Читать книгу Stormy - Jim Kjelgaard - Страница 4

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Allan Marley glanced out of the window at a cloudy, threatening sky. The mid-November twilight was stealing over this north country, where spring and summer and autumn were pleasant but brief, and all the rest was winter. In spite of gathering darkness, he decided that there was time to go look again at the wing-tipped mallard.

Allan slipped into his hunting jacket, a lined-wool, belt-length garment that allowed freedom of movement and at the same time shielded him from the bitter wind. He put on a woolen cap, turned the ear flaps down, and pulled mittens over his hands. When he opened the door, the wind almost snatched it from his hand. He bent his head to the blast and walked toward the lake.

The sycamores and oaks that surrounded his house were bending before the wind. Dried leaves, snatched from parent branches, were whisked high into the air and out of sight. Lowering clouds forecast more snow to be added to the eight inches already on the ground. Following the path by instinct, Allan came to the lake's edge, raised his head, and saw the mallard drake.

Save for a very small area in the center, the lake wore an armor of glistening ice. In the tiny patch of water remaining in the center, the mallard was paddling continuously, and always in a circle, in a desperate attempt to keep that water from freezing over. It was a losing battle. At noon the circle of water had been perhaps fifteen feet in diameter; now it had narrowed to less than eight. Within the next couple of hours, the frigid blasts screaming out of the north would close it completely.

Allan frowned. He himself assiduously hunted the ducks and geese that winged down this flyway every autumn. Far from suffering twinges of conscience when he tumbled a teal, gadwall, or pintail out of the air, he knew waterfowl shooting as the finest of sport. But that a duck should suffer a lingering death while the ice closed in was something else again.

He was sure that the drake had not been injured on this lake; rarely did anyone except Allan shoot here now and he had left no cripples so far this year. The mallard must have been shot from some other blind, soared this far before tumbling, and been unable to take to the air again. But it was here now, and that made it Allan's responsibility.

He placed an exploring foot on the ice, and when it did not break, he put his other foot beside it. There was an ominous yielding as the ice sank; radial cracks spread and water seeped through them. Allan drew hastily back. The ice still wasn't thick enough. If he tried to walk out on it, he would almost surely fall through. He stood still a moment, wondering what to do.

The ice was too thin to bear his weight and too thick to break with one of the light Marley skiffs. The mallard was hopelessly beyond shotgun range and a near-impossible target for a rifle; otherwise he could shoot it and save it from a slow death from the encroaching ice. A retriever, unaffected by icy water and zero temperatures because of its thick coat, might be able to get the drake. But though Allan had always wanted such a dog, he had none of any kind.

Allan knew that the drake's fate was a part of nature. The hurt or afflicted that cannot cure themselves must die, and nature is indifferent as to how much suffering they endure before death relieves them. But he had a deep-seated and inborn love for the strong-winged, far-journeying waterfowl that came down this flyway every autumn and went up it every spring. Though he knew of no way to aid the hurt mallard, neither could he leave it.

The wind began to keen louder than ever. A heavy branch, torn from a dying sycamore on the very edge of the lake, fell on the ice, cracked it, and water bubbled up. The wind would probably die with nightfall and by morning the ice would bear Allan's weight. But by morning the drake would be dead, frozen in the ice. As though he might find an answer there, Allan turned to look back toward the house.

It was snugly built and well insulated, with one long wing given wholly to bunks and lockers. It was there that the waterfowl sportsmen had slept, those hunters whom Allan and his father had guided, and who had furnished most of their livelihood. But that was before Allan's father had argued with crusty old Bert Torrance, and had beaten him so savagely that Bert was laid up a full month in the hospital. For the past twelve months, with eighteen more to go, Bill Marley had been eating his heart out in the prison at Laceyville. Assault with intent to kill, they had called it.

Some of Bill Marley's friends still muttered that the sentence was far out of proportion to the crime. But when he imposed it, Judge Bender had reminded Allan's father that it was his sixth offense in four years, that he'd had ample warnings, and that prison would offer an opportunity to meditate on the virtues of keeping one's temper. Now the sportsmen did not come, and Allan lived alone.

