back, bringing him a fish. She touched her cold nose to his and settled on the grass beside him.
In answer to his question, she explained that the visitors were her mother’s mother and father. She added, They want us to go down to the river with them.
Is Willow going? he asked.
Yes.
And you?
I will go where you go, she told him. For as long as we have life. We can be happy without silver bells.
A great warmth filled his heart. You are right. But it would have been great to wear the bells together, and answer people’s questions and make fun of their crazy ways. And I wanted you to see the world.
This is our world, she reminded him.
I wanted us to have a little of both worlds, he explained. That way we would always have Penny and Clarence for friends. But now, when this is over, we may never see them again.
It is far from over, came her thought, and he could feel the uneasiness in her.
Swimmer also had been vaguely uneasy ever since Clarence left, and now the feeling began to grow. He wondered if Snake Eyes had anything to do with it. Had the trapper really gone away, or was he hiding somewhere, waiting until there was no one around to see what he did? The very thought of Snake Eyes could always bring a chill creeping through him.
His mind turned to Penny, and he felt a little sick. Now that he couldn’t help her, what was going to become of her?
He was not surprised when Willow, at last, came up and briefly touched noses with Ripple and himself. When she re-entered the creek and slipped downstream it was with the understanding that she would see them again on her regular rounds during the weeks ahead.
With her mother gone, Ripple crept closer to Swimmer for comfort, and they waited while the shadows lengthened and deepened. It seemed that Clarence would never return.
It was long after dark when Clarence finally got back. Swimmer knew instantly that he was deeply concerned about something.
“Did you find Penny?” he said, almost afraid to ask questions.
“No,” Clarence mumbled. “She must have got hungry and gone back to the trout farm. I sure wish we’d located her first. Mr. Owl was ready to take her home with him until Mr. Hogarth could get a decent family to look after her.”
Swimmer waited. There was something else in the back of Clarence’s mind, and it had to do with Snake Eyes. But Clarence began talking about the trout farm instead.
“That’s a mighty pretty little place, Swimmer,” he said, as he broke up twigs to start a small fire. “First time I saw it I thought how I’d like to own it and retire there. Doesn’t look like that’ll happen now, but, at least, I bought up the mortgage on it.”
“You—you bought the trout farm mortgage from the bank?” Swimmer exclaimed.
“Well, I had Mr. Owl do it for me this morning, so folks wouldn’t know. You see, by my buying the mortgage, we figured we’d get Mr. Sykes to sell the place if we offered a good price. When I found out he still had his old farm he could move back to, I offered better than a good price if he’d sell and move out immediately.”
Clarence sighed and shook his head. “It didn’t work. Not even with an overdue mortgage hanging over him that could be foreclosed. He sure is a no-account stubborn buzzard!”
Swimmer had only a hazy idea of such matters. “Couldn’t you foreclose and drive the scumpy weasel off?” he asked hopefully.
“No,” said Clarence. “It takes forever to pry a man loose from his property that way. There are scads of laws to protect him. I thought sure I could get old Doc to handle it—with all his money he’d manage to get it right away if he wanted it. But that didn’t work, either. Now, I don’t know what to do.”
“Why don’t you tell me about Snake Eyes?” Swimmer said uneasily.
Clarence looked at him sharply. He sighed again. “Reckon I’d better. You’ve got to know the worst. I think that rascal wants to kill you.”
“No!”
“I’m afraid he does, old pal.”
“But why? What makes you so sure?”
“It’s like this,” said Clarence. “When I left Mr. Owl and Mr. Hogarth at the road I figured I’d better do a little scouting, just for safety’s sake. When we were looking for Penny we found where Snake Eyes and his man have their truck hidden, so we knew Doc had probably hired ’em to stick around until he could get that restraining order changed—which he’ll do, sure as anything.
“Anyway, when I found where those trappers were camped, I had one of those funny feelings like I get sometimes. So I slipped back there and did some listening. That devilish black dog made it hard—I had to keep downwind and stay in the smoke of their campfire, so he wouldn’t sniff me. And I didn’t dare get too close, either. So I could only catch a word now and then. But I caught enough. Snake Eyes hates you. And he’s scared of you.”
“Hates me? Scared of me? But why?”
“Because you can talk,” said Clarence. “He’s superstitious, and it really shook him. He hates you for the things you said to him—and he’s scared of you for the things you haven’t said. He’s got the idea you can read his mind.”
“Pshaw, his own dog can do that.”
“But he doesn’t know it. All he knows is that he’s done things he wouldn’t want the world to hear about. Jake would like to catch you and hold you for ransom, and put the squeeze on Doc, for Doc would pay big. But Jake’s afraid to try it. He’s superstitious too. So they both decided they’d better get rid of you, and fast.”
Swimmer was shocked. “Aw, fiffle,” he muttered, glancing at Ripple. “Now, we’ll have to find another den. Maybe we’d better—”
He stopped, for Ripple was suddenly alert. Then he caught the dog scent on the night breeze. It was Scruffs scent, and now he could hear the big dog coming swiftly down through the woods, making no effort to conceal his movements. Something must be very wrong for Scruff to act that way.
