Читать книгу Double Challenge - Jim Kjelgaard - Страница 4

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When Ted Harkness reached the summit of Hawkbill, he hurried. He grinned a little smugly as he did so, for his had been a non-stop climb and most people who wanted to reach Hawkbill, the highest point in the Mahela and the only one that wasn't forested, had to rest at least twice. Some, starting out with firm determination to climb to the top, wavered en route and never did get there.

The gorgeous, tricolored collie that had been pacing beside Ted ran a short ways, snuffled into some brush and disappeared. Presently he came wagging back, to fall in beside his master, and Ted let a hand rest on the dog's silken head. A little farther on, the collie pricked up its ears and Ted stopped in his tracks.

Just ahead, a fallen tree lay at an angle down the slope. Either rooted in soft earth or shallowly rooted, it had toppled when its upper structure became too heavy for its root system to support, and it had fallen so recently that its leaves had not even started to shrivel. Sitting nervously on its trunk, suspecting danger was near but lacking the faintest idea as to where it was, were seven young bobtailed grouse.

An imp of mischief danced in Ted's eyes. Ruffed grouse were one of the sportiest and one of the wisest of birds, but they weren't born wise and experienced. Like everything else, they had to learn and certainly these grouse weren't old enough to have learned much of anything. Ted said softly, "Get one, Tammie."

Very slowly, knowing his game and stalking it as a cat would have stalked, Tammie slunk forward. Ted watched with great interest. Rarely could any dog catch a mature ruffed grouse unless it was injured, and it was questionable as to whether Tammie could take one of these comparative babies. But he might.

Tammie neared the log, sprang, and six of the seven young grouse took fluttering wing. The seventh, clamped in Tammie's slender jaws, fluttered a moment and was still. Eyes proud, plumed tail waving, Tammie trotted back to Ted and placed the prize in his master's hand. Ted complimented him.

"Good boy, Tammie!"

He took the young grouse gently, feeling its thumping heart and understanding its terrified eyes. It wasn't hurt. When teaching Tammie to catch various birds and animals, Ted had taught him to be tender-mouthed. After a moment, he tossed his captive into the air and watched it fly out of sight.

"Let's go, dog."

They broke out of the beech woods onto the abutment that rose above. Almost solid rock, nothing grew here except lichens and, in the cracks, occasional strips of grass. Bent somewhat like a hawk's bill, it was a favorite playground for hawks that wanted to test their wings. The view was unsurpassed.

Ted sat down on the very tip of Hawkbill and Tammie squatted companionably beside him. Ted looked at the Mahela.

For as far as he could see in any direction, forested hills folded into one another. Spinning Creek sparkled like a silver ribbon that some giant hand had draped gracefully down a forested valley. The road to Lorton, from this distance, was a footpath beside the creek. Two miles down the valley, the green clearing in which lay Carl Thornton's Crestwood Resort, the only resort in the Mahela and Ted's place of employment, gleamed like a great emerald.

Just below, almost at Ted's feet, was the snug log house in which he and his father lived, surrounded by two hundred acres of forest, except for small and scattered patches here and there. The Harknesses owned the last remaining private land in the Mahela. Its only clearings were those in which the cabin was built and one for a garden patch. Al Harkness didn't want or need much clearing. He preferred the beech woods to the cultivated fields, the trap line or woodsman's ax to the plow.

Behind Hawkbill rose a mountain that, long ago, had been ravaged by fire. The fire had burned slowly in the lower reaches and the forest there remained green and virgin. But a little more than halfway up, probably fanned by sudden, fierce winds, the fire had become an inferno. Nearly all the trees had been killed and had long since fallen. The place had grown up into a tangle of blackberry canes, with a few patches of scrubby aspen here and there. As Ted watched, he saw what he'd hoped to see. It was only a wisp of motion, a mere flutter in the aspens, and as soon as Ted spotted it, he lost it. Presently he picked it up again.

It was an immense deer, a great gray buck. Heavy-bodied, thick-necked, it would outweigh most big bucks by at least fifty pounds. Massive of beam, with four perfect points on either side, its antlers were a hunter's dream come true. It was feeding on something, probably patches of grass that grew among the briers. Ted's eyes glowed and he continued to search.

