Читать книгу Hidden Trail - Jim Kjelgaard - Страница 5

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Marvin Tracey, owner of Tracey’s Store, had borrowed most of his ideas from a country store his father had owned in a backwater village under the shadow of the Rockies. The elder Tracey had had something to offer everyone, he’d understood thoroughly the merchandise he handled, and he had always offered a fair deal. Similarly, Marvin, who wanted to cater exclusively to outdoorsmen, sold everything anyone going into the wilderness could possibly use, and had personally tested every item he carried. It was Marvin who, having received a call from Dr. Goodell to the effect that Jase was on his way, met him when he entered.

Marvin valued many things, but there were few upon which he placed a higher worth than the work of the state Conservation Department. Aside from his friendship for Dr. Goodell, he knew that if it were not for the Department and its work there would soon be little to fish or hunt. Furthermore, he liked Dr. Goodell’s young photographer, and wanted to see that he had the right equipment for his new assignment.

“Heard you were on your way, Jase,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

Jase came directly to the point. “I want to rent a 16 mm. movie camera with a turret head containing a 6-inch telephoto lens, a 15 mm. wide angle, and a 25 mm. standard lens.”

“Right. Any special make?”

Jase hesitated. There was a bewildering variety of cameras available and most of them were good. But there were certain factors that he must consider and he enumerated them.

“I must have something good and at the same time compact and not too heavy. The simpler the better; something that’s easy to load and without too many gadgets that might be affected by sudden changes in temperature. The standard lens should be f 1.4, the wide angle f 1.9, and the telephoto f 4. All should be focussing; I don’t want anything with a fixed focus. That’s too—” He broke off and grinned sheepishly. “Here I go spending money, and it isn’t mine. Think I should get something less expensive?”

Marvin smiled. “Dr. Goodell’s leaving it up to us, and the lenses you’ve asked for are just about right. If the picture can be had, they’ll get it. If I may offer a bit of advice, don’t try to save pennies when quite a few dollars are already at stake, and don’t come back kicking yourself because you missed a sequence that you might have had with the proper lenses. The difference in the rental fee plus insurance isn’t that great.”

“That sort of makes sense to me, too.”

“Good sense,” Marvin assured him. “I think this may fill the bill.”

He produced a 16 mm. camera, a used but expensive model with a turret head already fitted with a standard lens. Of simple operation, there were no sprockets or gears over which the film must be threaded and the whole thing weighed just a little more than six pounds. Marvin inserted a telephoto and a wide-angle lens in the turret head and held it out to Jase.

“I’ve used this camera and can guarantee it. What do you think?”

Jase’s eyes gleamed as he handled the camera and tested its mechanism. It was the camera and some day, when and if wildlife photography made him rich enough, he would like one exactly like it.

“This is it,” he declared. “I’ve never had one like it but I’ve read a lot about them.”

Jase slipped the catch that opened the film cover, inspected the interior mechanism, closed the cover, and rotated the three lenses again, each time peering through the finder. Finally he wound the motor, depressed the exposure lever, and held the camera close to his ear. The motor ran as smoothly as a Swiss watch.

“You’ll want a weatherproof carrying case,” Marvin suggested.

“Definitely, and an extra shoulder strap for it. Cold weather can play the very dickens with leather, even when it’s treated with waxed dressing. While I’m about it, I might as well pick up an extra strap for my own movie camera. I’ll need snow filters too,” Jase went on. “Even if they didn’t modify the excessive blue you always find in winter scenes, they keep snow from blowing against the lenses and a filter’s a darn sight easier to clean than a lens.”

Marvin produced the filters, each in its individual plastic case, and extra straps.

Jase thought a minute.

“Film’s just about the cheapest part of this whole business, and just about the biggest problem. I know I can’t have too much, but I think I’ll take about two thousand feet of color film and six hundred of black and white, with the fast emulsion on the black and white.

“Now I’d like to ask you something,” Jase went on. “I expect to find everything from sleety rain to excessive cold. There’ll be rivers to cross and certainly there’ll be wet snow. Do you have anything that will protect the film?”

“We have a little gadget over here that should fill the bill.”

