Irish Red

by Jim Kjelgaard

  Mike stood in the center of what had been the kitchen, his tail curled flat against his rump and ears drooping sadly. The things that had made the cabin familiar were not there, and most disheartening of all, Danny and Ross were gone. Only their scent still lingered.

  Blown by the wind, the door slammed shut with a report that made Mike jump. He turned fearfully, shivering as he saw his only means of escape blocked off. His attention was attracted by something beneath the window, and he went over to sniff at a dead crow. Probably, in trying to escape the strike of a hawk or owl, the crow had flown against the window and been killed by the impact against the breaking glass.

  Mike jumped nervously backward when the door blew open, then turned and fled through it at full speed. He felt a little better when he was again outside. The cabin was so cold, so cheerless, and so very empty. It seemed much bigger than it should and every breeze that sighed through was an echo of the happy sounds that had once filled the place. Nothing else, Mike had discovered, can be as empty as an empty house.

  He was more than ever at a loss, and lacked even a faint idea of what to do or where to go. The scents of Ross and Danny remained inside the cabin, but outside the rain had washed everything away and there was no guide to tell him where his beloved masters had gone. He knew only that Ross and Danny had vanished without a trace.

  There was no twilight, but only a thickening of the cloud-laden day and then it was night. Mike padded nervously to .the end of the porch. Driving rain began to fall in great misty sheets.

  Mike blinked into the rain and at the same time caught the scents borne by the wind. He smelled the pig, the one he had driven away. The pig had been running loose for only a short while, but already he was half wild. Now he stole back into the rain-lashed clearing to find food but he did not come openly. The pig had learned some of the ways of wild things, and knew that to be cautious is to stay alive and free.

  Mike made no attempt to approach the pig, a creature whom he liked to chase but for whom he had no liking.

  Despair and discouragement had momentarily made him forget his hunger, but now his appetite returned. Mike snuffled at the root cellar, whose door was also swinging open, then leaped from the porch into the rain. He ran to the root cellar and poked his nose within.

  A mouse scurried past him and dived into a crevice. Mike looked disinterestedly at it, and resumed his olfactory inventory of the root cellar. It was heavy with mingled odors of the various foods that had been stored within it. Mike caught the distinctive smells of onions, potatoes, and cabbage. He drooled at the hooks where hams and sides of bacon had hung in the root cellar, and licked his chops. Finally he found what had attracted the mouse.

  It was a two-pound slab of bacon, dropped and unnoticed when Danny packed the rest of the meat. The mouse had started on one end, and as the days passed he had eaten more than half. Mike picked it up, carried it near the door, and lay down to gnaw the fat bacon from the rind. He ate it all, then spent fifteen minutes chewing up and swallowing the tough rind.

  Finished with his meal, Mike padded out of the root cellar into the storm, and was seized with a sudden, uncontrollable impulse to tell his woes to anything that would listen. He sat down, curled his tail around his rear paws, pointed his nose at the sky, formed his mouth into an O, and wailed as only a lost, forsaken baby can wail. The mournful notes were whisked away by the storm.

  Mike stood up, tense and shivering, no longer a lost pup but a wolf---protesting his woes. Then the spell faded and he was a dog again. He glanced sideways at the cabin, but stayed away from it. Then he turned toward the barn.

  The barn door, too, was open and swinging in the wind. When the door swung wide Mike slipped in. The barn seemed friendly. Save for the fact that the tools and some of the fixtures had been, taken away, it was not changed at all.

  The same pile of wild hay upon which he had slept was there, beside two abandoned stalls that had not been occupied since the Picketts’ mule and cow had been killed by Old Majesty. Mike turned wearily toward the hay, and again stopped in his tracks.

  There was something besides himself in the barn, something alive and warm. Mike’s tail stiffened and he lifted one foot, as though he were pointing birds. Inquisitive nostrils moved eagerly as he sought to identify the thing that was already in his bed.

