Читать книгу Snow Dog - Jim Kjelgaard - Страница 6

Table of Contents

The big gray dog under the windfall lay very still. Here the storm did not strike. Outside, the wailing north wind still lashed the forest, carrying frost particles with it and leaving a rime of frost on the north side of every hardwood tree with which it came in contact. Bitter cold, borne on the wings of that wind, penetrated to the inner sap bark of the trees; they creaked and groaned as the torturing frost crept in and congealed their very life's blood.

But cold and wind had been understood so long by the gray dog that they could bring no terror, nor even much concern. Many cold nights on the trail she had slept in the same hole with another dog, and she knew the added warmth that could be generated by two living beings that stayed together. In addition, her maternal sense told her of the abject helplessness of the squirming mites beside her, and she knew that their only hope of survival lay in the protection she could offer. All that day and all night the mother dog lay quietly, shielding her young, and it was well into the morning of the next day before she arose.

She stood up for just a few seconds, and then only because she had a consuming desire to see the tiny things which she held so dear, and for which she had endured so much. Her tail wagged gently as she looked down at the pups.

All three were tiny, with budding pink ears that seemed to be sprouting from the soft skulls in which they were imbedded. Black muzzles terminated in little black noses, and unseeing blue eyes strove earnestly to penetrate a world which consisted of the rock at their backs, the log over them, and three feet of dark passageway that led to the first curve that must be taken to get out of the windfall. Even that was an immense and unknown world for things so small and helpless.

Two of the pups were whitish-gray, with stubby, black-tipped tails that curled like caterpillars from their tiny sterns. Yet, fragile though they were, there was a perfection and a symmetry to their smallness that seemed to bear out the anticipation and pride in the big gray dog's eyes. If their legs and paws were clumsy, they were also in almost perfect proportion to the chests and backs supporting those legs. Their spines were long and straight, their chests well formed. Even in infancy the two pups' characteristics, like signs along a highway, presaged the things that would be after they had had time to travel a little way.

Within the third puppy the Husky strain was dominant. He was the color of steel, except for curving, parallel streaks of white and black that ran from each of his eyes almost to the end of his muzzle, and gave the effect of a mask across his face. Even now his ears were more pointed than those of his brothers. If their chests were wide and deep, his was just a little wider and deeper. His front legs, although puppy-soft, were straight and strong, and his rear legs, even now, foretold unusual staying power. His muzzle came to a blunter point than did the muzzles of the other two, and there seemed to be more strength in his jaw and head.

Queen raised her head toward the top of the windfall, as though giving thanks for sons so fine and strong. Then she lay down again, using her warm body to shelter them from the cold. When the gray pup with the masked face tried to crawl from the nest, she nudged him gently back. The mother dog dozed.

Ten minutes later she was wide awake, startled and nervous, conscious of the fact that something was wrong. She swung her head to the puppies beside her, and saw only the two silver-gray ones sleeping on top of each other. The third, he of the black and white face, had already gone adventuring. Pulling himself with his front legs and pushing with his back, almost helpless, unable to see, he had squirmed eighteen inches into the depths of the windfall. Now, trying to use eyes that could see nothing, ears that were attuned to almost nothing, and paws which had felt nothing except the warmth of his mother, he was trying to climb over a small stick that lay near. Gently the big gray dog seized him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him back. She lay quietly in the dark depths of her refuge, worrying as any mother does about a child who, at too early an age, shows signs of waywardness.

Suddenly Queen rose from the nest, bristling, and moved away from the puppies so their scent would not interfere with another that had come to her nostrils. The wind that crept under the windfall and around the various curves within had brought her an alien scent, one she feared.

The mother dog raced silently out of the twisting tunnel she had followed into this snug haven. She stood at the entrance, eyes blazing and ruff erect, ready to fight. Only she could protect the pups. To do so she would, if necessary, give her own life.

Two minutes later, the wolverene she had scented came in sight. It faced her, a squat, powerful beast that gave out a sickening odor, and looked at her with weak, blinking eyes while it tried in its own mind to decide whether there was anything to be gained in trying to force its way into this dark place wherein there was something to eat. With all the fierce courage of a bear, and all the bloody savagery of the weasel whose pattern it followed, the wolverene would usually fight if so doing would bring some gain.

The big gray dog took a step forward, keeping her head down to protect her throat in the struggle that might start any second. A curdling growl rolled from her throat, and her heavy lips curled back to expose slashing fangs. But about her was something even more dangerous: an aura which any enemy powerful enough to challenge her could understand. When the mother dog started to defend her pups, only death could end the battle.

