Читать книгу Irish Red, Son of Big Red - Jim Kjelgaard - Страница 6

Muttonhead

DANNY PICKETT was mad clear through. Gingerly he made his way across the Pickett yard, leaving muddy little puddles to mark his path. Reaching the cabin’s porch, he unlaced his muddy shoes, kicked them off, and took off his socks. Stooping to wring out his trouser legs, Danny went into the cabin and slammed the door shut behind him.

He took a folded newspaper from a pile on a shelf, spread it out on the floor, stepped onto the paper, and unbuttoned his soaked shirt. He let it fall on the paper, dropped his trousers beside it, then his underwear.

Danny crossed the floor to the big tin washtub that doubled as the Picketts’ bathtub, took a tin basin from the wooden table beside the sink, and pumped it full of water. He emptied it into the tub and filled it again, and again. When the tub was half filled, Danny emptied the contents of the simmering tea-kettle into the tub, and tested the water with his finger. It was tepid.

Muttering to himself, he got a wash cloth and towel and stepped in. Danny washed himself, letting water run out of the wash cloth over his lithe young body and back into the tub. When the worst part of the muck that covered him had been removed, he began to rub himself vigorously with the wash cloth.

There was a tread on the porch, a shadow at the door, and Ross Pickett, Danny’s father, came into the room. A pail filled with wild raspberries dangled from his hand, but Ross seemed to forget them while he stared incredulously at his son.

“Why you takin’ a bath, Danny? It’s not Saturday, and right in midday like this. You feel poorly?”

“Gah!” Danny stepped out of the tub onto the floor and began to rub himself with the towel. “Sometimes I wonder if I was right about Irish setters!”

“What you mean?”

“That Mike pup, he’s got about as many brains as a half-witted jack rabbit!”

“What’s Mike done?”

“The pig pen,” Danny moaned. “He got in the pig pen and started chasing the pigs around! And when I called him he waded into the hog wallow! Right up to his neck he went, and stood there barking at me! When I made a grab for his collar, he jumped back and I fell into the wallow!”

Ross tittered, but stopped when Danny glared at him.

“What’d you do then?” Ross grinned.

“What could I do? He stuck his hind end up in the air, got down on his front quarters, and barked some more. Thought I wanted to play. Then he took off after a blue jay. I don’t know where he went. And I don’t care.”

“He won’t go far,” Ross said. He put down his pail. “I came by the big house, Danny. Thought Mr. Haggin would like some wild berries.”

“Anything new down there?”

“Yeah.” Ross frowned. “Mr. Haggin’s goin’ away. He’s leavin’ the big place in care of his nephew, a fancy-pants by the name of John Price. Givin’ him a mighty free hand with everything, he is.”

“A boss should have a free hand, shouldn’t he?”

“Maybe so, but this John Price, he don’t like Irish setters at all.”

“No!” Danny said, astounded.

Ross grunted. “‘So you’re Ross Pickett,’ he says to me, ‘one of Uncle Dick’s Irish setter men? Well, there are some dogs that can beat the red pants right off your Irishmen and I’ve got ‘em right here.’ Then he took me over to some little fences he had built, kennels, he called ‘em, and showed me some black and white dogs. English setters, he called ’em.”

“How did they look?”

“They are,” Ross said reluctantly, “a right smart lot of dog. There’s even a trainer for ‘em, man named Joe Williams. Danny, there’s trouble afoot.”

“We’ve had trouble before, Pappy.”

“If it comes,” Ross predicted, “this’ll be a different kind. Well, no use killin’ your bears before you see ‘em. I’ll go find Mike.”

Danny, no longer angry, worried a bit as he got into clean clothes. To him, Irish setters were far and away the world’s best dogs, but it was not unthinkable that other people had their favorites too. It was hard to imagine Mr. Haggin putting Irish setters aside in favor of anything else. Danny thought back over the chain of events that had led to this new development.

It all started when Mr. Haggin, a wealthy industrialist who had built an estate in the wild Wintapi region, bought Big Red, a champion Irish setter. When Red and Danny met, it was a case of mutual love at first sight and the big setter had refused to leave the boy. Mr. Haggin, with visions of producing the world’s finest strain of Irish setters, had hired Danny to take care of Red and later had bought Sheilah MacGuire, another champion, as a mate for Red.

