Part 5

The Crawfords and the Staceys, who lived in the Mahela, each kept several horses. Why they did, why they kept any at all, only they could explain, for neither had enough land to warrant keeping even one horse. Still they had them. The horses were usually left to forage for themselves from the time the first spring grass appeared until hunting season opened. Then sometimes they were pressed into service, to pack or pull the tents and gear of hunters who had a yen for some remote spot, or to pack out deer or bears that had been brought down a long ways from any road.

At any rate, the horse tracks were explained. While it wasn't usual for one horse to break from its companions and go wandering, now and again one would do it. The black horse broke from the two browns, trotted down to Ted, arched its neck and extended a friendly muzzle. Ted petted him.

"Lonesome for a human being, fella?"

Ted went on and the black horse followed him a little ways before it turned back to join the other two.

A half mile from the Fordham Road, Ted came to the three sycamores near Glory Rock.

The sides of Coon Valley pitched sharply upwards here, and the beech forest came closer to the valley's floor. The three sycamores, a giant tree and two near-giants, rustled their leaves in the little breeze and remained aloof from everything else, as though they were the royalty in this place. Even Glory Rock, an elephant-backed, elephant-sized boulder whose ancient face wore a stubble of lichens, seemed demure in their presence. To the left, a raggle-taggle thicket of beech brush crawled to within twenty feet of the valley's floor.

Ted looked down at the place where Smoky Delbert had fallen, and there could be no mistaking it. The boy stood still, searching everything near the spot, and as he did hope faded.

The bullet, Loring Blade had said, had gone clear through Smoky. That, within itself, was unusual. With no exceptions of which Ted knew, everybody who came into the Mahela used soft-point hunting bullets that mushroomed on impact. But now and again, though very rarely, a faulty bullet didn't expand when it struck. Probably that was another factor that had saved Smoky's life. A mushrooming bullet did awful damage. In spite of the fact that some of it might escape the hunter, probably at least eighty per cent of anything hit with one died sooner or later. Smoky, Ted's experience told him, never would have moved from beside the sycamores if this bullet had mushroomed.

Ted furrowed his brows. The bullet might prove a lot, but finding it was as hopeless as locating a pebble in the ocean. There was nothing except the sycamores and grass right here, and none of the sycamore trunks were bullet marked. Going through Smoky without expanding, the bullet had snicked into the ground the same way. Locating it might mean sifting tons, and perhaps dozens of tons, of earth. Even then, unless one were lucky, the bullet might elude him.

Tammie, who was sitting beside Ted and staring into the beech brush, whined suddenly. In turn he lifted both white front paws and put them down again. He drank deeply of some scent that only he could detect. Ted looked keenly at him.

"What have you got, Tammie?"

Tammie ran a little ways toward the beech brush and turned to look back over his shoulder. Ted frowned. Loring Blade had reported correctly and in full everything that could be found in the valley, but Loring hadn't had a dog with him. Obviously, Tammie's nose had discovered something that any human being might well miss.

Ted ordered, "Go ahead, Tammie."

The dog started up-slope toward the brush and Ted followed. He ducked into the thicket, so dense that, once within it, visibility was limited to twenty feet or less and there were places where he had to crawl. In the center of the thicket, Tammie halted to look down and Ted came up beside him.

In the center of the beech brush was a well-marked trail used by deer that knew perfectly well the advantages of staying in a thicket. Tammie was looking down at a splash of drying blood, obviously a deer had been badly wounded here and had fallen. Ted heaped lavish praise on his dog.

"Good boy! Good boy, Tammie!"

He set his jaw and his eyes glinted. Unless a hunter were within twenty feet of the trail, in which case it was highly improbable that any deer would have come down it, nobody within the beech brush could have wounded the deer. But how about the opposite slope?

Ted retraced his steps and climbed to the top of Glory Rock. From that vantage point, where he could look across at it instead of trying to look through it, the beech thicket became more open. He couldn't see everything, but he could see very plainly the place where the deer had fallen. Moving to one side, Ted had the same view. The deer could have been shot from any of a dozen places on this slope.... What had taken place assumed definite shape in Ted's mind.

