Читать книгу Lion Hound - Jim Kjelgaard - Страница 4

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When Johnny Torrington awoke, the autumn dawn was still two hours away. For five luxurious minutes he stretched in his warm bed, the covers pulled up to his chin while he listened to the wind blowing through the bedroom's open window. Though the wind was no colder than it had been yesterday, it seemed to have a quality now that had been lacking then.

Three weeks ago, mellow under the Indian Summer sun, bright leaves had made the rimrock country a riot of color. Then a north wind had ripped through them, sending fluttering leaves to the ground and whirling them far from their parent trees. Sometimes merely chilling and sometimes blasting cold, the north wind had blown ever since. All it had brought so far was cold rain, but now there was a definite promise of snow. Tomorrow was Saturday, and if there should be snow, Jake Kane would go up in the heights with his pack of lion hounds. Jake had promised that Johnny could go on the first hunt with him.

In his mind's eye Johnny pictured Jake's five hounds sweeping through the snow. He heard their discordant tonguing fade in the distance. He saw the snow-draped rimrock and himself listening for the hounds' frenzied tree bark. He saw a lion high in a pine and heard the crack of a rifle. The lion pitched out of the tree to land limply in the snow....

The dream faded and Johnny made ready to go to school.

He sprang out of bed and raced across the floor in his bare feet. But before he closed the window he leaned out of it for a moment to draw his lungs full of crisp air and look anxiously for traces of snow. He could neither see nor feel any, but he knew it was coming because the wind promised it.

Johnny shucked his pajamas off, threw them on the bed, and dressed hurriedly. He draped a tie over his shoulder but kept his shoes in his hand as he stepped softly down the stairs. Johnny lived with his grandfather, old Allis Torrington. A renowned hunter in his day, Allis was old now and his were the ways of the old. He liked to sleep until he was ready to get up.

Johnny padded into the kitchen, lighted an oil lamp, and relaxed in the warmth from the banked fire in the big range. Two hounds, so old that they were almost toothless and with a white frosting on their dark hair, rose to greet him. They were Sounder and Pat, sole survivors of the last lion pack Allis Torrington had ever run. Old pensioners now, they slept in the kitchen whenever they chose.

Stooping to pet the two old hounds, Johnny smiled indulgently. The dogs were old, and filled with the aches and ailments of the old, but they still prowled the nearby woods and occasionally raised their ancient voices when they found the trail of a bobcat or coon. Not for a year had either of them brought anything to bay, but they were still anxious to try.

Johnny opened the door and let the two hounds out into the pre-dawn blackness. He glanced quickly at the clock on the table, noted that it was quarter past six, and dipped a panful of hot water from the stove's reservoir.

After washing, he lifted the stove lid, poked gray ashes from glowing embers, and added fresh wood. While the fire renewed its life, Johnny ducked into a cold side room and brought out a slab of home-smoked bacon. He cut thin slices, leaving four on a saucer for Allis and putting four into a skillet. As the bacon began to sputter, the coffeepot, on the back of the stove, started to steam. Johnny turned his bacon with a fork, broke two eggs in the skillet, and cut bread.

When he finished his meal, the windows were dim with approaching dawn and the cloudy sky bore out the promise of snow that had been in the wind. Wistfully Johnny looked at the two rifles in the rack. It was always more fun to hunt than it was to attend school, but he dared not skip. His marks, while fair, were not as good as they might be and the faculty at Gatson High took a dim view of anybody who failed to attend without an excellent reason.

Johnny put more wood on the fire, turned the damper down, and let the two old hounds back in. Shivering, they went to their beds beside the stove and curled up gratefully.

Johnny scribbled a note: "Good-bye, Grand Pop. Behave yourself." He grinned as he propped the note on the table. Allis had a voice like a bull's roar, and outwardly affected a manner to go with the voice. Inwardly he was sentimental. Though he often snorted belligerent protests when Johnny called him Grand Pop, he was proud of the title and liked to be remembered.

Johnny left the dishes where they were. Allis seldom left the house for very long in cold weather and liked to have little tasks to occupy him. As Johnny donned his heavy windbreaker, he looked at his overshoes. He knew that he would be needled if he wore them to school when there wasn't any snow. But it probably would be snowing tonight and Johnny had to walk a half mile to the bus stop. He slipped his overshoes on, pulled a wool cap down over his ears, and trotted up the gravel road.

On both sides the high, colored bluffs rose up until they were silhouetted against the lightening sky. Behind the bluffs were slides, and crumbled shale, and wild upland pastures, and creeks that spilled over ledges half a hundred feet high. But the bluffs were the most prominent feature of this land. They were seamed with fissures, lined with ledges, and honeycombed with caves that were anywhere from a few feet square to big enough for a whole house full of rooms. And to the north was a vast plateau where grew great forests of ponderosa pine.

As he trotted up the gravel road toward the highway, Johnny's mind peopled the wilderness with the creatures whose abode it was. There were mule deer, lordly elk, a few antelope, bears, coyotes, many kinds of small game. Among them, like tawny puffs of smoke, slunk the creeping mountain lions that were able to break a bull's neck and yet were so secretive. These were the big cats that Allis used to hunt and that Jake Kane hunted now. They were creatures of lore and legend, still so little known that few people really understood where the legend ended and the lore began.

