Ted ducked and sputtered, "For Pete's sake, dog!"
Al grinned. "He thinks you need a bath."
Ted glanced down at his mud-spattered boots and clothing. "Maybe I do. Is this deep enough?"
"Let's have the shovel."
Ted stood aside while Al took the implement. An old hand at this sort of thing, he probed expertly into corners that Ted had missed and lifted out shovelfuls of mud without splashing his clothes at all. Ten minutes later he leaned on the shovel and inspected the spring, which in its present stage of construction was a muddy pool, four feet square by a little more than three deep, with the overflow still going down its natural channel.
"That'll do," Al decided. "Now for the plumbin'."
He caught up a length of pipe, walked to the apple trees, inserted his pipe in a crotch and bent it into an 'L.' He bent it again, so that one end formed a gooseneck, and carried his pipe into the cabin. Al maneuvered one end through an already drilled hole in the floor, hung the gooseneck over the sink and used a metal clamp to fasten his pipe to the wall.
Ted marveled. His father had measured nothing, but the bent pipe fitted perfectly and the straight half of the 'L' lay flat on the ground beneath the cabin.
Ted asked,
"What now?"
"Let's eat."
"Most sensible idea I've heard all day."
They ate the sandwiches and drank the coffee they'd brought along while Tammie, sitting hopefully near, expertly caught and gobbled the crusts they tossed him. Then the two went back to work.
Taking a bit of soap from his pocket, Al soaped the threads on another length of pipe; filling the threads, the soap would prevent leaks. The two "plumbers" then fitted this section into the pipe that protruded beneath the cabin and continued with additional lengths until they were within five feet of the spring.
Al cut that five-foot length off with a hack saw. He plugged the cut end with a piece of wood, started at a point about a foot below the top of the knoll and used the flat of his ax to drive the plugged section of pipe through so that it emerged a foot below the surface of the spring. He screwed the short length into the already laid pipe and straightened.
"Now we're diggin' where there's taters!" he said cheerfully.
Catching up the shovel, he closed the spring's outlet with dirt and mud. Then he rolled up his right sleeve, reached into the water and pulled the wooden plug out. A second time he straightened, grinning. "If it don't work, it's a sign we did it wrong. Let's go see."
They re-entered the cabin and stood expectantly near the sink. For a moment nothing happened. Then a series of choking gurgles and a rush of air came through the gooseneck. This was followed by a muddy trickle that subsided to a few drops. Then there was a violent surge of water that leveled off to a steady flow. Al and Ted looked triumphantly at each other.
"It works!" Al said.
"Running water yet!" Ted exulted, "Even if it is muddy!"
"It'll clear itself in a few hours."
"Don't you think we should have a faucet on this gooseneck?"
Al shook his head. "Not in cold weather. It don't freeze 'cause it runs fast. Come spring, we may tie a faucet onto it."
"What do we do now?"
"Go home. It's quittin' time."
Ted was surprised to find that long evening shadows were slanting across the valleys. They had worked hard, and perhaps that had made the day seem so short. Only when they climbed back into the pickup for the ride home did he realize that he was very tired. He tickled Tammie's silken ears.
"Tomorrow's another day," he murmured.
"Yep," Al agreed somberly, "and another day brings more work. Reckon I'll take after that coyote. He's got to be caught. You want to saw wood?"
"Sure thing."
Early the next morning, Al let Ted and Tammie off at the camp and turned back, with traps and rifle, to get on the trail of the marauding coyote. While the collie renewed his acquaintance with the chipmunks, Ted laid a chunk of wood in the sawbuck and sawed off a twelve-inch length. He sawed another ... and worked until noon. After lunch, he started splitting the wood he had sawed. It was the right way to do things. If hunters cut their own wood, they might injure valuable trees.
Evening shadows were long again when Al came to pick him up. "Get your coyote?" Ted greeted his father.
"No, but I will. I found where he's runnin' and I put traps in the right places. See you got a sizable pile of wood."
"I haven't been loafing."
"Not much anyhow."
Ted said tiredly, "What a refreshing sense of humor my old pappy's got."
They turned into the driveway of their own house, to see Loring Blade's pickup truck already there and the game warden waiting. With him was Jack Callahan, Sheriff of Mahela County.
Al's voice was weighted with surprise as he welcomed them. "Hi, Lorin'. 'Lo, Jack. Been waitin' long?"
"Not very long," Loring Blade said. "We figured you'd be in about now. We have to ask you some questions, Al."
"Well, come in and ask."
They entered the house and Ted snapped on the lights in the living room. He started into the kitchen to prepare supper. Al swung to face their guests.
"Ask away," he invited them.
"We came to find out," said Jack Callahan, "what you can tell us about the shooting of Smoky Delbert."
The words brought Ted to a shocked halt, just as he was entering the kitchen. He turned to stare in disbelief and Tammie, sensing that something was wrong, searched his master's face as though this would show him what he must do. Failing to find any guiding sign, the collie turned toward the two strangers. He did nothing and would do nothing until Ted or Al told him to. But he was ready for any part he must take.
In his turn, Ted looked to his father for a clue and found none. Whatever Al might feel, he was successfully hiding it, and his voice was neither raised nor lowered when he spoke.
"Somebody finally got him, huh?"
Jack Callahan challenged, "What do you mean by that?"
"Where you been the past twenty or twenty-five years, Jack? Smoky's been askin' for it at least that long."
Callahan's voice was hard as ice and as brittle. "You didn't answer my question."
"So I didn't, but I will. I know nothin' 'bout who might've shot Smoky, but I can think of lots of reasons why."
"Is this yours?"
Callahan's hand dipped into his pocket and came up bearing Al's distinctive tobacco pouch. Ted gasped. His father was unmoved.
"Yep. But I haven't seen it for two weeks or more."
"That's true!" Ted asserted. "He hasn't had it for at least that long!"
Al said quietly, "Stay out of this, boy."
"You needn't stay out." Callahan swung toward Ted. "Was your father with you today?"
"Well—no."
"Where was he?"
"He was out hunting a coyote."
A note of triumph in his voice, Callahan turned again to Al. "By any chance, a two-legged coyote?"
Al said disgustedly, "Don't be a fool!"
"Did you have your rifle with you?"
"What would you carry if you was huntin' a coyote? A pocketful of pebbles?"
"Can you account for your actions of today?"
"Yep. Crossed the nose of Hawkbill, went into Coon Valley, climbed that to its head, swung behind Burned Mountain, crossed the Fordham Road and come back by way of Fiddlefoot Crick."
"Can you prove all this?"
"Sure!" Al snorted. "I'll get you an affy-davit from a couple of crows that saw me."
"That is your tobacco pouch?"
"I've already said it is."
"That pouch," and again Callahan's voice rose in triumph, "was found not six feet from where Smoky fell!"
"So?"
"Al, I'd hate to have to get tough with you."