Smoky Delbert, always the poacher, had known of the beech thicket and the trail through it. He had waited for a deer and shot one when it appeared. Somebody else, somebody who knew and took violent exception to Smoky and his antics--and there were at least thirty men who did--had either happened along or had witnessed the whole thing. Probably there had been an argument, followed by the shooting.

No nearer a solution than he had been before, Ted nibbled his lip in frustration. He knew now why Smoky had been shot, but he still hadn't the faintest idea as to who had shot him. All he had were widely scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, with too many pieces missing. However, first things came first and he'd better get the hurt deer, for it was both practical and merciful to do so. Badly wounded, it couldn't possibly travel far. If he found it still alive, the least he could do was put it out of its misery. If it was dead, he should save what could be salvaged of the venison. Al would have done the same had he been here.

Ted said, "Come on, Tammie."

They returned to the place where the deer had fallen and took up the trail. It was easy to follow, for the animal had been badly hurt. Straight down the trail it had run, and sixty yards farther on Ted found where it had fallen again and thrashed about. The beech brush blended back into beech forest and the trail Ted followed swerved to within twenty feet of the valley floor. He found a great puddle of blood where the deer had fallen a third time.

He marveled. The deer had been down three times in a little more than three hundred yards and it never should have been able to get up and go on. But it had gone on and it had also nearly stopped bleeding. From this point there was only a spot here and there to mark the leaves. Ted shook his head. If he wasn't seeing this himself, he wouldn't have believed it. He remembered that a deer is an incredibly tough thing. It can still run after receiving wounds that would stop a man in his tracks.

Overrunning the trail, the boy had to stop and circle until he picked it up again. It was necessary to do this so many times that, by midafternoon, he was scarcely a mile from the three sycamores. A half hour later he lost the trail completely; the deer had stopped bleeding. Ted made a wide circle in an effort to find the trail again, and when he failed, he made a wider circle. He stopped to think.

He'd have sworn, knowing how hard the deer was hit, that it would never run five hundred yards. Obviously he had guessed wrong, and what now? Anything he did would be little better than a shot in the dark, but if he could help it, he would not leave an injured beast to a lingering, terrible death. Wounded wild things were apt to seek a haven in thickets. Perhaps, if he cast back and forth through brush tangles, Tammie would scent the deer again.

Ted made his way to a grove of scrub hemlock, cut from there to a laurel thicket and pushed and crawled his way through half a dozen snarls of beech brush. He knew that he was not going to find the wounded deer and he sorrowed for the suffering animal. About to drop his hand to Tammie's head, he found that the collie was no longer beside him.

He was about twenty feet back, dancing excitedly in the trail. His ears were alert, his eyes happy, and there was a doggy smile on his jaws. He had a scent, but it was not the scent of a wounded deer. Ted took his handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to the dog.

"Take it to Al," he ordered quietly. "Take it to Al, Tammie."

Carrying the handkerchief, Tammie streaked into the forest and disappeared. Ted walked down Coon Valley and waited at the truck. An hour and a quarter later, no longer carrying the handkerchief, Tammie joined him. Ted petted him and looked somberly at the forest. He didn't know where Al was hiding and he didn't want to know.

But Tammie knew.

6

MESSENGER DOG

In the gathering gloom of the beech woods, a silver-throated thrush sang its evening song. Then, starting where it had ended, the thrush repeated the same notes backwards. Ted paused to listen and Tammie halted beside him. The boy grinned faintly. Because it first seemed to wind itself up and then to unwind, Al had always insisted on calling this thrush the "winder bird." It was, Ted supposed, as good a name as any.