Turning back toward the water, Allan stared in disbelief.

He had wished for a dog, and as though some good fairy had waved a magic wand, there was a dog. Evidently it had emerged from the brush and woods to Allan's left. When he first saw it, it was about a hundred yards out on the lake.

The dog looked like a big Labrador retriever, but with a mixture of some other breed. Its head was too long and its muzzle too slim for a retriever, as though somewhere in its ancestry an infusion of collie or German shepherd had crept in. Its coat was dull black, and seemed to be matted and unkempt.

Allan watched the retriever with rising excitement. The dog was on thin ice but apparently wholly aware of its precarious situation. It walked slowly, keeping in a straight line and doing nothing that might aggravate its already perilous position. By itself that was not unusual; all experienced dogs know how to handle themselves in dangerous places. But every few feet this dog left a splash of bright blood. It was hurt, perhaps badly hurt, but even so it seemed to have every intention of retrieving the wing-tipped mallard.

Allan held perfectly still, until it seemed to him that his breathing was unnecessarily loud. A shout, a cry, might disconcert the big animal and bring him to disaster. Then the ice broke and the dog was in the water.

The ice had given way because the lake had frozen from the edges to the middle, and the nearer the dog came to the mallard, the thinner the ice upon which it walked. But the retriever handled itself like a master, with no strength-wasting surging or splashing. It did not turn back, but went steadily on toward its quarry. When it tried to climb out on the ice the thin film broke beneath the dog, and thereafter the retriever continued to break through with its own weight while it continued toward the wing-tipped drake. However, the dog was hurt, as had been proved by blood left on the ice, and now it seemed to be weakening.

Allan turned and ran back to the house. He drew a pair of long one-by-eights from a pile of weathered lumber, shouldered them, and ran back toward the lake. He saw that the dog had meantime overtaken and seized the drake and was headed back to shore. But each time it tried to climb onto the ice, the only possible avenue of escape, its weight broke the ice and dropped the retriever back into the water. After several tries the dog rested, only its head showing, then tried again and broke through the ice again.

Allan unbuttoned his jacket, threw it down, and did not even feel the wind's bite as he knelt to unlace and pull off his rubber pacs. He loosened his belt, slid his hunting pants down, kicked them beside the jacket, and then shed his wool shirt. Dressed only in underwear and socks, he laid his two boards side by side on the ice. Every impulse urged him to hurry and help the dog, but he knew too much about the ice to let himself rush into any unwise move. Lightly clad though he was, if he fell through he would have real trouble getting out.

With one foot on each board, he walked slowly onto the ice and felt it yield beneath his weight. When he reached the ends of the boards, he halted and stepped carefully from one to the other. Moving his feet as little as possible in order to create a minimum of disturbance on the ice, he knelt to slide the unencumbered board ahead of him, stepped onto it, and pushed the other board up beside its mate. Moving one board at a time, he continued his slow progress toward the trapped dog.

Reason told Allan that this was a foolish thing to do, and that he himself might drown in what could prove a vain attempt to rescue a strange dog. But he did not turn back. This was the flyway upon which he lived, and upon which his father and grandfather before him had lived. The flyway and the waterfowl that had made it their north-south highway for ages past were as much a part of him as the blood that nourished his body. Out on the ice a great dog that also belonged to this kind of life was in desperate trouble and there was only one solution. He must help.

Raising his head, Allan saw the dog, still a long way out and still trying to climb onto the ice. But the attempts were more feeble now and the rests much longer. Allan returned his attention to what he himself was doing. Knowing that any attempt to hurry, or any slight miscalculation, would bring certain failure and possible tragedy, Allan restrained his impatience and fought himself into making progress the slow but sure way. Stepping from one board to the other when he reached their ends, then pushing both ahead of him, he continued toward the center of the lake. As he came to thinner and thinner ice, the whole ice sheet dipped, and here and there water seeped through a fissure or bubbled through an air hole. Allan walked slowly on.