"Don't think you'd better try it."
"Loring heard you threaten to shoot Delbert."
"And I also," Loring Blade broke in, "heard Smoky threaten to shoot Al. There's more than one side to this, Jack, and suppose you simmer down?"
"I'm in charge here!"
"But you're getting nowhere. Al, will you talk to me?"
"I'll tell you what I can, Lorin'."
"If you had anything to do with this, tell your story now. I don't hold with shooting, but certainly I never held with Smoky Delbert. I, for one, am willing to believe that, no matter how it happened or who he met, Smoky raised his rifle first. I've known him a long while."
"But you never jailed him."
"Only because," the warden said, "I could never catch him. He was crafty as he was mean. But he's still a human being."
"Could be some argument 'bout that," Al murmured. "Lorin', where was Smoky shot?"
"Coon Valley," the warden answered reluctantly. "Almost beside those three big sycamores near Glory Rock."
"Is he dead?"
"No, but he probably would be if he hadn't dragged himself to the Fordham Road. Bill Layton, passing in his logging truck, found him and took him into the hospital at Lorton."
"Is he goin' to die?"
"He's in a bad way."
"Has he talked?"
"Not yet."
"How about the bullet?"
"It went right through him; we couldn't find it."
"How do you know he was shot near them three sycamores in Coon Valley?"
"Bill told us where he picked him up. Jack and I went up there to see what we could find and," the warden shrugged, "the back trail wasn't hard to follow. Smoky was hit hard."
"And you found my tobacco pouch?"
"That's right, Al. It was within a few feet of where Smoky fell."
"How do you know he fell there?"
Loring Blade shrugged again. "He laid a while before he started to drag himself out. There was plenty of evidence."
"Now here's a point, Lorin'. I've already said I was in Coon Valley today. Suppose I had my pouch, couldn't I have lost it when I passed the sycamores?"
"You could have."
"What time did you go up Coon Valley?" Jack Callahan broke in.
"'Twas before eight. I started early."
"Then you crossed back to the Fordham Road?"
"Don't try to snarl my words up," Al warned. "I've already said that I went up Coon Valley to its head and crossed back of Burned Mountain to the Fordham Road."
"But you heard no shooting?"
Al seemed a little contemptuous. "You ever make that crossin'?"
"I asked you a question."
"And I asked you one. Did you ever cross that way?"
"No." Put on the defensive, Callahan sulked.
"Try it," Al advised shortly. "It's a right smart hop. There's places back in there where you couldn't hear a cannon fired in Coon Valley."
"Look, Al," Loring Blade pleaded, "I'll ask you again to tell your straight story. I'm sure there has to be more to it than this. I know you too well to think you'd shoot Delbert or anyone else down in cold blood. Won't you help me to help you?"
Al said doggedly, "I've told my story. Seems like there's an easy way to settle this whole works."
"What is it?"
"Delbert ain't dead. When he talks, he'll tell who shot him."
"There's no guarantee that Delbert will ever talk."
Jack Callahan said, "I'm afraid I'll have to take you in, Al."
"On what grounds?"
"Suspicion. If Delbert lives, the charge will be assault with a deadly weapon. If he dies—" Callahan shrugged.
Al looked aside, and the fierce storms that could rage in his usually gentle eyes were raging now. Ted shivered, and then Al calmed.
"All right, Jack. If that's the way it must be."
"You won't resist?"
"I promise I won't raise a hand against you or Lorin'."
Loring Blade said relievedly, "That's a help, Al. Thanks."
"Is there any reason," Al asked, "why a body can't eat first? Ted and me've been out sinst early mornin' with only a snack in between."
Loring Blade said agreeably, "No reason at all, Al." Callahan glared at the warden. Al smiled faintly.
"Have a bite with us, Lorin'?"
"I'll be glad to."
"How about you, Jack?"
"Look here, Al, if you try anything—"
"I've give my word that I'll raise no hand to either of you."
"See that you keep your word."
"Leave that to me. Will you eat with us?"
Callahan answered reluctantly, "I'll stay."
"Then Ted and me'll be rustlin' a bite."
Silent, but seething inwardly, Al joined Ted in the kitchen. Knowing something was amiss, but not what he could do about it, Tammie lay down woefully on his bearskin rug. Wanting to speak, but not knowing what to say, Ted looked dully at his father's face. It was unreadable.
Finally Al said, "We'll all feel better when we've had a bite to eat, and I for one am hungry."
He lighted a burner and stooped to take a kettle from beneath the sink. Ted stared his astonishment. Al had the huge kettle, the one they used when there were ten or more hunters staying with them. Half-filling it with water, he put it over the burner to heat and took an unopened peck of potatoes from their storage place. Industriously he began to peel them.
Ted said, "Dad—"
"We'll need plenty," Al broke in. "S'pose you get about four more parcels of pork chops out and start 'em cookin?"
"But, Dad—"
"Let's not," Al whirled almost savagely, "waste our time talkin'. Let's just do it."
Sick with fear, Ted did as directed. He and Al froze pork chops six to a package, and three were all a hungry man wanted. Four more packages meant that they would cook thirty pork chops, and what were any four men—even four ravenous men—to do with them? Ted got four more packages out and began breaking them apart. He stole a sidewise glance at his father. Had this sudden, terrible accusation unseated Al's reason? Ted put the still frozen pork chops into two of their biggest skillets and began thawing them over burners. Loring Blade came into the kitchen.
"Can I help?"
Al said, "Reckon not, Lorin'."
"My gosh! You're making enough for an army!"
"Might's well have plenty. Ted, give me another sack of biscuit mix."
Ted's head whirled. He licked dry lips and looked at the two pans of biscuits Al had already prepared. Loring Blade turned away and in that instant when they were unobserved, Al shook a warning head. Ted took another sack of biscuit mix from the cupboard while cold fear gnawed at him as a dog gnaws a bone. If there was some idea behind this madness, what could it possibly be? Al was preparing enough food for a dozen men.
Ted turned to his skillets full of sputtering pork chops while Al tested the boiling potatoes with a fork.
"Most done," he commented. "How you comin'?"
"Another five minutes."
"Guess I can drain the spuds."
He drained them into the sink, shook them, and added a generous hand full of salt and a bit of pepper. He shook the kettle of potatoes again to mix the seasoning thoroughly. Then he put them on the table and pushed the hot coffee pot to a warming burner. While Ted took their biggest platter from the cupboard and began forking pork chops onto it, Al slipped in to set four places at the table.
"Ready?"
"All ready."
"Guess we can eat, then."
Leaving the potatoes in their huge kettle, he carried it in and put it in the center of the table. Ted brought the platter of pork chops and returned to the kitchen for coffee. Al passed him with two plates of biscuits.
"Chow."
Jack Callahan, who had been so grim and unrelenting and now seemed to regret it, smiled.
"Whew! Are four of us going to eat that?"