Tammie sat down and turned a quizzical head to look at the harness he was wearing and, for excellent reasons, could wear only at night. Ted himself had made the harness from a discarded pack sack. It had a chest strap to keep it from sliding backwards, a belly strap to prevent it from falling off, and on either side was a spacious pocket with a flap that could be fastened. Right now, the pack was laden with thirty pounds of junk that Ted had picked up around the house.

Tammie tried to scrape the harness off with his right hind paw. Ted stooped to pet and coax him.

"Come on, Tammie. Come on. That's a good boy!"

Tammie sighed and got to his feet. He didn't know why he was thus burdened and he had no aspirations whatever to become a pack dog. But if Ted wanted it, he would try to do it. He followed to the end of the drive and stood expectantly while Ted opened the mailbox.

The metropolitan daily in which Ted had placed his ad, and that was always delivered to the Harknesses a day late, lay on top. Beneath were thirteen letters.

Ted's heart began to pound. He'd watched the mail every day, but except for the paper, the usual hopeful bulletins addressed to "occupant," and a few miscellaneous items, there had been nothing interesting. Ted had almost despaired of getting anything, but he realized, as he stood with the letters in his hand, that he hadn't allowed hunters enough time to answer his ad.

The thirteen letters represented more first-class mail than the Harknesses usually received in three months, and Ted held them as though they burned his fingers. They were important, perhaps the most important letters he had ever had or ever would have, for the future of the Harknesses could depend on what was in them.

Ted ran back up the drive. Running with him, Tammie was too busy to pay attention to the obnoxious pack. Ted burst into the house, slammed the door behind him, laid the letters and papers on the table and knelt to take the pack from Tammie. He thrust it, still laden, into the darkest corner of a dark closet and turned excitedly back to the mail.

Sighing with relief, Tammie curled up on his bearskin. Ted looked at the sheaf of letters. Except for two, they were addressed in longhand. He picked one up, made as though to open it then put it back down. If the news was good, it would be very good. If bad, it would be very bad. His eye fell on a box on the paper's front page.

GUNMAN STILL AT LARGE

After a week's intensive manhunt, Albert, "Al" Harkness is still at large in the wild Mahela. Harkness, named by Clarence Delbert as the man who shot him from ambush, escaped from two officers the same night he was apprehended. Delbert, still in critical condition, has supplied no additional details. Corporal Paul Hausler, of the State Police, has expressed confidence that Harkness will be captured.

Ted pushed the paper aside and stared across the table. For three days the hunt had been pressed with unflagging zeal. Only Pete Tooms and the duly deputized Delberts had gone out for two days after that and now, Ted understood, even they were staying home. They had discovered for themselves what Ted and Loring Blade had known from the start: if Al chose to hide in the Mahela, he couldn't be found. But the item in the paper cast a shadow of things to come.

Al could hide for a while, perhaps for a long while, but without proper equipment or a place to stay, even he couldn't live in the wilderness when winter struck with all its fury. Sooner or later, he would have to come out, and what happened when he came was so terribly dependent on what was in the letters! Ted slit the first one open and read,

Dear Mr. Harkness:

I saw your letter in the _Courier_ and we would like to rent your camp for the first two weeks of deer season. Can you let me know at once if it is available? There will be ten of us.

Ted put the letter aside and picked up the next one. That likewise wanted the camp for the first two weeks of deer season. There would be eight in the party. But there was a very welcome, "I enclose an advance to hold our reservation," with a twenty-dollar check made out to Ted. He folded the note over the check and took up the third letter. That also wanted the camp for the first two weeks of deer season. Ted turned to Tammie.

"Doesn't anybody hunt anything except deer?"