  It was a baby woodchuck, one of many that were annually reared about the clearing. Only this morning its mother had been caught by a prowling fox, and the panicky baby had left its home den. The barn had been an inviting refuge, and the baby ‘chuck had not hesitated to enter. Now he was tense and frightened.

  If the invader was hostile he would fight, but he had no wish to do so because he, too, was lost and cold. He felt as desperate as Mike for both company and comfort, so when the two babies met in the darkness of the barn there was no battle, The woodchuck rattled his teeth a few times and stopped. Mike wagged a happy tail, relieved that he was not alone, and lay down in the hay. The woodchuck, who would run as fast as possible from a dog as soon as he had more experience, snuggled close to him. The two lost youngsters had not yet learned that they were supposed to be enemies.

  Mike slept happily, almost peacefully, more contented than he had been since he left the clearing. It was true that Danny and Ross were not here, and their absence left a great ache, but he was not without congenial company. A dozen times he awakened to snuffle his bed companion, then returned to sleep.

  He awakened to find that morning had come and the storm had quieted. The baby woodchuck was standing in the open door, wrinkling his nose at odors that floated in, and presently he waddled forth to nibble green grass. Mike watched him go, but made no attempt to follow. They had met in the stormy night, comforted each other, and now each must go his own way. The woodchuck disappeared in some tall grass.

  Mike had no realization that the baby ‘chuck was going to find food in the grass. He was too busy trying to puzzle out the source of his own next meal.

  He prowled back to the root cellar and inspected it thoroughly. The scents were still there, and the odors of smoked ham and bacon made his mouth water, but there wasn’t any food. Not even a shred remained of the slab of bacon. Mike nosed along the floor, and turned up nothing at all.

  A happy thought struck him and he raced out of the root cellar. The Picketts’ garbage pit was beyond the upper end of the clearing, in a grove of white birches. Frequently Mike had recovered choice tidbits from it. He ran through the clearing into the woods, then jerked to a sudden halt, his attention attracted by one specific scent.

  Forgetting completely , the fact that he was hungry, Mike swung into the breeze. He worked carefully, head up and nostrils quivering as he traced the alluring scent to its source. The nearer he came to the big cock partridge he had located, the slower he worked.

  He froze in a perfect point, nose stretched, tail stiff, and one front paw lifted. It was an instinctive move, one he could not help any more than a bird can help flying. Mike knew nothing about the more refined aspects of pointing and holding birds; the scent of partridge was simply far and away the most fascinating odor that had ever tickled his nostrils. With that odor heavy before him, he could think of nothing else.

  Mike trembled with a throbbing delight that seemed to awoken every nerve and muscle. Only once before had he smelled anything so intriguing, and that time he had been too full of porcupine quills to savor the experience fully. Now he could, and he just had to get nearer to the bird he was pointing.

  He advanced a step at a time while his body remained as tense as stretched string. Then he gave way to an almost delirious excitement and broke in a wild rush that was intended to overwhelm the sitting bird. He brought up foolishly as the partridge took thundering wing, and watched it as it sailed out of sight behind some trees.

  Mike could not know that scenting a partridge at such a distance was a feat that would have reflected credit on Red himself. He knew only that hunting birds was a glorious pastime. Giving no second thought to the
garbage pit and the food he might find there, Mike began determinedly to cast through the beech woods.

  His search was swift but awkward and puppy-like. He knew nothing whatever of the habits of the birds he wished to find, and had no idea of the most likely places to find them. But what he lacked in experience he almost made up in enthusiasm. Mike raced wildly, nose always into the wind. A half hour after finding the first bird, he discovered another.

  Again he snapped to a point. But again he let anxiety overcome him, and flushed the bird he had found. Mike watched it sail away, then resumed his hunt.

  By evening he had found, pointed, and tried to catch, more than a dozen birds. Enthusiasm undiminished, but muscles and body wearier than ever before, he finally had to stop. When he did he realized for the first time that his hunger had increased ten-fold. Reluctantly he left the beech woods and headed off for the garbage pit.