At first, Ross, strictly a hound man, had been scornful of the setters. Then Old Majesty, the Wintapi’s huge outlaw bear, had killed Ross’s hounds and hurt Ross himself. Danny and Red had brought Old Majesty to bay and killed him, but in so doing, Red was permanently injured. He was forever spoiled for shows, and Danny had bought him from Mr. Haggin.

Then Sheilah had become the mother of five pups. Mr. Haggin was delighted because four of them were certain show material and would surely be able to hold their own with the best. Ross, who had given his whole heart to Irish setters when he finally admitted their worth, doted on Mike, the fifth pup, who was a runt, misfit, trouble-maker, and general all-around muddle-head.

That was strange because Ross had an eye for any sort of animal, and could determine quality almost at a glance. Even a casual observer could tell that any of Mike’s three sisters, or his brother, were far superior. At five months of age, their worth showed plainly. But Mike.. ..

Fairly well-built, he was nevertheless too small and too narrow in the back ever to take a championship, or even a third place. And what he had in his head seemed to consist almost exclusively of an immense talent for mischief. Danny had a sudden disquieting thought. Was Mr. Haggin angry because Sheilah had thrown a runt? Then he shrugged and forgot it. Mr. Haggin would not get rid of his Irish setters, nor would he let anyone else do so. Ross worried about nothing.

There was a startled squawk, followed by a continuous outraged squalling. Danny ran to the door.

Still crusted with dried mud from the hog wallow, and having abandoned hope of catching the blue jay, Mike had returned to the Pickett yard. Pussyfooting, he had crawled up on Ross’s speckled rooster until he was within springing distance. Then he had lunged and grabbed the bird by its tail. Now he hung on, straining backward while the hysterical rooster flapped its wings and sought an escape. Danny opened the door.

“Hey! You, Mike!”

The puppy braced his feet a little more firmly, jerked, and snapped the struggling rooster backward. Danny started toward him, but just then Ross came around a corner of the wood shed. Danny stopped to await developments.

Kneeling, Ross caught the puppy, gently disengaged his jaws, and the still-squawking rooster scuttled away. Danny’s jaw drooped sarcastically as he heard his father’s voice.

“Bad. Bad dog.”

The puppy wriggled into Ross’s arms, and bent his head back. He started licking Ross’s face with a warm, sticky tongue, and Danny’s father raised a hand to shield himself. Danny stole up behind them.

“You two having a real confidential talk?”

“Stop it!” Ross sputtered. “Cut it out, Mike!”

Ross rose. Released, the puppy started galloping full speed around the pair and barking at the top of his voice. He stopped suddenly, front quarters close to the ground and rear ones thrust straight up in the air. His tail wagged furiously as he continued to bark. Then he dashed at Ross and began a ferocious attack on his shoelaces. Ross looked down.

“A right peppery pup,” he announced. “Just full of hell and high water. But he’ll get over it.”

Danny glanced toward the chastened rooster, who had run to the pig pen and now lingered near it, ready to dash underneath.

“Hope we got some chickens left by that time,” he said dryly. “You should have hided him for tackling the rooster.”

“And who,” Ross scoffed, “has been tellin’ me you can’t lick Irish setters if you ever expect to get any where with ‘em?”

“Red never needed any lickings,” Danny defended. “But I don’t know what else you can do to a pup with as little sense as this one.”

“Mike’s goin’ to come around when he does a little more growin’. No pup’s got sense.”

“Sean has. So have Eileen, Sharon, and Pat.”

“Sean’s somethin’ besides just a dog. He’s got a lot of both Red and Sheilah in him. But Mike has somethin’ Sean lacks.”

“Just what is that?”

“Somethin’ I can’t rightly name,” Ross admitted. “But I’ve seen it before this in more than one animal. He’ll show it plain when he forgets his nonsense.”

“He’s sure got a lot of forgetting to do. Let’s put him back in his cage.”

The puppy gamboled at their heels when they started back toward the wire cage Danny had built to hold all five pups. The other four leaped against the wire and welcomed them with a barking chorus when they came near, then pushed their heads against the wire to have their ears scratched. Danny stooped to gather Mike in his arms, and lifted him over the wire. Mike reared, waving his front paws, then began to tussle with one of his sisters.

Danny stared, mystified, at the enclosure. It was four feet high, built of sturdy, galvanized mesh and supported by solid posts. Aware of a puppy’s propensity for digging, Danny had buried the bottom eighteen inches of the wire. He looked wonderingly at Mike.

There were no holes through the wire or under it, and the gate remained firmly locked. Danny scratched his head. There was no possible way for one of the pups to get out, but Mike had escaped. Danny looked at Ross.

