Part 7

It had been a case of mutual recognition and Old Joe never deluded himself. With Duckfoot again on his trail, the only safe tree was his big sycamore. Emerging at the head of the slough, Old Joe ran up the trickle that fed it, scrambled down the far side of the upended rocks, raced through a swamp, and took the shortest possible route back to Willow Brook. He'd just reached and jumped into the brook when any lingering plans he might have had for foiling Duckfoot were put firmly behind him.

Back where the hunters were gathered, Glory and Queenie began to sing. Though he'd never been run by Glory, Queenie was the slower and noisier half of a formidable team, and Thunder would be along presently. There was no time to waste. Swimming the pools and running the riffles, and knowing that neither these nor any other tactics would baffle Thunder and Duckfoot for very long, Old Joe sacrificed strategy for haste. Panting like a winded dog, he sprang into the slough at the base of his sycamore, swam it, and climbed.

He tumbled into his den, sighed gratefully, and waited for whatever came next.

It was Duckfoot and Thunder. Running neck and neck, the inexperienced puppy and the tested veteran reached the sycamore at exactly the same second and wakened the night with their voices.

Old Joe stirred uneasily. Though this was not the first time he had been trailed to his magic sycamore, never before had he been so hotly pursued. He was on the point of leaving his den, climbing farther up the sycamore and escaping through his tunnel, but Old Joe restrained himself. He'd always been safe here and he was too smart to panic. Besides, if the worst came to the worst, he could still use the tunnel.

Thunder and Duckfoot, blessed with voices that would have awakened Rip Van Winkle, were presently joined by Queenie and Glory. Old Joe scratched his left ear with his right hind paw, a sure sign of nervousness. On various occasions one hound had trailed him to the sycamore, a few times there'd been two, but never before had there been four hounds at the sycamore's base.

Again Old Joe was tempted to resort to his tunnel. Again he refrained and waited for the hunters.

Harky and Melinda came. Old Joe wriggled his black nose. Harky, usually the first to arrive at any tree when a coon was up, he knew well. His acquaintance with Melinda was only casual. He heard the pair talking.

"When he wants to get out," Harky avowed seriously, "some say he climbs out on a limb and drops back into the slough. On t'other hand, some say he grows wings and takes off like a bird."

"How silly!" Melinda exclaimed.

"Yeah?" Harky asked truculently. "Watta you know about it?"

Melinda declared scornfully, "Enough not to believe such nonsense! He has a den somewhere in that sycamore and he's in it right now! The only reason nobody ever found it is because everyone's been too lazy to climb!"

"And how you gonna climb?" Harky demanded.

"Just cut one of these smaller trees, brace it against the crotch of the sycamore, and shinny up it," Melinda asserted.

Harky said nothing because this purely revolutionary scheme left him speechless.

Old Joe's uneasiness mounted. Though he understood no part of the conversation, he had no doubt that a new force had invaded coon hunts. The men who'd always come to his magic sycamore had been happy just to get there, proud of hounds able to track Old Joe so far, and amenable to the idea that neither hounds nor humans could further cope with a coon that was part witch.

Old Joe didn't know what she was, but Melinda was definitely not a man. The rest of the hunters arrived, but before they could begin their ritual that had to do with the invincibility of Old Joe, Melinda threw her bombshell.

"I was telling Harold," she said brightly, "that Old Joe has a den somewhere in this big sycamore. Why don't we fell a smaller tree, brace it against the sycamore, and shinny up to find out?"

"By gum!" Mun said.

As soon as the three men recovered from this flagrant violation of everything right and proper, Old Joe heard the sound of an axe. A tree was toppled, trimmed, and leaned against the sycamore.

"Let me go up, Pa," Harky said.

Mun asserted, "If anybody's goin' to have fust look at Old Joe's den, it'll be me."

Mun and Old Joe started to climb.

"Thar he scampers!" yelled Raw Stanfield.

Old Joe continued to scamper, paying no attention whatever to the fact that, while excitement reigned, Mun fell out of the sycamore. Old Joe climbed out on the limb and tumbled into his tunnel.

Duckfoot, who'd noted the obvious escape route but was just a split second too late, tumbled in behind him. Both the tunnel and Old Joe, however, were low-built. Duckfoot, considerably farther from the ground, had to crawl where Old Joe ran.

