Irish Red

by Jim Kjelgaard

  Shouldering his axe, with Mike trailing beside him and Red following, Danny started back to the cabin. When they reached the clearing, Mike left his side and raced away at full speed until he disappeared in the forest. Probably he had smelled Ross coming.

  Danny kindled a fire, washed up, and put water over to heat Red came in to stretch out beside the stove, and a moment later raised his head. Danny went to the door.

  Ross was leading one of Bide Clegg’s horses, with the dressed pig on it. Mike was running around and around him; he still had plenty of spirit left. Danny went out to help his father.

  They hung the dressed pig in a tree, and Danny felt again that respect which Ross’s woodcraft always inspired. At best, butchering hogs was not easy or simple and Ross had had only primitive tools. Still the carcass was as clean as any professional butcher could have made it. Ross stepped back.

  “There. Give it time to mellow and we’ll have smoked ham and bacon. Did you chop my hickory wood?”

  “Yup.”

  “Good. I’ll haul it in the mornin’, then take Hide’s horse back. Reckon we won’t need him any more.”

  “I won’t anyway,” Danny said. “I aim to get in a day’s hunt, then hit into the big woods for a spell.”

  “Where you goin’, boy?”

  “Just cruising-around,” Danny evaded.

  He hadn’t told his father about the marten on Tower Head. There always had been a friendly rivalry between the two, and it would be a feather in Danny’s cap if he could, unannounced, bring in a nice catch of marten. Also, if Ross knew of the marten, he would insist on going along and Danny did not want him to climb Tower Head. To avoid any further questions, Danny changed the subject.

  “Pappy, what do you really think of that Mike pup?”

  “He’ll beat the field.”

  “He’s got the heart, nose, and speed,” Danny admitted. “I had that shown to me today. How about the rest?”

  “What rest?” .

  “A hunting dog’s not worth the bristle off a pig’s back unless he’ll pay some heed to the man with him.”

  “I thought of that, too,” Ross admitted. “He is sort of bull-headed.”

  “Sort of bull-headed! I never saw a dog more set on having his own way! We might take it out of him, but how do we take out the bad things and leave the good?”

  “Ask Joe Williams,” Ross grinned.

  Danny grunted. “How about a training collar- not just a choke-and a long rope?”

  “Try it, boy.”

  The next morning Danny slipped a training collar over Mike’s head and attached a fifty-foot length of clothesline to it. When Red tried to go out with them, Danny ordered the big dog back. The red puppy strained to the very end of the short length of rope Danny let him have and began investigating various fascinating scents. Danny stopped him gently.

  “Whoa!” he said.

  Mike stopped and looked questioningly around at Danny. He started up again, pulling to one side to inspect some object lying there. Again Danny stopped him, repeating the command as he tightened the rope. Mike came reluctantly in to walk at Danny’s side. A chipmunk flashed ahead of them and the red puppy leaped at it. Danny stopped him as gently as he could.

  “Whoa, Mike.”

  The puppy shook his head, as though testing the collar and rope. When he started out again he did so easily, keeping the collar loose by not exerting any pressure against it. Danny felt encouraged. Mike seldom displayed much intelligence, but today he was not being fool enough to choke himself unnecessarily. Why?

  With almost any other dog Danny would have known exactly what to do, but Mike was more than ever an enigma. Yesterday he had fought the leash hard, today he refused to strain against the harsher training collar. Danny let out a little more slack and the puppy trotted away.

  “Whoa,” Danny said softly.

  Mike stopped in his tracks, turning as though inquiring what he wanted. After only three lessons, he responded as perfectly as any puppy could to the command to stop. Danny twitched his fingers and the red puppy walked in to have his ears scratched. He was a model of canine deportment, but Danny wasn’t fooled. Neither people nor dogs changed suddenly overnight.

  “Wish I knew what you’re thinking,” Danny murmured. “Sure wish I did. Reckon I’ll take you into partridge cover and find out how you act there.”