A scattering of snow fell, and a gusty burst of wind whirled the flakes across the ice in a twisting snow devil. Allan looked up at the darkening sky. Winter in the Beaver Flowage was always harsh, with deep snow, bitter winds, and zero temperatures the rule rather than the exception. But at sporadic intervals occurred what was known locally as a black storm, so called because snow fell so thickly that even high noon turned to black night, and landmarks were wholly blotted out. As he made his way toward the dog, Allan knew that a black storm was in the making. If it built up fast enough to catch him while he was still on the ice, only the greatest of good luck would get either him or the dog back to shore.

But if he turned back now, the dog was surely doomed. Allan stubbornly pushed and pulled his boards along, until he suddenly saw open water ahead.

The dog was now saving its remaining strength just to keep its head above water, but Allan noted with a rising thrill that the mallard remained in its mouth. Allan had only a passing glance for the dog itself, but it was enough to note the deep intelligence in the retriever's eyes. This was confirmed when the dog turned weakly to swim toward Allan. Help was at hand and the big animal knew it.

Lying full length on his boards, Allan stretched a hand as far as he could reach and felt for a collar. Finding none, he grasped the slack skin on the retriever's neck and, while the dog helped itself by pawing, succeeded in drawing it out of the water to a point where the ice held. The dog staggered, almost went down, then righted itself and placed the mallard, that had scarcely a ruffled feather, in Allan's hand. Allan tucked the wing-tipped drake under his arm and looked at the dog closely.

As he had thought when he had first seen it, it was big, but thin to the point of emaciation. The wound was in its right side. Obviously the immersion in ice water had lessened the flow of blood; only a trickle stained the black fur now. The dog staggered again, took a dizzy step, and saved itself from falling by stiffening its legs. A starvation diet combined with the wound had brought about extreme weakness, Allan realized. Even so, the dog had shown itself a superb retriever and now proved that it had the heart to go with the ability. Courage alone was keeping the animal on its feet.

Allan turned and, keeping anxious eyes on the dog, started moving his boards back toward the shore, the mallard still tucked under his arm. Near collapse, but forcing itself to walk, the dog padded slowly along about three feet to one side. As they moved on to firmer ice, the storm increased in fury. Wind-driven snow pellets stung Allan's cheeks and falling snow combined with deepening night to make the shore line almost invisible. Allan set his course toward his house, a blurred shape in the storm and gathering darkness.

At last they reached the shore. The dog scrambled up the bank, then its legs collapsed, and it fell in a tumbled heap.

Knowing he must hurry but fighting panic, Allan slipped his feet into the discarded pacs, tucked the wing-tipped drake beneath a copse of brush where it huddled motionless, and knelt to slip his arms under the dog's chest and hind quarters. As he lifted the dog, Allan gave a grunt of surprise. An adult Labrador should weigh about sixty-five pounds, but despite its gauntness, this dog was heavier. Cradling the animal in both arms, Allan trotted to the house, pushed the door open with his knee, and laid the inert dog gently beside the stove.

As he straightened up, Allan was aware for the first time of the effects of his having gone out on the ice wearing only underwear and socks. His whole body was numbed with cold, and before he could do anything else, it was imperative to get warm. He fumbled at the stove door, and had to use both hands to open it. He placed a chunk of wood on top of glowing coals, watched it blaze, and stood over the stove until feeling returned to his numbed hands. Then he turned for his first unhurried examination of the dog.

It was even bigger than it had seemed at first glance, at least a third larger than any retriever Allan had ever seen, with some odd strain added. Allan decided after a close scrutiny that the tempering strain was neither collie nor German shepherd but some rangier dog such as a staghound or wolfhound. Save for a very narrow semi-oval of white around the base of the neck, the dog's fur was dull black like a Labrador's and at the same time had a Chesapeake's curl. It was badly matted and burr-ridden, betraying lack of care. From a flesh wound on the right side blood was dribbling to the floor.

Warm enough now to move freely, Allan put a dish of water over the hot lid of his wood-burning stove. When the water started to bubble, he dropped in a large needle and a pair of surgical scissors. He had used them both before. On occasion, especially in winter when snowbound residents of the Beaver Flowage could not get out and doctors were unable to get in, the wilderness dwellers had taken care of their own hurts and ills.