The big coon ran out of the tunnel and into the swamp with a safe enough lead. But the next morning's sun was two hours high before he managed to shake Duckfoot from his trail.

IMPASSE

Harky Mundee shoved his fork deeply into the hay. He twisted the tines to gather the biggest possible load; as long as a man had to pitch fool hay he might as well do so in as few forkfuls as possible and get the misery over with. Then he tumbled his load down the shute into the cow stable and leaned on his fork to indulge in some sadly-needed self-criticism.

Mun sat in the house with a broken leg and that was a bad thing, though on the whole it was easier to endure than Mun's ruptured temper. However, Mun's temper was an abstract affair that might erupt at any moment, while a broken leg was distinctly concrete. Harky told himself that anything so indisputably tangible should never beset Mun.

Still, hadn't it been wrought by providence? If Mun had not tried to climb Old Joe's sycamore, he wouldn't have fallen. If he had not fallen, he wouldn't have a broken leg. He should not have such a thing, but he had it, and by all the rules of logic Harky should have achieved the ultimate ideal.

With his leg splinted and bound, Mun's current living space was restricted to the chair upon which he sat all day long and the cot upon which he lay all night long. Harky had been prudent enough to remove from the sweep of his father's arms all sticks of fire wood, dishes, hatchets, knives, and anything else Mun might throw. Let Mun roar as he might (and did, whenever Harky was in the house), roaring broke no bones. For the first time since he could remember, Harky had no need to outwit his father in order to do as he pleased.

Of course there were some tasks one did not avoid. Livestock was incapable of caring for itself, and Harky was too close to the earth to let any living creature suffer for lack of attention. It was far better to butcher it, an idea Harky had played with, but no matter how long the winter might be, two people couldn't eat six cows, four pigs, and sixty-nine chickens. There'd always be the horses left anyway.

Grimacing as he did so, Harky pitched another forkful of hay down the chute. Livestock should really be taught to eat coon meat so a man, with complete freedom of conscience, might spend all his time hunting coons. Maybe, if cows ate something besides hay, they wouldn't be such fools.

Harky thought suddenly of the last time he'd attended Miss Cathby's school, and shuddered.

One of Miss Cathby's unswerving goals embraced assailing the minds of her students with literature other than that which their fathers might exchange behind the barn, and to that end there was a daily reading. Most of it was not unendurable; all Harky had to do was think about coons and look as though he were paying attention. On this particular day, however, he had been unable to think about coons and was forced to listen while Miss Cathby read a poem all about new-mown hay on a bright June day.

Harky shuddered again and pitched furiously until he had all the cows could eat. He jammed his fork into the hay and scrambled down the ladder to the barn floor.

Formal education could mean the ruin of a man if he didn't watch out. Miss Cathby had enthused about the poem and its author, but in the first place, hay was not harvested in June. It wasn't even ripe until July, and whoever wrote so touchingly of new-mown hay had never stood under a furnace-hot sun and pitched any.

Duckfoot, who had been waiting in the chaff on the barn floor, sidled up to Harky. Harky let his dangling hand caress the big dog's ears, and he tried to do some thinking about Duckfoot. But thoughts of hay just naturally started him to thinking about corn, and the Mundee corn was still in the field where it had been shocked.

Therein lay a major point of friction between Mun, who demanded that it be brought in, and Harky, who wouldn't bring it. He'd long had his own sensible ideas concerning the proper way to run a farm, and bringing in shocked corn did not come under the category of sense.

There were arguments pro and con, and pro was summed up by the fact that if it was not properly harvested, there'd be neither corn for winter feeding of pigs and chickens nor husks for bedding. This argument, Harky admitted, was not without a certain validity. But opposed to it was such an overwhelming weight of evidence that any value it might possess was puny indeed.

Though unattended corn could not suffer as neglected animals would, Harky would endure untold agony if he first had to haul it to the barn and then husk it. If pigs and chickens had nothing to eat they could always be eaten, thus solving the twin problems of caring for them and satisfying one's own appetite. Corn in the shock lured coons, but not even Old Joe could break into a corn crib.

The corn would stay in the shock.

It was, or should have been, a cause for leaping in the air, clicking one's heels together, and whooping with joy. Unafflicted by any such desire, Harky stirred nervously and wondered at himself. There was no special age at which a man started slipping, and if he found no delight in ignoring tasks Mun ordered him to do, he was already far gone.