  Mike walked amiably beside him, not even tugging at the rope, as Danny quartered up a beech ridge. This was one of the years’ great harvests. The beech trees had borne a lavish crop, and tons of ripe brown nuts lay among the litter on the forest floor. Everything from furtive mice to lumbering bears were making free use of the great plenty cast down among them. There were squirrels by the dozen, and once Danny caught sight of an antlered buck sneaking away.

  Mike sniffed at all the tracks, reading with his nose the stories of the animals that had left them. But it was not the passionate interest of an eager hunter. Suddenly he stopped short.

  He stood, head up, still as a carven statue, while he read some fascinating tale brought to him by a stray breeze. A second later he swung at right angles to the course they had been following. He went swiftly but softly, making no more noise than he could help. He seemed to have forgotten Danny, and everything else, except the game he was working.

  Danny let him go, paying out more rope as Mike got farther away and doing nothing to interfere with the puppy’s hunt. Mike came to the end of the rope, and pulled hard.

  “Whoa, Mike.”

  The red puppy pulled harder, scraping with all four feet as he sought freedom. Danny ran to keep up, and Mike kept the rope taut. He snapped to a point so perfect that Danny again could not help thinking of Red. Then he broke.

  Danny held the rope with both hands, talking to and trying to soothe the frantic puppy on the other end. Two partridges took wind and Mike redoubled his efforts. He rolled over and over, tangling himself in the rope, and paying no attention to Danny’s voice. Partridges were in the offing.

  Mike strained harder, tightening the collar until his breath came in labored, audible grunts. His tongue lolled out, almost brushing the ground. His eyes were distended, but still he tried to pull even harder.

  Eyes intent on the puppy, Danny worked himself up the rope. He did not even see the protruding tree root until it was too late, and when he stumbled he flung out both hands to catch himself.

  The rope slipped from his grasp, and Mike raced out of sight.

  When Mike ran away from Danny, he did so because he could do nothing else. The intoxicating smell of partridges was hot in his nostrils, and he would fight ropes, training collars, or anything else, to respond to that scent.

  The trailing rope whipped about bushes and trees in his path, and slowed him to some extent, but Mike never even thought of the rope or of the sudden jerk on his neck every time it tightened. He had marked the brace of partridges down and wished to get near them once more. Nothing else mattered.

  Mike wheeled suddenly and cut at an angle to the direction he had been taking. He had already taught himself that partridges did not always alight where they seemed to, and a breeze blowing in from the side brought him scent of the pair he had just flushed.

  They had alighted among a cluster of huge beech trees. As Mike neared them, and the scent strengthened, he slowed his wild flight. This, the delicious moment when he neared the game he sought, was the climax of every hunt. The moment before the final pounce was a thrilling one, filled with something that satisfied the puppy’s deepest longings.

  As he came closer, he marked the birds’ exact location. They sat in the leaves, heads up, fan tails spread, tense wings ready for instant flight. So perfectly did they blend with their surroundings that it was almost impossible to see them, but Mike did not rely on his eyes. His nose told him where the game was and he used that knowledge to his own advantage.

  The partridges were between two beech trees, with a boulder on the far side and a small bush on the near. Mike approached from
the boulder, knowing he would find no leaves on it and therefore he would make less noise. He stopped, edged forward, then snapped into a point.

  He himself could not have known why he did. Perhaps it was a survival of some past age when Mike’s ancestors stalked birds successfully, and the freezing point was part of that stalk. Perhaps his brain was magnetized by nearness to the game he sought. It might even have been something bred into him by men who wanted bird-hunting dogs.

  Mike did not hold his point for long. There was something urging him on, something over which he had no control. He had found his game and now he must catch it. Mike put all the supple strength of his young body into a forward leap. He had chased hundreds of birds without ever catching one, but he never gave up trying.

  These birds, however, knew how to evade a pursuer. Again they angled sharply from the course they had been taking and Mike lost them. For a little while he cast enthusiastically back and forth, hoping to find them again. When he could not, his enthusiasm remained undampened. There were thousands of partridges in the beech woods and he could always try to catch another.