Johnny looked longingly at a draw that led up into the rimrock. He pictured himself, rifle in hand, climbing that draw with Jake Kane and Jake's hounds. Then he grinned and trotted on. That was for tomorrow. Today was today. Johnny came to where the gravel road met the macadam just as the bus came into sight.

As it churned to a stop in front of him, the driver opened the door, grinning. "So you've turned sissy on us! Overshoes, yet!"

"Hi, Chuck."

Johnny stepped in, nodded to the students already in the bus, and settled down to take the ribbing he had known he would get if he wore overshoes. But he was sure he was right. The black clouds that arched the early morning sky had something besides rain in them. There would certainly be snow by tomorrow morning and probably before night.

The bus halted momentarily as Chuck applied the brakes. Johnny saw the cow elk that had been in the road, and that now moved leisurely away, looking inquiringly back at the bus. It was strange that an animal which, under ordinary circumstances, would have fled at sight of a human was not at all afraid of them when they were in a car or bus. Maybe they couldn't get the scent, or maybe they knew that cars and buses always stayed on the road and never invaded the woods. Johnny made a mental note to ask Allis's opinion on this interesting subject.

The bus stopped to take in the Barstow twins, then settled for the stiff climb out of the canyon. It halted again while a herd of mule deer scampered across the road and into the forest. Johnny watched them closely, but only because he was more interested in wild life than the others were. Wild animals in the road were routine to these youngsters who lived in the back country.

An hour and twenty minutes after it left the stop where Johnny got on, the bus rolled into Gatson and stopped at the high school. As they filed out, Johnny fell in behind Bob Carew, whose father owned a small ranch. Bob's consuming ambition was to teach English and Johnny supposed that was all right. It would hardly be a balanced world if everybody, like Johnny, wanted to become a forester.

Johnny made his way to his locker, hung his overcoat and cap inside, and hastily rid himself of the overshoes. He went to the window and looked hopefully for signs of snow before entering his home room. Cloud banks obscured the top of Gatson Peak completely. Johnny knew that the impending snow had already started up there.

All morning he made a sincere effort to pay close attention, but neither his heart nor his mind were in it. He struggled through history and English, gave himself completely to thoughts of lion hunting in the comparative freedom of a study period, narrowly escaped a reprimand in biology, ate a meal that he did not even taste at the school cafeteria, and marched with firm resolution to algebra. That was a subject that a forester should know.

As he entered the room, he glanced out of the window and saw snow falling, heavy flakes driven furiously by the north wind. Johnny tried to make out the house nearest the school, and barely saw its outline.

Two minutes later Miss Mosher, from the Principal's office, entered and spoke in a low voice to the algebra teacher. When she had gone, he faced the class.

"Torrington, Masters, Carson, Mulhaney, and Dandow are excused and will report to your bus driver."

Johnny arose along with Pete Dandow and three girls. This was routine. When heavy snow threatened, those who had to travel by bus were always excused in order to make sure that they could get home.

Johnny raced down the hall, put all except his history book in his desk, clasped the history under his arm, and ran to his locker. Bob Carew, who had the locker next to Johnny's, arrived with a big pile of books just as Johnny was shrugging into his windbreaker.

"Come on, bookworm!" said Johnny happily, turning to leave.

"I'll be there."

Pete Dandow, the Barstow twins, and Alice Larkin, whose home rooms were close to the entrance, were already at the bus when Johnny got there. The chances were good that the snow wouldn't continue, and if it didn't the roads would be cleared and they'd all be back in school Monday morning. But that was by no means a foregone conclusion. Twice last winter the rimrock road had been snowbound for four days before Chuck Jackson had again been able to get his bus through the drifts.

"Now how about those overshoes?" Johnny asked Alice Larkin.

"You think you're smart!"

Johnny grinned and dropped into a seat. Chuck Jackson, who would now have to jockey his bus through snow and get all these youngsters safely back to their homes, squinted worriedly at the school.

"Where in blazes are the rest of them?"

"Don't worry, Chuck," said Pete Dandow. "If this antique ark of yours gets stuck in a drift, we'll just pick it up and carry it. Not so sure it wouldn't be faster at that."

"Ha, ha," gritted Chuck. "We have a humorist in our midst."

The others came until all except Bob Carew were there. Chuck fidgeted in his seat, and the rest set up a chant.

"We want Bob! We want Bob! We—"

He came at last, after all but one of the other buses had left. There was a pile of books under his arm and a look of unhappy resignation on his face. Chuck gunned the motor, the bus crawled cautiously out into the street, and the wipers made squeaky little noises as they pushed fluffy snow from the windshield.

Johnny looked happily out the window. The autumn landscape of this morning had become a winter fastness. Snow covered the meadows, clung to the evergreen branches, and was piling up on the road. Dimly ahead of them Johnny saw fast-filling tracks of a car that had already gone through.