"If we can."
"I'll do my darndest."
"You're s'posed to."
"Doggonit, Al," Callahan said plaintively, "don't blame me for this. I have a job and I intend to do it!"
"I know."
"There's nothing personal."
"I know that, too."
"Do you have to be so gloomy?"
"What'd you do if you was on your way to jail? Turn handsprings?"
Loring Blade grinned mirthlessly, speared two pork chops and added a generous helping of potatoes. He broke a hot biscuit and lathered it with butter. The game warden began to eat.
"Seen Damon and Pythias lately?" he asked companionably.
"Nope."
Loring Blade looked down at his plate. Under ordinary circumstances they could have made easy conversation. But circumstances weren't ordinary; the shadow of one in trouble cast its pall over the other three. The game warden ate a pork chop and some of his potatoes. Then, unable to refrain from talking about that which loomed so largely, he burst out, "Al, for pete's sake! If you have anything to say, say it! If you shot in self-defense, I, for one, will buy the story. There's a way out if you'll take it!"
"I've told my story, Lorin'."
"You refuse to admit you shot Delbert?"
"I didn't shoot him."
Callahan said, "There's evidence to the contrary."
"So?"
Ted toyed with a single pork chop, one potato, and almost gagged. He took a drink of hot coffee and found it stimulating. Tammie, lying on the bearskin, looked questioningly at his master. Loring Blade pushed his plate back.
"I'm full. Told you you cooked far too much."
"No harm's done."
"We'll help you clean up."
"Right nice of you."
Al put the uneaten pork chops, a great pile of them, in two covered dishes and placed them in the refrigerator. He covered the kettle of potatoes and left them on the table, and put the biscuits in the breadbox. Ted washed the dishes and Loring Blade dried them.
While he worked Ted brought some order to his scattered thoughts. His father was in trouble, serious trouble, and nothing mattered now except getting him out. That meant the services of a skilled attorney and they had little money. But he could sell the camp for at least as much as it had cost and probably he could get a job in Lorton. Ted washed the last plate and Loring Blade dried it. There was an uneasy interval during which nobody did or said anything because nobody knew what to do or say.
Finally Loring Blade asked, "Are you ready, Al?"
"Yep."
"Shall we go?"
"Guess so."
Ted said firmly, "I'm following you in. I'm going to see John McLean tonight. He's a good lawyer."
There was a ring of command in Al's voice, "No, Ted!"
"But—"
"Don't come to Lorton tonight! Stay right here!"
Ted said reluctantly, "If that's what you want—"
"That's what I do want. This thing's too harebrained already. No use makin' it more so by actin' without thinkin'."
"I'll come in in the morning."
"If you think best. So long for now."
The door opened and closed and they were gone. Ted heard Loring Blade start his pickup and watched the red taillight bobbing down their driveway. They reached the Lorton Road and Loring Blade gunned his motor.
Ted sank dully into a chair and Tammie came to sit comfortingly beside him. The big dog shoved his slender muzzle into Ted's cupped hand, and, getting no response, he laid his sleek head on his master's knee. The measured ticking of the clock on the mantel seemed like the measured ringing of tiny bells. Ted fastened his gaze on it, and because he had to do something, he watched the clock's black hands creep slowly around. Like everything else, he thought, time was a relative thing. Fifteen minutes seemed no more than an eyewink when one was busy, but it was an age when you could do nothing except struggle with your own tortured thoughts.
Another fifteen minutes passed, and another, and an exact hour had elapsed when Tammie sprang up and trotted to the door. He stood, head raised and tail wagging. Ted opened the door.
"Dad!"
"'Fraid I got to move, Ted. Help me pack all thet grub we cooked for supper, will you? Hills'll be full of posse men for the next few days and I can't be startin' any fires."
"But—"
"I kept my promise," Al assured him, "and all I promised was that I wouldn't raise a hand 'gainst Lorin' or Jack. Never did say I wouldn't jump out of the truck when it slowed for Dead Man's Curve."
"They'll be on your trail!"
"Not right away, they won't. I went into the woods when I took off and they're lookin' for me there." He grinned briefly. "Callahan found me. 'Come out or I'll shoot!' he said. I didn't come out and he shot. Hope the beech tree he thought was me don't mind."
"You could have run from here if you were going to run anyhow!"
"When I run," Al Harkness said, "nobody 'cept me gets in the way of any bullets I might draw. Think I want 'em shootin' up you or Tammie?"
Al laid a canvas pack sack on the kitchen table. While Ted wrapped the cooked pork chops in double thicknesses of waxed paper and the excess biscuits in single, his father spooned the potatoes into glass quart jars and mashed them down. He packed everything into the rucksack and added a package of coffee, one of tea, some salt and a few miscellaneous items. Donning his hunting jacket, he shouldered the pack. Filling two pockets with matches, he slid two unopened boxes of cartridges into another. Finally he strung a belt ax and hunting knife on a leather belt, strapped it around his middle and took his rifle from its rack.
"Don't try to find me, Ted."
"What shall I say if they come?" Ted whispered.
"Tell the truth and say I was here. They'll find it out anyhow."
"What are you going to do?"
"Lay in the hills 'til somethin' turns up. Can't do nothin' else now."
"Dad, don't go!" Ted pleaded. "Stay and face it out. It's the best way."
"It might have been," Al agreed, "and I was most tempted to go clear in. But it ain't any more."
"Why?"
"Lorin' had his radio on; listened on the way down. Smoky Delbert come to and talked. He named me as the man who shot him and said I shot from ambush! Be seein' you, Ted."
Tammie whined uneasily and Ted woke with a start. He glanced at the clock on the mantel and saw that it read twenty minutes past five. The last time he had looked, he remembered, the clock had said half past two. Obviously he'd fallen asleep in the chair where he'd been waiting for someone to come or something to happen. No one had come, but they were coming now. On the Lorton Road, Ted heard the cars that Tammie had detected twenty seconds earlier.
He got to his feet and looked out into the thin, gray mistiness of early dawn. With its lights glowing like a ghost's eyes in the wan dimness, a car churned up the Harkness drive and a second followed it. The boy shrank away. Last night's events now seemed like some horrible nightmare, but the tread of steps outside and the knock on the door proved that they were not.
Ted opened the door to confront Loring Blade and Corporal Paul Hausler, of the State Police. He glanced beyond them at the men gathered beside the cars and saw that three of the nine were attired in State Police uniforms. The six volunteer posse men were Tom and Bud Delbert, Smoky's brothers; Enos, Alfred and Ernest Brill, his cousins; and Pete Tooms, who would go anywhere and do anything as long as it promised excitement and no monotonous labor.
Loring Blade greeted Ted, "Good morning, Ted."
The boy muttered, "Good morning."
"You seen your dad?"
"Yes."
"I mean, since we took him away last night?"
"Yes."
"Did he come back here?"