  Mike careened happily through the beeches, looking for more birds to stalk. Suddenly his head came erect and his nose twitched happily; partridges were dusting themselves about fifty yards ahead. He started softly toward them, leaped over a fallen aspen, and halted abruptly.

  The trailing end of the rope had whipped around a tough laurel stalk and entangled itself. Mike sat down, pondering this unwelcome development. He lunged forward, and not only tightened the collar around his neck but alarmed the partridges. They left their dust bath and ran through the laurel.

  At the sight, the driving urge, the fierce will to hunt, triumphed over everything else and Mike strained with all his strength. He reared, shutting off his own breath as he did so but not caring. He scraped the hard earth and rolled over and over. The rope tightened itself about the laurel bush.

  Suddenly Mike stopped struggling to bristle. The changing wind brought him the odor of a prowling coyote. He was not afraid of coyotes, but he was angry because this one was stalking the same partridges he wanted.

  He sat down, head alert, while he followed the rival hunt. The coyote was silent as a cloud, and only the fact that he had the scent enabled the red puppy to follow him at all. As he neared the partridges he went more slowly and carefully; the coyote knew his game and his skill and patience were endless. This sort of hunting had been borri in him, and he was far more cunning at it than any domesticated dog could ever be.

  Mike knew when the coyote stopped just short of the partridges. This was the freeze, the same as-Mike’s point, except that the coyote was crouching so low to the earth, and blended so well with his surroundings, that only the sharpest of eyes could have seen him. This was the tense moment preceding the kill, and the coyote wanted to be certain of where and how to pounce before he leaped in.

  He sprang forward and upward, and intercepted one of the birds in flight. It was not accident; the coyote knew there were three birds ahead of him and he had decided in advance how they would fly. Bearing his prey down, he killed it and trotted away with the bird dangling from his jaws.

  Mike sat mystified but fascinated. A great admiration seized him; plainly coyotes could do what he longed to do but could not.

  Now that both coyote and partridges were gone, he could give some attention to his own predicament. Mike pulled tentatively against the rope, and again succeeded only in choking himself. He eased the strain by backing up, and looked back at the slackened rope, beginning to worry a little. He had been tied before, but never in a forsaken place such as this one. Anxiously he snuffled the air currents, hoping to get Danny’s scent. Danny might come, and the very hope restored some of the red puppy’s waning confidence. He stretched out in the laurel, dozing fitfully and raising his head frequently. Nothing came; he was deserted in the woods.

  Mike got up to beat a restless circle within the limits of his tether. Plainly ropes were a curse. He must be very careful about allowing anybody ever to put another one on him.

  Night came, and with it Mike’s loneliness increased tenfold. Carefully he investigated the rope, looking it over from the place where it dangled from his collar to the place where it was snarled in the laurel. But not until another half hour elapsed did he have a happy inspiration.

  Many times before he had chewed ropes in two, but until now it hadn’t occurred to him to chew this one because no human had tied him. The rope had entangled itself, something new in Mike’s experience. Besides, until now he had hoped that Danny would come. Since he had not, something had better be done soon. Selecting a place about three feet from his collar, Mike started chewing the rope. At last it parted, and the next time he tried to walk away he could do so.

  Mike broke into a swift trot, but instead of heading straight for the cabin he started back toward the place where he had left Danny. He found Danny’s tracks and followed them to the cabin. The windows were alight and wood smoke sweetened the air. Mike scratched on the door.

  “He’s here, Pappy,” Danny said, opening the door. “You crazy red pup. I see you got caught and chewed yourself loose. Didn’t know you had that much sense.”

  Mike wagged happily into the cabin. After an afternoon of anxiety it was wonderful to be back with the two people he loved. He went over to receive Ross’s caress, sniffed noses with Red, and stretched full-length on his rug.

  Early the next morning Mike followed Red out of the cabin. The puppy made a few experimental nips at Red’s ears and tail, then raced around him a couple of times. As usual, he failed to entice the older dog into a game and went off on more interesting business. He snuffled at the tree where the pig hung, and contemptuously scratched dirt with his feet. Then he looked side wise at Red to see how such a demonstration affected him.