Presently he saw the second buck, an exact twin of the first. It was standing quietly in the warm sun, a hundred feet up-slope.

These were the bucks that were known throughout the Mahela, and far beyond it, as Damon and Pythias. All who'd seen them thought that either one, if bagged, would set a new record. But so far, both had carried their antlers safely through several hunting seasons and from the lazy way they posed on the mountainside, they might have been two gray steers in any farmer's pasture. The appearance was deceptive, though, and Ted knew it. Let anything at all excite either buck's suspicion and they'd prove their mettle. Ted rubbed Tammie's head reflectively.

"There they are," he observed, "and one of these days I'm going to hang one of those heads over our fireplace."

Tammie yawned and Ted laughed. "Okay, so I'm bragging again. But I'm still going to do it. Let's go, dog."

Having seen what he had come to see, he struck back down the mountain, through the forest of massive, gray-trunked beeches that marched like rows of orderly soldiers in all directions. Forty-five minutes later he emerged into his father's clearing.

No shanty or casual cabin, but a solid log structure built by a master craftsman, the house was set back against the line of trees. Artfully designed, it belonged exactly where it was and as it was. The Harkness house fitted the Mahela as well as did the big beeches against which, and of which, it was built. With a wing on each side and a covered porch that jutted forward, somehow the house itself seemed to hold out welcoming arms. A huge brick chimney told of the big fireplace within.

To one side was a shed, half of which formed a home for the few chickens Al Harkness saw fit to keep. There were never fewer than six of these and never more than ten, just enough to furnish Ted and his father with the eggs they needed and to provide an occasional fowl for the pot. The other half of the shed was a storage place for tools.

Behind the house was another, larger shed which sheltered a gasoline engine and buzz saw and provided a place for Al to take care of the furs, wild honey, herbs and other treasures that he brought in from the Mahela. In front stood the game rack, a cross pole mounted on two heavy timbers imbedded in the ground. Here hung the deer and occasional black bear that Al, Ted and their guests brought down.

To one side lay the garden, big enough to provide all the vegetables the Harknesses needed but not big enough to make a glaring scar in the beech woods. As a protection against raiding deer, this garden was surrounded by an eight-foot fence. The road to Lorton ran about sixty yards in front of the house but was hidden from it by trees. Beside the road was the high line with its two wires stretching into the house. There was a rutted drive that served as an entrance and exit for the battered pickup truck which was all the car Al Harkness had ever thought he needed.

When the boy and dog entered the clearing, Tammie raced ahead and streaked toward the work shed. Knowing his father would be there or Tammie wouldn't have gone, Ted strolled up and looked in at the open door. Sitting on a wooden chair with a broken back, Al Harkness was using his hunting knife to put the finishing touches on a board over which, when the time was right, a mink pelt would be stretched. He looked up and said, "Hi, fella."

"Hi, Dad. I'm back."

"Figgered that out all by myself, when your dog came in to say hello." Tammie was sitting near, watching Al work. For a moment, Ted watched, too.

Perfectly-shaped, with exactly the right taper, the board upon which Al worked did not vary a hundredth of an inch from one side to the other. Al, who got more money for his furs than other trappers did because he took better care of them, sliced off another shaving and squinted down the board. A big man, he seemed as rugged as one of the giant beech trees. His brows jutted out like stone crags, while the eyes beneath them were gentle. But they were gentle in the manner of a soft wind that can become a fierce gale. There was something about him that was more than faintly akin to the grouse Ted had held in his hand, the rugged summit of Hawkbill, and the two immense bucks he had seen. Al Harkness would be out of place anywhere except in the Mahela.

"What'd you see?" he asked.

"Damon and Pythias," Ted answered happily. "Anybody who thinks they had a rack of horns last year should see them now!"

"Where they hangin' out?"

"Where they always are at this time of year, in the briers on Burned Mountain."

"And where," Al asked, "will they be come huntin' season?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure going to find out. One or the other of those heads will hang over our fireplace."

"For sure now?" Al smiled faintly.

"If it doesn't, it won't be for lack of trying on my part."

"One, two, three, four," Al counted rapidly. "One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand—You'll have to get at the end of a long line of hunters who want those heads."

"I know a lot of hunters have tried for them, but they can be had."

"Anything can be had," Al observed sagely, "and one nice thing 'bout young 'uns is they think they can get it. Land either of those bucks and your picture'll be in every paper in the state. Maybe even in some out of state."

"Sure," Ted grinned, "I'll be famous as a deer hunter before I ever am as a resort owner."

Finally satisfied with his stretching board, Al laid it carefully in a corner. He took a blackened pipe from his shirt pocket and an exquisitely wrought tobacco pouch from his trousers. Made of home-tanned buckskin, even if the pouch had not borne the stamp of Al's craftsmanship, it would have been recognized as his. His name, A. HARKNESS, was stencilled on it. Al filled his pipe, lighted it and puffed lazy bursts of blue smoke into the air.

Tammie, who, in common with most dogs, disliked the smell of tobacco, sneezed and moved farther away. For a moment Al did not speak. Finally he murmured, "So now you're goin' to be a famous resort owner?"

"Why, didn't you know?" Ted asked gaily. "The Mahela Lodge will be known all the way from Lorton to Danzer."

Al grinned faintly. "That's a real long ways, nigh onto six miles. You wouldn't change your mind?"

"About what?"

"You can still go to college this fall and learn to be a dentist, lawyer, or anything else you want."

"Colleges cost money."

"I have," Al said tartly, "been scarin' up a penny every now and again since I been changin' your didies. I can still scare up enough to send you through college, but I mistrust about startin' you in the resort business. Crestwood cost Carl Thornton more money than I've earned in my whole life."

"I don't want to leave the Mahela."

"Too much of your pappy in you," Al growled, "and not enough of your mother. I want you to be somethin' besides a woods runner."

"It isn't that, Dad. I've tried to explain to you. It's the people—seeing them come in here all tired out, and seeing them go away rested and refreshed after we've shown them everything we have in the Mahela. I know college is valuable and I don't look down my nose at education. But this is my job."

Al sighed. "I've tried to talk some sense into you. How are you and Thornton gettin' along?"

"Dad, Thornton owns Crestwood. I just work there."

"So that makes Thornton better'n you, huh? You're goin' to be a right smart passel of time, savin' enough to start your own resort on what Thornton pays you."

"I'm getting experience, meeting people, learning how it's done. I'm really learning the business from the bottom up."

"Huh?"

"Nels Anderson and I have been working on the plumbing in Crestwood's basement," Ted grinned.

Al frowned. "I'm not foolin'. This is a big job you've set up for yourself and I don't see how you'll ever get enough money to do it."

Ted said confidently, "I'll work it out."

"I wish," Al declared, "that I was eighteen 'stead of forty-nine. I'd be able to work things out, too. But it's you doin' it. Everybody's got to live the way they see fit."

Al picked up another board and began shaping it. Ted took his pocketknife from his pocket.

"I'll help you, huh?"

"Reckon not." Al shook his head. "Sunday's your day off."

"Let me help. It wouldn't really be work to me."

"Nope. Even if I did want help, nobody but me can make my stretchin' boards."

"Then I'll go get dinner."

"That's a smart idea."

With Tammie pacing beside him, Ted went into the house. Everything about it was solid, strong, heart-warming. The front door was made of oak boards an inch and a half thick, the windows were set ten inches back in the log walls, the ample fireplace was of native stone. Obviously it was the home of an outdoorsman. Two mounted bucks' heads stared from the same wall, and of the five rugs on the living room floor, three were bearskins and two were bobcats. Ted's and Al's rifles and shotguns hung on a rack and there was a glass-enclosed case for fishing tackle.

But Al Harkness, child of the Mahela though he was, did not spurn modern conveniences. Electric lights hung from the ceiling. Bottled gas furnished fuel for the kitchen range and there was a hot water heater. Al had an electric refrigerator, a large freezer and a tiled sink with regulation hot and cold faucets.

Tammie, knowing they'd been out and would go no more, curled up on one of the bearskin rugs. Ted took a chicken from the refrigerator and began to stuff it with a dressing made of bread dough, giblets, apples and seasoning. It was a task he'd done often, and his thoughts wandered.

Al, who'd never gone beyond the sixth grade, had a near-worshipful regard for education and he'd insisted that his son be educated. After graduating with honors from Lorton High, Ted himself realized that college training would be valuable. But there were other factors involved.

With no desire to become a trapper and woodsman like his father, Ted wanted to stay in the Mahela. It was worthy and wonderful. Wilderness would always be needed, and, deep inside him, Ted saw himself running a grand lodge to which guests could come and partake of the benefits Crestwood's clients certainly found. People who came back to the wilderness always seemed to be coming back to the source of things and finding spiritual values that lay only at the source.

Ted had taken a flunkey's job at Crestwood two days after he graduated. It did not pay as much as he might have earned elsewhere, but it was what he wanted and he saved as much as possible. Meanwhile, his dream continued to grow. The couple of hundred dollars he had put aside was a mere drop in the bucket compared to the—Ted had never even dared let himself imagine how many—thousands he needed. But he knew he would find a way and, above all, he wished that he could make his father know it, too.

Ted lighted the oven, put his chicken in to roast and scrubbed potatoes to be baked in their jackets. He mixed biscuit dough. Since neither he nor Al cared for dessert, he didn't prepare any. But he did take a package of carrots and peas from the freezer. He remembered whimsically that, before they had the freezer, his father used to can dozens of quarts of vegetables. Dreamily he went about setting the table. As he did so, he noticed a man in an expensive car driving up the Lorton Road.

There was a squeal of brakes as he stopped suddenly and a shriek of tires as he turned up the Harkness drive. He was a short man, and fat, but his smile was nice, although his eyes were shrewd.

"Do you own this land?" he demanded.

Al and Ted told him that they owned it, whereupon the short, fat man declared breathlessly that a diamond mine had just been discovered in their back yard and that he, personally, would guarantee them a hundred thousand dollars for the mining rights! He would give fifty thousand at once, and it was all right with him if they built a great resort in front, as long as they didn't interfere with his mine.

Ted grinned ruefully as his daydream faded and he went to call his father to dinner.

The next morning, the rising sun was only halfway down Hawkbill when Ted walked to his job at Crestwood. His heart lifted, as it always did when he saw the place. He liked to imagine that he owned it.

Semi-luxurious Crestwood, the only resort in the Mahela, had accommodations for sixty guests under normal conditions and perhaps ninety if they were crowded in. It was well patronized in fishing season, had a sprinkling of guests who wanted to do nothing save enjoy the out of doors when there was neither hunting nor fishing, filled up again when the small game season started and was packed in the deer season for which the Mahela was famous. While deer hunting was on, Thornton turned away twice as many guests as he could accommodate. Afterwards, Crestwood was closed until fishing season opened again.

At the far end of a spacious clearing, set back against the beeches and blending very well with the background, Crestwood's main lodge was a big log building that contained a dining hall, a kitchen, a lounge, a game room, an office for Thornton, quarters for the help and rooms for guests who preferred to remain in the lodge. To one side were ten neat log cabins that accommodated four guests each in normal times and six during deer season. The utility rooms and outbuildings were behind the main lodge and hidden by it and the wide driveway was of crushed stone.

"Hi, Ted!"

Ted turned to wait for middle-aged Nels Anderson, his co-flunkey at Crestwood. Neither brilliant nor subtle, but always gentle, Nels had been taught by a lifetime of hard knocks to appreciate the good things that came his way, and, as far as Nels was concerned, the best thing that had ever come his way was his job at Crestwood. Always a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, the most Nels asked was to be paid with reasonable regularity for his hewing and drawing. He smiled a slow Scandinavian smile as Ted returned his greeting.

"Good morning, Nels. How are you feeling?"

"Goot. And you?"

"First rate. Shall we start earning our wages?"

"Yah. You go down? Or me?"

"I'll go. You catch the pipe."

They entered the lodge. Ted ducked into Crestwood's gloomy basement, turned on the light and caught up a length of pipe. He and Nels were running water to some of the upstairs rooms. He maneuvered the pipe through an already drilled hole and waited for his companion to catch it and stab it into an elbow.

Nothing happened and Ted sighed resignedly. Nels was one of those rare people who know enough about many things to do a passable job. He could run water pipes and wires, build a stone wall, shingle a roof, tend a sick cow or horse, fell trees, construct a root cellar and do well any of a few dozen more things that might need doing. But he was apt to get sidetracked, in which event he needed a while to wake up. Obviously he was sidetracked now. Then the door opened and Nels stood behind Ted.

"The boss, he wants to see you."

"What's he want?"

"He forgot to say."

"Well—"

"He say right now."

"Will you take this pipe?"

"Oh! Yah, I take it."

Nels took the pipe and Ted went back into the lobby. He knocked on the office door, and Carl Thornton opened it.

"Come on in, Ted."

The boy stepped into the spacious office. The floor was covered with a thick carpet. At one side was a mahogany desk upon which stood a typewriter. Over it were hung bookshelves. There were four cushioned chairs and a satiny davenport upon which the owner usually slept. In a wall rack were Thornton's high-powered rifle and a belt full of his distinctive, brass-jacketed, hand-loaded shells. Ted turned to face his employer.

In his late thirties, Thornton was not slightly built. But there was about him an air of slightness that was accentuated by his quick movements. Thinning blond hair was artfully combed to hide a bald spot. His eyes were pale blue, almost icy blue, behind gold-rimmed glasses. The ghost of a smile haunted his lips. He had a flair for conversation that always made it appear as though nothing anyone else could say was nearly as important as what he had to offer.

"I've been watching your work, Ted, and I like it."

"Thanks, Mr. Thornton."

"There'll be a better job pretty soon; Crestwood's going to expand."

Ted's heart leaped. This was what he'd always wanted. "Thank you."

"A good man," Thornton said, "is not easily come by and I've learned the value of one. That's why I'm putting you on a special job right now."

"You are?" Ted's voice quivered eagerly.

"Yes. You're a pretty good deer hunter, aren't you?"

"I—I guess so."

"You know of those two bucks they call Damon and Pythias?"

"Everyone does."

Thornton said, "I want them."

"You—?"

"That's right. With those two heads on the wall—" Thornton shrugged. "Crestwood would be mentioned in every paper in the state. If they're really records, there probably would be national publicity. In any event, they'll help bring guests here."

"But—Nobody has even managed to get near those two bucks in hunting season."

Thornton looked shrewdly at him. "But before the season?"

"You mean?"

"That's just what I mean. Those two bucks don't go into hiding until after hunters take to the woods. I'm pretty sure that anyone who knew what he was doing could get both of them before the season opened. How about it?"

Ted said reluctantly, "It might be done."

"Good! Take all the time you need and I'll leave the details up to you. If you're caught, of course you'll keep your mouth shut and I'll pay the fine. But I think you'll know how to go about it without getting caught. Deliver both bucks to Crestwood—we'll arrange those details after you get them—and thereafter it's up to me. Good luck."

Ted heard himself saying, "No, Mr. Thornton."

Thornton looked puzzled. "I don't understand."

"I can't do it."

"I've already told you that I'll pay your fine if you're caught."

"It isn't that."

"Then what is it? Does it make any difference if those bucks are shot now or six weeks from now?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Getting them now would be violating the law."

"Who doesn't violate the law? Considering the mass of laws we have, few people can live a single day without, intentionally or otherwise, running afoul of them. Have you ever looked up some of the crackpot laws, such as the one which states that, on Sunday, in this state, no horse shall wear other than a plain black harness?"

"It's not that."

"Ted, do you know anyone at all in the Mahela who lives up to the full letter of the game laws? Do you know anyone who doesn't take what he wants when he wants it, in season or out?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

"My father and I."

There was an ominous silence. Thornton broke it.

"It seems that I've misjudged you."

"It seems you have!" Ted's anger was rising. "I'll leave now!"