Suddenly it occurred to Harky that there had been no particular pleasure since that night, a week ago, when they had Old Joe up and Mun fell out of the sycamore. Harky hadn't even wanted to go coon hunting, and then he knew.

Knowing, he trembled. Coon hunters of the Creeping Hills had flourished since the first hunter brought the first hound because they did things properly, and the proper doing was inseparably bound to a proper respect for the art they pursued. There just hadn't been any trouble.

Until the first time a girl horned in.

Raw Stanfield and Butt Johnson had helped carry Mun home. Then, understanding the fearful consequences of Melinda's heresy, they'd summoned Queenie and Thunder to heel and hadn't been seen since.

Shaken from the tips of his toes to the ends of his shaggy hair, Harky needed another fifteen minutes before he could muster strength to start milking. Melinda had put a hex on all of them that night she stood beneath Old Joe's sycamore, with Old Joe up, and declared so loftily that the sycamore was not a magic tree but merely one that hunters were too lazy to chop or climb, and that Old Joe was nothing more than a big, wise, and rather interesting coon.

That accounted for the broken leg of Mun, the aloofness of Raw Stanfield and Butt Johnson, and the unhappiness of Harky. He sat down to milk, but he was still so jarred by the dreadful tidings he'd just imparted to himself that when Old Brindle kicked the pail over Harky didn't even threaten her with a club. Affairs were already in a state so hopeless that nothing Old Brindle did could complicate them further. Not even if she kicked Harky's brains out.

He finished the milking and the other chores and latched the barn door. Duckfoot trailed behind him as he walked toward the house, but Harky did not have even his usual friendly pat for the hound's head when they came to the porch. Duckfoot, who'd shed most of his puppyish ways, crawled disconsolately into his sleeping box.

Gloom remained Harky's companion. Fifty-one years ago, or approximately at the beginning of time, his great-grandfather had settled this very farm. There'd been Mundees on it since, and hounds of the lineage of Precious Sue, and all of them had hunted Old Joe. Now the spell was broken because a mere girl, who had been taught by Miss Cathby, who didn't know anything about anything, had considered it right to trifle with spells.

Harky recalled the night Melinda had brought Glory to the coon hunt. He had, he remembered, hoped Melinda would fall in the mud and had promised to stamp on her head if she did. He could not help thinking that that had been a flash of purest insight, and that all would now be favorable if Melinda had fallen in the mud and had her head stamped on.

Harky turned the door knob and made his decision as he did so. The new and radical, as represented by Melinda and Miss Cathby, must go. The old and steadfast, as embodied in the immortality of Old Joe and the probability that Duckfoot's father was really a duck, must be restored to the pedestal from which it had toppled. But Harky needed Mun's advice, and he was so intent on the problem at hand that he only half heard his father's greeting.

"So ya finally come back, eh? Of all the blasted, lazy, pokey, turtle-brained warts on the face of creation, I jest dunno of a one wust than you!"

Harky said, "Yes, Pa."

Startled, but too much under the influence of his own momentum to stop suddenly, Mun demanded, "Didja git the corn in?"

"No, Pa."

The fires in Mun's brain died. Harky, who should have been sassing him back, was meekly turning the other cheek. Despite Mun's frequently and violently expressed opinions concerning the all-around worthlessness of his offspring, Harky was his son and the sole hope of the coon-hunting branch of the clan Mundee.

"Ya sick, Harky?" Mun asked suspiciously.

"No, Pa."

"Then what is chawin' on ya?"

"Tell me again when my great-grandpappy come here," Harky requested.

Mun said, "Nigh onto fifty-two years past."

"That's a heap o' time, ain't it?" Harky asked.

"A smart heap o' time," Mun declared proudly. "Not many famblys knows as much about themselfs as us Mundees."

"You sure," Harky went on, "that Sue come to no good end on account she run in the dark o' the moon?"

Mun shrugged. "What else?"

"And Duckfoot's pappy was a duck?"

Mun looked puzzled. "Think I'd lie, Harky?"

"No, Pa," Harky said hastily. "Just tell me again that all us Mundees been on the trail of Old Joe."