  Instead of admiring his son, Red was snuffling at a bunch of frost-withered weeds. Had there been anything more interesting to do, Mike would have done it. But there was nothing else, so he trailed indifferently after his father. Mike looked around to see if Danny or Ross would come out of the cabin and take him for,a walk, and when neither appeared he continued to follow Red.

  There was no filial affection in the act, for never once had it occurred to Mike that he had a father. He liked Red and willingly accorded him his place as an important part of the family, but he also regarded him as a rather dull and stodgy creature that never knew the joys of bouncing up and down or running for the sheer pleasure of running. Red was a companion when nothing else offered.

  When Red set off across the clearing toward the beech woods, Mike paced easily beside him, head up and snuffling prodigiously. Danny had taken the training collar off, and the prospect of another partridge hunt was enticing now that he could run the woods without fear of again becoming entangled. Mike ranged out to trot ahead of his father.

  He snuffled warily, then stopped to let Red catch up with him. Just ahead a porcupine was pursuing his wheezy path between two trees. Mike let Red walk in front of him, intending to follow when the older dog led safely around the grunting porky.

  Instead, much to Mike’s astonishment, Red emitted a happy roar and bounded straight toward it. Rear end in the air, front paws on the ground, he crouched in front of the grunting quill pig and barked. The porcupine thrust his unprotected head between his paws and stopped, presenting a bristling array of spears in all directions.

  Mike’s amazement increased. Instead of letting well enough alone, Red walked around to the side of the porcupine and thrust an exploring paw toward it. He worked his paw almost to the porcupine’s belly, then let out a mighty roar that startled the sluggish animal into walking again.

  Red ran beside it, tempting the porcupine to strike with its tail but always keeping just out of reach. He leaped over and around it, turning the beast he was teasing in half a dozen directions before he finally let the worried porcupine climb another tree. The play over, Red snuffled at some more grass.

  Mike sat st
ill, too overcome to do anything else. Never before had he looked upon Red as anything extraordinary, or even interesting. But what he had just seen was unheard of, far and away outshining the coyote that had caught the partridge. The fact that he had fearlessly approached a porcupine was enough in itself to make Red supreme.

  The worshipful Mike edged close to his father, who ignored him and continued to snuffle at the grass. Mike stayed near, content just to warm himself in the radiance of such a hero. He trotted obediently behind him when Red returned to the clearing.

  Danny called both into the cabin and shut the door. Though he had not nearly exhausted his boundless vitality, Mike was satisfied to stay in the cabin as long as Red didn’t leave. And the big dog gave no sign of leaving. He sat solemnly next to the stove, watching Danny clean a shotgun. Ross was nowhere in sight.

  Red sat so near his beloved master that his furry coat almost touched Danny’s arm. His mouth was open and he was panting expectantly. Red had long known from the weather itself that partridge season was in the offing. He knew very well what a shotgun was for; and when Danny started polishing his a partridge hunt could be only hours away. Red could not know, of course, that partridge season opened at high noon of this very day.

  Mike, who had never hunted to a gun, attached no significance to Danny’s actions. He knew only that great excitement was in the air.

  Danny prepared and ate a sandwich, filled his pockets with shotgun shells, and let Red out. Mike sprang happily up, ready and willing to follow, but Danny closed the door and took the training collar from its peg. Mike backed warily. He knew all about such collars, and if he could possibly help it nobody, not even Danny, was ever going to put another one on him. When Danny twitched his fingers, Mike wagged an apologetic tail and refused to come.

  Danny spoke, but Mike still had no intention of being caught. When Danny tried to corner him, he crawled under the stove and stayed there. Finally Danny put the collar back on its hook, slammed the door, and left.

  Mike crawled from beneath the stove and sat wistfully in front of the door. He felt very forlorn and mistreated, but he still had no intention of wearing the collar; memory of what it could do was still new and fresh. Me moaned plaintively, and lay down by the door.