"That's right."
"What time?"
Ted hesitated. He'd had his eyes fixed on the clock, but seconds and split seconds counted, too.
"I don't know theexacttime."
"Better tell the truth," Corporal Hausler warned bluntly. "It can go hard with you if you don't. Where's your father now?"
"I don't know."
"Maybe a couple of slaps will jar your memory!"
He took a step forward. Tammie, rippling in, placed himself in front of Ted. There was no growl in his throat or snarl on his lips, but his eyes were grim and his manner threatening. Hausler stopped.
"I don't think you'd better let him bite me."
Loring Blade said quietly, "Cut it out, Paul. There's enough trouble in this family without adding unnecessarily to it. Ted didn't do anything."
"He can tell us where his father is."
"I cannot!" Ted flared.
"When did he leave here?"
"Last night."
"What time?"
"I forgot to hold a stop watch on him."
"Why didn't you stop him? Don't you know that failing to do so can make you liable to arrest as an accessory after the fact?"
"A sheriff and a game warden couldn't stop him."
"He's right," Loring Blade agreed. "We couldn't. Why don't you start your men into the hills?"
"If he left this house," Hausler threatened, "we'll be on his track in two minutes."
He turned and went out, and Ted laughed. Loring Blade swung to face him.
"You feel pretty bitter, don't you?"
"How would you feel?"
"Not too happy," the warden admitted. "Why did you laugh?"
Ted grinned faintly. "Does that trooper really think he, or anyone else, can track Dad?"
"If he does have such ideas," Loring Blade conceded, "he'll soon have some different ones. Nobody can track Al Harkness."
"Nor can they find him."
"Perhaps not immediately, but sooner or later they will."
"Yes?" Ted questioned. "Send a thousand men into the hills, send a thousand into any big thicket, and they wouldn't find him unless they happened to stumble right across him."
"Al can't stay in the hills forever."
"Maybe not, but he can stay there a long time. He knows every chipmunk den in the Mahela."
"He won't be easy to find," the warden conceded, "but he will be found. What time did he come back last night?"
"Just about an hour after you took him away."
Loring Blade exclaimed, "Wow!"
Ted looked quizzically at him and the warden continued, "We were on Dead Man's Curve, and he was between Jack and me, when suddenly he pushed the door open and just seemed to float out of it. We beat the brush around Dead Man's Curve until one o'clock this morning. About then I tumbled to the idea that he must have come back here."
"Why didn't you come last night?"
Loring Blade shrugged. "He slipped through our fingers once. It wasn't hard to figure that he wouldn't have done that only to let himself be picked up again. Besides, it did seem sort of useless to hunt him at night. He headed into the woods, and because he didn't make a sound that either Jack or I could hear, we thought he was holed up right close. Ted, do you think he shot Smoky?"
"No!"
"Why not?"
"He said he didn't."
"Delbert said he did."
"Just what did he say?"
"That's all. He regained consciousness briefly. The officer with him asked who shot him and he said Al did from ambush. I doubt if he's talked since."
"Do you believe Dad shot Smoky?"
The warden frowned. "If he did, it wasn't from ambush. There's more to it than that. We could have brought it out, but it will be harder now. When Al ran, he made things look pretty bad."
"Not to me."
"But to a lot of other people. Do you think you can get him to come back and give himself up?"
"I asked him last night to stay and face it out."
"Why wouldn't he?"
"Dad's part of the Mahela," Ted said quietly, "and the Mahela's code is the one he knows best. He would not go to jail for a crime he didn't commit, any more than a wild deer would voluntarily enter a cage."
"Doggone, that sure complicates things. Do you have any bright ideas?"
"What did you find in Coon Valley?"
"Just what I told you, Smoky's back trail and your dad's tobacco pouch."
"Nothing else?"
"Smoky's rifle. We brought it in with us."
"No sign of anything else?"
Loring Blade answered wearily, "You know what it's like there. Unless it's a trail like Smoky's, and Smoky was bleeding hard, there's little in the way of sign that a human eye can detect."
"Just the same, I think I'll go up there."
"What do you expect to find?"
"I don't know. Anything would be a help."
"Guess it would at that. Good luck."
"Are—are you going to join the hunt for Dad?"
Loring Blade grinned wryly. "I'm not that optimistic. I agree with you that, if Al wants to lose himself in the Mahela, he won't be found. But sooner or later he'll show up. He can't spend the winter there."
"I wouldn't bet on that."
"Bet the way you please. Now I'm not saying that you will, but if you should run across Al up there in the hills, see if you can persuade him to give himself up. He still has a good case, in spite of Smoky's testimony. Too many people know Al too well to believe he'd shoot anybody from ambush; he has a lot of friends. The only ones who'd join the posse were Delberts and Pete Tooms, and I sure hope none of them stumble across Al. If they come in fighting, he's apt to fight right back, and one stove-in Delbert around here is enough. Good luck again, Ted."
Ted lost his belligerence; the warden was his father's friend. "Stay and have breakfast with me."
"Thanks, but we breakfasted in Lorton before we came here. I'll be seeing you around."
"Do that."
The warden left and Ted was alone except for Tammie. He dropped a hand to the collie's silken head and tried to think a way out of the bewildering maze in which he was trapped. He was sure of two things; Al had not shot Smoky Delbert and his father would stay in the hills until, as Loring Blade had said, winter forced him out. But it would have to be bitter, harsh winter. Al could make his way in anything else.
Ted whispered, "What are we going to do, Tammie?"
Tammie licked his fingers and Ted furrowed his brow. The situation, as it existed, was almost pitifully vague. A man had been shot in Coon Valley, and the only signs left were the hurt man's trail and an accusing finger to point at who had hurt him. There had to be more than that, but what? Loring Blade had found nothing and Loring was an expert woodsman. However, even though everything seemed hopeless, somebody had better do something to help Al and, except for Loring Blade, Ted was the only one who wanted to help him. Even though it was a slim one, finding something that the game warden had not found seemed the only chance. Ted decided to take it.
"But we'll eat first," he promised Tammie.
Ted prepared a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs and fed Tammie. Then he fixed a lunch and, with Tammie beside him, got into Al's old pickup. He gulped. The seat had always seemed small enough when he and his father occupied it together. With Al gone, and despite the fact that Tammie sat beside him, the seat was huge. Ted gritted his teeth and started down the drive.
He turned left on the Lorton Road, slowed for the dangerous, hairpin turn that was Dead Man's Curve, speeded up to climb a gentle rise, descended back into the valley and turned again on the Fordham Road. A well graded and not at all a dangerous highway, somehow the Fordham Road had never seemed a place for cars. It was as though it had always been here, a part of the Mahela, and had never been torn out of the beech forest with gargantuan bulldozers or ripped with blasting powder. For the most part, it was used by the trucks of a small logging outfit which, under State supervision, was cutting surplus timber and by hunters who wanted to drive their cars as close as possible to remote hunting country.