He led Jase to another counter and showed him a rubberized container. Approximately half the size of a hot-water bottle, it had a top that could be opened fully and closed again with a waterproof expansion stopper. Inside the container was a waterproof pocket for warmth-creating chemical tablets, and a pack of six tablets came with each container. According to the folder accompanying them, the waterproof containers could be used to keep food hot or cold, to warm the hands, to thaw frostbite, to warm the feet when one crawled into his sleeping bag, and for a dozen other things. Jase discovered that each container would comfortably hold four cartons of film. That meant he could distribute the film throughout his load rather than carry it all in one parcel. To lose one would not mean to lose all.

“Now,” Jase said, “Dr. Goodell wants some still pictures for Forests and Waters. Let me have ten rolls of 35 mm. black and white and two color. Eight of the black and white should be medium speed and two fast.”

“I sure wish I could go with you,” Marvin sighed. “I’d like to unlimber my own movie camera on those Keewatin elk.”

“Are you a wildlife camera bug?” Jase asked.

“You might call it that. I spent all of last January up in the Digsells experimenting. I wanted some high, cold country and I found it. I also made several dozens blunders that I never should have made.”

“What were they?” Jase’s interest doubled. “My own movie making has been almost entirely in warm weather and I’d sure appreciate any tips.”

In the next half-hour Jase received a comprehensive rundown on cold-weather movies and the problems which required giving camera and film special attention. He learned that if a camera were first exposed to cold air and then to warm, moisture would certainly condense on the lens and no adequate pictures could be had until it evaporated. He learned that if he used his camera in cold weather, and then returned to camp, it would be better to leave the camera where the temperature would remain constant rather than carry it near a fire.

Had anyone ever told Jase that, in very cold weather, the lubricant applied to all movie cameras had a tendency to congeal and the moving parts to contract? This resulted in a slower speed, which in most instances could be compensated for if one first familiarized one’s self with the sound of the camera’s motor under normal conditions and at the customary sixteen frames a second. Then, when cold slowed the mechanism, advance the speed to thirty-two frames. If the camera sounded the same as it normally did when running sixteen frames, it would take satisfactory pictures.

Since it would be impossible to take effective pictures with a movie or any other camera while wearing mittens, Jase should have a pair of silk gloves to wear under his mittens. They wouldn’t keep his hands warm, but they would prevent the burns and frostbite that all too often resulted when a warm finger touched cold metal. In cold weather, his film might become brittle and snap very easily. Rather than try to load cold film, he should carry as many spare rolls as he thought he might need in an inside pocket where body heat would keep them warm.

Jase could also keep his film warm by activating the heating tablets that were provided with the containers; a pinch of snow or a few drops of water would do it. There were also pocket-sized chemical heating pads to keep both hands and camera warm. One filling would keep them warm for about three hours, and they were good for six or seven fillings before they finally became useless. They should be placed on either side of the camera and held there with elastic bands, which were better than rubber because they were not so inclined to break when they became cold.

Jase bought an adequate supply of the chemical pads, some elastic bands to hold them on his camera, and a pair of silk gloves. Finally he bought a toboggan and a pair of snowshoes, also a bundle of lacing for extra snowshoe harness. Then he thanked Marvin Tracey for all his help, loaded the jeep, and drove fifty miles to a motel before calling it a day.

The next morning, save for a single line of white clouds that scudded southward like a flock of sheep running to cover, the sky lacked even a hint of storm. But the north wind blew steadily, the temperature was below freezing, and the jeep lacked a top. Driving toward Taborville, not too fast, for the tired old jeep protested if asked to do over forty, Jase ducked a bit more deeply into the wool scarf around his neck and thought wistfully of a closed car with a heater. He’d even settle for a closed car without a heater, for the wind seemed to sail over the top of the jeep’s windshield and whistle down inside with double force.

Only Buckles, who’d jumped from seat to floor and had his head and fore quarters under the recessed dash beneath the instrument panel, seemed reasonably comfortable. Jase glanced down at the dog enviously.

“Whoever said a dog was a dumb animal, Buckles? Wish you knew how to drive this contraption so I could stick my head under there. My face feels like a chunk of ice.”

The jeep mounted a hill up which the wind had a clean sweep, and an unusually violent gust whipped at the toboggan and snapped one of the ropes that held it. Jase stopped almost instantly, thankful that the jeep had good tires and brakes, at least. He repaired the broken rope and wound another around the toboggan as an extra safety measure. That done, he walked around the jeep to inspect the rest of his load and found everything in order. Resuming the journey, Jase passed the time by thinking back over the events that had led him here.

