Читать книгу Furious Moose of the Wilderness - Jim Kjelgaard - Страница 3

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The sky was cloudless, but its depths wore a deceptive veil that reminded Pete Gant of a lake sheathed in clear, snow-free ice. A fisherman who looked carelessly from a distance might never realize the ice was there and think he could cast a plug or spinner. But an experienced observer would note signs, such as the absence of waterfowl and waves, to tell him of ice. Just so, there were signs in the sky that told of winter and cold to be.

Among them was a flock of geese in V formation, flying so high that their gabbling drifted to earth as muted squawks. Then there were squirrels scurrying frantically to lay up more food; dejected aspens that clung desperately to a few forlorn leaves; the way the wind sang in the spruces.

Most infallible sign of any, Pete decided, was the way he felt. Spring on the Wisbayah watershed was delightful enough, for then a fellow could pull his traps and be about his fishing. That was always important because the dogs lived on salted or smoked fish all winter—in some lean years the trapper fell back on the same diet. Summer was for loafing, repairing cabins, more catching and salting or smoking fish, if a man didn’t get enough in the spring, also visiting town or doing odd jobs for pay—in case he felt like it.

But, even though they brought no obligations except necessary chores, Pete always felt somewhat restricted in springtime and summer. He could not explain it satisfactorily, but he’d wake up at midnight, or three o’clock in the morning, with an uncomfortable feeling that he needed air, and rush outside to breathe. It was almost the way he felt when he tarried in Spruce Crossing too long. If Spruce Crossing was not much as towns went, sometimes it was more than eighteen-year-old Pete could stand.

The wind, that had been coming in fitful gusts from the west, veered suddenly to the north and turned colder. Pete raised his head to take it full in the face, and a smile as effortless as breathing parted his lips. He understood the north wind. It told him of deep drifts, and long trails, and prowling lynx, and many things that would have troubled his heart forever if he had not gone out to meet them in their own land and seen for himself how they were.

Pete shifted the rifle in his hand, shrugged his forty-pound pack into a more comfortable position, and hurried his steps. He’d left Spruce Crossing before dawn yesterday and slept last night at Halfway Cabin, thirty miles out. Tonight, if all went well, he’d stay with Casimir and Hailey Zluski, then go on to his base camp at Two Moose Lake tomorrow. Pete spoke to the dog beside him.

“Last night in civilization, Baldy. Better make the most of it because it’s the big woods from tomorrow on.”

The dog, a huge crossbreed with a dominant strain of husky, wagged a responsive tail but did not glance up. The dog beside Pete, as well as the two tagging behind, also carried packs. Wearing harnesses with a rucksack on either side and a third strapped across the top, all three animals looked almost ludicrously overburdened, in spite of their size—the runt of the trio weighed eighty-five pounds. Pete looked affectionately at Baldy.

Despite other means of transportation, a trapper’s dogs remained indispensable. It would be impractical, to say the least, to land a plane wherever a trap might be set. Not even horses were useful when the snow lay very deep. For some specialized purposes, dogs continued to be not merely the best but the only practical means of transportation in the wilderness.

Baldy was the lead dog, which, in effect, made him Pete’s right arm. Not that it was necessary to entertain any illusions. Big, courageous, and intelligent, in any emergency Baldy would look to himself first. That was what his master expected, and it was what Baldy expected. Pete had never speculated, however idly, on dramatic escapes from death with Baldy in the hero’s role. The very tendency to watch out for himself was the principal factor that made this dog worth double his weight in prime lynx.

Quite apart from his practical value as a beast of burden, Baldy was priceless on the winter-locked trails. Storms rose so swiftly that minutes alone elapsed from the first down patter of flakes to a howling blizzard and zero visibility. Under such conditions no man could possibly find a trail, but Baldy never missed. Many times he had saved Pete the inconvenience of a night’s camp in a winter storm and possibly he had even saved his master’s life. The fact that he did it because he himself preferred a warm kennel and knew where to find one was unimportant. Nor did the very real and mutual dog-master affection that existed between the two have any part of this. Baldy was a trail dog by instinct, a leader because he could whip both his teammates. Pete could not have lived as he did without such a dog.