  The pig had been there and so had a small bear; their tracks and scent were much in evidence. Two such scavengers had left very little. Mike crossed and re-crossed the pit, hopeful nose to the ground, and found not so much as a crumb. Hungry birds and mice had gleaned whatever the pig and bear had overlooked or spurned.

  Disconsolately Mike wandered back to the clearing and sought out the friendly barn. He had been hungry when he started and a day’s hard hunting had made him ravenous, but there was neither food nor hope of food in or about the clearing. Mike walked restlessly back to the cabin, and peered in without entering. The cabin was more than ever a cold and cheerless place.

  The puppy prowled all around the clearing on an aimless search, and when he found nothing he ate some grass. That didn’t even dull die edge of his appetite, and tasted no better than it had before. Suddenly Mike thought of the three garbage cans down at the big house. Remembering the netted cat, he was reluctant to go there. But perhaps if he went by night nothing would interfere. Mike started down the trail.

  As soon as he broke out of the woods into the clearing he stopped to reconnoiter. He hadn’t liked this place when he first visited it and he liked it even less now; only desperate hunger could have driven him back.

  He started down through the meadow toward the big house, and was opposite the barns when a man carrying a lantern approached him. Mike stopped in the trail, warily watching. It was Curley Jordan. The lantern light fell on Mike, and Curley stopped.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he said softly. “I just do what I’m told around here. I never wanted to take Danny’s dogs away.”

  Mike waited, friendly but unwilling to be recaptured. He kept a sharp eye on Curley Jordan, not understanding the words but knowing the tone of voice was amiable.

  “I know why you ran away, and I don’t blame you,” the man went on. “I don’t like some people around here any better than you do. Now wait a minute. I think you came back because you’re hungry.”

  Mike backed farther into the shadows, uncertain now whether to risk foraging at the garbage cans. Perhaps he had better run back to the beech woods at once. Curley disappeared in his own house and almost immediately came out. Mike did not run because of the smell of the package Curley was carrying. He stretched his head toward it, and licked his chops when Curley put the meat and table scraps on the ground. Curley backed away.

  “There you are, pup. I’m not going to try catching you. Eat it, then give my best to Danny and Ross when you find ‘em,”

  Curley disappeared and Mike went swiftly forward to wolf the package of scraps. He sought out and licked up every last crumb, then wagged a grateful tail at Curley’s house. Plainly he had one friend here.

  Mike spent a lonely night in the Pickett barn, and all of the next day in an eager hunt for partridges. He didn’t catch any or even come close, but his enthusiasm for such sport was still at a high pitch when night came. Again he went down to the big house and found the meal Curley Jordan had put out for him. There was plenty; Curley knew how much a hungry dog can eat.

  Night after night Mike made his headquarters in the barn. The leaves began to turn color and the first frost left its white rime on the ground. Mike spent every day hunting partridges, and when he located one his procedure was always the same. He got as near as he dared, pointed, then rushed in to a hoped-for catch. Invariably the birds flushed before he got near enough to be even a faint threat. It was wild hunting that resulted in nothing, but Mike could stop doing it no more than he could stop breathing.

  During his hunts, Mike did teach himself a great deal about his quarry. He learned that they were almost always to be found in the forest, and that they ventured rarely into unwooded land. They liked the sun, and both mornings and afternoons were apt to be dusting themselves on sunny slopes. When night approached, they drifted back toward the thickets in which they roosted. They were omnivorous feeders, eating wild fruit, insects, acorns, beech nuts, and miscellaneous bits. Mike even learned to identify birds that he pointed again and again by their own distinctive body scents.

  Mike also learned that the harder they were hunted, the warier they became. Some birds which at first he had found around the clearing had left it for the deep woods. With reckless enthusiasm Mike followed, going as deeply into the beech forest as the quarry he hunted.

  One frost-seared morning he came upon a porcupine at the foot of a tree. Mike braked himself to an abrupt halt, remembering his earlier dismal experience with such a beast. He growled at the uncaring creature, then made a very wide circle around it. Safely beyond any possible threat, Mike ran to put more distance between the porcupine and himself.

