Читать книгу Fawn in the Forest and Other Wild Animal Stories - Jim Kjelgaard - Страница 5

FAWN

IN THE FOREST

ON THIS morning in late May, the four-year-old doe stood on the shore of the small lake near which she had passed the night. Mists blanketed the water and the doe watched them writhe and twist. The mists had been born with the dawn and would die when the just-rising sun became hot enough to burn them away.

A bass leaped out of the lake, arched its bronze body in the air and splashed back into the water. The doe flicked her long ears toward the ripples and watched them until they washed into nothingness. Ordinarily, she would have paid no attention to so commonplace a thing, but this morning she was enveloped in a cloak of nervousness. This morning she could afford to neglect nothing.

In spring and summer, the lake shore was favored by the doe above any other place. She came there to drink, to play, to eat the rich and succulent grasses that grew along the border of the lake; and on hot days she cooled herself in the water. Always, until last night, she had used this shore carelessly and freely.

The summer was not a dangerous time for her. Wolves ranged the spruce country in which she lived; but when spring came, the wolf packs broke up. Only when driven by winter hunger did they sometimes sweep through the lake country, running down and destroying whatever they could catch. The mink, marten and fisher that ranged all about were not feared by the doe. She did fear the wildcats that prowled through the spruces, but she could easily run away from cats.

Ever since the spring breakup the doe had sought the lake for frolicking, food and drink. When morning came, she always ambled back into the spruces to find a bed and sleep throughout the heat of the day. It had been a careless time, a gay and wonderful vacation from winter.

There was nothing lazy or carefree about her walk when she turned from the lake this morning, however. Her step was quick, furtive. She stopped every few feet to look all about, and she flicked her long ears back and forth to catch any sound that might be present. She moved into the wind so her nose would tell her what lay ahead. This morning, she had an extremely important mission, and she was not allowed even one mistake. She could choose but once. Her choice must be right.

At no time did she hurry, or increase her slow walk to that point where, by reason of haste, she might miss something which she must not miss. The doe raised her head and stared at a stand of aspens that had stolen a place in the spruce forest. They grew on a small knoll, and brush was scattered beneath them. The doe circled until she could approach the aspens from upwind, then she skulked into them. She went straight through the thicket, out the other side—and ran a little way.

Her nose had told her that the aspens were part of a weasel’s regular hunting route, and she dared not ignore weasels. They were bloody little demons, able to kill creatures much larger than themselves, and they had no fear. The doe dropped back into her slow walk; she must see and know all.

Presently she came to a grove of hemlocks whose low-hanging limbs brushed the ground. She studied this, entered and came out the other side. She circled the hemlocks, her nose to the ground. There was no track, no sign of anything else. The doe re-entered the thicket and coursed it from end to end and from side to side. She inspected thoroughly every square inch of ground.

Presently, satisfied, she trampled a bed in some dry needles. Three times she lay down, got up—and finally she lay down a fourth time.

Twelve minutes from the fourth time she lay down, her fawn was born.

THE FAWN weighed seven pounds. He was twenty-six inches long from the tip of his black nose to the end of his tail bone. His tail was four inches long, his ear three and a quarter, and his leg about ten inches. His color was dark red, shading into white at the brisket. The little buck’s underbelly was white, as was the under part of his tail, and there was a large white spot beneath his chin.

Two white lines, a quarter of an inch wide, ran from the base of his ear to the front of his shoulders. There they became dotted lines which spread about an inch apart along his back and seemed to melt into each other at the base of his tail. He had 306 very noticeable white spots which varied from a quarter to a half inch in diameter.

As soon as the fawn was born, he came under the rule of the mold, the forces which would shape him. How he grew and prospered depended entirely on how well he adapted himself to those forces.

Less than two minutes after he was born, the fawn spread his long, almost unbelievably delicate front legs on his leafy bed and raised the front part of his body. He was trying to get up, but he fell back. His legs would be miraculously strengthened in a very short time, but as yet they were too new—too weak to support even his small weight. The fawn rested, tired by the tremendous effort of trying to get up, but his recovery was astonishing as strength flowed into his body. That was part of the mold, part of the plan. The fawn must have as great a chance to live as he had to die, and he could not live if he were unable to rise.