The other two dogs, Jake and Megap, were important because they were strong animals whose power Pete needed and could harness. As liabilities, they were accomplished cache robbers, ardent rabbit hunters, and gifted with an uncanny knowledge of exactly how much they could get away with safely. They carried packs because they were not stupid. Both knew that their packs were on until their master chose to take them off and that a pack-burdened dog can get into serious trouble if left to his own devices. But if they were harnessed to the toboggan, neither would pull his own weight if Pete inadvertently forgot his whip to snap over their heads as a reminder of their duty. Jake was gray and wolflike. Megap, of undetermined ancestry, was covered with kinky black fur that gave him a marked, but most inappropriate, resemblance to a lamb. Megap was the only dog Pete had ever owned who would wag amiably up to an unsuspecting stranger, then snarl warningly at the hand that was extended to caress him! He had an instinct to be friendly, yet trusted nobody but his young master, as a result of a puppyhood haunted by cruelty until Pete had bought him.

The sun passed the high-noon mark and began its curve toward the western horizon. It would be no long journey. Even in September, the days were markedly shorter and, from now until late December, the sun would shine for a few minutes less every twenty-four hours. Sometimes, when the winter sky was overcast, there seemed to be no real day but only a lessening of the night. Conversely, when the days grew longer, they took giant strides. In summer it was often possible to sit outside a half-hour before midnight and read a book or magazine without excessive eyestrain.

Twenty minutes after noon Pete stopped beside a bubbling spring and leaned his rifle against a tree. Discarding his own pack, he eyed the dogs and pondered the advisability of relieving them of their burdens. He decided against it. He’d made good time and it was only about seven miles to the Zluski homestead. The dogs knew that as well as he did. Set free, they might decide to proceed on their own initiative and let him worry about getting the packs in. The dogs could lie down and rest.

All three promptly did so, each choosing a place to his liking and dozing off at once. There was nothing special to excite them and this was just a routine lunch stop. Presently, they would resume the march. All three knew this, and all were too experienced not to take fullest advantage of any opportunity to rest.

Pete built a fire and filled his kettle with water. While waiting for it to come to a boil, so he might properly brew tea strong enough to gag anyone but a wilderness trapper, he lost himself in memories of his first journey over this trail.

That was two years ago, just past his sixteenth birthday. With extensive trapping experience in the backwoods and cutover behind him, he had been, at last and happily, on his way to the real wilderness. He had heard, of course, about the Zluski homestead on the Wisbayah River but nothing had prepared him for what he found there.

A giant with a hooked nose, drooping gray mustaches, and a brigand’s haughty stare, no one knew where Casimir Zluski came from or why he was here, and no one had seen fit to ask. Rumor made him a refugee from strife-ripped Poland, and asserted that he had killed anywhere from six to sixty men with his bare hands. He’d started a sheep ranch on the Wisbayah, sixty miles from the nearest market and that market Spruce Crossing, because he was crazy or—according to how one preferred his melodrama—because he had a price on his head and this was a good place to hide.

No less astonishing than Casimir was his motherless daughter and only child. Christened Helen, affectionately called Hela by her father and Hailey by everyone else, she was fourteen when Pete first came to the Zluskis’, with a dark and winsome loveliness that seemed created exclusively for her. She was lithe and quick as a fawn. She had a great supply of books which she read hungrily, but, even now, Pete did not know that her father was her teacher and he would not have believed it if someone told him. There was no logical way to reconcile the huge Casimir, who could bring a wild young colt in from the range and fight it to a standstill, with formal education.

Pete had gone on to run his traps from a base camp at Two Moose Lake. Returning in the spring with a respectable catch of fur, he was mildly astonished to reach the Zluski place and be greeted by a lively, lovely Hailey. Throughout the winter he had thought of her, but only when he was again facing her did it occur to him that nothing so fragile should have been able to survive winter in such a place.

Nor could he rid himself of a feeling that Hailey should spend her winters somewhere besides here. Spring and summer—and perhaps the early fall—were the only seasons she should be around these rugged parts.