The son of a successful department store owner, Jase knew that his father would have liked him to join the family business. His older brother had, but Jase’s loves had always been the out-of-doors and photography, and he hoped to combine them into a career as a recognized wildlife photographer. A summer on his own in the wilderness had brought him experience, friendship with Tom Rainse and Dr. Goodell, and a job with the state Conservation Department as official photographer for Forests and Waters. Now, with this newest assignment, he had the best chance yet to prove his abilities—if he didn’t freeze before he got to Taborville.

“If you could only see your youngest son, Dad,” Jase murmured to himself. “If you could see with your own eyes what he’s doing when he might be sitting in a warm office telling other people what to do ...”

He stopped briefly for lunch, again for gas, and finally swerved into the driveway of a motel as the dark shadows of an early winter twilight began to close in. He was happy, for he’d made better time than he thought he would; he couldn’t be more than sixty miles from Taborville.

After supper at a neighboring cafe, he found himself still thinking of home. Jase pulled a chair up to the desk, found some motel stationery in the drawer, and sat down to write:

Dear Family:

I was thinking of you as Buckles and I drove north. It’s cold enough to freeze the ears on a tomcat, but this is a wonderful assignment! We’re to follow the Keewatin elk to winter feeding grounds; wilderness all the way and it must be howling, anyhow it will be before we’re through ...

Jase read what he’d written and nibbled the tip of his pen thoughtfully. His mother and father, even his brother, were strictly city people, the sort who appreciated a heated room far more than any outdoor adventure. What they knew about the wilderness they’d gleaned from movies and TV, and there was no point in worrying them.

Jase tore the letter up and started over again, mentioning only that he was on an assignment “near Taborville.” He was well, happy, and grateful because he had been allowed to follow the career that was nearest his heart. He gave them news of Dr. Goodell, and of Tom Rainse, and concluded by saying that he would see them at Christmas. He wrote a second letter to Dr. Goodell saying that he had all his equipment, that he would reach Taborville tomorrow morning, and that, after stopping only long enough for provisions, he would go right into the Park and start work.

The second letter finished, Jase tumbled into bed and fell asleep immediately. At nine o’clock the next morning he was in Taborville.

Like most villages and small towns, Taborville was not without charm. But a somewhat desolate effect was imparted by the leafless trees and barren brown hills that rose on either side. There was no snow, but lifting his eyes to the mountains farther north, Jase saw white slopes on them. He looked around at the village again.

The buildings were small but neat, and blue wood smoke curled from almost every chimney. With only one main street, which wound for a considerable distance between the hills that flanked it on either side, Taborville gave an impression of being considerably larger than it was. Jase suspected that its entire population, about twenty-five hundred people, was busily preparing for the elk hunt, the final important event of the season.

No hunters were as yet in evidence, but numerous truckers were unloading equipment and supplies that hunters might demand. In contrast to the trucks, a herd of about thirty driven horses came trotting up the street. Jase knew they were about to be pressed into service as pack or saddle mounts—necessary where people had to go any distance from the highways and take with them the assortment of equipment that big game hunters required.

Jase drew up in front of a brick-fronted wooden building, considerably larger than the other stores along the street. Over the front entry hung a gilt-lettered sign on a black background:

JOHN HATCHER

GEN. MERCHANDISE

Jase parked his jeep, ordered Buckles to guard it, and entered the store. He was greeted with the pleasant smells of coffee, smoked bacon and ham, spices, leather, cheese, and all the other odors he always associated with country stores.

There were half a dozen customers in the store, so Jase wandered about, looking at various items of merchandise until it was his turn to be waited on. Finally, at the meat counter, he was approached by a thin little clerk who wore thick bifocals for the apparent purpose of adornment. At any rate, he looked over rather than through them.

“Yours?” the clerk inquired.

“Six pounds of pork chops,” Jase told him, pointing through the glass-fronted counter. “Three of those steaks ...”

Ordinarily he would have ordered carefully, and confined himself largely to salted meat and dried fruits and vegetables that, aside from offering a saving in both weight and bulk, withstood freezing far better than their fresh or canned counterparts. But Tom Rainse was meeting him in just over a week, and it would be time enough to go on Spartan fare when he must. Jase continued to order and the elderly clerk stacked his growing pile of purchases on the counter.