The wolverene chattered its teeth, then beat a hasty retreat. Throughout the ages wolverenes had learned that they were nearly invincible, and most of the time they upheld that reputation with their actions. But not when they faced an enraged mother as big as the gray dog. There was no reason for a fight to the death when that death might be your own. Like all tyrants, the wolverene preferred to find small, weak things upon which to exercise its strength and ferocity.

The big gray dog remained at the windfall's mouth a few minutes longer, until she was sure that her enemy had gone. Then, and only then, did she return to the pups. She found that during her absence he of the masked face had managed to squirm three feet from the nest. Heedless of the outraged squeals that ensued when her sharp teeth pricked the soft skin on his neck, Queen picked the wanderer up and firmly carried him back to his place. When she lay down to warm the shivering pups, she did so worriedly. It was enough to assume all the care of three helpless babies. But to have one of them such a problem....

All that night the big dog crouched over her puppies, unmindful of the hunger pangs in her own belly and of the fact that she had eaten nothing since Link Stevens had given her some frozen moose meat forty-eight hours ago. She was consumed by a desperate worry.

It was not for herself, or for the hunger that cut her like a burning knife. The mother dog understood such pangs. Often, when there had been no food on the toboggan, she had gone hungry for two or three days. This was different, and more important, and most urgent. Her pups, clinging desperately to a new and wholly uncertain life, had to eat. They had only one source of food, and if she did not eat she could not feed them.

In the morning Queen rose, bending her muzzle into the frozen air that crept under the windfall, then looking back at her pups. In a sudden fit of temper she returned to pick up the masked-face puppy and put him back with his brothers. The big gray dog growled fiercely. Then, as though resigned to the knowledge that the pup would pay no attention anyhow, she trotted to the opening by which she had entered the windfall and faced the winter wilderness. She looked at the snow-laden trees, sure of what she had to do but not knowing how to go about doing it.

She had hunted before, but always in the company of pack mates. Those hunts had been glorious, mad chases over the snow, and at their end she had helped pull down the luckless deer or caribou, or ripped to shreds the rabbit that happened to be in front of the coursing pack. Now she was alone, faced with the positive necessity of getting food with none to help her. The big gray dog ventured into the winter woods.

She travelled cautiously but swiftly, watching, listening, and scenting, as she strove to locate game. A snowshoe rabbit leaped up before her, and she gave instant, violent chase, trying in one great burst of speed to run down and kill this thing which, at the moment, spelled salvation for her pups. The rabbit flashed through a grove of ground-hugging spruces, and the big gray dog drew up in bewildered dismay. With an entire pack running, it had always been easy to catch a rabbit. Now, unexplainably, it was impossible. Among the pack, there had been one or more dogs gifted with a talent for following ground scent. Queen had never run her game except by sight, and when it was no longer in sight she could not find it.

She wandered disconsolately on, the desperate fear within her increasing as she went farther without catching anything. When she stalked a cheeky and chattering red squirrel, it let her approach to within six feet and then jumped to safety in a tree. Trying to catch a spruce hen, she crept to within a yard and a half, only to see it fly away. Twice more she coursed rabbits, without success. Then she caught another scent.

Mingled with the smell of the caribou was the odor of something else, something that made the gray dog's ruff bristle even while she advanced. It was the old scent of the black wolf and his pack, the beasts who had killed the caribou, eaten as much as they wanted, then spurned the rest as carrion while they went in search of live, hot game. The gray dog feared the wolf scent, but even more she feared the specter of her puppies going hungry. She crept cautiously nearer.

A white weasel snarled at her from inside the torn carcass of the bull, then fled in undulating leaps over the snow when the big gray dog did not hesitate. She reared, placing her front paws on the dead bull and trying with her ears, nose, and eyes to locate anything she might possibly have to battle before partaking of this bounty. There was nothing, and she fell to ripping off shreds of frozen meat and swallowing them whole. Having eaten all she could, she trotted back to the den under the windfall.

She approached anxiously, worriedly, ready to fight anything at the windfall should fighting be necessary. It was not. There was no odor around the entrance save that of herself, the three puppies, and the wolverene. The gray dog ran under the windfall.

The silver-gray puppies lay in the nest, huddled against one another for warmth. The steel-gray one had again pushed himself out, and on paws so weak they would not bear even the weight of his tiny body he had started on another exploring trip. Firmly the big gray dog picked him up by the nape of the neck, carried him back to his brothers, deposited him beside them, and lay down to feed her brood.

It was mid-morning of the next day before she left the windfall again, and trotted straight to the remains of the caribou. Then, after two weeks, the rest of the caribou was gone. However, the end of that week brought the chinook.

The north wind, that had wailed and moaned almost without cessation for two weeks, died suddenly. In its place came the west wind, no slashing, biting blast but a questing breeze that carried with it a promise of warmth to be. At high noon the wilderness still shivered and recoiled from the fierce breath it had known so steadily and so long, but by evening the snow had softened. Little driblets of water ran from the melting snow on top of the windfall to fall in the forest trash beneath, and as each drop of water fell it splattered in a soft, reassuring way. The big gray dog sat up to watch, and the next morning she left very early on her usual hunt.

In the nest under the windfall the three puppies saw her go, then the two silver-gray ones lay down to sleep. The burned-steel pup with the masked face lay down beside them, but he kept peering over the backs of the two in the direction his mother had taken. He would bend his tiny nose to the back of a brother, then look toward the path his mother had taken.

In the ten days since they had been born under the windfall the pups had grown steadily, and now even a casual eye could see a definite indication of the sturdy creatures they would be. Offspring of their big mother and a fierce, wayward staghound father who had left a trail of broken canine hearts along ten thousand miles of snow trail, they had inherited the size and weight of both. The Husky in his ancestry had bequeathed his own shape to the masked-face puppy, and already lithe grace was evident. Also noticeable were other things.

There was not too much difference in their sizes, but the Husky puppy was definitely the largest. Also, although all were now able to see, the steel-gray pup had been able to distinguish the log over them, the trash upon which they lay, and the outlines of his mother and brothers, a full day before the other two had seen anything.

He rose again, looking over his brothers at the windfall's exit. Almost from the hour he was born there had been a deep sense within him that had nothing to do with sight, or hearing, or scent, or touch. That sense had told him of enticing things outside the windfall, and those things were irresistible lures to which he had to respond. The puppy whined, rising on his still-clumsy legs and trying to make himself tall so he could see better. He looked down at his brothers, and they stirred gently when he licked them with his warm tongue. The steel-gray puppy tumbled out of the nest. His worm-like tail wagged back and forth as he started awkwardly toward the windfall's exit.

A drop of water spilled from a log squarely onto his back. The puppy sat down, squatting in the path his mother had worn and trying to decide what unknown thing had come upon him from nowhere. He tried to turn so he could see his back, and fell on his fat side. The puppy lay there, dozing. Ten minutes later he was up again, striving toward the outside world that was so irresistible. An instinct old as the race of dogs kept him in the path his mother had worn. Here one member of the pack had gone. Here another could go.

A foot-wide patch of snow that had drifted down through the windfall blocked his path. Again the puppy sat down, regarding this marvel with his newly opened eyes and striving with his puppy brain to find a proper place for anything so strange. He put his head out to touch it, lost his balance and tumbled into it. The puppy wriggled and squirmed across the snow, and when he reached the other side he sat down proudly, as though he personally were responsible for something grand and wonderful. Then he lay down for another nap.

Again he rose, struggling toward the exit and the things his inner sense told him he would find there. A mouse whose hidden home lay in the dark depths of the windfall squeaked and rustled, and the puppy turned in amazement to regard the sound. He wriggled his tiny nose, instinctively trying to catch the odor of the mouse, and was puzzled because he could not. His nose was not yet developed to the point where he could detect any scent save those which were near and very powerful. The puppy lay down beside a stick that lay crosswise of the trail his mother used, and crawled the length of it while he probed its possibilities with his paws and nose. Finally, making a supreme effort, he crawled over it. Two feet farther on he reached the entrance to the windfall and the gray dog's den.

The puppy composed himself, one front paw over the other and his jaws parted slightly as he regarded the scene before him. A steep valley down which a brook coursed dropped sharply away in a series of frozen waterfalls and rapids. Large spruces with spear-like tops and feathered branches crowded the valley and marched in ragged order over the tops of the ridges on either side. An unbroken pattern of robin's egg blue, the sky seemed to curve in a protecting shield over the wilderness panorama, and to let the sun slide down its sides in order that warmth might be brought to a land that was too long frozen.

The puppy sat happily, enjoying the things his inner sense had told him existed out here. Only they were far more wonderful than he had ever believed. So engrossed was he in the scene that he did not see the slight shadow that floated beside him.

It was cast by a day-hunting great horned owl. The owl had been out all night, and had struck half a dozen times at the snowshoe rabbits which were more numerous than any other animal here in this frozen land where only the powerful, the fleet, or the marvellously fecund had a chance of surviving. Each time the rabbits had eluded him. Then the owl had swooped at a spruce hen that was roosting in an evergreen, but a second before he struck, a pine marten that had also been stalking the hen seized it, and dropped to the soft snow beneath the tree. Enraged, trying to strike the marten, the owl had found only the black hole into which it had gone with its pirated meal.

Cruising over the valley in front of the windfall, the owl saw the wind-ruffled fur of the steel-gray puppy. It turned on silent wings and banked for its strike. The owl's murderous eyes were fixed with concentrated intensity on the puppy. Without even a whisper of noise it descended, and only when it was almost on him did the puppy look up. With no conscious thought, but instinct that acted even swifter, he recognized his danger, and awkwardly turned to run. He felt a raking stab in his shoulder, then went tumbling end over end to bring up against a log with such force that the breath in his body was squeezed out in one single gasp. His mother had arrived.

Coming back to the windfall after a partially successful hunt in which she had managed to catch a muskrat, she had seen the owl while she was still some yards away. The big gray dog leaped forward, and when she was still ten feet away launched her mighty body from the spring-steel muscles given her by endless days and endless miles on the trail. Closing her jaws about the owl, she struck the claw-scratched puppy with her shoulder and sent him sprawling.

The puppy rose painfully, and turned to see the owl flailing his mother with huge wings. The gray dog closed her jaws more tightly and hung on, grinding her teeth deeper into the warm flesh. The owl extended a claw, sought and found a hold on her left ear. When he exerted pressure, the talons on the end of his clamp-like claw met through the mother dog's ear. The owl's beak opened and closed with a continuous snapping, like the repeated clicking of a toy gun, as it sought a vital spot on its enemy. The big dog loosened her jaws, lunged, and closed her mouth farther up on the feathered body. She squeezed. The owl's beating wings stopped, as though they had been fanned by a wind that suddenly died.

Queen dropped the dead owl and leaped to her puppy. She nuzzled him, and licked away the few drops of blood that oozed from the raking scratch inflicted by the owl's talon. Then, grasping him gently by the loose fur on his neck, she ducked under the log that led to the windfall nest. As an after-thought, she laid the puppy down and went back to carry the owl beneath the windfall. It was not food she liked, but it was food, and that was all-important now. She tenderly gathered her puppy up again.

He dangled from his mother's jaws, riding contentedly as the ache left his lungs and normal breath crept back into them. The gray dog placed him beside his brothers, lay down herself, and the puppies fed. Their bellies full, the two silver-gray pups lay down to sleep, but for a long time the mask-face sat wakeful beside them. Through him trembled a great excitement inspired both by his visit to the edge of the windfall and his mother's fight with the horned owl.

He would have liked to be in that fight. Sitting up, bracing his fat self with his fore paws, he peered toward the entrance, and whined uneasily. His first adventure into the world he had yearned to see had been a very satisfying one, but if it had left him with an inspired sense of fulfillment it had also imprinted caution upon his brain. Wonderful as the wilderness was, it had its dangers.

Every day, for two months, Queen went out to hunt. Always before she had hunted for pleasure; her food had been furnished. Now she had to hunt for food, not only for herself but for the three puppies whose lives were so infinitely precious. They were her world, and all her world. As she hunted, the big gray dog learned how to do so cunningly and successfully.

Instead of bounding after snowshoe rabbits, and sometimes catching them but more often missing, it was far easier to crouch beside a travelled run and leap when a rabbit hopped past. She learned the places where spruce hens fed on the ground, and how to ambush them in such places. There was always a chance of catching a squirrel that had ventured too far from a tree, or a muskrat that had travelled too far from its water refuge. Several times the big dog chased deer and caribou, but failed to catch and pull one down. She was a consistently successful hunter only with small game.

In spite of her prowess, Queen steadily became more thin and gaunt. In their sheltered nest under the windfall the pups grew like corn in a rich and watered garden. They were piling out of the nest now, playing their puppyish games, exploring their own tiny world, and always waiting for her to return from a hunt. When she did, all three were there to leap upon her as they ceaselessly demanded food and still more food.

Instead of hunting only once a day now, Queen had to go out morning and night. She remembered the wolverene, and on her various expeditions she crossed the scents of other fearsome creatures which came near—far too near—the windfall. At no time did she dare stay away for more than an hour or two. As a consequence the game near the windfall was growing scarce. She had to hunt desperately to get enough.

The puppies under the windfall continued to play, and to run a few feet after their mother when she went through the tunnel on her hunting trips. The mother dog had schooled two of her babies well; they remained and would remain where they were safe. The mask-face was more of a problem. He had learned by bitter experience that the world can be a rough place, but even harsh lessons leave no lasting impression on the very young.

For a week now no melting snow had dribbled through the windfall and dampened its floor. A white trillium that had somehow found a rooting place on one of the mossy logs burst into full bloom, and strained toward the sun that filtered through a crack between two logs. Spring had come.

One morning the three puppies watched their mother start out to hunt and, as always, followed her a few feet down the tunnel. Only this time they did not turn back. They would have done so, but when the silver-gray pups sat down to watch their mother disappear they looked at their dark brother instead of back at the nest. He sat with his feet braced, his pointed ears as erect as he could hold them, as he stared toward the windfall's entrance. Then he took a few more hesitant steps forward.

All the old yearning to go out and see what was there had returned to him with overwhelming force. Only dimly remembered was the striking owl; deep within his brain was a tiny cell that would be perpetually devoted to watching for danger from the sky.

When he advanced, his two brothers cautiously followed. The steel-gray puppy walked more surely this time, and more steadily. The growth he had already achieved bore out fully the promise he had held as a squirming pup. He was still clumsy, but he was also big-boned and heavy. His muzzle was more pointed. His ears had a tendency to droop, but later they would stand sharply erect. He stood a full inch taller, and was two pounds heavier, than either of his brothers.

Also, now within him were powers that had not been his when he had made his first uncertain journey to the mouth of the windfall. Before he heard them rustle or squeak, his nose told him that the mouse family still lived under the log beside the passageway. He was aware of the weasel that had come to hunt those mice, and of the lynx which had started to climb through the windfall until it had caught the scent of the gray dog and fled hastily in the other direction.

The steel-gray puppy came to the entrance. He lay down there, far enough under the log so nothing could strike him from the sky, but far enough out so he could see. Now he looked at a green world. No longer shackled by its ice fetters, the little stream played and danced, and hurled itself over the series of falls with a reckless joy that was like a new-found happiness in living. Green grass grew wherever there were no trees, and a red cardinal flitted about high in a spruce. The puppy turned to look at his two brothers. Amazed by their own daring, they were right behind him under the windfall, bending and craning their necks the better to see out.

Suddenly the masked-face puppy became aware of a new scent and a new animal approaching. It was a heavy, oily scent, and it marched ahead of the beast from which it sprang like a herald announcing the approach of royalty. The puppy shuffled his front paws uneasily. His first excursion into the unknown had taught him that it was well to be cautious. Still, there was nothing of danger, or threat, in the scent of this beast. A few minutes later it came in sight.

It was a massive, heavy-set thing, with a huge head surmounted by small ears and marked with tiny eyes. Its gait was a shuffling walk. Its fur was long and brown, intermixed with silver-gray hairs. The beast grunted like a pig, and restlessly brushed its nose against the earth as if seeking something it might have lost. It hooked its mighty fore paws into a log, and sent great splinters flying. Then it zestfully licked up the small white grubs that crawled beneath the rotten wood. The thing came on, still grunting and dipping its nose to the ground.

Opposite the windfall, it stopped to stare with weak, questioning eyes at the puppy watching it so quietly. Within the opening, the two light-colored puppies turned and slunk back to their nest. The steel-gray puppy remained, still scenting no threat in this mighty creature, and overwhelmingly curious to know more about it. It came near, and bent a shaggy head three times as large as the puppy to sniffle at him. The puppy rose, wagged a friendly tail, and lapped his warm, wet tongue over the monster's nose. The thing wrinkled its nostrils, then, as though the pup was unworthy of any more attention, wheeled and went on its grunting, head-swinging way.

The puppy watched it go, and within his brain filed the scent of this particular creature as something which he need not fear. He felt instinctively that it meant no harm to him. What he did not know was that he had made the acquaintance of the mightiest monarch of them all—King Grizzly.