Читать книгу Dave and his Dog Mulligan - Jim Kjelgaard - Страница 5

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Harry Keller, Senior Warden in charge at Apache Checking Station, sighed with relief as the last red taillight on the last of six cars bobbed southward down the highway. Red Ethridge, the snow-plow jockey who’d cleared a path for these six final diehards, sat behind the wheel of his plow. One hairy arm—a minor legend of the high country was built around the fact that Red never wore a coat or jacket—was braced against the open window of his cab.

“The last of your babes in the woods, Harry. Apache Plateau is closed for another season, and I can’t say I’m sorry.”

“Are you sure that’s all?” Harry Keller inquired.

Red answered grimly, “I made sure. Never will forget the time I thought I had ’em all, but this one camp figured they’d stay a bit to admire the beautiful snow. They admired it till it was six feet deep twixt here and Two Pines and I hate to think how deep some of them drifts were. Took a whole crew of us three days to reach ’em and two more to get ’em out. Yep, I made sure there ain’t nobody left this time.”

Harry Keller nodded toward the small camp where the three wardens posted at Apache Checking Station lived. “Come in and have a cup of coffee?”

“Thanks, but I’d best be getting back. How was the deer season?”

“Not too good.” Even as he spoke, Warden Keller mentally translated the statement into official figures for his report. Number of hunters entering Apache Plateau—4,379. Number of deer taken—1,876. Number of fawns among those taken—734. Number of does among those taken—851. Reason for preponderance of does and fawns—unavailability of bucks. “The whole kaboodle took just under nineteen hundred deer.”

Red asked, “And that ain’t good?”

“No. There were 4,500 permits issued and the Commission hoped for a hunter success of 70 per cent, in order to reduce this Apache deer herd to what the range can support. Definitely, it isn’t good. These animals must be thinned out or few of them will survive.”

Red said dryly, “From all the shooting I heard, those fellows should have killed all the deer on ’Pache and everything else, too. Guess some of ’em miss better’n they hit, but they ought to have got more deer than that. Why didn’t they?”

Harry Keller replied, “Heavy rains during the early part of the season either restricted the hunters’ moving about or immobilized them in camp. By the time the rains stopped and they could move, unseasonably early snow had already sent too many of the Apache herd into the lowlands.”

“What can you do about it?” Red asked.

“Nothing any more this year. But the heavy autumn rains brought plenty of forage to the low country. If enough deer survive, and they should, there’ll just have to be more hunting permits issued next season.”

“You send any more hunters down there, you’d best tell each one to fetch his own rock to stand on,” Red commented. “Well, I’ll be seeing you.”

“Sure thing.”

Red put his truck in gear and rumbled away toward that station from which, whenever conditions warranted, he fared forth to keep his own section of this all-year highway passable for traffic.

For a moment before he joined his younger companions in the warden’s camp, Harry Keller remained where he was.... This was his twentieth season at the Apache Checking Station, and he had tried and failed to recapture some of the ecstasy and sense of adventure he had known on his first. At last he was no longer a rookie warden. He had an assignment and it had seemed an important one. But all that had been so very long ago that it was almost as though it had happened to a different person.

All he could be certain of right now was that his feet hurt, his back ached, his head reeled, and he was homesick. This high country was glorious, but, as far as Harry Keller was concerned, three weeks in it were two too many. He glanced toward his snow-shrouded car and the buck strapped on the fender. It was a fair-enough five point that he had taken only after letting seven smaller bucks go past. But several of the trophies on his back porch at home equaled it and at least four were bigger.

He thought suddenly of his son and smiled wanly. Dave was impatient because he’d had his application in with the Game Commission since leaving high school, less than six months ago. Harry Keller had asked for his job when he was twenty-two, with more than a dozen knockabout jobs behind him. He’d waited three and a half years to take the examinations and another eighteen months for an appointment. It seemed that kids not only wanted but expected everything at once these days.

Warden Keller sighed, wondering why he should feel so old and tired. No believer in visiting doctors too often—or perhaps not often enough—the last time he’d had a checkup he’d been assured that there was nothing wrong with him and he knew there was nothing wrong now that any medicine or doctor could cure. The only remedy was to swim back against the years and once more be twenty-seven. There was a vast gulf between that and forty-seven. Harry Keller walked to and entered the warden’s camp.

