Читать книгу Snow Dog - Jim Kjelgaard - Страница 4

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The north wind blew low across the snow fields, carrying powder snow before it and piling it on the drifts that lay like long, shadowed fingers in the lee of every tiny rise. With icy force the wind swept through the dark evergreens that marked the foot of a low, steep hill, and whistled up the slope, straight into the nose of the black wolf who sat there.

As large as a Great Dane, the wolf was in his battle-scarred prime. His ears were ripped and torn from a thousand fights. A ragged scar that ran from the base of his left ear to his left shoulder had grown in to pure white hair. The wolf elevated his grizzled muzzle to catch the full force of the wind, to read the story it carried to him.

The wild Carney River meadows started at the foot of the hill upon which he sat. Up those meadows was travelling a man with five pack dogs.

The black wolf's jowls curled in a snarl, and all his hate for men was contained in the sound that rippled from the depths of his chest. He had seen few men here, in this almost untravelled wilderness, but he knew about them. He had found out about their ways when he had been scarcely more than a cub, and had sat upon a sand bar watching a man approach. Suddenly there had been a blast of noise, a searing pain, and he had received the scar of shame which was still indelibly marked by the strip of white along his face and shoulder.

The black wolf had gone into one of his own hidden lairs to lick his wounds, and it was there that his hate of all men had been born. The next year had been one of very good hunting, and the young wolf's slatted ribs had filled out while his muscles became strong. That was the year the man who had shot him made the mistake of coming back, and of going moose hunting along one of the ridges which the black wolf had marked out for his own.

The wolf had struck his fresh trail, slinking behind spruces and windfalls where he knew he could not be seen. He himself had no need to see; his nose told him what was taking place. And, even while he stalked and hated, there was fear within him, fear of man, and of the weapons man carried. But he had been patient, and one day, when the man stumbled and fell face forward in the snow, the black wolf no longer feared. He had raced forward, a fleeting shadow black as death itself. Henceforth he knew that men, and especially fallen men, were not nearly as strong as the moose and caribou which the black wolf hunted regularly. They were not even as powerful as a small deer.

Even as he knew men, so did he know dogs. They were weak and powerless things, whose only strength lay in the fact that they travelled with men. On those four or five occasions when the black wolf had caught a dog away from a man, he had not needed half the speed in his legs to run it down nor half the strength in his jaws to kill it. Dogs were craven creatures who made a pretense of fighting but always screamed their fear of death when it was upon them.

The black wolf wriggled his nostrils. All five of the dogs out there on the meadows were large beasts, but four were no different from dogs which the wolf had met and killed. The fifth, a female, was the largest of all. The wolf licked his lips, and remembered the sheer pleasure he had felt when he killed dogs. Killing a dog was almost like striking down a man.

The black wolf stood up, drooping his tail in a half-circle and letting the wind plaster his thick fur closely against his powerful body. He turned and trotted down the opposite side of the hill, into a thick-set grove of small spruces. Fifteen gray wolves that had been lying idly in the thicket sprang to their feet, watching the black leader with cold but respectful eyes. The black wolf eyed the pack he led, then turned back to the wind that had brought him the story of man, pointed his muzzle at the clear blue sky, and howled.

It was a ghoulish sound, ringing and far-carrying, expressing all the hate in the black wolf's black brain. It told of his opinion of men, and of the dogs who were slaves of men. It rolled out on a savage note that emphasized the black wolf's intense longing to kill more men and more dogs. It carried to the man and dogs on the Carney meadows, and stopped them in their tracks.

Link Stevens, the man, turned toward the sound, balancing himself against a blast of wind. He was tall and straight, with black hair and brown eyes that had been set in so many solitary places where wind blew hard, and rain fell often, and snow lay deep, that already, at twenty, little wrinkles had formed around them. He looked at the pack dog nearest him, and back toward the sound again.

The dog whined uneasily, and tried to get nearer. Three of his pack mates crowded close to him. The fifth dog, a hundred-pound female whose outlines suggested a strong dash of both Husky and Irish wolfhound, lay down where she was. Link Stevens looked at her intently, and spoke over the heads of the other dogs.

"Don't be so high-hat, Queen. Come on up."