Seconds later the tawny beast reached the edge of the firelight. He halted abruptly and gave a low urgent growl.
Clarence, startled, leaped to his feet. But Swimmer said, “It’s about Penny. Something’s happened. He wants me to come and help.”
9
He Releases a Prisoner
Clarence said quickly, “Try to find out where she is, and what’s wrong.”
Swimmer looked at Scruff a moment and reported, “She’s locked up somewhere. A sort of small place, and not far from the house. He’ll lead me to it. He thinks I can handle the lock.”
“Maybe you can, but you’ve no business going up there alone.”
“Aw, don’t treat me like a gloop. Scruff will be with me, and he can sure lick anything I can’t.”
“Wait,” said Clarence. “There are too many things coming to a head at once. Let me think a minute.” He stood scowling into the dark while he rubbed his long jaw. Abruptly he said, “We’ll all go, at least as far as the fence. And, Swimmer, I’d better carry you.”
“Huh? What for?�
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“Now who’s acting like a gloop? When we leave here, we’re not coming back. Do you want that devilish hound to trail you to the next place? He knows your scent.”
Swiftly Clarence trod out the tiny fire and soaked the embers with a cup of water. He threw his sleeping bag and knapsack over one shoulder and lifted Swimmer to the other. Finally he reached for his hiking stick and hesitated. “Where’s Willow?”
“Gone traveling with friends. She won’t be back.”
“Good! If Snake Eyes comes; he’ll gas an empty tree. Let’s go.”
There was only starlight overhead, and not much of it sifted down through the trees, but Swimmer had little trouble keeping Scruff in sight. Clarence, though, was forced to use his flashlight continually, and he moved slowly up the long slope, taking care not to stumble. Ripple was a silent shadow, gliding between the dog and the man.
They crossed the winding brook that splashed down from the trout pools and at last gained the fence. It was an old barbed-wire affair overgrown with honeysuckle. While Scruff waited impatiently on the other side, Clarence set Swimmer down with a grunt of relief and peered through the dim apple orchard beyond.
“You used to weigh twenty-seven pounds,” he muttered under his breath, “but now it feels like a hundred. H’mm. I’ve got really good night vision, but I can’t make out any buildings from here.”
“I can,” said Swimmer. “Why don’t I go ahead with Scruff? If I can’t open the place she’s locked in, I’ll come back for you.”
“Okay. But watch it, pal. If you have any trouble with that dog up there, let Scruff handle him. Tell Scruff to chase him ’way off to one side to divert attention.”
Swimmer crept under the fence. Ripple followed.
You had better stay here, he told her. There may be trouble.
Then you will need me. We must learn to work together.
Silently they followed Scruff through the orchard. Swimmer limped confidently, his bad leg forgotten as his senses sharpened to the many messages brought on the night breeze. They rounded the lower trout pond, crept past the side of a small barn Swimmer had seen from the fence, then all three stopped abruptly.
Directly ahead, shrouded by evergreens, lay the trout farm cottage. From one lower window came a dull glow of light. Off to the left, and much too close to the cottage for comfort, were three small buildings. Swimmer realized instantly that Penny must be in one of them, even though he had not yet caught her scent. But Tattle’s scent was strong from the area to the right of the lighted window.
Swimmer had barely scented and located Tattle, when the fickle breeze turned and began to come from the opposite direction. It was the worst thing that could have happened.
Swiftly, for the three of them were aware of the danger on the instant, they headed for the group of small buildings. But they had covered less than half the distance when Tattle caught the scent of the invaders and set up a wild and almost hysterical yapping.
Get him! Swimmer ordered Scruff. We’ll find Penny.
As Scruff charged, he and Ripple raced for the nearest building. From the direction of the cottage came a sudden snarl followed by a frightened shriek from Tattle.
Precious seconds were lost before Swimmer discovered that Penny was not in the first building but in the third. As he reached up to find out how the latch worked, he could hear her dry sobs inside. He started to call out to her, but thought better of it. Someone else might hear him. And what if he couldn’t open the door?
It didn’t have a regular lock, but a hasp that folded over a staple. Thrust down through the staple, securing it against all possibility of being opened from within, was an old screwdriver.
Ordinarily such a simple arrangement would have given him no trouble at all. But the screwdriver had been rammed down through the staple with such force that he was unable to budge it. Nor could he reach high enough to grasp it by the handle and pull it upward. It had to be pushed from below, and he could stand on only one foot to do it.
Somewhere in the distance Swimmer could hear Tattle’s panicky yelps as he dodged for his life. Over in the cottage lights suddenly came on, flooding the porch and the pools. A door slammed. Someone cursed and ran outside, and a spotlight swept the barn and the orchard. Seconds later there was the sharp report of a rifle.
As he struggled frantically with the screwdriver, he heard another shot and then another. He knew it was Weaver’s rifle, for it had the same sound as the weapon that had been used against him days ago. Desperately he tugged and twisted, but the jammed metal held tight.