Ted slowed up for five deer that drifted across the road in front of him and stopped for a fawn that stood with braced legs and wide eyes and regarded the truck in amazement. Only when Ted tooted the horn did the fawn come alive, scramble up an embankment and disappear. The boy smiled wearily. Had Al been with him, both would have enjoyed the startled fawn and they would have talked about it.
An hour after leaving his house, Ted came to the mouth of Coon Valley. Long and shallow, the upper parts of both slopes were covered with beech forest. But if any trees had ever found a rooting in the floor of the valley or for about seventy yards up either side, they had died or been cut so long ago that even the stumps had disappeared. The usual little stream trickled down the valley.
Ted pulled over to the side and stopped. He got out and put the truck's keys in his pocket. Tammie jumped to the ground beside him. The big collie bristled and walked warily around a dark stain in the road. Ted fought a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. There was no doubt that some hurt thing had lain here, but unless someone had told him so, he never would have known that it was a man. Ted licked his lips, and Tammie stayed close beside him as they started up the valley.
Smoky Delbert's journey had indeed been a terrible one. Had he not been hardened by a lifetime of outdoor living, probably he never could have made it. In a way, Ted supposed, it was Smoky's atonement for his many vicious practices. Yet, the boy found it in his heart to admit that, whoever had shot the poacher and forced him to crawl, wounded and bleeding, to the Fordham Road, was even more vicious.
Ted stirred uneasily, then calmed himself. Al had said it was no part of his doing. Therefore it was not. Who had done this dreadful thing?
A spring trickling across the valley had left a soft spot. Here Ted stopped instantly. Very plain in the soft earth were the tracks of a single, unshod horse that had walked down Coon Valley and back up it, or up it and back down. Ted could not be sure, but his heart leaped. Loring Blade and Jack Callahan had said nothing about any horses. Who had taken a horse up the valley, and why? His interest quickening, Ted looked for more horse tracks.
He found them farther on, where the trail became a stretch of sand from the little stream's overflow, but he still could not determine whether the horse had gone up or down the valley first. He knew definitely only that it had traveled both ways, and if he could find out why, he might also find a clue as to who had shot Smoky Delbert. Ted kept downcast eyes on the trail.
Save for that unmistakable sign left by Smoky Delbert and an occasional path or little trail which anything at all might have used, for a long ways he found only scattered indications that Coon Valley was traveled at all. The lush grass, beginning to wither because of lack of rain, formed its own hard cushion. An Indian or bushman tracker might have been able to read the story of what had come this way. Ted could find little.
Trotting a little ways ahead, Tammie stopped suddenly, pricked up his ears and looked interestedly at a small clearing that reached perhaps three hundred yards into the beech woods. Following his gaze, Ted saw two brown horses and a black one. Their heads were up and ears pricked forward as they studied the two on the trail. Ted sighed in resignation.
The Crawfords and the Staceys, who lived in the Mahela, each kept several horses. Why they did, why they kept any at all, only they could explain, for neither had enough land to warrant keeping even one horse. Still they had them. The horses were usually left to forage for themselves from the time the first spring grass appeared until hunting season opened. Then sometimes they were pressed into service, to pack or pull the tents and gear of hunters who had a yen for some remote spot, or to pack out deer or bears that had been brought down a long ways from any road.
At any rate, the horse tracks were explained. While it wasn't usual for one horse to break from its companions and go wandering, now and again one would do it. The black horse broke from the two browns, trotted down to Ted, arched its neck and extended a friendly muzzle. Ted petted him.
"Lonesome for a human being, fella?"
Ted went on and the black horse followed him a little ways before it turned back to join the other two.
A half mile from the Fordham Road, Ted came to the three sycamores near Glory Rock.
The sides of Coon Valley pitched sharply upwards here, and the beech forest came closer to the valley's floor. The three sycamores, a giant tree and two near-giants, rustled their leaves in the little breeze and remained aloof from everything else, as though they were the royalty in this place. Even Glory Rock, an elephant-backed, elephant-sized boulder whose ancient face wore a stubble of lichens, seemed demure in their presence. To the left, a raggle-taggle thicket of beech brush crawled to within twenty feet of the valley's floor.
Ted looked down at the place where Smoky Delbert had fallen, and there could be no mistaking it. The boy stood still, searching everything near the spot, and as he did hope faded.
The bullet, Loring Blade had said, had gone clear through Smoky. That, within itself, was unusual. With no exceptions of which Ted knew, everybody who came into the Mahela used soft-point hunting bullets that mushroomed on impact. But now and again, though very rarely, a faulty bullet didn't expand when it struck. Probably that was another factor that had saved Smoky's life. A mushrooming bullet did awful damage. In spite of the fact that some of it might escape the hunter, probably at least eighty per cent of anything hit with one died sooner or later. Smoky, Ted's experience told him, never would have moved from beside the sycamores if this bullet had mushroomed.
Ted furrowed his brows. The bullet might prove a lot, but finding it was as hopeless as locating a pebble in the ocean. There was nothing except the sycamores and grass right here, and none of the sycamore trunks were bullet marked. Going through Smoky without expanding, the bullet had snicked into the ground the same way. Locating it might mean sifting tons, and perhaps dozens of tons, of earth. Even then, unless one were lucky, the bullet might elude him.
Tammie, who was sitting beside Ted and staring into the beech brush, whined suddenly. In turn he lifted both white front paws and put them down again. He drank deeply of some scent that only he could detect. Ted looked keenly at him.
"What have you got, Tammie?"
Tammie ran a little ways toward the beech brush and turned to look back over his shoulder. Ted frowned. Loring Blade had reported correctly and in full everything that could be found in the valley, but Loring hadn't had a dog with him. Obviously, Tammie's nose had discovered something that any human being might well miss.
Ted ordered, "Go ahead, Tammie."
The dog started up-slope toward the brush and Ted followed. He ducked into the thicket, so dense that, once within it, visibility was limited to twenty feet or less and there were places where he had to crawl. In the center of the thicket, Tammie halted to look down and Ted came up beside him.
In the center of the beech brush was a well-marked trail used by deer that knew perfectly well the advantages of staying in a thicket. Tammie was looking down at a splash of drying blood, obviously a deer had been badly wounded here and had fallen. Ted heaped lavish praise on his dog.
"Good boy! Good boy, Tammie!"
He set his jaw and his eyes glinted. Unless a hunter were within twenty feet of the trail, in which case it was highly improbable that any deer would have come down it, nobody within the beech brush could have wounded the deer. But how about the opposite slope?
Ted retraced his steps and climbed to the top of Glory Rock. From that vantage point, where he could look across at it instead of trying to look through it, the beech thicket became more open. He couldn't see everything, but he could see very plainly the place where the deer had fallen. Moving to one side, Ted had the same view. The deer could have been shot from any of a dozen places on this slope.... What had taken place assumed definite shape in Ted's mind.