But the fourth letter, containing a deposit of ten dollars, was from a party of grouse hunters who wanted the camp during the first two weeks of grouse season, and the fifth had been written by a man representing a group of hunters who obviously liked to do things the hard way. Scorning anything as easy as deer, grouse, squirrels, or cottontails, they wanted the camp for bear season. There was no deposit enclosed, but if they could be persuaded to send one, the camp would be rented for another week. The next five letters, two of which contained deposits of twenty dollars each, were all from deer hunters who wanted to come the first two weeks of the season and the one after that was from a confirmed grouse hunter who wished to come the first week. Ted picked up the last letter, one of two that were typewritten, and read:

Dear Ted Harkness:

For lo, these many years, my silent feet have carried me into the haunts of big game and my unerring rifle has laid them low. I have moose, elk, grizzlies, caribou, sheep and goats to my credit. Honesty compels me to admit that I also have several head of big game to my discredit, but that happened in the days of my callow youth, when I thought hunting and killing were synonymous.

Presently, in my mellow old age, I still love to hunt. But I have become--heaven help me!--a head hunter. In short, I want 'em big or I don't want 'em. I do not have a whitetail buck to which I can point with pride. Living in the Mahela, and I envy you your dwelling place!, you must know the whereabouts of such a beastie.

The simplicity of your ad was most impressive and I always did admire people who sign themselves "Ted" rather than "Theodore." I do not want your camp, but do you want to guide a doddering old man? Find me a room, any old room at all as long as it's warm and dry, and I'm yours for three weeks. Find me a buck that satisfies me and, in addition to your guiding fee, I'll give you a bonus of twenty-five dollars for every inch in the longest tine on either antler.

Humbly yours, John L. Wilson

Ted re-read the letter, so friendly and so obviously written by a hunter who had experience, time and--Ted tried not to think it and couldn't help himself because his need was desperate--money. The Harkness house was very large and, now that Al was not in it, very empty. There was no reason whatsoever why John L. Wilson, whoever he was, should not stay here. Twelve dollars a day was not too much to ask for board, room and guide services. As for the twenty-five dollars an inch--there were some big bucks in the Mahela!

Ted sat down to write, "Dear Mr. Wilson: Thanks very much for your letter--" He crumpled the sheet of paper and started over, "Dear Mr. Wilson: There are some big bucks--" Then he crumpled that sheet and did the only thing he could do. "Dear Mr. Wilson: I am going to tell you about Damon and Pythias."

Ted told, and he was scrupulously honest. His father, born in the Mahela almost fifty years ago, had never seen bigger bucks. Certainly they were the biggest Ted had ever seen. In their prime now, royal trophies, a couple of years would see them in their decline. Ted gave it as his personal opinion that both were at their best this year. Next season, they would not be quite as good and the year after, Ted thought, both would bear the misshapen antlers that are so often the marks of old bucks. But just getting a shot at either would involve more than a routine hunt. The two bucks were very wise; many hunters had tried for them and nobody had come near to getting either. It might very well take three weeks just to hunt them, and Ted could not guarantee success. However, though they were far and away the biggest, by no means were Damon and Pythias the only big bucks in the Mahela. He concluded by writing that Mr. Wilson could stay with him, and that his fee for board, room and guide service would be twelve dollars a day.

Ted sealed the letter, addressed it, put two stamps on, marked it air mail and turned to the others. He shook a bewildered head. The way Carl Thornton ran Crestwood, catering to guests had always seemed the essence of simplicity. Obviously, it had its headaches.

Of the dozen applicants for his camp, eight wanted it in deer season only and all wanted the first two weeks. Ted screened the letters again, then narrowed them down to the three who had sent advances. They'd offered earnest intent of coming, the rest might and might not appear. But which of the three should he accept?

Ted solved it by consulting the postmarks on the letters. All had been mailed the same day, but one had been stamped at ten A.M. and the other two at two P.M. Ted wrote to the author of the letter with the earliest time mark, a Mr. Allen Thomas, and told him that the camp was his for the first two weeks of deer season. The other two checks--if only he had three camps!--he put in envelopes with letters saying that, he was very sorry, but the camp had already been reserved for the time they wanted.

Then, in a flash of inspiration, he opened both letters and added a postscript, saying that the camp was still available for the last week of the season. He grinned ruefully as he did so and seemed to hear Al saying, "'Most missed a pelt there, Ted."