Five minutes after he was born, the fawn was on his feet. His long legs trembled, but they supported him, even though he had to spread them wide in order to make them do so. He took an unsteady step and stood still, as though overwhelmed by the fact that he could move. Then the moment was over. Another wild baby had learned how to get himself about, and this one knew exactly where he was going.

His feet braced to keep from falling, he fed, butting his mother’s flank with an impatient head while he did so, as though that would somehow make the milk flow faster. As soon as his belly was filled, he dropped down into the leaves. He stared with fascinated eyes at the world into which he had been born.

His bed was almost under a thick hemlock. The tree’s long, spreading branches formed a triangle that effectively prevented his seeing anything on the two sides of the angle in which he lay; but on the other side, ten feet away, was another hemlock. The fawn looked across that dizzy space. When the hemlock’s branches moved, revealing patches of sky and more trees beyond, he merely wondered what they were.

The fawn slept for fifteen minutes, then he awakened and rose on legs that were a bit steadier and stronger. He snuffled at a dangling hemlock bough, poked his inquisitive nose at a leaf and stood on braced legs to watch his anxious mother. He saw—without understanding the reason for it—that she was alert, fearful. The doe understood the fawn’s complete helplessness. If any carnivorous prowler happened upon him, he would see her baby only as a tender and easily obtained meal. If the fawn was to live, the doe had to be keener and more alert than anything that intended to hurt him.

The fawn fed again. He wandered back to his bed, and, when the doe uttered a hoarse bark, he dropped instantly into it. The doe’s bark had been a command. Lying so still that he did not so much as flick an ear or twitch a muscle, the little fawn watched his mother slink through the hemlocks and disappear.

Sunlight streamed through the hemlocks, and when the slight wind that had arisen ruffled the branches, shadows played along the forest floor. The fawn was so perfect a copy of those dappled shadows that even a keen eye could not have discerned him where he lay. Nothing even sensed that he was there. A black bird flew down and lit on him. A red squirrel dug in the leaves less than two feet away, and still the fawn did not move. No creature except the doe knew that this thicket had become a nursery.

The fawn remained so quiet that he seemed a carved image rather than a living thing. He would have remained motionless in the face of anything that came including fire.... In about an hour he heard his mother’s guttural bark. This time it had a slightly different note. It was not a warning, but a signal that the doe was coming back. Obeying that voice, and only that, the fawn rose. He was on his feet when she came into the thicket.

In the less than two hours since his birth, the change was miraculous. His legs were no longer unsteady, and he did not have to brace himself in order to stand. He walked over to his mother, fed, and, when the doe repeated the harsh bark, he dropped in his tracks.

He stretched flat on the ground, with his head extended, and the doe leaped over him. He heard her crashing through the thicket and her blasting snort of anger as she ran. He heard another deer, a yearling buck that had seen the doe enter the thicket and was curious about her reason for doing so, run away. Five minutes later, his mother came back and the fawn finished his interrupted meal.

The doe moved ten feet away and lay down to chew her cud while the fawn basked in the morning sun. In the late afternoon she went forth to graze again, but she was back within a half hour.

AS DAYS passed, the fawn gained strength and spirit. Within a week he had visited and thoroughly explored the hemlock across from his bed. Before a month went by, he had traveled the fifty vast yards to the borders of the thicket and looked out on the great world beyond. He just stood quietly and did not venture farther; he was not yet ready for that world. He could walk, and even run; but he was still a baby whose only means of protection lay in silence and camouflage.

His life in the thicket had been one of peace and quiet. He remembered the curious buck, but, aside from this, he had no inkling so far that there were creatures other than himself, his mother, the black bird and the busy red squirrel in the world. The squirrel lived in one of the hemlocks but he often descended to the ground to look for food, and the fawn had spent fascinated hours watching him. The self-important squirrel, finally realizing that the fawn also lived in the thicket, ignored him entirely.