Smoky Delbert, always the poacher, had known of the beech thicket and the trail through it. He had waited for a deer and shot one when it appeared. Somebody else, somebody who knew and took violent exception to Smoky and his antics—and there were at least thirty men who did—had either happened along or had witnessed the whole thing. Probably there had been an argument, followed by the shooting.
No nearer a solution than he had been before, Ted nibbled his lip in frustration. He knew now why Smoky had been shot, but he still hadn't the faintest idea as to who had shot him. All he had were widely scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, with too many pieces missing. However, first things came first and he'd better get the hurt deer, for it was both practical and merciful to do so. Badly wounded, it couldn't possibly travel far. If he found it still alive, the least he could do was put it out of its misery. If it was dead, he should save what could be salvaged of the venison. Al would have done the same had he been here.
Ted said, "Come on, Tammie."
They returned to the place where the deer had fallen and took up the trail. It was easy to follow, for the animal had been badly hurt. Straight down the trail it had run, and sixty yards farther on Ted found where it had fallen again and thrashed about. The beech brush blended back into beech forest and the trail Ted followed swerved to within twenty feet of the valley floor. He found a great puddle of blood where the deer had fallen a third time.
He marveled. The deer had been down three times in a little more than three hundred yards and it never should have been able to get up and go on. But it had gone on and it had also nearly stopped bleeding. From this point there was only a spot here and there to mark the leaves. Ted shook his head. If he wasn't seeing this himself, he wouldn't have believed it. He remembered that a deer is an incredibly tough thing. It can still run after receiving wounds that would stop a man in his tracks.
Overrunning the trail, the boy had to stop and circle until he picked it up again. It was necessary to do this so many times that, by midafternoon, he was scarcely a mile from the three sycamores. A half hour later he lost the trail completely; the deer had stopped bleeding. Ted made a wide circle in an effort to find the trail again, and when he failed, he made a wider circle. He stopped to think.
He'd have sworn, knowing how hard the deer was hit, that it would never run five hundred yards. Obviously he had guessed wrong, and what now? Anything he did would be little better than a shot in the dark, but if he could help it, he would not leave an injured beast to a lingering, terrible death. Wounded wild things were apt to seek a haven in thickets. Perhaps, if he cast back and forth through brush tangles, Tammie would scent the deer again.
Ted made his way to a grove of scrub hemlock, cut from there to a laurel thicket and pushed and crawled his way through half a dozen snarls of beech brush. He knew that he was not going to find the wounded deer and he sorrowed for the suffering animal. About to drop his hand to Tammie's head, he found that the collie was no longer beside him.
He was about twenty feet back, dancing excitedly in the trail. His ears were alert, his eyes happy, and there was a doggy smile on his jaws. He had a scent, but it was not the scent of a wounded deer. Ted took his handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to the dog.
"Take it to Al," he ordered quietly. "Take it to Al, Tammie."
Carrying the handkerchief, Tammie streaked into the forest and disappeared. Ted walked down Coon Valley and waited at the truck. An hour and a quarter later, no longer carrying the handkerchief, Tammie joined him. Ted petted him and looked somberly at the forest. He didn't know where Al was hiding and he didn't want to know.
But Tammie knew.
In the gathering gloom of the beech woods, a silver-throated thrush sang its evening song. Then, starting where it had ended, the thrush repeated the same notes backwards. Ted paused to listen and Tammie halted beside him. The boy grinned faintly. Because it first seemed to wind itself up and then to unwind, Al had always insisted on calling this thrush the "winder bird." It was, Ted supposed, as good a name as any.
Tammie sat down and turned a quizzical head to look at the harness he was wearing and, for excellent reasons, could wear only at night. Ted himself had made the harness from a discarded pack sack. It had a chest strap to keep it from sliding backwards, a belly strap to prevent it from falling off, and on either side was a spacious pocket with a flap that could be fastened. Right now, the pack was laden with thirty pounds of junk that Ted had picked up around the house.
Tammie tried to scrape the harness off with his right hind paw. Ted stooped to pet and coax him.
"Come on, Tammie. Come on. That's a good boy!"
Tammie sighed and got to his feet. He didn't know why he was thus burdened and he had no aspirations whatever to become a pack dog. But if Ted wanted it, he would try to do it. He followed to the end of the drive and stood expectantly while Ted opened the mailbox.
The metropolitan daily in which Ted had placed his ad, and that was always delivered to the Harknesses a day late, lay on top. Beneath were thirteen letters.
Ted's heart began to pound. He'd watched the mail every day, but except for the paper, the usual hopeful bulletins addressed to "occupant," and a few miscellaneous items, there had been nothing interesting. Ted had almost despaired of getting anything, but he realized, as he stood with the letters in his hand, that he hadn't allowed hunters enough time to answer his ad.
The thirteen letters represented more first-class mail than the Harknesses usually received in three months, and Ted held them as though they burned his fingers. They were important, perhaps the most important letters he had ever had or ever would have, for the future of the Harknesses could depend on what was in them.
Ted ran back up the drive. Running with him, Tammie was too busy to pay attention to the obnoxious pack. Ted burst into the house, slammed the door behind him, laid the letters and papers on the table and knelt to take the pack from Tammie. He thrust it, still laden, into the darkest corner of a dark closet and turned excitedly back to the mail.
Sighing with relief, Tammie curled up on his bearskin. Ted looked at the sheaf of letters. Except for two, they were addressed in longhand. He picked one up, made as though to open it then put it back down. If the news was good, it would be very good. If bad, it would be very bad. His eye fell on a box on the paper's front page.
GUNMAN STILL AT LARGEAfter a week's intensive manhunt, Albert, "Al" Harkness is still at large in the wild Mahela. Harkness, named by Clarence Delbert as the man who shot him from ambush, escaped from two officers the same night he was apprehended. Delbert, still in critical condition, has supplied no additional details. Corporal Paul Hausler, of the State Police, has expressed confidence that Harkness will be captured.
GUNMAN STILL AT LARGE
After a week's intensive manhunt, Albert, "Al" Harkness is still at large in the wild Mahela. Harkness, named by Clarence Delbert as the man who shot him from ambush, escaped from two officers the same night he was apprehended. Delbert, still in critical condition, has supplied no additional details. Corporal Paul Hausler, of the State Police, has expressed confidence that Harkness will be captured.
Ted pushed the paper aside and stared across the table. For three days the hunt had been pressed with unflagging zeal. Only Pete Tooms and the duly deputized Delberts had gone out for two days after that and now, Ted understood, even they were staying home. They had discovered for themselves what Ted and Loring Blade had known from the start: if Al chose to hide in the Mahela, he couldn't be found. But the item in the paper cast a shadow of things to come.