“How the dickens does he get out?”

“Search me, Danny.”

“Must have slipped through the gate after I fed ‘em this morning. Well, he’s in now.”

They leaned on the fence, gazing admiringly at the pups. Danny was aware of motion beside him, and a velvet-soft muzzle was thrust into his hand. He looked down at the gentle Sheilah, mother of the five pups, and closed his fingers around her muzzle.

Sheilah had endured the trying ordeals of motherhood without ruffling one of her silken hairs. She had fed her pups, watched over them tenderly, and punished them when they needed it. But now that the pups were weaned, and fenced, Sheilah was treating herself to a well-deserved vacation. She sprawled on the porch, or took long walks with Danny and Ross, except when one of her own children got outside their fence. Then Sheilah was nowhere to be found.

She wagged an apologetic tail, left Danny, and went over to receive her share of petting from Ross. Danny watched from the corner of his eye. From the very first, Sheilah had been more Ross’s dog than Danny’s. But that was only natural; Sheilah understood the unbreakable bonds existing between Danny and Red, and she could not wriggle inside those bonds. Danny liked Sheilah, but he loved Big Red.

Sheilah padded quietly behind them as they walked back to the cabin, and when Ross went in, Sheilah accompanied him. Danny remained where he was. Red, even more anxious than Sheilah to stay out of the puppies’ way, had disappeared early this morning. Danny put his fingers in his mouth, whistled shrilly, and sat down to await results.

Two minutes later his eye was attracted by motion within the beeches that rimmed the Pickett clearing. Danny kept his eyes on it. A second later Red broke out of the trees and started toward the cabin.

Danny watched, pleased with what he saw but smiling a little wistfully. A few months ago Red had been perfection itself, incapable of graceless action. That was before he’d been hurt in the great fight with Old Majesty. Red would always carry evidence of that fight, for now he walked and ran with a pronounced limp. But he was still, Danny thought, the finest dog in the world.

He came up on the porch and sat beside Danny, swinging his great head over his young master’s shoulder. Danny tickled his soft ear.

“You, Red,” he murmured. “You old bum. For a dog like you, you sure can throw some half-witted sons.”

Red muzzled Danny affectionately, and Danny tickled his other ear. Then he rose and walked down the steps. Red padded contentedly beside him as Danny struck the Stoney Lonesome trail.

There were plenty of things to think about, and he could always think more clearly in the woods. Red wandered to one side to nose through a thicket of little hemlocks that had found a rooting among the beeches. Absently Danny watched him.

Until Red came along, Danny had never thought much about his future because, unless you wanted to leave, which he didn’t, there was only one future in the beech woods. You took your living from the country, trapping, hunting, guiding hunters and fishermen, and doing whatever odd jobs you could get. Ross had lived in such a fashion all his life, and Danny had fully intended to do the same because, of all the places he could think of, none was as nice as the Wintapi.

Danny had always dreamed of a dog, a great and wonderful dog to be his staunch friend and constant companion, and that dog had materialized in Red. Then the rest of it had happened almost miraculously and opened new vistas of which, previously, Danny had not even dreamed.

There could be, Danny thought, no finer career than rearing and training fine dogs. If a man liked that work well enough, and had the chance, he’d do it without pay. But Mr. Haggin was paying Danny, and Danny felt keenly the additional responsibilities which that placed upon him.

He must be certain he was working in the right direction. As far as the right direction for Mike was concerned, wouldn’t the reckless puppy and everyone else be better off if he were given away to serve as somebody’s pet? Regardless of a dog’s other qualities, he was of no practical value unless he was intelligent too.

Nothing sensible ever seemed to penetrate Mike’s skull. He did what he wished when he wanted to do it, and defied the consequences. Mike had escaped death by a narrow margin a half dozen times, but he never hesitated to gallop headlong into new adventures, and it never seemed to occur to him even to think of what he was doing.

Still, Ross’s judgment was sound most of the time. He thought Mike was just a pup who in time would outgrow his silly and bull-headed ideas. Well, only time could tell and Danny would hope for the best. Somehow, Mike might amount to something.

Coming to a steep, aspen-bordered pitch, Danny climbed more slowly. He looked ahead, where Red was loping swiftly up the trail, intent on something he saw, heard, or smelled. Then, between the bordering aspens, he snapped to a dead stop. His head swung, then froze in position. Plumed tail was stiff behind him. One fore paw curled. Danny stopped, watching the scene in sheer delight.