Designed for strict utility, the one-room building contained a cooking stove that doubled as a heater, three bunks, a wooden table, three chairs, and adequate cooking and eating utensils. One of the other wardens, Mike Gentry, had removed his snow pacs, socks, shirt, and probably he’d have taken his pants off, too, if he hadn’t run out of energy at the crucial moment. Thirty-four years old and seven years in the service, he lay cater-cornered across his own bunk. Henry Leonard, the third warden, was a rookie such as Harry had been on his first assignment to Apache. He’d removed his snow pacs only and now sat in a tilted chair with his feet on the table.

“That ends it, eh?” he asked.

Harry Keller nodded. “That’s the last of them.”

“Good!” Mike said feelingly.

“I’m sort of sorry!” young Leonard exclaimed. “I know it’s been tiring, but I feel as though I’ve been a part of something big and wonderful. It’s important work and I found it exciting!”

Mike said caustically, “If you want some real excitement, why not go down on the causeway and watch the trains pass?”

“Oh, I know you’re an old hand at the game!” Leonard fairly bubbled. “But I’m not, and I joined the warden force because I saw an opportunity to be of real public service. Didn’t you?”

“Not me.” Mike Gentry was dead pan. “I joined for the money and I sure got it. There’s nine dollars and sixty-five cents in my bank account. Just think! I’ve been able to save more than a dollar a year!”

“I still say it’s exciting,” young Leonard asserted.

“Did I say it wasn’t?” Mike asked plaintively. “We stand out there behind our de-luxe checking stand that says ‘Stop. State Game Wardens’ on the front. We wait for a car to come out of Apache Plateau. We halt the car. We say, in that courteous but at the same time brisk and businesslike tone that the manual says all wardens should use, ‘May I please see your licenses?’ They show us their licenses, except those that lost them in the woods, left them on Aunt Alice’s dining-room table before they started out, or used them to start a fire on account they were cold and there was no other paper handy. We take their names and addresses for a later check back—unless we happen to think they’re trying to get away with hunting deer on Apache without buying a license. These we find out about right away by telephone, and I wish I’d challenge a suspicious character some time who doesn’t turn out to be a minister, or anyhow a deacon. We check the age, sex, and guess at the weight of any deer they happen to have. We say to those that have deer, ‘Thanks a lot, gentlemen, and we’re glad you know how to hunt.’ If they don’t have any deer, we say, ‘Better luck next time!’ We let them go and wait for the next car. Oh, boy! It’s like sitting on a powder keg with a lighted cigar in your teeth! Isn’t that so, Harry?”

Harry Keller answered quietly, “It’s necessary work.”

“I guess so.” Mike yawned. “Tommy Harnish brought a little billy doo when he came down from the post office today, Harry. It’s on your bunk and it looks to me as though it’s from His Royal Lowness himself.”

Warden Keller walked over to his bunk. He picked up the official envelope with the name and insigne, a leaping trout and a running buck, of the Fish and Game Commission in the upper left-hand corner. Beneath, in smaller letters, was printed, “J.C. Bannerman, Executive Secretary.” Not unduly interested, Harry opened the envelope and withdrew a form directive;

FROM—J. C. Bannerman, Executive Secretary, Fish and Game Commission.

TO—Harry Wilson Keller.

EMPLOYED AS—G.W.

SUBJECT:

On or after six months of the date on this letter, you will be prepared to undergo re-examination concerning your ability satisfactorily to discharge the duties of your office.

It was signed, with a neat flourish at the beginning and another at the end, “J. C. Bannerman.” Harry Keller turned away so that Mike and young Leonard couldn’t see his face. High-echelon personnel of the Commission, like that of most other state agencies, was sure to change with a changing administration. J. C. Bannerman, whoever he might be, had been top man for less than three months.

Omitted Illustration

Three men in cabin. One in suit, standing with paper in hand; one sitting at table having coffee and cigarette; one standing with coffee in his hand.