Although Pete still had not asked Casimir where he came from, it was unnecessary to ask why he was here. Casimir Zluski lived where he did for the same reason Pete had turned to the wilderness—he needed plenty of room.

So did Hailey, but, because she was a girl, she was somehow different. In the first place, she was so tiny. The top of her dark head came two inches below Pete’s shoulder and, if he chose, he could encircle her slim waist with his two hands. Not that he ever chose! She was by far the prettiest girl Pete had ever seen, and yet, year by year, she had not only accumulated books but she read and understood them. With a tongue as nimble as her feet, she delighted in teasing Pete and sometimes succeeded in bewildering him. Possessing a great store of amazing ideas, which she expressed at the least provocation—and sometimes at none—she might have angered him, if he were capable of becoming seriously interested in any girl, which he was not! Even so, he often worried about her. It still seemed to him that nothing as delicate as Hailey could survive a savage winter in a savage land. It was a relief when spring came and he found out, once again, that she had somehow lived to greet the season that seemed more her own.

Pete drank a final cup of scalding tea, repacked his lunch gear, shouldered his pack, and caught up his rifle. The dogs rose slowly and took their proper places, Baldy falling in beside his master and Jake and Megap behind. All three seemed more eager, not because of the short rest, which they hadn’t really needed, but because they were near the Zluskis’ and a longer rest. Pete was not the only one who knew this trail. His dogs had also been this way.

Rising to the crest of a wooded ridge, Pete swung down a gentle slope that led to the Wisbayah. It was three and a half miles from here, and, even though there was not a great deal of the day remaining, it was still long before bedtime. There would be man talk with Casimir and, Pete grinned briefly, plenty of opportunity to dodge Hailey’s verbal darts. Not that he ever succeeded in emerging unwounded, but there’d never been serious wounds.

Suddenly, Baldy stopped pacing Pete to trot a few steps ahead and halt. The big dog bristled. Black nostrils twitched as he lifted his head to drink in a scent. He looked questioningly over his shoulder.

Pete took his rifle with both hands and laid his right thumb on the safety. He ordered softly, “Come back here, Baldy.”

Baldy dropped back and Pete went on, more slowly now. Although game of all kinds was less plentiful nearer town, one could expect to meet wolves, grizzlies, and moose an hour out of Spruce Crossing. There was seldom any danger, however, for only on rare occasions did any wild thing attack a human. But, on the other hand, something could, so it was well to be ready. If the biggest and most dangerous beast, in the vilest of tempers, was lurking near and bent on trouble, there was little to fear, providing Pete saw it while he was still a reasonable distance from him. Three times he had stopped charging grizzlies with the rifle in his hands. He could stop anything else.

On a gentle but constant downward slope the trail from here on led through scrub aspens that had sprung up in the wake of a forest fire. Raging up the slope, the blaze had reduced all but a few once-stately spruces to charred stubs, with dead spikes of branches. Here and there, a green island in the scrub, stood an occasional spruce that had somehow escaped the conflagration.

Five minutes down the trail Pete found evidence of what Baldy had smelled. A hurricane that was not a hurricane at all, but a living creature of a mighty strength and evil intent, had descended on a twenty-yard square of the little aspens. Scattered branches, ripped from parent trunks, littered the earth and bore mute testimony to the fury that had raged among them. Broken boughs and trunks showed pitiful wounds, yellow and raw. Pete went forward and knelt to inspect the ground. He whistled.

Fury incarnate had been unleashed here. The track of the giant moose measured a full nine inches from pointed toe to dew claw. The size and weight of the mad creature were made awesomely apparent by the impressions of its hoofs. Only a much more than normally big bull would have sunk in so deeply. Its sex could be instantly determined by the hoofprints alone; all tracks toed out. Its capacity for destruction was evident in the wrecked aspens.

Pete rose and looked all about. He knew what he faced. The giant bull, searching for a mate and failing to find one, had obviously vented his insane frustration by attacking an entire forest. Doubtless he was a wanderer far from his own home, which could only be some secluded and seldom-visited wilderness area. A bull this size would be famous, if he were known at all. However, he was not necessarily dangerous. The biggest and strongest rutting bull was no match for a man with a rifle in his hands. Still, it was wise to be wary.