Chuck kept his bus at little more than a crawl. When he came to the hairpin turns leading down into the canyon, he eased around them in second gear. They reached the Barstow's without mishap, then Johnny's stop.

He grinned and waved as the bus went on. Naturally, he told himself conscientiously, nobody should want to get out of school. But the storm had ended formal education this week, and that was that. Through the four inches of snow he struck happily down the half mile of gravel that led to his grandfather's house. His blood raced, and for sheer pleasure he went to one side and leaped a fallen tree. Then he became more cautious, and went on slowly.

Wild creatures often started down from the heights with the first snow. Just ahead was a grove of wild apple trees where Johnny had often seen deer and elk, and he wanted to find out if any were there now.

The soft snow made silent walking. But deer and elk were quick to notice moving objects, and when Johnny came near the glade where the apple trees grew he slunk behind a pine. Keeping in line with the next one, he continued to approach the apple trees. From the sheltering trunk of the last big pine he peered at the wild orchard.

He was a little surprised to see nothing. Deer or elk should have been there, waiting for the next apple to fall or rearing on their hind legs to pluck the gnarled, frozen fruit. Puzzled, he scanned the snow for tracks. He saw none, so there had been no other passer-by to frighten the animals. Maybe there hadn't been enough snow to drive them out of the heights.

Then Johnny stood at rigid attention.

In the pines beyond the apple trees he had seen something move. It was nothing he could see clearly or identify; only a flash of tawny-brown color that appeared and disappeared. Johnny stood very quietly behind the pine, hoping that whatever he had seen would show itself more clearly. When it did not, he stepped out from behind the tree.

He saw it clearly now, framed in a little opening between two trees. Then it was gone. It was a huge mountain lion, the biggest Johnny had ever seen. He stood still and tried to think coolly.

Lions had been known to attack people; both Jake Kane and his grandfather had told him that. But such attacks were isolated instances, and usually any lion that attacked a person was driven to it only by starvation. Johnny had seen the lion clearly and it had looked anything but starved.

He moved cautiously to a dead, fallen pine, and tried to look in all directions at once while he probed with his foot for a stout branch. He picked one up, leaned it at an angle against the trunk, and jumped on it to break off a three-foot club. Quickly he stooped to take the club in his hands, then moved into an opening where there was room to swing.

Lions didn't usually attack people, but Johnny had heard that they often followed them. A lion's outstanding characteristic is an overwhelming curiosity about anything and everything, and without showing themselves they would sometimes trail a person for miles. Johnny shivered at the prospect of being trailed by a lion the size of this one.

When he went on down the snow-covered road he kept to the center, as far as possible from the brush and trees on either side. He leaped like a startled deer when there was a sudden noise beside him. But it was only an overweight of snow falling from a spruce branch.

He came to a place where the larger trees had been cut and little spruces had grown up in their wake. Not yet as tall as Johnny, the little trees were full-needled and very thick. Johnny edged cautiously past, then halted again.

He could see and hear nothing, yet he was sure that one of the little trees had moved, as though a heavy body had brushed against it. Suddenly he was overcome by a wild impulse to carry the fight to the enemy, and sprang forward, brandishing his club. A wild shriek burst from his lips.

"Hi-eee!"

Blindly he crashed into the little trees and felt them whip his face. Then he stopped short.

Fresh in the new snow were the paw marks of a huge lion. Johnny felt the hair on the back of his neck tingle, and he looked fearfully about at the enclosing evergreens. Awareness of the insane thing he had done surged over him, and he beat a hasty retreat back to the open road. He still walked slowly, trying to see everything, and only when he smelled wood smoke and saw his grandfather's house did he break into a run. As he burst through the door, his grandfather looked up in surprise.

"What's the matter, boy?"

"A lion followed me down the road!" Johnny gasped.

"A lion? You sure?"

"I saw him once and his tracks are still there!"

"How close did he come to you?"

"When I passed those little spruces he was within thirty feet."

"Do you think he aimed to tackle you?"

Johnny shook his head. "I thought so then, but I'm not so sure now. It's different when you're out on the road with only a club. Maybe he was just following me."

"Could be," Allis agreed, "but it don't sound likely. Lions that follow people don't usually come that close. Let's shag back up there."

"Good."

Johnny went to his room, took off his school clothes, and got into his hunting togs. He pulled rubber pacs on over wool socks, and took his rifle from its rack. The two old hounds looked sadly at them when they left the house. They wanted to go too, but knew they were too old now for strenuous hunting.

As he strode back up the road with his grandfather beside him, Johnny's fear was replaced by confidence. He had a rifle and he knew how to shoot it. Where he had feared the lion would come, now he hoped it would. Johnny led Allis to the little evergreens and followed his own tracks inside. The old man stooped carefully to examine the lion tracks in the snow. When he straightened, there was doubt in his eyes.

"I don't know," he muttered. "I can't tell you what that lion aimed to do and as far as I know he didn't know neither. But he sure is big and it's not healthy to have him here." The old man glanced at the darkening sky. "It's sort of late to set hounds on his trail today, but there's always tomorrow. After supper you go down and tell Jake Kane about it."