“You will be prepared to undergo—” Harry Keller stared unbelievingly at the wall. Every now and again a crusader came along, a zealot determined to separate the wheat from the chaff and head an organization which, even if it didn’t always perform efficiently in the field, never looked too bad when presented on paper. If the High Brass who were the true overlords of the Commission hunted and fished at all, they did so lackadaisically. If the Executive Secretary could point with reasonable pride to the fact that not one of his fieldmen was past thirty-eight, the least he usually rated was a pat on the back.

Harry stared hard at the wall. Once he had passed the test with flying colors, but he’d been twenty-seven then. Could he pass it again at forty-seven?

“Well?” Mike queried lazily. “Pass the dirt on, Harry. For meritorious service, which includes paying your own travel expenses half the time because that tight-fisted auditor in the front office has a convulsion every time he okays another nickel; unswerving devotion and years of loyalty to this mighty state, are you in line for a raise? Maybe a big one? Like a dollar and eighty-six cents a year?”

Harry Keller crumpled the directive and the envelope in which it had arrived, strode across the floor, lifted a stove lid, and dropped both into the fire. Shaken, but hoping the other two would not notice, he faced them.

“Just some more red tape,” he said.

“And you burned it!” Mike pretended shock. “The least they can stick you with now is treason. I wouldn’t be surprised if they add heresy to that. What are you thinking of, Harry? Red tape is the very lifeblood of every government bureau. I wouldn’t care to sleep with your conscience tonight.”

Harry Keller grinned appreciatively. He was tired, but he was afflicted with a sudden urge to be out of these mountains, where he was an alien, and back in the desert that he loved and understood.

He said, “Reckon I’ll pull out.”

“Brother!” Mike exclaimed. “They’ll send you to a head shrinker, too! If they don’t, they should. Who’d want to drive four hundred thirty-five miles at night?”

“Hadn’t you better stay?” young Leonard asked anxiously. “I’ll fix us something to eat right now.”

“No, thank you. I’ll be going.”

“It’ll be dangerous, Harry,” Mike sat up on his bunk. “You’ll find ice for sure and the chances are good you’ll bump into more snow. The only trouble-free driving you can really count on is the last eighty miles, after you dip into the desert.”

“Just the same, I think I’ll go.”

“Then I’ll go with you.”

“Thanks, Mike, but I’ll make it.”

Mike eyed him suspiciously. “What’s come over you, Harry? You remind me of that movie star, what the dickens was her name, who always wanted to be alone?”

“Don’t forget I have a kid waiting.”

“Right good-sized kid,” Mike said dryly. “Is he the one who wants to be a game warden?”

“He’s the one.”

“Then take my advice and shoot him now—or shoot yourself. If he gets a warden’s job, think of the years of suffering he’s in for. If you can’t put your own flesh and blood out of the way, shoot yourself and you won’t have to think about it. Well, you’re over twenty-one and I can’t stop you. Happy highways.”

“Thanks, Mike, and so long. So long, Hank. See you both next deer season.”

“I hope so, Harry. Please be careful.”

“Careful Harry’s what they call me.” Warden Keller managed a feeble grin. “Keep your faces washed.”

He went out into the cold night, and at once felt a little relief because he no longer had to face the other two. He’d burned the note, but in so doing he seemed to have burned the message it contained into his own person. He couldn’t hide it forever. The whole world must soon know that Harry Keller, game warden for twenty years, had grown too old to discharge his duties.

Throughout the years he had known of other wardens who had received such directives, but, without exception, they had been misfits who never should have become wardens in the first place. Not all of them had been given six months to make ready. However, a man with twenty years’ seniority could not gracefully be offered less. Although he had no political influence, Harry Keller had acquired a host of friends among sportsmen. If he were summarily dismissed, even J. C. Bannerman would hear the outraged howl that was sure to arise.

Warden Keller climbed into his car, coaxed it to start, gave it a few minutes to warm up, and used the tip of his finger to melt a hole in the frost-rimmed windshield. He eased slowly onto the highway. Red Ethridge did a good job, but the plow blade that would get every bit of snow had yet to be invented and the cars that had gone before his had pounded the snow that remained into slick ice.

