“You’ll love Flag, Grandma. He’s so smart, you kin learn him like a dog.”
“’Course I’ll love him. Will he git along with Fluff?”
“He likes dogs. He plays with ourn. When they go on a hunt, he slips off another way and meets up with ’em. He loves a bear hunt good as the dogs.”
Praise of the fawn tumbled from him. Penny stopped him, laughing.
“You tell her all them things, you’ll leave nothin’ good for her to find out about him. Then she mought find out some o’ the bad.”
“They’s nothin’ bad about him,” he said passionately.
“Only jumpin’ on the table and knockin’ the tops off the lard cans and buttin’ over the ’taters, and into ever’thing worse’n ten young uns,” Ma Baxter said.
She went into the garden to look at the flowers. Penny took Grandma aside.
“I been worryin’ about Oliver,” he said. “Them bigbullies ain’t drove him off ’fore he was ready to go, have they?”
“It was me drove him off. I got tired o’ him traipsin’ off on the sly to see that gal. I said to him, Oliver,’ I said, ’you jest as good go on back to sea, for you ain’t a mite o’ good to me nor a mite o’ comfort.’ He said, ’I ain’t a mite o’ good to myself. The sea’s the place for me.’ I never figgered the gal’d foller him.”
“You know Lem Forrester’s rarin’, don’t you? Do he ever come here drunk, remember he ain’t human when he gits to sulkin’. Ease him off the best you kin.”
“Now I shore as the devil won’t waste no time tootlin’ him. You know me better’n that. You know I’m made outen whalebone and hell.”
“Ain’t the whalebone gittin’ a mite limber?”
“’Tis, but the hell’s hot as ever.”
“I’d depend on you to back most men down, but Lem’s different.”
Jody was all ears. Now that he was at Grandma’s again, Oliver seemed real once more. It was satisfying, however, to find that she had lost patience with Oliver, too. He would show his displeasure when he saw him again, but he would forgive him. He would never forgive Twink.
The Baxters gathered up their baskets and bags and purchases. Jody tried to guess which sack contained his Christmas surprise, but they all looked alike. The distressing thought came to him that perhaps his mother had really wanted him to see if old Cæsar had broken loose and had bought nothing for him at all. All the way home he sounded her out on the subject.
“You jest as good ask questions o’ that wagon-wheel,” she said.
He took her evasion as a sure sign that she did have something for him.
Chapter XXVI
THE cow freshened the week before Christmas. The calf was a heifer and there was rejoicing on Baxter’s Island. It would take the place of the one the wolves had killed. Trixie was no longer young and it was necessary to raise a heifer soon to replace her. There was little talk at the house except of the coming Christmas. Now that the calf was born, the whole family would be able to be away for over-night on Christmas Eve, for the nursling would take care of the milking.
Ma Baxter baked a fruit-cake in the largest Dutch oven. Jody helped her pick out hickory nut meats for it. It took all day to bake it. For three days, the cake was all there was of life; a day for preparing it, a day for baking it, and the day after for admiring it. Jody had never seen a cake so huge. His mother bulged with her pride.
She said, “I don’t go to the doin’s often, and when I do go, I aim not to go scarce.”
Penny presented her with the black alpaca the evening the cake was done. She looked at him and at the material. She burst into tears. She dropped into a chair and threw her apron over her head and swayed back and forth with every appearance of grief. Jody was alarmed. She must be disappointed. Penny went to her and laid his hand on her hair.
He said, “’Tain’t the lack o’ will I don’t do sich as that for you all the time.”
Jody understood then that she was pleased. She wiped her eyes and gathered the alpaca in her lap and sat holding it for a long time, now and then stroking it lengthwise.
She said, “Now I got to move quick as a black snake to git this made in time.”
She worked day and night for three days, her eyes bright and contented. She was forced to call on Penny for help in the fitting. He knelt humbly, his mouth full of pins, and took up and let out as she directed. Jody and Flag watched, fascinated. The dress was done and hung under a sheet for clean keeping.