The fawn discovered dramatically that there were other creatures in the world one early July day when, at last, he went outside the protecting thicket. He walked ahead, trembling, a little fearful, but fascinated by the bush-strewn clearing that lay between the thicket and the nearest spruces. Then a new scent, a heavy and strange odor, assailed his nostrils. He stretched his neck interestedly.

He heard his mother’s warning, dropped to earth and lay quietly. The alien scent grew stronger, more pungent, as the beast from which it emanated came nearer. But, although the fawn was puzzled and very curious, he did not move. The little breeze that played about him did not even ruffle his soft hair. His head was flat on the ground, but his liquid eyes were wide open when the wolf from which the scent came passed within ten feet.

The fawn saw the beast and, although he had never encountered a wolf, deep within him he felt the first faint stirrings of fear. The wolf did not smell him because, until he was older and able to run or to defend himself from such threatening creatures, the fawn would have no scent.

He saw his mother facing away from him. Her head was high, her tail erect and flashing from side to side. The fawn sensed faint vibrations when the doe tapped the earth with her front hoof, and he remained exactly where he was. When ordinary danger threatened, she merely uttered her bark. Now she was flashing her tail and stamping the earth, talking to her child in every way she could and warning him to stay still while she lured the wolf away.

The fawn saw the wolf turn, stand a moment, then rush his mother. She leaped away, bounding high but not running fast. She must herself accept whatever danger might threaten her baby, and she wanted to be certain that the wolf was on her trail before she would leave him.

More than two hours after the doe had left, she came back. The fawn rose, trotted to her and sniffed curiously at the blood that flowed from a minor wound in her leg—the wolf had come very near! The fawn fed, then he trailed at his mother’s heels until they came out on the shore of the little lake.

The fawn stood, legs spread wide, blinking at the water. He crowded close to the doe and trembled, but he followed when she walked unconcernedly down to the lake and drank. The fawn touched the water with his muzzle, leaped back and stopped in his tracks.

Standing on the bank just above him was another doe with twin fawns. Their feet were braced, their ears extended, their heads slightly bent, and both were as astonished as the little buck. For a moment, the three young things faced each other. Then, hesitantly, they advanced and sniffed noses.

Suddenly they were away, racing up the lake shore, whirling to come together, head against head, rearing to paw at each other. They kicked, danced and played tag while their mothers fed. It appeared just baby play, but it had a purpose. When the fawns raced, leaped, danced, all but bent themselves double and executed every motion of which they were capable, they received exercise that would harden them and prepare them for a necessarily agile maturity.

As the days passed, the fawn gained weight. He became limber, swift-footed. His spots began to fade and he grew much more graceful. The tufts of white hair on the inside of each hind leg had flared out. He learned to eat leaves, clover, wild flowers and the aquatic plants which grew along the shore of the little lake. No longer did he flop into the leaves and lie motionless when the doe warned him with her guttural bark, or by flashing her tail, or by pounding the earth with her front hoof. He was able to run with the doe when she ran.

The fawn had become a strong thing, a healthy young animal that had at least an even chance of meeting the rigors of his life and of surviving them. He was rapidly fitting his niche in an age-old plan. The country in which he lived was a harsh and raw land where weaklings always died. The fawn was not weak.

With his mother, he ranged on one side of the lake and about a mile into the spruces. Frequently they went to an abandoned logging camp to eat the lush clover growing around the horse barns there and to lick salt from an old stump in which a block of this much desired delicacy had been placed. So many deer came to the salt lick that the earth for fifteen feet around was gouged and bare.

One late-summer evening, while the doe and the fawn were at the salt lick, an automobile came up the dirt road. Swiftly, as the summer progressed, the fawn had assimilated many things that he needed to know. He had learned never to go anywhere unless he was sure of where he was going. He had discovered that wolves and wildcats are better let alone, and, one sad day, when he thrust his nose too near a porcupine, he had discovered also that these creatures have painful stickers. The car was something new; something entirely strange.

It inspired such terror in the fawn that his pounding heart could have been heard two yards away. Finally finding his legs, he fled. The doe followed him. Like all adult female deer, the doe could run about thirty-five miles an hour for a short distance, and hold at thirty-two for at least two miles after that. The fawn could not match such speed; he ran ahead because the doe let him. As soon as he had run far enough so he could no longer hear the car, he stopped. To him, danger was a thing that poised, struck—and was forgotten if it missed.