  A wild song of sheer joy suddenly burst from him. Completely by accident, he had stumbled upon a recent trail of Danny Pickett and Big Red.

  Putting his nose to the ground, Mike flew full speed along that trail.

  8. A Use for Mike

  Danny Pickett left the cabin in Budgegummon with Red at his heels. He was going out partly to scout fur sets and partly to set a few traps for animals upon which he could collect a bounty. No good trapper, this early in the season, would even think of taking furs that would be worth twice as much after cold weather made them prime, but there was a two-dollar bounty on weasels, four on gray foxes, and twelve on wildcats. If Danny could earn thirty or forty dollars bounty trapping, it would come in very handy.

  He crossed a small ridge, and stopped to nail part of a chicken head to a tree. While Red looked interestedly on, Danny set a number one trap beside the bait, staked it, and covered it lightly with leaves. He travelled on, setting traps at intervals. They were all weasel sets and no special care had to be taken with them. Weasels were voracious little beasts, and not afraid of human scent.

  As he walked farther into the woods, Danny worried a bit about Ross. All his life Danny’s father had waged a bitter hand-to-hand struggle with the elements around him, and had held his own. Ross, however, had faced too many blizzards, been caught in too many storms, had fought his way across too much deep snow. It was beginning to show. It seemed only a few weeks ago that he had been able to keep going all day and all night too, but now he was glad to seek his bunk right after supper. Furthermore, he seemed unduly depressed. He had loved Sheilah and her children and now they were lost to him. Although he said little, Danny knew that he brooded about it.

  They hadn’t done any hunting at all yet because the only seasons open were those on woodcock and waterfowl, and very few ducks and geese flew over the mountains. There were plenty of woodcock, but they were tiny things, not worth an expensive shotgun shell. Danny grinned ruefully. Hunting was properly a sport, but there were times when a man had to figure on getting the biggest possible supply of meat for each shell expended.

  Red came padding back and looked anxiously at Danny. The big dog knew as well as his master that hunting season was at hand, and he was eager to be oil with the real business of hunting.

  “Few more days,” Danny murmured. “Just a few more days and we can go after partridge, Red. Hang onto your tail until then.”

  Danny set a few m
ore weasel traps and located good spots for fox sets near trails that ran through the woods. Then he swung down a hill toward a brook that ran into Budgegummon Creek. There were muskrat signs here, and many willow thickets where rabbits lived. The rabbits, and the trout in the streams, would attract mink and otter. Prospecting for fur signs, Danny cruised along the stream.

  Red had been absent for some time, and Danny straightened to look for him. He whistled, and waited. Red never liked to leave a partridge he was pointing, but he would always respond to a whistle. Up on the ridge he had just left, Danny heard an answering bark.

  He knitted puzzled brows, not recognizing the bark nor understanding what Red was trying to tell him. He knew all Red’s various signals, from the happy one when he was teasing a porcupine to his thunderous roar of anger, but this was something new and strange. Danny whistled again, then between the trees he caught a flash of red fur and saw a dog racing toward him.

  “Mike!”

  A second later the near-hysterical puppy flung himself down at Danny’s feet. He thrust his hind quarters into the air, laid his cheek flat on the ground, and pushed himself along with his rear legs. Then he reared and did an insane little dance. He rolled over and over, voicing his happiness at this glad reunion. Finally he sidled up to the kneeling Danny, slid his long head into the crook of Danny’s arm, and closed blissful eyes.

  Danny clasped his arm about Mike’s neck while he tickled the red puppy’s ear with his free hand. Mike sighed happily, and Danny swallowed the lump in his throat. The tale was easy to unravel. Mike always had been a genius at escaping any sort of confinement he did not like.

  “You crazy pup!” Danny said. “You shouldn’t have run away from your kennel!”

  Mike danced again, wagging everything behind his black nose and even twitching that as, in every way a dog can, he told Danny how glad he was to see him.