Al could hide for a while, perhaps for a long while, but without proper equipment or a place to stay, even he couldn't live in the wilderness when winter struck with all its fury. Sooner or later, he would have to come out, and what happened when he came was so terribly dependent on what was in the letters! Ted slit the first one open and read,
Dear Mr. Harkness:I saw your letter in theCourierand we would like to rent your camp for the first two weeks of deer season. Can you let me know at once if it is available? There will be ten of us.
Dear Mr. Harkness:
I saw your letter in theCourierand we would like to rent your camp for the first two weeks of deer season. Can you let me know at once if it is available? There will be ten of us.
Ted put the letter aside and picked up the next one. That likewise wanted the camp for the first two weeks of deer season. There would be eight in the party. But there was a very welcome, "I enclose an advance to hold our reservation," with a twenty-dollar check made out to Ted. He folded the note over the check and took up the third letter. That also wanted the camp for the first two weeks of deer season. Ted turned to Tammie.
"Doesn't anybody hunt anything except deer?"
But the fourth letter, containing a deposit of ten dollars, was from a party of grouse hunters who wanted the camp during the first two weeks of grouse season, and the fifth had been written by a man representing a group of hunters who obviously liked to do things the hard way. Scorning anything as easy as deer, grouse, squirrels, or cottontails, they wanted the camp for bear season. There was no deposit enclosed, but if they could be persuaded to send one, the camp would be rented for another week. The next five letters, two of which contained deposits of twenty dollars each, were all from deer hunters who wanted to come the first two weeks of the season and the one after that was from a confirmed grouse hunter who wished to come the first week. Ted picked up the last letter, one of two that were typewritten, and read:
Dear Ted Harkness:For lo, these many years, my silent feet have carried me into the haunts of big game and my unerring rifle has laid them low. I have moose, elk, grizzlies, caribou, sheep and goats to my credit. Honesty compels me to admit that I also have several head of big game to my discredit, but that happened in the days of my callow youth, when I thought hunting and killing were synonymous.Presently, in my mellow old age, I still love to hunt. But I have become—heaven help me!—a head hunter. In short, I want 'em big or I don't want 'em. I do not have a whitetail buck to which I can point with pride. Living in the Mahela, and I envy you your dwelling place!, you must know the whereabouts of such a beastie.The simplicity of your ad was most impressive and I always did admire people who sign themselves "Ted" rather than "Theodore." I do not want your camp, but do you want to guide a doddering old man? Find me a room, any old room at all as long as it's warm and dry, and I'm yours for three weeks. Find me a buck that satisfies me and, in addition to your guiding fee, I'll give you a bonus of twenty-five dollars for every inch in the longest tine on either antler.Humbly yours,John L. Wilson
Dear Ted Harkness:
For lo, these many years, my silent feet have carried me into the haunts of big game and my unerring rifle has laid them low. I have moose, elk, grizzlies, caribou, sheep and goats to my credit. Honesty compels me to admit that I also have several head of big game to my discredit, but that happened in the days of my callow youth, when I thought hunting and killing were synonymous.
Presently, in my mellow old age, I still love to hunt. But I have become—heaven help me!—a head hunter. In short, I want 'em big or I don't want 'em. I do not have a whitetail buck to which I can point with pride. Living in the Mahela, and I envy you your dwelling place!, you must know the whereabouts of such a beastie.
The simplicity of your ad was most impressive and I always did admire people who sign themselves "Ted" rather than "Theodore." I do not want your camp, but do you want to guide a doddering old man? Find me a room, any old room at all as long as it's warm and dry, and I'm yours for three weeks. Find me a buck that satisfies me and, in addition to your guiding fee, I'll give you a bonus of twenty-five dollars for every inch in the longest tine on either antler.
Humbly yours,
John L. Wilson
Ted re-read the letter, so friendly and so obviously written by a hunter who had experience, time and—Ted tried not to think it and couldn't help himself because his need was desperate—money. The Harkness house was very large and, now that Al was not in it, very empty. There was no reason whatsoever why John L. Wilson, whoever he was, should not stay here. Twelve dollars a day was not too much to ask for board, room and guide services. As for the twenty-five dollars an inch—there were some big bucks in the Mahela!
Ted sat down to write, "Dear Mr. Wilson: Thanks very much for your letter—" He crumpled the sheet of paper and started over, "Dear Mr. Wilson: There are some big bucks—" Then he crumpled that sheet and did the only thing he could do. "Dear Mr. Wilson: I am going to tell you about Damon and Pythias."
Ted told, and he was scrupulously honest. His father, born in the Mahela almost fifty years ago, had never seen bigger bucks. Certainly they were the biggest Ted had ever seen. In their prime now, royal trophies, a couple of years would see them in their decline. Ted gave it as his personal opinion that both were at their best this year. Next season, they would not be quite as good and the year after, Ted thought, both would bear the misshapen antlers that are so often the marks of old bucks. But just getting a shot at either would involve more than a routine hunt. The two bucks were very wise; many hunters had tried for them and nobody had come near to getting either. It might very well take three weeks just to hunt them, and Ted could not guarantee success. However, though they were far and away the biggest, by no means were Damon and Pythias the only big bucks in the Mahela. He concluded by writing that Mr. Wilson could stay with him, and that his fee for board, room and guide service would be twelve dollars a day.
Ted sealed the letter, addressed it, put two stamps on, marked it air mail and turned to the others. He shook a bewildered head. The way Carl Thornton ran Crestwood, catering to guests had always seemed the essence of simplicity. Obviously, it had its headaches.
Of the dozen applicants for his camp, eight wanted it in deer season only and all wanted the first two weeks. Ted screened the letters again, then narrowed them down to the three who had sent advances. They'd offered earnest intent of coming, the rest might and might not appear. But which of the three should he accept?
Ted solved it by consulting the postmarks on the letters. All had been mailed the same day, but one had been stamped at ten A.M. and the other two at two P.M. Ted wrote to the author of the letter with the earliest time mark, a Mr. Allen Thomas, and told him that the camp was his for the first two weeks of deer season. The other two checks—if only he had three camps!—he put in envelopes with letters saying that, he was very sorry, but the camp had already been reserved for the time they wanted.
Then, in a flash of inspiration, he opened both letters and added a postscript, saying that the camp was still available for the last week of the season. He grinned ruefully as he did so and seemed to hear Al saying, "'Most missed a pelt there, Ted."
Ted assured the other deer hunters that his camp was reserved for the first two weeks but open the third. He contemplated bringing his price down to forty-five dollars for that week. Then he reconsidered. Most hunters thought that hunting would be much better the first of the season than it ever could be the last, and, in part, they were right. Unmolested for almost a year, during the first days of the season game was apt to be less wary. As compensation, during the latter part of any season there were seldom as many hunters afield. Anyhow, deer hunters who really wanted a camp would not let an extra fifteen dollars stand in the way of getting one.