As the season wore on, the fawn no longer received regular meals from the doe, for he had learned to feed himself. He liked ground hemlock, and, above all else, he preferred maple leaves, but he would taste almost anything. He even ate a fish that had been killed in battle with a bigger fish and had washed up on the shore of the little lake.

His spots were fading fast and his color was light red. His eyes were large and dark. On top of his head were two bumps that would become antlers. He weighed 60 pounds as compared to the doe’s 125. The fawn had been born in the spring, and he had taken the fullest advantage of soft summer weather and abundant food. Few deer which were not strong and fat by the end of summer had any hope of surviving the winter.

October arrived. The long nights turned colder and the fawn was left to his own devices much of the time. Other bucks, with the swollen necks and polished antlers of maturity, were very much interested in the doe. Once in a while they lowered their antlers at the fawn, threatening him and warning him to keep his distance. He stayed away from them.

Frigid weather and the first of November came together. The lake acquired a sheath of ice and all the deciduous leaves were gone. One day, the doe ran off from the fawn. A moment later, she was followed by a five-year-old buck with massive antlers. In turn, he was followed by a smaller two-year-old buck and both kept track of the doe by smelling her trail. She could not hide herself. The fawn did not see his mother at all during the rest of that day, and only at intervals for the next week.

Another week passed, and a northeast wind blew hard, carrying snow in its teeth. At eveningtime, with six inches of snow on the ground, the storm ceased. That night the fawn was sleeping about a hundred yards from the lake shore, while the doe and the big buck napped a little distance from him, when the lights of an automobile stabbed the night. The car moved up the road to the abandoned logging camp. Another car came ... and another. Deer hunters were arriving at the camp. The fawn rose and walked over to the doe and the big buck. They stood in their beds and looked inquiringly toward the road. The three strolled farther back into the underbrush. As he went, the fawn took a mouthful of snow. He liked the taste.

A cloudless dawn arrived, and the sharp wind was cold. The fawn, the doe, a young doe with a doe fawn, and the five-year-old buck stood in a thicket of spruce, balsam and cedar. The old buck was first to see the two hunters coming down the trail that led from the lake, and he snorted. White tails flashing, the two does and the pair of fawns raced into some cutover. They were followed in a moment by the old buck.

A bullet whined overhead and thudded into a dead tree. Another was heard ... and another. The old buck failed to come through. All that day the four remaining deer wandered, seeing several hunters and hearing many shots.

It was almost evening when the young two-year-old buck came toward them, limping in his left hind foot. A slug had hit him and broken the bone, just above the hock. A nice six-point, he now had the even set of antlers that indicated good health, but next year, due to his injured foot, he would carry a branched antler on his left side and a deformed stub on the right—the side opposite the wound.

THE INJURED buck moved on, but the does and fawns remained as a little herd throughout the deer season and afterward. The young buck’s hair was gray now, as were the coats of all the other deer. The snow deepened, and the weather turned colder. There was food around the edges of the lake and in the spruces, but the deer needed protection from the bitter and almost ceaseless wind.

Soon after the first of January, just before a heavy snowfall which they seemed to sense was coming, the four deer went around to the other side of the lake, where a small stream flowed through a large spruce, cedar and balsam swamp. This swamp already contained many deer that had come down from the high country for miles around, and it was laced with so many beaten trails that walking to almost any point was easy. The fawn got his first taste of white cedar and liked it, although it was hard to reach, since deer had been yarding here for many years, and the white cedar was browsed in most places as high as a big deer could raise its head. The balsam and spruce were easier to reach, but the balsam was not as tasty as the cedar, and the fawn did not like spruce at all. However, some young shoots of black ash and the tops of viburnum were satisfying. When the fawn could find them, maple shoots were a delicacy. Two days after he came to the swamp, the pair of buttons on top of his head loosened and fell off. New and bigger antlers would grow in place of the buttons.