Four days before Christmas, Buck Forrester stopped by. He was good-humored and Penny decided that he had imagined any mistrust. Old Slewfoot had visited Forresters’ Island again and had killed a two hundred and fifty pound blue male hog in the nearby hammock. The kill had been in battle and not for food. The hog had put up a mighty fight, he reported. The ground was torn up for yards around. One of the boar’s tusks was broken off and the other was wrapped with old Slew-foot’s black fur.
“Hit’s a good time to come up with him,” Buck said, “for he belongs to be hurt.”
They themselves had not discovered the kill until the day after it had happened. It had been too late to follow. Penny thanked him for the information.
“I reckon I’ll set a trap inside the lot, jest to scare him,” he said. “We-all are fixin’ to go to the river for the doin’s.” He hesitated. “You fellers comin’?”
Buck too hesitated.
“I reckon not. We don’t fool much with them Volusia jessies. No fun goin’ if we wasn’t drunk, and Lem’d likely pick a fight with some of Oliver’s friends. No, reckon we’ll git Christmas-drunk to home. Or mebbe Fort Gates.”
Penny was relieved. He could imagine the distress of the river folk if the Forresters had rolled into the prim and Christian gathering.
He oiled his largest bear-trap. It was six feet in width and weighed, he said, nearly six stone. The chain alone weighed two. He planned to shut the cow and calf together inside the stable, barricade the door and set the trap just outside. If old Slewfoot came to make Christmas dinner of the new heifer while they were all away, he would have to take the trap first. The day passed busily. Jody polished again the necklace of Cherokee beans. He hoped his mother would wear them with the black alpaca. He had nothing for a gift for Penny. He worried and puzzled and in the afternoon went to a low place where pipe-elders grew. He cut a reed and made a pipe stem, and cut a bowl from a corn-cob and fitted it. The Indians who had once been here had made pipe-stems of the reeds, Penny had told him, and he had always meant to make one for himself. He could think of nothing for Flag. He admitted to himself that the fawn would be satisfied with an extra piece of cornbread. He would make him a halter of mistletoe and holly.
That night Penny stayed up after Jody had gone to bed. He occupied himself with a mysterious pounding and slapping and scraping that had something to do, no doubt, with Christmas. The three days left seemed like a month.
No one, not even the dogs, heard any sound in the night. When Penny went to the lot in the morning to milk Trixie, and then to the calf’s stall to turn it in to the mother to nurse, the calf was gone. He thought it had broken down its bars. They were intact. He went into the soft sand of the lot and studied it for tracks. In a straight line across the crisscross of cow and horse and human trails, the track of old Slewfoot stretched inexorably. Penny came to the house with the news. He was white with anger and frustration.
“I’ve had a bait of it,” he said. “I mean to track that creetur down if I foller him clare to Jacksonville. This time, hit’s me or him.”
He went immediately at the business of oiling his gun and preparing shells. He worked rapidly, his manner grim.
“Put me some bread and ’taters in a bag, Ory.”
Jody asked timidly, “Kin I go, Pa?”
“If you kin keep the pace with me and not holler quits. If you give out, you got to lay where you fall or come on back alone. I ain’t stoppin’ before night-fall.”
“Must I shut up Flag or leave him foller?”
He went to the smoke-house and cut strips of ’gator tail for the dogs. He was ready. He trudged through the yard to the lot to take up the trail. He whistled for the dogs and put Julia on the track. She bayed and was off. Jody looked after him in a panic. His gun was not loaded, he had on no shoes, and he could not remember where he had left his jacket. He knew from the set of Penny’s back that it was useless to beg him to wait. He scrambled about, gathering up his belongings. He shouted to his mother to put bread and potatoes in his shot-bag, too.
She said, “You’re like to be in for it. Your Pa’s locked horns with that bear. I know him.”
He called to Flag and tore madly after his father and the dogs. Their pace was swift. He was out of breath by the time he caught up to them. Old Julia was jubilant on the fresh trail. Her voice, her merry tail, her easy lope, showed plainly that this was the thing above all other she wished to be doing. Flag kicked up his heels and ran beside her.
“He’ll not be so frisky,” Penny said ominously, “do old Slewfoot raise up in front of him.”