Harry Keller had never been a fast driver, except on those rare occasions when he was hot on the tail of some violator who was trying to escape, and then he was recklessness itself. Under ordinary circumstances, there was no necessity for speed. The deer and the porcupine both got there, even though the deer usually arrived first.

Thinking wistfully of the years that were gone, Harry Keller marveled at their swift disappearance. A panorama of his life flitted through his mind.

The son of a man who’d been eternally tormented by the next horizon, his early years had been wandering ones. Inevitably, his education was sporadic. It was rare when he did not attend at least three different schools in the course of a year and there had been as many as seven. He was halfway through his first year of high school when his father was killed. A mine where he was certain he would strike the Big Bonanza fell in on him. Harry Keller’s formal education ended with his father’s death.

There followed a whole series of jobs—teamster, pick-and-shovel man, trapper, anything that would serve to fill the moment’s gap and at the same time furnish a livelihood. He was twenty-two when he met and fell in love with Moira Crandall, but experience had taught him that he could not ask her to share the uncertain life he was leading. He needed a firm anchor for marriage.

Naturally inclined to the out-of-doors, a game warden’s job seemed the right answer. He did not receive an assignment until five years after applying. But Moira had waited for him and their happiness had been complete. Sometimes it seemed to Harry Keller that it had been too complete to endure, for Moira had sickened and died six months after Dave was born. Now ...

Harry Keller clenched his jaw and drove on. He had aimed at the highest mark he could hope to hit, and, regardless of anything else, he had no reason for shame. Having picked his job, for twenty years he had served to the best of his ability.

Dave was different. With his mother’s quick wit and keen intelligence, he had graduated with honors from the Three Palms high school. He could go to college and be somebody, a lawyer, accountant, doctor, anything he chose. Warden Keller did not have the money to finance such an education, but he could sell the house and a man who knew how could always pick up extra money trapping. Dave could be somebody if he would.

But he didn’t want to be anybody except a game warden and how was a man to stop him—especially his understanding father?

Warden Keller drove into Three Palms at ten forty-five the next morning. Behind him was a slow trip, with treacherous roads all the way from Apache to the final descent of Harrow’s Hill and his entry into the ice-and snow-free desert. He had halted for coffee at various truckers’ stops along the way and a game warden was used to being up all night. He was tired but not fatigued when he pulled into Phil Marcy’s Filling Station, which, if distinguished for nothing else, was at once set apart by the fact that it was one of the few service stations in the whole area that failed to flaunt a large sign advising motorists that they were now in the desert, and that it was imperative to buy a water bag, spare fan belt, and anything else the proprietor thought he could sell them.

Phil Marcy, one-time prospector, cowboy, roustabout, miner, homesteader, and various other things, was wiping down the gas pumps with a wet cloth. Old, but aged in the same manner as a desert boulder, Phil had turned his face to so many glaring suns and blasting winds that his eyes were never quite open. They were alert, though, and filled with the wisdom of his years. He dropped his cloth into a pail of water and came happily forward.

“Hi, Harry! Did you leave the mountains all buttoned up?”

“For another year at least. Is Dave around?”

“Dave doesn’t come on till noon today. I reckon you’ll find him at home.”

Harry Keller’s heart sank. Despite the blow he’d suffered in J. C. Bannerman’s directive, it seemed to him that something wholly good and wonderful awaited his arrival in Three Palms. Now he knew how much it would mean to see Dave again. Phil’s eyes strayed to the frozen buck on the fender of Harry’s car.

“Got one, eh? Nice one, too.”

“Fair-sized.”

“That he is, but take a look at the window.”

Warden Keller looked at the glass-fronted building and gasped. In the window, mounted on a plaque of shellacked pine, were the scalp and antlers of a buck so huge that he averted his eyes. But when he looked a second time, the antlers were still there and just as big. He turned to Phil.

“Great, thumping tarred and feathered cats! Who got that one?”

“Read the little card in the corner.”

Harry Keller read the card that he had overlooked:

THIS BUCK BROUGHT IN

FROM THE KELSEY MINE

COUNTRY BY DAVE KELLER.