Pete wrinkled perplexed brows and looked down the trail. The scrub aspens were so thickly branched and so close together that their mass alone made it difficult to see clearly for more than a few yards and impossible to be certain of anything at all beyond a very limited range. It was a bad place, one to back out of or circle around under most circumstances, but the trail must be followed. To leave it meant to plunge into the snarl of brush and even more uncertainty.

Baldy whined and did an anxious little dance with his fore-paws. Their leader’s nervousness spread to Jake and Megap, so that they crowded nearer to Pete and the safety represented in his rifle. Within themselves the dogs were a safety factor. Their very uneasiness told Pete that the bull was not far away; surely he was near enough to be scented. But he was not near enough to offer an immediate threat. The dogs would know—and they’d let Pete know—if he came too close.

Pete cut his speed in half and tightened his thumb pressure on the safety. Eager anticipation more than fear guided both actions. The chances were greatly against the bull charging, but if the beast’s antlers matched his body, he would be a rare trophy indeed. The hunter who brought him down would be entitled to another feather in his cap—and, besides, the Zluskis would welcome the meat. Casimir and Pete could pack it in with some of Casimir’s horses.

A hundred or so yards ahead a slim-trunked spruce nodded its wind-ruffled head over the aspens, like a kindergarten teacher nodding over her pupils. There was no logical explanation as to why some of the spruces had survived the fire, but there appeared to be no doubt about this one. It stood on a little knoll where a rill crossed the trail and divided, to flow on either side of the knoll. The rill had checked the fire.

Pete halted and fixed his eyes on the treetop, even as he tried to control a sudden chill that rippled through him. He had an uncanny and momentarily terrifying thought that things were not at all as they seemed. The great bull knew all about him. Somewhere out in the scrub it was keeping silent pace, studying him with nose and ears and waiting for the proper moment to attack.... The idea was silly and Pete knew it! Moose do not hunt men. Just the same, he could not rid himself of the feeling until he forced his mind to cope with something earthly and feasible. Resolutely, Pete conjured up a mental image of the terrain immediately in front of him.

For the next fifty yards, approximately half the distance to the spruce, the trail wound a serpentine way through scrub aspens. Then there was a straight length from which the spruce’s trunk was visible. Backed up by the knoll on which the spruce grew, the rill left a wide and shallow pool directly in the trail. However, there were steppingstones.

His confidence restored by coming to grips with and solving a practical problem, Pete resumed his slow advance. But, even though he told himself he was creating his own fears, he sighed with relief when he left the winding trail and came to the straight part. If the bull intended to attack, the winding trail, where clear visibility was restricted to four or five yards, would have been the ideal ambush. Although, even here, it was still impossible to see more than four or five yards to either side, the bull would never come so close without being detected by the dogs. More likely, he would first step into the trail, and, with fifty yards of clear shooting, Pete felt no qualms. He did not need that much to kill any moose.

Nevertheless, it was still wise to be careful. Rifle ready, not even glancing at the trail, Pete’s eyes darted from side to side and ahead. He came to the pool, looked briefly down to make sure the steppingstones were as he remembered them, and leaped.

Just as he did so, Megap voiced a startled yelp and leaped, too. Baldy and Jake followed suit. To the cadence of Megap’s continued yelping, all three animals raced full speed down the trail. Shoved by his own dogs, Pete flung out both arms to break his fall. His rifle probed deeply into the muddy pool.

Pete let the rifle go and, for a split second that somehow stretched into endless hours, he remained on all fours. He knew, but in a dazed and far-off way without any reality, that he should fear for his very life. The enormous black beast that floated out of the aspens was silent as a ghost, for all its bulk, but there was no mistaking its intent. Lip was lifted, mane bristled, and, as soon as it knew it was seen and silence was no longer useful, it began to grunt like an enraged pig.

It intended to kill him, but, in the first dazed instant, Pete knew only that the situation was both embarrassing and ridiculous. He was being attacked by a gigantic moose, but he was not on his feet, defending himself with a rifle. Instead, he was on all fours, as though he, too, were a beast, and his rifle had fallen in the mud. Beyond question the bore was plugged. To shoot it without first cleaning it would be very dangerous....