A mile to the west they found the remains of the calf. The old bear, kept perhaps by his injuries inflicted by the Forresters’ boar, from recent hunting, had eaten heavily. The carcass was well covered with trash.
Penny said, “He’s due to lay up not too fur away, figgerin’ on comin’ back.”
But the animal followed no rules. The trail continued. It led nearly to Forresters’ Island, swung north and west and skirted Hopkins Prairie to the north. The wind was strong from the southwest and Penny said that it was almost certain old Slewfoot was not far ahead of them, but had winded them.
The pace was so rapid and the distance so long that in the late morning even Penny was obliged to stop for a rest. The dogs were willing to continue, but their heaving sides and hanging tongues showed that they too were weary. Penny stopped on a high live oak island by a clear pond on the prairie for the dogs to drink. He threw himself on the ground in the sunlight. He lay on his back without speaking. His eyes were closed. Jody lay down beside him. The dogs dropped flat on their bellies. Flag was unwearied and pranced about the island. Jody watched his father. They had never come so hard and so fast. Here was not the joy of the chase, the careless pitting of man’s brain against creature speed and cunning. This was hate and revenge and there was no happiness in it.
Penny opened his eyes and rolled over on his side and opened his shot-bag and took out his lunch. Jody took out his own. They ate without speaking. The biscuits and cold baked sweet potato seemed almost savorless. Penny threw a few strips of the ’gator meat to the dogs. They gnawed contentedly. It was all one to them whether Penny hunted casually or with a desperate intent. The game was the same, the strong sweet trail, and the good fight at the end. Penny sat upright and swung to his feet.
“All right. Time to git goin’.”
The siesta had been brief. Jody’s shoes were heavy on his feet. The trail led into scrub, then out again, back to Hopkins Prairie. Old Slewfoot was trying to shake the dogs. Their scent still came to him. Penny was obliged to stop twice in the afternoon to rest. He was furious.
“Dog take it, time was I didn’t have to stop,” he said.
Yet each time that he set out again his walk was so fast that Jody was tired out from following him. He dared not say so. Only Flag frisked and frolicked. The long trek was a casual jaunt for his long legs. The trail led almost to Lake George, cut back sharply south, and again, to the east, lost itself in the dusk of the swamp. The sun was setting and visibility was low in the shadows.
Penny said, “Uh-huh. He’s fixin’ to come back and feed on that calf agin. We’ll go home and fool him.”
The distance back to Baxter’s Island was not great, but it seemed to Jody that he could never make it. On any other hunt, he could have said so and Penny would have waited for him patiently. His father moved toward home as doggedly and relentlessly as he had left it. It was dark when they reached it, but Penny at once loaded the great bear trap on the slide, hitched Cæsar to it and dragged it to the site of the kill. He allowed Jody to ride on the slide. He himself walked beside Cæsar, leading him. Jody stretched out his aching legs with relief. Flag had lost interest and hung around the kitchen door.
Jody called, “Ain’t you tired, Pa?”
“I don’t git tired when I be this mad.”
Jody held a fatwood torch for him while he lifted the ragged carcass with sticks, in order to leave no human taint, baited the trap and set it, and scratched leaves and rubbish over it with a pine bough. Penny squatted on the slide for the ride home, dropping the reins and allowing old Cæsar to pick his own way. He put up the horse and found gratefully that Ma Baxter had done the milking. They went to the house. Hot supper was on the table and he ate quickly and lightly, then went directly to his bed.
“Ory, what’d you take to rub my back with panther oil?”
She came and worked on him with big strong hands. He groaned with the comfort of it. Jody stood watching. Penny rolled over and dropped his head on the pillow with a sigh.
“How you makin’ it, boy? Had enough?”
“I feel good sincet I ate.”
“Uh. A boy’s strength rise and fall on his belly. Ory.”
“What?”
“I want breakfast before crack o’ day.”
He closed his eyes and was asleep. Jody went to bed and lay a moment aching, then he too passed beyond hearing of Ma Baxter clattering in the kitchen, laying out materials for the early breakfast.