The winter was severe, and the fawn dropped from eighty pounds in December to sixty-four in March. At that time, the strong mold in which he had been formed was apparent in all its aspects. He had been born in May, and he had had an entire summer in which to grow strong. The fawns born in late June, those which had been unable to fulfill the complete routine prescribed for them, died. Some were too small and weak to reach food. Others were unable to run from the occasional prowling wolf that came to the deer yard. Several died from pneumonia.

With the end of March and the melting of much of the snow, the young buck could make his way out to the side hills and feast on maple shoots. At night, he went back into the swamp to escape the harsh wind. Some days, such snow as remained froze with a hard crust upon which the deer could walk and reach food that had been beyond reach during the winter.

The middle of April came and all the snow melted.

The young buck, no longer properly a fawn, went back to his home on the other side of the lake. He had doffed his gray winter coat in favor of red summer attire. Meeting other male deer his own age, he traveled with them. Sometimes, but not often, he ran with his mother. Now that there was an abundance of food, he gained weight fast, and there was a soft coating of very sensitive velvet over his new antlers. He was careful not to bump the velvet because doing so hurt. Blood which fed the growing antlers flowed through the velvet.

As the summer progressed, he noted that three older bucks living in the vicinity joined forces and were almost never seen apart. The same gregarious desire and an increasing wish for company stirred in the young buck. Therefore, the next time he met a yearling buck he fell in beside it, and that night they slept side by side. Later, two more yearlings joined them.

They ranged from the lake back into the woods, trespassing upon one another’s home territory as often as they saw fit, but always avoiding does. Summer was their time, a season of preparation for fall and winter. They browsed, drank, played and found strength.

When September came, the young buck had a six-point, velvet-covered rack that was beginning to itch. He sought a two-inch sapling, bent his head against it and vigorously scraped and butted the little tree with his antlers. At first the velvet was hard to rub off, and, because of remaining blood, it retained a pinkish under-color. The antlers also had a pink cast, but they were polished and the last shreds of velvet were removed by more rubbing on trees.

With his antlers clean and white, the young buck felt the first stirrings of an age-old impulse which urged him to declare his own supremacy. With no spirit of rancor, but strictly for fun, he challenged and fought the three other young bucks with which he had elected to run. One of the quartet bore short spikes that almost met at the points, and he could not fight well. Another lacked courage. The decisive fight was always between the young buck and another one which bore two points on each antler. Whichever one triumphed, leaving the other gasping and breathless, was the little herd’s leader until another fight reversed their fortunes. When October came, with swollen necks—but not so swollen as they would be when, at the age of six or seven years, they reached their prime—the four went their separate ways.

Now, throughout the deer woods, there was always the sound of combat as the bucks battled each other for the does. The young buck witnessed a number of these fights, and he saw two bucks lock their antlers and become bound together, doomed to death if they could not break the deadlock. He saw a number of fights in which neither buck was injured but one gave up and fled.

ONE BRIGHT moon-sprayed night, early in November, the young buck was on his way to the old logging camp when a doe came mincing down the trail. The young buck swaggered to her side. He pushed her with his muzzle and butted her with his bright new antlers. The doe turned to look over her shoulder and the young buck saw a bigger, heavier buck coming down the trail.

The two bucks met in the clearing and came together with a ringing clash of antlers. For a few minutes they pushed and heaved, then the superior weight of his antagonist forced the young buck backward. He freed himself and retreated a few yards. Again the two came together, making vicious swipes at each other’s sides but meeting head-on. The young buck backed away.

He was tired and the enemy was bigger and stronger. His flanks were heaving, but there was no weakening of a will to fight.

The older buck charged viciously, and when he came, the young one slipped and fell to his knees. His chin almost touched the ground; his antlers pointed straight up instead of forward. Unable to check himself, the old buck went on and up, over the youngster’s back. With a terrific lunge, the young buck brought his antlers up. It was to have been a death blow, but the young buck missed the lethal thrust he aimed at his enemy’s soft belly and inflicted a gaping wound in his side instead.

The older buck stood a moment. He was stronger than the young deer, heavier, more experienced, but he lacked heart and courage. His wound frightened him. He bounded down the trail and disappeared.

The young buck rose to his feet. His head was up. His eyes were blazing. He was able and strong.

He would always win!