He knew that Red was on a ruffed grouse, a partridge, and since the hens with half-grown broods would not be likely to frequent a trail, doubtless Red had found a wise old cock bird. He stood exactly where he was, holding perfectly.

Then there was an excited rush. Danny caught glimpses of a flying red ball that resolved itself into another dog, and Mike galloped past. Tail wagging hysterically, he dashed past his father straight at the partridge. There was a rattle of wings as the partridge rose and Danny caught fleeting glimpses as it winged through the aspens.

Danny shook a disgusted head. Of course nobody could expect a puppy to point and hold a partridge, or even to honor a point. But any normal pup, coming upon his master, would have stopped. Danny walked impatiently forward.

Red turned in the trail, stiff-legged and stiff-tailed, and a warning growl rumbled from his chest. Mike galloped out of the woods, paying no attention to his father’s rumbled warnings, and wagged happily up. Danny hurried. He did not think Red would hurt the puppy, but Mike was enough to try a saint’s patience and Red might decide to snap at him. Danny came nearer, then stopped abruptly.

“You, Mike!” he cried. “You muttonhead!”

A dozen white-tipped porcupine quills were imbedded in the puppy’s upper jaw. Obviously, coming up the trail, he had discovered and enthusiastically attacked some grunting old porcupine. Now he stood looking up at his master, and though Danny knew that he must be in pain, his tail was wagging and his eyes were glowing. Even a face full of porcupine quills could not ruin the pleasure Mike had found in a forbidden run through the woods. Danny’s heart melted.

“Poor pup,” he soothed. “Poor little Mike! You would have to meet your first porky while you’re so little, and all alone!”

Danny turned back down the trail, and Red hurried to get far enough ahead so he would not be near his son. Mike, beginning to feel the effect of the porcupine’s spears, fell in beside Danny. But when Danny tried to pick him up, Mike would have none of it. Danny let him walk. Mike could hardly be blamed for tackling a porcupine. Most puppies, meeting one of the clumsy, spiny beasts for the first time, could not resist getting too near.

Mike pricked his ears up, galloped ahead of Danny, and made a right-angle turn from the trail. Danny began to run, suspecting that the porcupine was the cause of Mike’s excitement. He heard the pup barking furiously, and found him leaping against a birch tree. A big quill pig crouched halfway to the top; Mike’s attack must have been furious. Danny turned to Mike.

“Come on, you little fool. Figure you need some more quills?”

Danny’s misgivings returned full force. Most dogs would fight a porcupine once. Few were silly enough to try it a second time, and not within a half hour after the first. Danny shook his head in despair.

When he entered the clearing, Red was on the porch and Ross was working on the wood pile. Ross looked up.

“What happened?”

“Tangled with a porcupine.”

“Poor little cuss,” Ross soothed. “I’ll get the neatsfoot and a pair of pliers.”

Danny knelt to pass his arms around the squirming puppy while Ross worked neatsfoot oil around the base of each quill. The puppy shivered with pain, but made no outcry.

“Nothin’ wrong with his heart,” Ross announced.

Ross grasped a quill with his pliers, and quickly jerked it out. As the puppy tried to break away, Danny took a firmer grip. It was not a job he liked, but it was one that had to be done. Ross worked as swiftly and as humanely as he could while Danny held Mike. Finally Ross got up, the last quill still clenched in his pliers.

“There,” he announced, as he brushed the perspiration from his forehead. “Guess you learned somethin’ today, Mike.”

Mike wriggled his tail, sat down, and began to soothe the many aches in his jaw with a soft tongue. Suddenly Red growled, and Danny and Ross swung to see two horsemen coming up the trail from the Haggin estate. One was Mr. Haggin himself. Danny had never seen the other.

“That’s John Price,” Ross said, “and he’s got one of them new dogs with him.”

Danny’s eyes centered on the dog, a beautiful English setter that stayed far enough from the horses so they would not run him down. Danny stared in admiration. It was a fine dog, a gorgeous creature that somehow reminded him of Red in manner and bearing. Quality was stamped all over him.

The horsemen came near the cabin, and at a soft word of command the dog sat down. He was young, but obviously had been well trained.

Mr. Haggin spoke from the saddle. “I’m glad to find you home, Danny. I want you to meet my nephew, John Price. He’ll be taking over while I’m away and—”

He was interrupted by a throaty growl from Mike. The red puppy sprang from the porch to land squarely on top of the young English setter. Immediately they were tumbling in a dog fight.