He slept through the first sounds in the morning. He awakened, still drowsy. He stretched. He was stiff. He heard his father’s voice in the kitchen. Evidently Penny was in the same grim mood as yesterday and had not even thought to call him. He got out of bed and pulled on his shirt and breeches and went sleepily to the kitchen with his shoes in his hand. His hair was shaggy in his eyes.
Penny said, “Morning’, feller. You ready for more?”
He nodded.
“That’s the spirit.”
He was too sleepy to eat much. He rubbed his eyes and dallied with his food.
He said, “Ain’t it too soon to see?”
“Time we git there it’ll jest be soon enough. I aim to creep up on him, do he be suspicious and jest sniffin’ around.”
Penny rose and leaned a moment on the table. He grinned wryly.
“I’d feel right good,” he said, “if my back wasn’t broke smack in two.”
The black morning was bitter cold. Ma Baxter had made up the wool from Jacksonville into hunting jackets and jeans for both of them. They seemed too fine to wear, but walking slowly through the pine woods they wished they had put them on. The dogs were still sleepy and tired and were willing to follow silently at heel. Penny put his finger in his mouth and lifted it to test any imperceptible stirring of air. There seemed to be none and he went in a direct line toward the baited trap. It was in a place that was comparatively open and he halted a hundred yards away. Day was breaking in the east behind them. He slapped the dogs lightly and they dropped to the ground. Jody grew numb with the cold. Penny was shivering in his thin clothes and ragged jacket. Jody saw old Slewfoot in every stump and behind every tree. Interminably slow, the sun rose.
Penny whispered, “If he’s ketched, he’s dead, for I’ve heered nothin’.”
They crept forward with lifted guns. The trap was exactly as they had left it the night before. There was not light enough to make certain of the tracks, to determine whether the wary creature had come and been suspicious and gone away. They rested their guns against a tree and swung their arms and stamped their feet to warm themselves.
“If he’s been here,” Penny said, “he ain’t fur away. OI’ Julia’ll jump him right quick.”
The light was without warmth but it spread through the forest. Penny walked forward, bent low to the ground. Julia was snuffing, silently.<
br />
Penny said, “I be dogged. I jest be dogged.”
Even Jody could see that the only tracks were the day-old ones.
“He ain’t been anywhere near,” Penny said. “He wouldn’t foller a rule to save him.”
He straightened and called in the dogs and turned back for home.
“Anyways,” he said, “we know where he left off yestiddy.”
He did not speak again until they reached the house. He went to his room and pulled on his new wool hunting clothes over the old thin ones.
He called to the kitchen, “Ma, put me up meal and bacon and salt and coffee and all the cooked rations you got. Put ’em in the knapsack. And scorch me some more rags for my tinderhorn.”
Jody tagged after him.
“Must I put on my new things, too?”
Ma Baxter came to the door of the room with the knapsack. Penny paused in his dressing.
“Now boy, you’re plumb welcome to go. But git this in your head and git it good. This is nary pleasure hunt. Hit’s cold weather and hit’ll mebbe be hard goin’ and cold campin’. I jest ain’t comin’ home agin ’til I git that bear. Now you still want to go?”
“Yes.”
“Then git ready.”
Ma Baxter glanced at the sheet over the black alpaca dress.
“You’ll be gone tonight?”
“More’n likely. He’s got a night’s start on me. Mebbe tomorrer night, too. Mebbe a week.”
She swallowed.
She said weakly, “Ezra—tomorrer’s Christmas Eve.”
“Cain’t he’p it. I got a right fresh trail to foller and I’m takin’ it.”
He stood up and fastened his braces. His eye caught the look of misery on his wife’s face. He pursed his mouth.
“Tomorrer’s Christmas Eve, eh? Ma, you’d not be afeered to drive the horse and wagon to the river in daylight, would you?”
“No, not in daylight.”
“Then if we ain’t back tomorrer by time to make it, you hitch up and go on. And if they’s a chancet in the world, we’ll come on to the doin’s. You milk before you go, and if we don’t make it in, you’ll be obliged to come on back next mornin’ and milk. Now that’s the best I kin do.”
The Yearling Page 31