Suddenly another small pair, of “hands” like his own was helping, and Ripple was adding her strength to the upward thrust. All at once the screwdriver loosened, and seconds later they were inside.
“It’s us!” he gulped to the huddled form on the floor, his gnome voice sounding very froglike in his haste. “Scruff brought us the word. Quick—let’s get out of here!”
“But—but—I don’t know what to do,” Penny sobbed. “I—I—I’ve no place to go.”
“Yes, you have—you’ve got friends, now. Hurry!”
As she got uncertainly to her feet, Swimmer plucked at the scrap of tarpaulin she was clutching tightly about her and drew her outside. He realized at once that her eyes were so swollen now that she could hardly see.
“Lead her, Ripple,” he said aloud. “This way.”
Ripple caught a corner of the tarpaulin between her teeth, and they started around the corner of the building in a direction that would take them well away from the trout pools and the barn. They had barely reached the orchard when there was another shot. Before the echo of it had died away, they were startled by a piercing cry of pain and fright.
“Pa!” Weaver Sykes yelled shrilly. “Pa! Help me, Pa! I’m caught!”
Penny gasped. “Oh, dear! I knew it would happen! I just knew it.”
“Knew what?” Swimmer muttered, not in the least concerned over Weaver’s agonies. His worry was for Scruff. From the moment the big dog had started the diversion, Swimmer had been aware of Scruff out there, drawing the attention away from them. But at the sound of the last shot the connection had been broken. It had been broken by a bullet.
“It’s that awful last trap,” Penny was saying. “The one Mr. Sykes refused to look for. It was the biggest of all—and now Weaver’s caught in it!”
“Let ’im stay caught,” Swimmer growled. “He—he shot Scruff.”
“Oh, no!” Penny wailed. “Scruff’s my friend! Where is he? Help me find him!”
“Clarence will take care of him if he’s still alive. It happened down there near the fence where Clarence is waiting. Let’s get moving!”
To Weaver’s cries were now added more sounds from the cottage. A door banged, there were angry oaths, and someone pounded across a porch, down the steps, and out upon the gravel. Once, through the trees, Swimmer glimpsed the hurrying form of Grady Sykes vaguely outlined by the cottage lights.
Penny could not move fast, and it seemed to take forever to reach the fence across the lower slope of the orchard. They had come out, Swimmer figured, a good hundred yards or more from the spot where he had left Clarence.
When they had crawled under the wire, he said to Penny, “If you’ll wait here with Ripple, I’ll go and get Clarence. We’ll be heading in this direction anyway.”
“Aw’right,” Penny whispered. “And—and please excuse me for being a crybaby. But when you get tired of trying to tough it out, it sort of helps.”
“Aw, fiffle, everybody has to cry,” Swimmer told her. “Even otters.”
If you haven’t cried, you haven’t lived, he thought, as he began following the fence toward Clarence. He had cried more than once in his life, and the way he felt at the moment he was on the edge of doing it again. He wouldn’t have believed he could feel this way over a ding-blatted old dog, practically his born enemy. But Scruff was different.
When he reached the right place along the fence, the only sign of Clarence wa
s his scent. Of Clarence himself he could see nothing. But he could hear voices. At last he made out two dark shapes far over on the right where the brook from the trout pools curved down under the fence.
“But I can’t stand up, Pa,” Weaver Sykes whined. “It hurts something awful. I think my leg’s broke.”
“Your dang leg ain’t broke! You oughta had better sense than to step down in that water, slap in the one place I told you to keep away from. Of all the tomfool—”
“But I couldn’t help it, Pa! I’d just shot that big varmint of a dog. I seen ’im fall, an’ I was running to git close enough to finish ’im off—”
“You sure you seen ’im fall?”
“Sure I seen ’im! I ain’t blind.”
“Then where is he now?”
“Danged if I know! If he’s gunshot …”
“He’ll be meaner’n a bear. We’d better git back to the house. C’mon, Weaver, I done freed your foot but I don’t aim to carry you. Git up an’ try to walk.”
Swimmer had heard enough to piece together what had happened. Suddenly he turned and crept carefully over to the curving bank of the brook and followed it a few yards downstream. Almost immediately he found Clarence crouched under the edge of the bank holding Scruff’s limp body.
“Is—is he dead?” Swimmer gulped.
“No. His heart’s still beating. Where’s Penny?”
Swimmer explained, and he added, “Her eyes are swollen shut.”
“Oh, lordy!” Clarence shook his head. “This calls for some tall thinking. Those Sykes fellows gone yet?”
“They’ve just left.”
“Well, we can’t stay here, so I reckon I’ll carry Scruff over to where Penny is. We’ll figure it out from there.”
Swimmer wondered how Clarence was going to manage such a load, for he was still carrying the sleeping bag and knapsack. But the black man merely crouched, pulled Scruff’s body over his left shoulder with one hand, and thrust himself upright with his hiking stick.
A few minutes later they reached the spot where Penny and Ripple were waiting, and the big dog was gently lowered to the ground. Penny held back her tears while Clarence carefully examined Scruff with the aid of his flashlight.
The Preposterous Adventures of Swimmer Page 9