The big gray dog did not move, and Link's brown eyes softened a little. He had bought the big dog in Masland, the little frontier town in which he outfitted for his trap-lines on the Gander River, and he had known she was with pups when he had bought her. But he had got her at bargain rates, and he'd liked her looks. She was intelligent, strong, and courageous, but she was not a dog to make friends with anyone. Probably that was because she was due to whelp soon. Thoughtfully Link prodded the snow with the tip of one snowshoe. He'd win the big gray dog's friendship yet. He had gained and held the affection of every dog he'd had, and his dogs worked hard for him because they loved and respected him.

He looked back in the direction from which the wolf's howl had come, and a quizzical little smile twisted his lips. This was the Carney, home of the so-called devil wolf. Two years ago, so legend had it, a trapper named Chirikov had been killed by this devil wolf, a thing that could dodge bullets and assume any form at all. Well, devil wolf or not, it was still fifty miles to the Gander and almost four miles to Two-Bird Cabin, where he would stay that night.

"Let's get up the trail," he said amiably.

The four dogs rose to follow, but the big female waited until they were twenty feet away before she moved. When she rose she did so cautiously, and the anxiety she felt showed in her eyes as she padded up the snowshoe trail the man was breaking. When she passed a secluded thicket, she looked wistfully at it. As she walked, she whimpered to herself so softly that even the keen-eared pack dogs did not hear her.

She had been born on a northern trail, and carried on the toboggan to which her mother was hitched until she, too, was big enough to run behind it. And she had learned bitterly the law of the trail: the strong go through but the weak must die. A natural mother, the big gray dog had never lost the memory of her first puppies. They, too, had been born on the trail, but they had been born in the custody of a swarthy little Frenchman whose only thought had been to move his loaded toboggan. Every additional pound had meant that it moved more slowly. With cold finality he had taken the squirming, helpless pups, knocked them on the head with the handle of his hunting knife, and left them dead in the snow. Now that horror was haunting her again.

She walked with deliberate slowness, letting the man and her pack mates keep ahead. She scarcely felt the thirty-five pound pack she carried. Again she looked longingly at a thicket, and took a little half-step toward it before unwillingly resuming her place in the line.

The big gray dog looked at Link Stevens. There was something about him she liked. But she had been with him only a week, and behind her were memories of too many harsh and cruel masters for her to give her complete confidence to anyone. She had to obey him; that was something born in her, something to which she gave no thought and over which she had no control. She had never known any life that did not have to do with the trail and the men who travelled it. She lowered her head and plodded on.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and the early northern twilight was already settling over the snow-covered wilderness when they came to Two-Bird Cabin. A ten by twelve log structure, with the front roof protruding to keep snow away from the door, the cabin nestled snugly among the spruces. In front was the river, the center of which was a swift-flowing channel that had not frozen. The pack dogs lay down, for they knew their day's work was done, and that presently they would be relieved of their packs. Maintaining her distance from the rest, the big female waited patiently.

Link Stevens walked down the half-circle of deep snow that had formed in front of the overhanging roof, went into the cabin with his snowshoes on, and came out with a water pail in his hand. He filled it at the river, carried it into the cabin, then came out and poked around in the deep snow until he worked down to the wood pile. A few minutes after he went into the cabin with an armload of wood, blue smoke began to curl out of the chimney. The all-important fire built, Link came out and began to remove the dog packs. No longer burdened, the first four shook themselves and began to sniff around the rabbit tracks near the cabin. Then Link knelt beside the big gray, soothing her with stroking hands and pleasant voice.

"Poor old girl! Poor old Queenie! I know you're worried, but there's nothing to be afraid of. I'll take care of your babies when they come. I'll carry them myself."

The big dog looked gently at him, and licked his hands with her warm tongue. She liked this man, but remembered too many who saw dogs only as beasts of burden. If they could no longer bear those burdens they were summarily dispatched; only the very fit could go on the trail. Although she was grateful for this man's kindness, she neither understood nor trusted it.

Relieved of her pack, she trotted over near her team mates, but not too near. She did not trust them either. The big gray knew that the pack could combine, and use its united strength and cunning to pull down the game it sometimes ran. But there was no mercy or softness in them; they would pull down a weak pack mate, too.

Link Stevens came out of the cabin with five axe-hacked and still frozen pieces of moose meat in his hands. He knelt in the snow-free space under the protruding roof, and held up a piece of meat. Yuke, the big black leader of the five dogs, walked solemnly up, sat down in front of his master, and lifted a big paw to be shaken. He received his meat and backed into a corner of the cabin, where his flank was protected by a snow drift, to eat it.

"Tibby," Link called.

In their turns, Tibby, Lud, and Kena were fed, while the big gray dog sat patiently waiting her turn. This routine was as old as the trail itself, and she knew she could afford to be patient.

"Queen."

She advanced gravely, and sat down to hold up a feathery paw. The man reached out to tickle her ear.

"You're last, lady, but I saved the biggest piece for you, and it has a bone in it!"

She accepted the meat, and looked around at the other four dogs. Lying in the snow, always in some strategic place where at least one side was protected, they gnawed with relish at the hard, frozen meat. This routine was also as old as the trail. The dog who received his meat first would finish first. Then he would go all around to see what he could steal from the rest. The gray dog leaped over a small drift, plowed through a big one, and lay with her back against a spruce.

A little eddy of wind blew about her nostrils, and anxiously, as though the breeze might contain some hidden message, she raised her head to sniffle into it. Then she fell on the moose meat with rending jaws, tearing it off in chunks and swallowing the chunks whole.

Yuke finished, and stalked stiff-leggedly over to where Tibby was still busily tearing his meat to pieces. A growl warned him away. As though he didn't care anyway, Yuke walked indifferently past. In turn he visited Lud and Kena, but was similarly warned off. Following the trail the big gray had made, he came over to look down on her.

She stopped eating, and lay with her motionless head raised over the half-finished meal. Well-recognized trail etiquette governed this procedure. She should growl, and warn the interloper that she would fight if he insisted on trespassing. Then he would either accept her challenge or go away.

But she did not feel like growling. With a sudden, mad rush she was out of the snow and upon her team mate. Surprised, Yuke braced himself to meet the charge. They came together, and reared with flailing paws and probing jaws that sought each other's throats. There was about the big female a strange madness, an all-consuming rage. She wanted nothing near her.

"Yuke! Queen!"

Link Stevens' commanding voice came dimly to the gray dog. She did not see him standing in the cabin's doorway, nor did she see him bend to pick up a club. With desperate fury she bored in, wishing only to kill. There was no thought save that she must kill, and she scarcely felt the sharp blow as Link tapped her smartly across the nose, nor scarcely heard Yuke's pained yelp as the club descended, much harder, on him. He tried to back away, but the big female crowded him hard. No longer was she a creature conditioned by thousands of years of living with men. She was a beast, fighting viciously for the preservation of the lives within her. She started to leap at something in front of her. Then, suddenly, the mists in her brain cleared. She saw her master, and heard his soothing voice.

"It's all right, Queen. He's gone and won't be back. Take it easy. You'll be all right."

Link Stevens knew the harshness of the snow trails, but he had not let that harshness rob him of his own finer sensibilities. Nor had it dulled his admiration for the dogs who did the work on those snow trails. He spoke again.

"Go back to your supper, Queen, and don't worry. I'll take care of you." With a reassuring pat he turned and went into the cabin.

The big gray dog wagged her furred tail gently as she watched him go, then trotted back to her unfinished meal. But while she had fought, Kena had stolen it. Trying to look innocent, but obviously guilty, he lay in the snow, gnawing the last shreds of meat from the treasured bone. For one fleeting moment the big gray dog again felt a consuming rage, but it passed. She had more important things on her mind.

The flickering candle which had lighted the cabin's frosted window was suddenly extinguished as Link Stevens sought his bunk. A round moon rose palely to light the wilderness, and throw every spruce tree into an unreal pattern of sharp angles and soft shadows. Queen still sat aloof, but the four other dogs were restless and eager. Yuke whined expectantly, and ran a little circle around his team mates. Then, as though they knew exactly where they were going, they left the cabin and started into the forest.

Slowly the big gray followed them, for she knew what this meant. Day was a time for work, but night was a time for pleasure, and now the dogs would take theirs. A snowshoe rabbit darted like a pale ghost across a moon-sprayed clearing, and the pack was after it in yelling pursuit. Now the dogs were no longer chattels of man, but hunters much as their ancestors had been ten thousand years before them.

The rabbit dashed through a thick clump of alders. The others raced around it in pursuit, but Queen stopped, uneasy and restless. She thought of Link Stevens, and trotted back to the cabin.

From the forest, the yelling of the rabbit-chasing pack came dimly to her. It was an old hunting paean, one that swelled when the dogs raced across an opening, and faded when they were in the thick brush. Queen looked toward the sound, and back at the cabin. She whined pleadingly. When nothing stirred within the cabin, she trotted over to the trail they had broken that day. Memories of the enticing thickets she had seen returned with overwhelming force.