The dazed second passed but comprehension did not follow. Rather, there was an interval of complete blankness that made not the faintest mental impression.... Pete’s awakening came when, from fifteen feet up in the spruce he had climbed unthinkingly with a forty-pound pack still on his shoulders, he turned to see the furious bull leap, strike with a sledge-hammer hoof, and miss his dangling foot by a hairbreadth. Awareness was followed by blazing fury.

“Blast you!” he snarled. “Blast you!”

The hatred that seethed within him was like nothing else he had ever known. He seemed to have been robbed of something very dear and precious, a vital part of his own self that he would regain only by killing this bull.

Nothing could ever be more important—but he could not do it now. A blow from his belt ax or a slash of his knife, always supposing he lived to deal either, could not harm such an enormous brute. His fingers ached for his rifle. Then a happy inspiration came.

The bull had backed off a few feet and was looking up. His eyes glowed with the same intense hatred that burned in Pete’s. It was as though two foreordained enemies had finally met. Pete slipped the pack from his shoulders, but when he tried to hang it on a limb, he fumbled and dropped it. Without a glance for the pack, the bull kept his eyes on his captive.

Pete took his belt ax from its sheath, chopped a limb, pointed one end, and hurled his improvised spear at the bull. It struck the shoulder, causing not the smallest injury but rousing the brute to action. Lowering his antlers, he used his ton of muscle and bone and sinew to hurl them against the spruce. Head bent, neck muscles bulging, rear taut, legs braced, he strained to push the tree over.

He couldn’t do it, but he could shake the trunk so violently that Pete was forced to cling with both hands. It was to be war and he expected no quarter—but when his turn came neither would he extend any! As soon as the bull backed away, Pete cut and hurled another wooden spear that brought another attack on the tree. Then, realizing the futility of anything he could do right now, Pete composed himself to wait things out.

He felt not the least resentment toward his dogs. In running away, they had not demonstrated storybook loyalty and a traditional willingness to die for their master, but they had at least shown rare good sense. There was really nothing they could have done if they’d tried to help. Three or thirty dogs couldn’t hurt or even annoy this monster. Besides, in running, the dogs had served him much better than they would have if they’d remained.

Beyond any doubt, all three dogs would keep on running until they reached the Zluskis’. Pete Gant’s dogs coming in without their master would tell their own story to Casimir and Hailey. The Zluskis certainly would search then. They knew he’d been in Spruce Crossing, so they’d come this way first. But there were no guarantees as to how soon they’d appear. At this season, both were busy herding sheep from summer pastures to winter range near their house and along the Wisbayah. Often, both spent the night with the flock. Unhappy thought!

Sundown brought a chill, and the twilight that followed shortly conveyed its own assurance that the Zluskis were not coming and Pete would spend all night in the tree. That is, he would unless the bull tired of what he was doing and went away. Then, startlingly, the bull did go away.

First he was there and then he was gone, and Pete felt a different chill that was not born of the cold night air. Such an enormous brute should not be able to move as stealthily as a cat, but he had neither heard nor seen him leave. Still, he was gone. Pete waited another ten minutes, then cautiously descended the tree.

Instantly, he scrambled back up. There were a snort and a crackling of brush as the bull charged out of the aspens, where he had gone to hide. He hadn’t left at all, but, with diabolical cunning, had tried to lure Pete within reach by making it appear that he was no longer interested.

Pete pulled his belt from its loops, slung it around a branch, buckled it, and clipped his arm through. He did not think he would sleep in the cold night, but if he should doze, he might fall out of the tree. That must not happen. Some time, of course, like every mortal creature, he would die. But not before he had a reckoning with the bull.

From time to time Pete glanced down to make sure the bull was still there. In the black night, he could never be sure, but it was wise to take no chances, and, even though he could not see the giant creature, he seemed to sense his presence....

Dawn was faint in the sky when Pete finally dozed.... and the sun was shining when he jerked awake to see the bull, a drifting black shadow, slipping quietly through the aspens. A second later came Casimir Zluski’s shout,

“Pete! Pete Gant! Are you around here?”