As he waited for his instruments to sterilize, Allan looked at the big animal thoughtfully. It was a foregone conclusion that any dog capable of sighting a wing-tipped mallard at the distance this one had, and of retrieving so skillfully, had had considerable and expert training. The dog was a mongrel, or at least had no pedigree. But some hunters, finding a mutt with promise, would lavish as much attention on it as they would on any dog whose heart pumped only the bluest of blood. No hunter, unless he was one of the very few who thought a dog worthless unless pedigreed, would lightly relinquish a retriever such as this. It therefore followed that sooner or later someone would come to claim the animal he had saved.

Allan knelt beside the dog, parted its black hair, and to his astonishment looked down on a bullet hole. The slug, apparently a 30-30 or similar, had struck the lower right ribs and plowed inward. Since there was no wound where the bullet had emerged, it was still there and must be taken out.

Allan rummaged through a miscellany in a drawer and found two crochet hooks that had belonged to his mother. He dropped them into his pan of boiling water. While they were sterilizing, he knelt to cut all the hair away from the wound, then fished out the sterilized crochet hooks. As he probed, the dog wriggled, grunted, and twitched its paws. Allan withdrew his probe until the big animal quieted, then resumed working. The crochet hook slid past splintered bone to stop at the imbedded slug. It was not as deep as Allan had feared it would be.

Allan worked out a soft-nosed bullet that had miraculously failed to mushroom. Probably both that failure and the bullet's not going clear through were explainable by the fact that it had been shot at very long range, and doubtless the dog owed his life to that circumstance. Allan disinfected the wound, sewed it with silk thread because he lacked surgical gut, then stood up and looked at the dog with a puzzled frown.

Some retrievers are worthless, some fair, some good, and a few grand indeed. But would the best among them, the truest champion with the stoutest heart, even try to retrieve a duck from icy water if he had a bullet in his ribs? There was an enigma here, one that offered no pat solution. Only a waterfowl hunter who both loved and understood dogs could have owned this one. What was the dog doing here? And who had shot it, and why?

The dog's paws twitched and a rippling shudder passed over its ribs. The big jaws opened and shut, then the retriever raised its head and looked squarely at Allan. In the look was a certain quality that was not untamed, but wild in the same sense that an unrestricted hawk or swan is wild. To humans who themselves had drawn so far from things elemental that they no longer understood or even recognized it, it could be entirely savage. But Allan, born to the flyway, warmed to it. His cradle song had been the cry of the wild geese winging north. He knew the vocabulary of the ducks, from their cries of alarm to their rallying and mating calls, and he sympathized with the urgings that sent them on their far-flung journeys. Just so, in spite of its outward wildness, he understood this dog.

When Allan extended a hand, the dog neither flinched nor made any attempt to meet the hand.

"I don't know where you came from, fella," Allan said gently, "but I hope you stay with me. While you do, your name is Stormy. Now you lie right there; I'll be back soon."

Allan pulled on another pair of hunting pants, put on a parka coat, and set a lighted lantern in the window. Then he picked up a flashlight and went back into the night. The wind was still blowing, and wind-driven snow battered the house. Allan ran back down to where he had shucked his clothing, gathered it up, and flashed his light under the copse of brush where he had left the wing-tipped mallard. To his surprise, the drake was still huddled there, too confused or too exhausted to have moved away. Allan picked it up, and, guiding himself by the lantern in the window, ran back toward the house. He stopped long enough to put the mallard in a weather-proof shed before going back to the dog.

Stormy was lying quietly and merely turned a steady gaze on Allan as he came in. There was no hostility in the gaze. But neither was there any overt friendliness; this dog had no intention of fawning upon him, that was sure. Allan grinned.

"All right, all right; be stand-offish. But I reckon you can use something to eat. You'll get it as soon as I slick up a mite."

He had just started to wipe up the blood the dog had spilled, when he had a sudden recollection. He caught up some old editions of the Tillotson Courier, the local weekly that he always saved and, sooner or later, always used. He shuffled through them, and on the third paper from the bottom found what he wanted. There was a picture of a dog, the same one that now lay on his floor. The accompanying headline and story read: