Читать книгу Outlaw Red, Son of Big Red - Jim Kjelgaard - Страница 6

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Sean held rigid, perfectly motionless, while he continued to test the winds. Warned by his almost inaudible growls that something was coming, Billy Dash turned and stood tensely against the wire run. Billy was a woodsman born. Sounds, scents, and noises that would have meant nothing to the average city man had their own meaning for him. But Billy lacked the extra-sharp senses of a dog, so he did not know that a man was coming.

Sean did know, and he was afraid of the scent that wafted to his nostrils. Just as Red and Mike knew by the scent of the various creatures they ran across whether or not such creatures intended to run away from them or to stay and fight, Sean knew that this man had hostile intentions.

The dimly lighted night revealed nothing except the misshapen outlines that buildings and trees usually display in darkness. Beyond these there were just scents and very faint sounds by which the oncoming man could be followed to advantage, and only Sean was able to interpret both scent and sound. He knew that the man had come out of the forest, in which he had been hiding, and started across the meadow. Sean followed him with his nose and ears.

The big dog turned his head for one more look at Billy Dash. Since puppyhood Sean's every want and need had been taken care of by some human being. His own native initiative and resourcefulness had not been developed to that keen point which Mike and Big Red had achieved. Now, naturally, he looked to the nearest man he trusted to solve any problems that might arise here.

Out in the meadow a light thump sounded. Billy Dash whirled to face it.

"Howdy, Billy."

Sean heard Billy Dash's startled, "Uncle Hat!"

"Uncle Hat!" the other mocked him. "Uncle Hat! A body would think a boy'd be glad to see his own uncle, his own blood uncle, what he hadn't bothered to see in I dunno how many weeks. Ain't you glad to see me, Billy?"

Billy Dash said savagely, "No!"

"Gettin' uppity, eh?" Uncle Hat asked. "Never thought 'twould do you any good to hang 'round with rich folks thisaway. You get too uppity for yo'r own good, that's what you do."

As he approached in the very dim light, Uncle Hat showed himself to be a short man, lacking six inches of Billy's six feet. A battered felt hat sat well forward on his head, and uncut black hair straggled from beneath it. His eyes were pale, set close together. A bulbous nose protruded above a luxuriant growth of unkempt beard that concealed his mouth. He wore an old tattered suit coat, torn trousers, cut off at the knee, and heavy leather boots.

Uncle Hat still had a distinct air of authority. The huge .45 caliber revolver which, cocked and ready, he bore in his right hand, loaned that to him. The gun's ugly muzzle was trained squarely on Billy Dash.

There was a moment's silence, then Uncle Hat's teeth gleamed faintly in the bushy beard. "'No,' he says! He ain't glad to see me! What you aim to do about it, Billy?"

Billy Dash glanced downward, toward the revolver's ready muzzle.

"Nothin'."

"I see you ain't entirely took leave of your senses," Uncle Hat reflected. "But we might's well stop this gibble-gabblin'. I want some money."

"Got no money."

"Oh, yes you have. Yes you have, Billy. I was up on the slope, right behind a big oak tree, when I see Danny Pickett give you some. Hand it over."

Without a word, Billy Dash took the unopened envelope from his pocket and passed it over to Uncle Hat.

Sean crouched low in his cage, still uncertain as to the course he should adopt but not liking the sound of the voices. He did not understand this. But he knew that Billy Dash was in danger and, should a fight come, he wanted to be in it on Billy's side. He growled again, warningly.

Uncle Hat laughed.

"One of Haggin's fancy mutts, eh? Bet he couldn't chomp his teeth through a platter of hot cornmeal mush, and he's growlin' at me! Now let me see about this."

The revolver in his right hand never wavering, he used his left to tear the envelope open. Probing fingers slipped inside. There was another moment of silence, then Uncle Hat's voice became ugly.

"Whar's the rest of it?"

"There's no mo'."

"Whar's the rest of it?"

"That's all."

"Billy, for the last time I'm askin'. No Dash ever worked like you have to for this much money. I want the rest and I want it now!"

"That's all! Now git!"

"I'll blast yo'r guts to the top of Stoney Lonesome! I'll—!"

A great roar of rage escaped Sean's chest. From up the line of kennels another dog echoed it, and a moment later all the dogs were in full-throated chorus. Sean leaped toward the top of his wire run, made a valiant effort to hook it with his front paws and scramble over, and fell back. He tried again, no longer in doubt as to what he should do and how he should do it. In the fight, on Billy's side, he must be. Never in his life had he bitten or even threatened a man, but he wanted to hurt this one. So intent was he on getting over the fence that he was heedless of everything else.

He did not see Billy, agile as a mink, duck low and come in fighting. Billy's steel-hard left hand shot out. His fingers closed around Uncle Hat's right wrist, and the gun was forced up. Supple as an eel, Billy twisted to one side, curled the fingers of his right hand around Uncle Hat's throat, and used his right elbow to block the blows of Uncle Hat's left fist.

The big revolver was the prize both wanted, and their hands were locked on tilted arms as they strove for it. Uncle Hat fought with all his strength to bring the gun around to bear on Billy Dash. Cocked, the revolver needed only the pressure of a finger to go off.

There was a roar, a tongue of flame flashed from the revolver's muzzle into the black night, and a shadow flitted through the darkness. Uncle Hat lay where he had fallen. Billy Dash was nowhere in evidence.

And Sean was the only witness.

Danny Pickett was half asleep in the lodge. Lost in the hazy world that is neither complete sleep nor full wakefulness, he was with some amusement thinking of how times had changed.

In the old days he and Ross had slept in one room, while the loft of their cabin was reserved for the hunters they guided or the fishermen they took to various streams and ponds. They had cooked over a wood stove, which had also heated the cabin, and carried all their water from a spring. At night the cabin was lighted with kerosene lamps.

Now all that was changed. The lodge had accommodations for twelve guests, in addition to private bedrooms for Ross, Danny, and Billy Dash. A gasoline-powered generator produced ample current to provide all the electricity they could use. Bottled gas, replenished at frequent intervals, fueled a modern gas range. The spring had been walled in, piped into the house, and part of it ran through an automatic hot-water heater. A bathroom boasted both a shower stall and a tub. There was a gleaming refrigerator and a deep-freeze unit in which food could be stored for long periods of time. In winter the lodge was heated by a central oil furnace. Even the road down to Mr. Haggin's had been graded and widened so cars could travel it at will.

Danny grinned faintly. There was something to be said for all the gadgets modern man had created—provided that he didn't go soft from using them. And there was little danger of it in these parts. The Wintapi slopes were just as steep as they'd ever been and the creeks were as swift. Anyone who prowled around them for several hours a day was certain to stay in first-class physical condition.

Red raised his head and growled softly. Danny roused from the slumber into which he was fast drifting.

"You, Red," he scolded. "Why don't you shut up?"

The big dog rose and padded across the floor to the screened bedroom window. He reared on the sill and pressed his nose against the screen so he could test the outside air. Again he growled softly.

"Listen," Danny said. "You can't sleep, so nobody else should either, huh? For pete's sake go back to bed and stop raising a racket!"

A second later Sean's throaty battle roar exploded in the night. The other kenneled dogs took up the challenge, turning what had been peace into bedlam.

Danny hit the floor with both feet, shucking off his pajamas as he did so and reaching for his clothes. Almost with the same motion he flicked the light switch on. Just as he did, he heard the blast of Uncle Hat's big .45.

In feverish haste Danny pulled a shirt over his head, zipped it shut without bothering to tuck it inside his trousers, and slipped his bare feet into moccasins. He snatched a double-barreled shotgun from a rack, loaded both barrels with buckshot, and jerked the door open.

Red stayed close beside him, bristled and ready. He knew what Danny did not, that Uncle Hat had paid the kennels a visit. And, like Sean, Red knew by the trespasser's scent that Uncle Hat's intentions were not good. But Red and Danny had been in trouble many times, and the big dog's experience told him they could meet every possible emergency.

The hall lighted suddenly as Danny flipped the switch. With Sheilah padding uneasily behind him, Ross burst out of his bedroom just as Danny started down the hall. Ross carried his favorite weapon, a 30-30 rifle. Father and son, having worked together for so long that there was no need for exchanging comments, looked at each other questioningly. Side by side, Red trotting ahead of them and Sheilah pacing behind, they ran into the kitchen. Danny threw the switch that controlled the kennel floodlights, and they dashed onto the porch.

Flooded by brilliant white light, the kennels were revealed in every detail. Excited dogs, their tension heightened by the lights, leaped against their wire runs and fell back. Their barking made the night alive with noise.

Danny and Ross raced across the grass. Both had seen the crumpled figure lying in front of Sean's run. Danny kept his shotgun ready and his eyes on Red. Who had shot one man here tonight might not be at all unwilling to shoot two. They reached the fallen man and Ross bent over him.

"Hat Dash!"

Danny's voice expressed his relief. "I was afraid it might be Billy."

The two looked meaningly at each other. If Billy Dash was still at the kennels, he would be with them now. Again there was no need for speculation. What had happened here was all too evident.

"Where Hat Dash goes, trouble goes," Ross said tensely.

"He sure brought it here. Billy didn't go into the mountains to find him."

"Boy, I'm not sayin' you're wrong. But why should Hat come here to raise a fuss?"

"I paid Billy today."

"I see." For a moment Ross stared soberly into the night, then he turned to the man on the ground. "Well, we can't leave him here."

Ross knelt beside Hat Dash and slipped a hand beneath his coat. For a moment he held still, as though uncertain of what he had found. He looked up at Danny.

"He's still alive," he said, "but not too much alive. We'd best not try to move him. Get me some blankets, Danny. Then phone Mistah Haggin."

When Danny returned with the blankets, Ross had cut away the wounded man's coat and shirt and had loosened his belt. Danny glanced soberly at Hat's wound, just below his ribs. It was a very small hole, with only a few drops of blood, but Danny knew what he would find should he look at the place where the bullet had come out. If Hat Dash lived to tell of this he was going to be the luckiest man in the Wintapi.

Silently Ross held up a white envelope.

"Billy's pay. Found it in Hat's pocket."

"How about the gun?"

"It's not here. Billy must of took it. Where he's goin' he'll need that more than money. You go ahead and phone."

Danny went back into the lodge, picked up the phone, and gave the two short rings that called Mr. Haggin's house. He waited a moment, and then Mr. Haggin himself answered the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hello. This is Danny, Mr. Haggin, Danny Pickett. There's been trouble, a shooting."

"Who was shot?"

"Hat Dash. Look, I'll tell you all about it when you get here. We need a doctor and an ambulance, bad."

There was a short pause. Then Mr. Haggin said, "It seems to me that we need the police, too."

Danny said reluctantly, "Maybe we do."

"All right. I'll be there as soon as possible."

Danny hung up and went back out to where Ross knelt beside the still figure under the blankets. Danny shifted his feet uneasily. The night was not a particularly cold one, but it seemed to him that it was. He glanced at Ross, who shook his head, and they sat down to watch the road leading from the Haggin estate.

Finally, the lights of two cars pierced the blackness. A sleek ambulance drew up in front of the lodge, and a black and white State Police car pulled in behind it.

Danny, Ross, and Mr. Haggin stood aside while the efficient young doctor worked over Hat Dash. At last the doctor and the ambulance driver lifted Hat onto a stretcher and put him in the ambulance. Mr. Haggin broke the silence.

"What are his chances, doctor?"

"One in a hundred."

"Bad, eh?"

"Very bad. I think the lung is punctured. We'll have to operate—if he lives that long."

The ambulance glided smoothly down the road, and it seemed to Danny that he could breathe again. Life had been in the presence of Death, but now Death was gone, under the care of the doctor in the ambulance, and Life could resume its normal course. One of the efficient men in the gray uniform of the State Police turned to Danny.

"Who was the wounded man?" he asked.

"Hatley Dash."

"Do you know who shot him?"

Danny fumbled, almost blurted out Billy's name, then said, "No, I don't."

The gray-clad trooper looked at him coldly, and Danny felt his face flame. Mr. Haggin broke the silence.

"Corporal Graves and Constable Malone, meet Danny and Ross Pickett. I'm sure they're not responsible."

Corporal Graves softened, and asked, "Who do you think shot him?"

Danny said unwillingly, "I think it must have been his nephew, Billy Dash."

"Who is he?"

"Our kennel boy," Danny said. "Before he came to work for us, he lived up on Cummerly Knob."

"Was there bad blood between nephew and uncle?"

"I don't think so."

Mr. Haggin broke in. "Where is Billy, anyway?"

"He's gone."

"The crazy kid," Mr. Haggin murmured. "He might better stay and face it."

Corporal Graves took over again. "Gone, eh? Suppose you tell us what you know about this."

"Dad and I were in bed when Red—that's this dog right here—growled. I figured it was some animal, then Sean, another of our dogs, let out a bellow. The rest of the dogs joined in, and I heard a revolver shot. When we ran out, Hat was on the ground in front of Sean's run."

"That's all you know?"

"That's all."

"All right, Danny. Now suppose you tell us what you think happened."

"I paid Billy today. Hat must have somehow known that I did. He came down for Billy's pay, and threatened him with a gun. After Billy handed the money over they probably scuffled for the gun and Hat was shot. Billy must have been scared and ran away."

"That's your opinion?"

"That's it."

"Was Billy the sort to pick a fight?"

"No!"

"How about Hat?"

Danny said drily, "Hat wasn't exactly a pacifist. You know these mountaineers."

"Well, we'll have to pick Billy up. Can you take us to his house?"

"Sure. But—"

"But what?"

"Nothing," Danny said.

The State Police were handling this. Plainly they expected Billy Dash to run for home. They might find him there, and then again they might not. In Danny's opinion, home was the last place in the world that Billy Dash would head for.

Sean was more than a little worried, and thoroughly mystified by the strange doings of the humans. Danny and the State Police, their natty uniforms wrinkled and dirty and a stubble of beard shading their faces, had come down out of the mountains alone. The uniformed men had waited around for a whole day, and seemed more than a little angry. Then they had left.

Every afternoon, always at the hour Billy Dash had taken him out for exercise, Sean waited hopefully at the kennel gate. Billy did not come; even his well-remembered scent was fading. Danny had not yet been able to get another kennel boy and both Danny and Ross were far too busy to give all the dogs as much attention as they should have had. Only Sheilah, Red and Mike, dogs that normally ran free all the time anyway, had been outside the kennels.

It was very boring. Sean had hunted ants until he was weary of it, snapped at flies until he was tired of that too, and was even bored with stalking the mouse. Though by all normal standards his cage was big enough, there was really not enough room for Sean to stretch his legs as he wanted to stretch them. There had been no mad dashes through the meadow, none of the mile-long races that he loved.

Then, one morning, a small pickup truck came up from the Haggin estate. The truck's body was fitted with stakes over which a tarpaulin stretched tightly. Sean knew the truck and its purpose as well as Red knew what would follow when Danny started cleaning his shotgun. But he did not like riding in the truck, and crawled way back in his kennel. It did no good, because Danny called him out. Sean flattened his ears in sad resignation.

Released from his cage, he trotted slowly beside Danny, waited until the truck's gate was lowered, and jumped up. Without being bidden, he entered the slatted dog crate inside the truck and lay down. The crate's door was latched and the tail gate raised back into place. Sean heard Danny give last-minute instructions to the driver.

"Sorry I have to send you alone, Joe. I'd hoped to have Billy go along too. But—" Danny shrugged eloquently.

"Any news of Billy?" the truck driver asked.

"Not a sign."

"How about Hat?"

"He's alive, and that says about everything."

"Poor Billy," the truck driver commented. "Too bad he got himself into a scrape like that. Somebody else should have shot Hat—and twenty years ago."

"Yeah," Danny agreed. "Now you deliver Sean personally to Tom Jordan, on the Pococimo Road. You know where it is, don't you?"

"Sure thing, Danny. But I wish the station wagon hadn't gone on the fritz. This old crate ought to be junked."

"Well, take it easy. We won't expect you back until late tonight."

Sean adjusted himself to the jolting motion as the truck bounced down the road, rolled past the Haggin estate, and entered a highway. The driver picked up speed, and for the first twenty miles the truck ran smoothly. Then there was a slight squealing, a loud noise, and the truck, on three good tires, lurched to a halt on the road's shoulder.

Sean looked on, mildly interested and not at all alarmed as the driver got out, looked disgustedly at the blown tire, and began to replace it with the good spare. Presently they were rolling again, out of the wilderness and past fat farms. Again the truck came to a sputtering halt. Once more the driver alighted.

"Hound," he said to Sean, "you're a jinx."

The driver raised the hood and began to tinker with the engine, but it was a full hour before they started again. Meantime Sean relaxed in his cage. He didn't know where they were going and he didn't much care, but as long as the truck wasn't jouncing him about he was content to lie still and sniff the strange scents that drifted into his crate.

They passed through the farming country back into forested hills. Sean's interest heightened. These woodsy smells were much more to his liking. Then, a second time within a few hours, there was the smacking jolt of a blown tire and the truck limped to the road's shoulder. The driver stared at the tire helplessly, then looked balefully at Sean.

"Now we are in a mess! Ten miles to the nearest town and no spare! Who'd think you could cause so much trouble in only one day?"

He jacked the truck up, removed the blown tire, and sat down on a rear fender. But almost three-quarters of an hour elapsed before another car came along. The driver hailed it down.

"Take this into Arnold's Garage at Clover, will you? Ask him to bring a new one and this spare back as soon as he can. Tell him I have to stay here and watch over one of Dick Haggin's million-dollar mutts. He should hustle. Thanks a lot."

The sun was beginning to lower when the trouble car came with the necessary tires. The driver and the mechanic put one on the truck and the other on the spare wheel. When the mechanic had left, the driver, again ready to go, called back to Sean.

"Hope you won't mind a few jolts, dog. But if I'm going to get back at all tonight I have to step on it, and I know a couple of short cuts. Here we go."

He swerved from the macadam onto a dirt road, and began to climb. Sean lay still, entirely delighted. This was the sort of country he liked. Both sides of the road were heavily forested, and enchanting odors came from the woods. Sean smelled rabbits, grouse, deer, and once a panther that had crossed the road no more than a minute or two ahead of the truck.

There was a sudden thunderous clatter that seemed to be directly beneath him, and Sean was startled. But the driver, muttering under his breath, merely increased his speed. The truck's muffler had blown and little else could be heard.

The truck bounced on a boulder, careened to another one, and bumped over a whole nest of them. Sean looked with interest at the tail gate. Both latches had come unhitched, and the gate was flapping behind the truck. But they did not slacken speed.

Sean braced his feet and sat up. He seemed to be sliding, and that made him nervous. He looked down, past the side of the road, into a deep ravine that was floored with a tangle of rhododendron and laurel. The truck hit another rough spot. The dog crate jounced high, slid sideways, spilled out the back end, struck the road, and bounded into the ravine.

All unaware, the driver roared on.