Ted assured the other deer hunters that his camp was reserved for the first two weeks but open the third. He contemplated bringing his price down to forty-five dollars for that week. Then he reconsidered. Most hunters thought that hunting would be much better the first of the season than it ever could be the last, and, in part, they were right. Unmolested for almost a year, during the first days of the season game was apt to be less wary. As compensation, during the latter part of any season there were seldom as many hunters afield. Anyhow, deer hunters who really wanted a camp would not let an extra fifteen dollars stand in the way of getting one.

Writing to the bear hunters, Ted accepted a tentative reservation that would be confirmed as soon as he received a deposit of ten dollars. Too many people made reservations with no deposit; then, if something arose that prevented their honoring their reservations, they simply didn't come. Anyone who paid money in advance would be there or cancel in plenty of time to get their money back.

Ted told the grouse hunters who'd sent a ten-dollar deposit that the camp was theirs for the first two weeks of the season and he pondered over the other grouse hunter's letter.

Nobody at all had applied for woodcock season because, Ted decided, woodcock are so uncertain. One of the finest of game birds, they are also migratory. A few nested in the Mahela, but they were too few to attract sportsmen. Depending on conditions, flight birds might and might not be in the Mahela during the season and some years they by-passed it completely. But when they came, they offered marvelous shooting.

Ted wrote the second grouse hunter, a Mr. George Beaulieu, that the only vacancy he had left was for the third week of grouse season. But was he interested in woodcock? If he was, and if he would advise Ted to that effect, Ted would be happy to call him long distance in the event of a worthwhile flight.

Tammie rose, yawned prodigiously and lay down to sleep on his other side for a while. Ted shuffled the pile of letters, which he needn't put in the mailbox because he was definitely going into Lorton in the morning, and pondered.

It hadn't worked out quite as he'd hoped it would, with the camp rented continuously throughout six weeks of small game hunting and three of deer. He figured with his pen on a discarded piece of paper. The camp was definitely rented for two weeks of grouse and one of bear hunting at forty-five dollars a week. That added up to a hundred and thirty-five dollars. It was certainly rented for two weeks of deer hunting at sixty a week, thus he would have a hundred and twenty dollars more.

Ted sighed wistfully. Two hundred and fifty-five dollars was by no means an insignificant return on their investment, even if they had put a price on their labor, and they could look forward to the next hunting and fishing seasons. If Al were here, they'd be happy about it and eagerly planning more camps.

But Al wasn't here, and all that mattered now was that, by the end of deer season, Ted could be certain of having at least two hundred and fifty-five dollars in cash. If John Wilson came, stayed with Ted for twenty-one days, and paid him twelve dollars a day, that would be two hundred and fifty-two dollars more. If Mr. Wilson got a buck that satisfied him, and the buck's antlers had one tine nine inches long--

"Cut it out!" Ted advised himself. "Cut it out, Harkness! Count on what you know you'll have, and that's two hundred and fifty-five dollars."

Tammie, hearing Ted's voice and thinking he was called, came over to sit beside his master. He raised a dainty paw to Ted's hand and smiled with his eyes when the boy took it. Ted glanced at the clock.

"Great guns! Twenty past one! We'd better hit the hay!"

He shucked off his clothes, put on his pajamas and crawled into bed. But even though he was tired, sleep would not come because he was thinking of Al. How was his father spending this chilly night--and where? In some cave perhaps, or some thicket. Ted tried to put such thoughts behind him. Wherever Al might be, that outdoorsman was warm, dry and even comfortable. But Ted's mind insisted on seeking the gloomy side, and he was brought out of it only when Tammie whined.

Instantly Ted became alert. Taught to whine but never to bark when a stranger came near the house, Tammie was warning him now. The boy slipped out of bed, and, in the darkness, he felt for his shoes and pulled them on. He laced them so there would be no danger of tripping over the shoelaces and soft-footed across the floor to take a five-cell flashlight from its drawer and his twelve-gauge shotgun from its rack.