"How kin ya ponder?" Mun asked. "My grandpappy told my pappy, who told me, who told you, that Old Joe's been hunted by every Mundee."

"What do you think of Old Joe's big sycamore?" Harky questioned.

"It's a witch tree," Mun said seriously. "I ain't rightly been able to figger if'n Old Joe takes wings an' flies off it or if'n he does jump in the slough. But I'm sure that if'n Old Joe gits in his witch tree naught can harm him."

"Ha!" Harky exclaimed. "Now we know!"

"Know what?" Again Mun was puzzled.

"All," Harky declared. "Mellie Garson gets mule-kicked; Melinda brings Glory to horn in on our hunt; we get Old Joe up in his sycamore; Melinda says it ain't no witch tree and Old Joe's naught but a big coon; you believe her and try to climb; you bust your leg; Raw and Butt don't want no more part of us--and," Harky wailed, "I can't even take pleasure on account you can't make me fetch the corn in!"

"By gum!" Mun said, "you got it!"

"Sure I got it," Harky asserted. "Why'd you let Melinda horn in on our coon hunt, Pa?"

"I don't rightly know," Mun admitted. "I wa'n't of no mind to have her, an' I know Raw'n Butt wa'n't. But she was of a mind to go, an' gol ding it, when a woman's of a mind to do somethin', they do it!"

"I would of stomped on her head if she'd fell in the mud," Harky assured his father.

"I know," Mun meditated, "an' it wa'n't a poor notion. But, gol ding it, men just don't mistreat wimmen."

"I still don't know why," said Harky.

"Nor I," Mun admitted. "They jest don't an' that's all. Your ma, she didn't weigh mor'n half what I do, but she's the only mortal critter ever made me take to the woods."

"Are women ornery all the time?" Harky questioned.

"'Bout half," Mun said. "Rest o' the time, well, they're wimmen."

"What else do you know about 'em, Pa?"

"Durn little," Mun confessed. "What ya drivin' at anyhow, Harky?"

"Melinda put a spell on us," Harky said. "But it ain't all her doing. Miss Cathby showed her how."

"I never thought of that," said Mun. "Never ag'in do I make ya go to school, Harky."

"Good," Harky said. "But I got to get that spell off."

"How do ya aim to go about it?" Mun questioned.

"I'll ask Melinda to fetch Glory on another coon hunt," Harky declared. "We'll run Old Joe up his sycamore again. Then I'll climb the tree and make her climb with me. She'll eat mud when she finds out there ain't no den."

"Harky!" Mun said joyously. "Your great-grandpappy would be right proud of the way you talk!"

HARKY'S PLOT

Mellie Garson, still immobilized by the mule kick, was aware of the stain that afflicted his immortal soul. But he was not completely repentant. Nothing could be worse than another day on the pickle keg.

Listlessly Mellie caught up a handful of pebbles and shied them one by one at a knothole in the woodshed wall. He shook his head and uttered a despairing moan. Tossing pebbles at the knothole was the only game he'd invented to beguile the passing hours, and at first it had been interesting because he made a bull's-eye only about one time in twenty. Now it seemed that every pebble he tossed sailed through the knothole as naturally as a trout swims up riffles.

Mellie contemplated scooping up more pebbles for more sharpshooting, but where was the fun when he just couldn't miss? Glumly he reviewed the sin for which he must one day answer.

He should not, he told himself, ever have sent Melinda to take Glory on the coon hunt. But how was he to know they'd get Old Joe up in his magic sycamore? Could he possibly have had forewarning of the fact that Melinda would not only question the witchery of Old Joe and his magic tree, but infect the minds of her male companions with her own skepticism? Could anyone guess that the hallowed traditions of the Creeping Hills coon hunters would topple simply because a girl took part in a coon hunt?

Mellie shook his head sadly. Melinda, not exactly a woman, was not exactly a girl either. She was, Mellie told himself, old enough to cast the monkey wrench that usually lands in the gears whenever women intrude on affairs that by every law of God and nature belong exclusively to men.

The wreckage had been fearful indeed; Mun Mundee laid up with a broken leg; Raw Stanfield and Butt Johnson afraid to show their faces on the lower reaches of Willow Brook; Harky Mundee mad as a trapped mink; and Melinda explaining blithely that hunting raccoons was indeed good sport.