She raised one front paw, then the other, while an agony of indecision wrenched her. Work dogs had few laws, but the foremost of these demanded service to the death for one's master. Old instincts and new yearnings battled with that certain knowledge.

When Queen made her decision, it was an irrevocable one. She turned and trotted back down the trail over which she had labored with a pack on her back. And, now that she had definitely decided to break all ties with men, a great cunning came out of that half of her that had never been tamed. It was her wild, free nature, and she now coupled it with what she knew of men.

She was perfectly aware of the fact that, on snow, she would leave a trail that could be followed. She also knew best how to hide that trail. The big dog ran down the packed snowshoe path, a fleeting shadow in the night. She paused when she came to a thicket, but looked questioningly back over her shoulder and ran on. Men had travelled this trail once and would again. She did not want to be near them.

Queen raced on until she came to a place where a herd of caribou had crossed the trail and climbed a ridge. Without hesitation she turned aside on the caribou tracks, and followed them. Two miles farther on, at the very summit of a small hill, she caught up with the herd. Scenting her, the caribou plunged away in the darkness.

Now she was in unbroken snow. It was hard going, but she was used to travel, and knew a dozen small tricks that were useful.

Dawn broke over the wilderness. Moose snorted and moved out of her way. A red squirrel chattered at her from a tree, and a jay scolded her as it flew away. Wet and tired, but at last feeling secure, the gray dog stopped on top of a rock cliff from which the wind had blown all the snow. She looked down into a thicket of spruce, and her eye was attracted by a windfall where a number of large fallen spruces lay in a tangled heap. Small trees and brush had found a rooting place among them. It looked dry, warm, and comfortable. Gratefully the tired dog crawled under the hole of a huge log, and into the windfall's dim depths. Leaves and forest trash had blown in there, but little snow had fallen. She lay down and began to lick her wet fur.

Link Stevens woke up in the early pre-dawn blackness of a winter's morning. For a few moments he lay awake on the bunk, and drew the blankets closer about him to shut out the intense cold. He yawned, and turned over drowsily. It was still fifty miles to his trap-lines on the Gander, and in this deep snow they'd be fifty trying miles. Still, there had been no heavy blizzards on this trip, and he was grateful for that. He thought of the pack horses he'd left on the Gander meadows. Even though they hadn't been able to travel in this snow, they'd be all right. They knew where the best grass was, and could easily paw down to it. Probably would even have grown fat....

Finally he swung his feet to the floor, ran across it, stuffed tinder into the stove, lighted it, laid a couple of wood chunks on top, and hurried back to the warmth of his bed. As soon as the cabin had warmed, he got up to prepare his breakfast of moose steak and hot cakes. The slow dawn was just breaking when he went to the door with a dog pack in each hand.

"Hi—ya!" he called.

Yuke, Tibby, Lud, and Kena came out of the sleeping holes they had dug in the snow, yawning and stretching, and shook themselves. With wagging tails they trotted up to the cabin, waiting for their packs to be put on.

"Queen!" Link called.

Yuke looked questioningly over his shoulder, obviously displeased because the fifth member of his pack was missing. Link called again, louder.

"Queen! Where are you?"

He felt a cold sinking in the pit of his stomach, and turned to drop the dog packs back in the cabin. On this mid-winter trip to Masland and back, he had left the Gander with only four dogs, none of which was exceptional. He had bought the big female partly because he needed another pack animal which would also be of some use on the toboggan, but largely because he had liked her looks. He'd hoped her pups would grow as big and strong, and be as intelligent, as the mother. Now, having ignored all his advances, she'd gone into the wilderness alone. He couldn't leave her there; he couldn't leave any dog with helpless puppies. Questioningly he looked down at the four remaining dogs.

They were work animals, not hunters, and about the only animals that ever interested them were snowshoe rabbits. He could take them along while he hunted for Queen, but they'd be more of a nuisance than a help. He tied all four dogs to separate trees, so they wouldn't get in a fight, and went back into the cabin.

He made himself two steak sandwiches, wrapped them in a piece of cloth, stepped out from beneath the overhanging roof, and put on his snowshoes. He mounted the drift in front of the cabin, and stood a moment while he tried to decide which way to go. Last night he had heard the pack coursing rabbits. Probably Queen had been with them, at least for a while. It did not seem likely, since she had more important matters to think of, that she would waste much time on rabbit trails. Still, he had better go see.

Link snowshoed into the spruces, casting back and forth until he picked up the trail left by the pack. He knelt to study it, and thought he could detect the paw prints of only four dogs in the ruffled snow. He might be mistaken. It was possible that Queen had run all the way with the pack, and gone on from wherever they had either caught or lost the rabbit. Link followed the tracks, going around thickets that the rabbit and dogs had dodged through. He found a spot of blood and some bits of white fur where the pack had finally overtaken its quarry. From there the trail led directly back to the cabin. No dog had run on into the forest.

Link furrowed his brow, and tried to eliminate all the places where the missing dog could not be. Certainly she would seek a thicket, or, because it would be ideal for her purposes, she might look for a windfall. However, when there were countless windfalls all about....

Link made a wide circle completely around the cabin. No dog tracks except those he had already crossed broke the snow. He stopped, baffled. Then a smile flickered across his face and a warm chuckle broke from him. That Queen! She was the smartest dog!

Of course she had deliberately hidden her own tracks; the one way she could do that was by running down the trail they had broken yesterday. Link chuckled again, and all the warm feeling he had for dogs—especially dogs in trouble—seemed to make this task a particularly welcome one. When he found Queen, he would treat her very kindly, take care of her puppies, and so be sure to win her affection.

He snowshoed down the trail, travelling slowly and with his eyes down. He was sure Queen would have left the trail; she wanted to get far away from any place where men travelled. Furthermore, when she left the trail, she would have done her best to leave it in such a way that her own tracks would remain undetected. Link chuckled again, then stopped to call.

"Queen!"

For a few seconds he waited, and when nothing appeared, he called again. Still no dog came, and Link went on down the trail. He kept his eyes down, trying to miss nothing on either side. A deer and several moose had crossed the trail since he had come up yesterday, and a herd of splay-footed caribou had ambled across to climb a hill. Link grimaced. He didn't like caribou; they rambled all over, and once they'd been on even a packed snowshoe trail they left it in such a mess that invariably a new trail had to be broken out. He walked over the caribou tracks, balancing himself precariously on the rough snow, and missing entirely the dog tracks in their midst.

He went on to the farthest point at which he thought Queen might have turned from the trail, and then, just to make certain, travelled two miles beyond that point. At last he stopped, resting on his snowshoes while he tried to fathom the mystery.

He was positive that she had left the trail, and, because he had tried to look at everything, he was also sure that she had hidden her tracks so well that he'd overrun them. Nothing remained but a general search, and even before he started Link knew that finding a lost dog in this wilderness would be considerably more difficult than locating a missing needle in a haystack. But as long as there was even a slight chance of finding her, he would continue to look. He was sure she would respond if she heard him call. He had shouted frequently and loudly; therefore Queen must be so far off the trail that she had not heard him at all.

Without doubt she had crawled into the most secluded spot she could find. But had she gone east of the trail, or west? There was no positive way of knowing. He picked up a bit of snow and tossed it into the air. When it landed on his own west side, he crossed the river flat and went up a wooded hill. Moose, deer, caribou, and numberless rabbits had so marked the snow that finding any one track was almost hopeless. He came to a dense windfall, and called again. No answer.

He continued on, a mile from the trail, then cut back toward the cabin. Patiently he investigated every windfall, either climbing them or going completely around them to make sure the missing dog was not beneath. He grinned faintly. When that Queen dog set out to hide herself, she did a good job!

A covey of clouds scudded across the sky and Link looked up anxiously. More snow would make his task completely hopeless. He hurried on, but when he returned to the cabin that night, he had found no trace of the lost dog. He went out the next day, and the next. When he returned to the cabin on the third night, great feathery flakes of snow were already drifting out of an overcast sky.

That night a north wind began to blow up, howling around the cabin, driving the falling snow before it and adding it to the drifts. For a long time Link lay awake in his bunk, and when he finally went to sleep, troubled dreams of the lost dog chased each other through his slumber. The next morning, when he went to the door, he knew he would never find her.

The snow lay piled in new drifts, whorls, and windrows. It had been driven hard by the wind, until even the snowshoe trail leading away from the cabin was only a faintly marked trace. Glumly Link strapped their packs on the dogs, dividing Queen's load among the four and himself. Before he started his lonely journey to the Gander, he left a big chunk of moose meat in front of the door.

The gray dog might come back.