“My kid!” he exclaimed delightedly.

“Your kid,” Phil affirmed. “Came luggin’ it in on that stripped-down clunker he calls his desert cruiser. ‘Got me a buck, Phil,’ he said.”

“Is that all?” Harry Keller asked incredulously.

Phil shook his head. “That’s all he said about the buck, and he wasn’t any more excited about it than if it’d been a jack rabbit. But he sure was high about somethin’. ‘That’s a mighty big buck,’ I said. ‘Big enough,’ he said. ‘What you goin’ to do with it?’ I said. ‘Skin it out and eat it,’ he said. ‘Will you let me show that rack at the station?’ I said. ‘I’ll bring ’em down soon’s I can saw ’em off and mount ’em,’ he said. ‘Would you mind lettin’ me show my next trophy, too?’ ‘If it’s anything like this, I’ll build a new station so you can,’ I said.”

“But—” Harry Keller groped for words. “That’s a record head!”

“All I know is it’s the biggest I ever saw, and I’ve seen a passel of bucks. But that kid of yours is boilin’ like a teakettle ‘bout somethin’ better.”

“I think I’ll find out.”

Harry Keller drove onto Three Palms’ main street, heading for his house at the outskirts of town. As he pulled into the driveway beside Dave’s desert cruiser, Mulligan came roaring to greet him. He stooped to pet the big dog. The door opened and Dave dashed out.

“Dad!”

“Hi, Dave!”

Their embrace was warm. When they stepped apart, Dave asked, “Have you had breakfast?”

“Right-o. I stopped at Happy Jacks, on top of the hill.”

“Well.” Dave laughed heartily, “I see you’re still my pop and I won’t have to nominate you for the Herod Club.”

“Maybe you should. I stopped at Phil’s and saw the rack from the buck you killed.”

“I didn’t kill it.”

“So? It says on the card that you did.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Dave corrected him. “The card says I brought it in.”

“That buck will rank among the best heads on record, Dave, and you act as though it’s nothing.”

“It’s nothing compared with an idea I have. Come on in and let’s talk.”

They entered the house. Mulligan trailed in behind them and threw himself down on the rug. Warden Keller removed his pacs and made himself comfortable in his favorite chair.

“Shoot,” he invited.

“I figured there’d be deer around Kelsey Mine,” Dave began. “We—”

He told of the bobcat that had died under his car lights, and of finding the sheep trail. He spoke of passing up three bucks for the right one. He described finding the great buck, his plan to intercept it, and the lion.

He finished with the statement, “I think I’d have downed that buck if the lion hadn’t.”

His father exclaimed, “It’s a darn shame!”

“No, it isn’t,” Dave declared happily. “Dad, what’s the reason all those hunters give for coming to this area every year?”

“Sport, of course.”

“Exactly. Well, twenty seconds or so after Mulligan and I reached the buck, a coyote sneaked out of the same wash. I had two good shots at him and missed both! Do you get the point?”

“I can’t say I do.”

“Sure you do. It’s harder to get a coyote and some of the other varmints that are being poisoned wholesale by certain ruthless sheepmen than it is to lay over many of the game animals, so isn’t it more sporting?”

Warden Keller shrugged. “I suppose so, but what’s it add up to?”

“The fact that hunters have just never been taught to regard varmints as sporting animals,” Dave declared. “I’m going to prove they are.”

“What varmints are you going to work on, Dave?”

“Coyotes, bobcats, and lions.”

Warden Keller said dubiously, “You may get the first two, but you won’t get a lion without hounds.”

“That’s out,” Dave told him quickly. “If we go making this into a junior-sized safari, it’ll be only for hunters with money. We must prove to common, ordinary hunters that varmints are sport. If we can, they themselves will keep the varmints under control, so it will never again be necessary for anyone to lay poison baits.” Dave glanced at the clock and exclaimed, “Oh gosh! Two minutes of twelve! I’ll see you.”

He raced out, with Mulligan beside him. Harry Keller stared pensively at the door. He’d had every intention of telling his son that his warden’s job would be finished in six months.... But when he faced his son, he just hadn’t been able to do it.