“Whar you headin’ fer?” the clerk asked.

“Up into Whitestone. Going to drive up and look around. Take some pictures.”

“Hm-m. Be gone long?”

“Not very. Why?”

“You stay long, you might not git back. Deep snow up there ’most any day now. Up in the mountains, she gets real deep. Yup, real deep.”

“Then I suppose the elk will be heading down soon.”

“I hear tell a few’s left the Park a’ready. Be good huntin’ this year; cold weather’s come early.”

Jase waited for the clerk to add up his purchases, paid him, and helped him stow the various parcels in cartons. Then he carried them out to his jeep. Of course they’d have to be repacked properly, but that could wait until he was ready to lash them on the toboggan and cover them with tarpaulins. The important thing was to get up into Whitestone and find the migrating elk before deep snow prevented his doing so.

As Jase drove on through Taborville, he noticed that everywhere packers and outfitters were busy. He remembered that it was illegal for a hunter even to venture into this area without a licensed guide, and that the law had come under fire as a device to provide the guides and outfitters with more money. Jase knew that such was not the case. An experienced woodsman might be as much at home in the Keewatin as he would in any other wilderness, but since most of the incoming hunters lived outside the district and couldn’t bring their own horses, if they killed any elk the most they could bring out was the trophy and they might have trouble with that. The head of a big bull elk was enough load for even a strong man, but horses could carry the head and the meat too. An even more important reason for the law hinged on the fact that many of the elk hunters were inexperienced, and needed to be watched over. There was no telling how many hunters’ lives the law had saved.

Safely out of town, Jase picked up speed. The road between Taborville and the southern boundary of Whitestone climbed almost three thousand feet in thirty-five miles, and the weather changed accordingly. A few miles out Jase encountered a dusting of snow that deepened as he gained altitude. The bleak hills of Taborville here gave way to slopes heavily clothed with evergreens and aspens.

Near the Park’s southern borders, paths, beaten by horses, led from the snowy road into the timber. Seeing them, Jase realized that some outfitters had already gone in to set up their tents and have them waiting for hunters. There were no permanent camps, such as were often found in deer and antelope country, because it was impractical to hunt anything the size of an elk from a stationary camp. A dead elk couldn’t be dragged or carried as smaller game could and the hunters had to get back in to their game. The outfitters were setting up here, close to the Park, because many of the migrating elk followed known routes. The Taborville guides were acquainted with those routes, and, without trespassing on the Park in any way, posted their hunters just over the border. It was not the most sporting way to kill big game, but certainly it was one of the most practical. All the hunter had to do was wait near a trail until the elk came through.

When Jase came to it, the sign proclaiming that this was Whitestone National Park looked oddly forlorn. Even the log building where, during the tourist season, visitors bought postcards and souvenirs, had the bleak appearance of a building that had known no human occupant for some time.

Jase halted to consult his map.

Tom Rainse had said that the summer elk pastures were fifteen miles inside the Park’s borders and to the north. Jase checked his speedometer and drove on. The snow continued to deepen as he climbed but gave him no trouble. Autumn wasn’t late and the wind was brisk enough to satisfy the most ardent devotee of cold weather, but obviously the heavy snows hadn’t started yet.

Exactly fifteen miles from the Park entrance, Jase halted and looked off to his left. He smiled ruefully.

The summer range of the Keewatin elk had appeared small enough on the map, and after hearing Tom Rainse talk Jase half expected to find elk running around like spring calves in new clover. But all he saw was a great meadow whose shriveled grasses thrust wanly through a six-inch blanket of snow. Still, the elk had to be somewhere in there.

Shifting into four-wheel drive, Jase drove across the meadow and among the clumps of evergreens that dotted it. Choosing a circuitous route, he drove through any aperture wide enough to let him pass. Winding about as he was, it was hard to judge distance, but he guessed he had come four miles from the highway when he finally encountered a rocky ledge eight or ten feet high. He and Buckles could climb it without difficulty, but even a jeep could not ascend a wall, and the ledge seemed to extend for a long ways in either direction.

Jase alighted and Buckles jumped out beside him. Jase watched the big Airedale roll happily in the snow.

“Elk or no elk,” he said, “I guess this is our official starting point.”