Mellie buried his face in his hands and shook with anguish. He was not, he told himself honestly, as ashamed as he should be because he had thrown such a destructive bomb among the Creeping Hills coon hunters. But that a Garson, even a female Garson, should refer to the art of coon hunting as mere "good sport" shook the very foundations of everything in which Mellie had faith.

Glory, who had been dozing in the sun, rose and prowled restlessly over to snuffle at the woodpile. Mellie regarded her with an experienced eye.

Melinda might lack a true appreciation of coon hunting, but she'd certainly given him a thorough rundown on Glory. A slow starter and slow hunter, Melinda had said, and she tongued on the trail. But she was steady as a church and true as a homing pigeon. She was every bit as good as Queenie, and with a little experience she'd be better. A year from now, any coon Glory got on would be treed or run to earth.

Mellie had a sudden, uncomfortable feeling that he himself could not have found out so much about Glory in just one hunt. Or if he had, he'd be inclined to doubt until Glory proved herself. But he'd accepted Melinda's evaluation without the slightest question, and now as he looked at Glory he knew a rising uneasiness.

A good thing was never to be taken for granted, and there was much that could happen to any hunting hound; Mellie had only to remember Precious Sue. Though he fervently hoped she wouldn't, Glory might go the same way, and where would he find another coon hound of equal quality? There was only one source.

However, there was a great deal involved. It was blasphemy even to think in terms of ordinary coon dogs when Glory was simultaneously in mind. There were only two hounds on Willow Brook worthy of her, Thunder and Duckfoot. Things being as they were, even if all else were equal, it was unlikely that Butt Johnson would bring either his hound or himself within nine miles of the Garsons, or anything that belonged to the Garsons.

About to catch up another handful of pebbles, Mellie grimaced and refrained. He did not know how many pebbles he'd flicked from the upended pickle keg through the knothole and into the woodshed, but offhand he guessed there were at least four bushels, and he didn't even want to think about another one. Nor had he much of anything else to occupy his thoughts. His daughters, with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of efficiency, had all the farm tasks well in hand.

Mellie resumed his study of Glory, who had lain down in the sun but was not sleeping, and wondered if he should keep her tied up. She might go wandering, and there was no assurance that she'd be as lucky as Precious Sue. As everyone knew, the woods were just filled with all sorts of witches, and many of them were all bad.

Glumly Mellie pondered the probability that she'd break loose and go wandering even if he tied her (would anything ever go right for him?) when Glory sat up, tilted her head, and voiced a warning wail. A moment later, Harky Mundee appeared.

Mellie sat still, doing his best to conceal his amazement, for he'd have been no more completely astounded if Old Joe himself had appeared with the ghost of Precious Sue in hot pursuit. Obviously Harky was not seeking a fight, for he carried no fighting tools. But he certainly was not coming in peace; after Mellie's foul trick, the Mundees would never make peace with the Garsons. On the point of demanding that Harky state his business and be on his way, Harky forestalled him with:

"I come to ask can Melinda fetch Glory on another coon hunt tonight?"

For a moment Mellie felt as though he'd again been mule-kicked, this time squarely between the eyes. He blinked and recovered.

"I thought," he heard himself saying, "that you come to ask kin Melinda fetch Glory on another coon hunt tonight?"

"I did," Harky asserted.

A sudden suspicion pricked Mellie's mind. Boys were boys and girls were girls, and all things considered it was a very pleasing arrangement, and there was no harm whatever in a bit of smooching. But how come Harky Mundee, otherwise so very sensible, thought he could successfully blend that with a coon hunt? Or did he?

"You got notions 'bout that girl child of mine?" he demanded.

"You bet!" Harky assured him.

"Well, I don't know as I have any real objections. Melinda's a mite young, but you're a mite young yourself to be huntin' a wife."

"Wife!" Harky gasped. "You think I been moonstruck?"

"You talk like you been," Mellie growled. "A man has to be 'fore he'll let himself in for all what can happen when he _asks_ a woman to go coon huntin'. Who ya aim to take along outside o' Melinda an' Glory?"

"Me an' Duckfoot," Harky stated.

"But you ain't got no ideas 'bout Melinda?" Mellie pursued.

"You're darn' whistlin' right I got ideas!" Harky said. "I've had 'em ever since the night everything got smashed to bits!"

"I know," Mellie said gloomily.