Writing to the bear hunters, Ted accepted a tentative reservation that would be confirmed as soon as he received a deposit of ten dollars. Too many people made reservations with no deposit; then, if something arose that prevented their honoring their reservations, they simply didn't come. Anyone who paid money in advance would be there or cancel in plenty of time to get their money back.
Ted told the grouse hunters who'd sent a ten-dollar deposit that the camp was theirs for the first two weeks of the season and he pondered over the other grouse hunter's letter.
Nobody at all had applied for woodcock season because, Ted decided, woodcock are so uncertain. One of the finest of game birds, they are also migratory. A few nested in the Mahela, but they were too few to attract sportsmen. Depending on conditions, flight birds might and might not be in the Mahela during the season and some years they by-passed it completely. But when they came, they offered marvelous shooting.
Ted wrote the second grouse hunter, a Mr. George Beaulieu, that the only vacancy he had left was for the third week of grouse season. But was he interested in woodcock? If he was, and if he would advise Ted to that effect, Ted would be happy to call him long distance in the event of a worthwhile flight.
Tammie rose, yawned prodigiously and lay down to sleep on his other side for a while. Ted shuffled the pile of letters, which he needn't put in the mailbox because he was definitely going into Lorton in the morning, and pondered.
It hadn't worked out quite as he'd hoped it would, with the camp rented continuously throughout six weeks of small game hunting and three of deer. He figured with his pen on a discarded piece of paper. The camp was definitely rented for two weeks of grouse and one of bear hunting at forty-five dollars a week. That added up to a hundred and thirty-five dollars. It was certainly rented for two weeks of deer hunting at sixty a week, thus he would have a hundred and twenty dollars more.
Ted sighed wistfully. Two hundred and fifty-five dollars was by no means an insignificant return on their investment, even if they had put a price on their labor, and they could look forward to the next hunting and fishing seasons. If Al were here, they'd be happy about it and eagerly planning more camps.
But Al wasn't here, and all that mattered now was that, by the end of deer season, Ted could be certain of having at least two hundred and fifty-five dollars in cash. If John Wilson came, stayed with Ted for twenty-one days, and paid him twelve dollars a day, that would be two hundred and fifty-two dollars more. If Mr. Wilson got a buck that satisfied him, and the buck's antlers had one tine nine inches long—
"Cut it out!" Ted advised himself. "Cut it out, Harkness! Count on what you know you'll have, and that's two hundred and fifty-five dollars."
Tammie, hearing Ted's voice and thinking he was called, came over to sit beside his master. He raised a dainty paw to Ted's hand and smiled with his eyes when the boy took it. Ted glanced at the clock.
"Great guns! Twenty past one! We'd better hit the hay!"
He shucked off his clothes, put on his pajamas and crawled into bed. But even though he was tired, sleep would not come because he was thinking of Al. How was his father spending this chilly night—and where? In some cave perhaps, or some thicket. Ted tried to put such thoughts behind him. Wherever Al might be, that outdoorsman was warm, dry and even comfortable. But Ted's mind insisted on seeking the gloomy side, and he was brought out of it only when Tammie whined.
Instantly Ted became alert. Taught to whine but never to bark when a stranger came near the house, Tammie was warning him now. The boy slipped out of bed, and, in the darkness, he felt for his shoes and pulled them on. He laced them so there would be no danger of tripping over the shoelaces and soft-footed across the floor to take a five-cell flashlight from its drawer and his twelve-gauge shotgun from its rack.
Out of the night came a sound that has been familiar since the first ancient man domesticated the first chickens. It was the sleepy squawk of a hen protesting removal from its warm roost. Ted opened the door softly, stabbed the darkness with his light and trapped within its beam a figure that ran from the chicken coop toward the forest.
"Get him, Tammie!"
Tammie rippled forward, and the light magnified his bobbing shadow twenty times over. He was not a dog but a monster, a nightmare from some antediluvian swamp, bearing down on the fleeing man. He rose into the air, struck the runner's back with his full weight, knocked him sprawling and snarled over him. It was what he'd been trained to do and it was all he'd do unless his captive tried too hard to get up. Then a little fang-work might be necessary, but this prisoner wasn't even moving.
Ted shined his light into the terrified face of a young ne'er-do-well known to his parents as Sammy Allen Stacey, to himself and a few of his intimates as S.A., and to too many others as Silly Ass.
His captor asked sternly, "What are you doing here?"
"Uh—Nothin'."
"What's in the sack?"
"I—I just borrowed three of your hens!" Sammy started to sniffle. "I was goin' to bring 'em back tomorrow! Honest!"
"Guess I'll go back to the house," Ted said meaningfully. "When I hear you scream, I'll know Tammie's working on you."
"No! Don't! Please don't!"
"Think you can stay out of other people's chicken coops?"
"Yes! Yes!"
Ted ordered, "All right, Tammie." The collie moved back and Ted addressed the prostrate youth. "Get up and get out of here. If ever you come back again, I'll just turn you over to the dog."
Sammy rose and ran into the woods. Ted returned the three indignant hens to their roost and addressed Tammie, "I'll bet that, if ever he is found in another chicken coop, it won't be ours. You must have scared some sense into him."
Back in the house, Tammie sought his bearskin. Ted replaced the flashlight and shotgun, took his shoes off and went back to bed. Tomorrow he must go to Lorton but it needn't be bright and early because, by Mahela standards, Lorton just didn't get up bright and early.
Ted slept until a quarter to seven. An hour later, with Tammie on the pickup's seat beside him, he started down the road.
He drove slowly because the business and professional offices in Lorton wouldn't open for another hour. Coming opposite Crestwood, he saw Nels Anderson, his former partner, working with a pick and shovel beside the driveway. Ted eased his truck over and stopped.
"Hello, Nels."
"Py golly, Ted!" Nels' face could never reflect anything he did not feel. "Is goot to see you!"
"It's good to see you, too. How are things?"
"We must not holler. Yah?"
"Guess it never does any good. How's the boss?"
Nels smiled sadly. "Mad."
"What's he mad at?"
"Me. I go to fix the freezer and he say, 'Get out of there, you crazy Scandahoovian! From now on you work only outside and joost three days a week!"
"For Pete's sake! Why?"
"He's mad."
"Why don't you get a different job, Nels? One you can depend on?"
"Yah, I like to. I do not like Mr. Thornton no more."
"Why not?"
"He gets mad. You hear from your pa, Ted?"
"No."
"I'm awful sorry," Nels said gravely. "I do not believe your pa, he shoot this man like they say he did. If I could help him, I would."
"Thanks, Nels. Be seeing you."
"So long, Ted."
Ted drove on, wondering. He'd had only two personal contacts with Carl Thornton—the day he was hired and the day he was fired. He couldn't really say that Thornton was not an unpredictable individual, given to sudden rages, because he didn't know him that well. He had impressed Ted as somewhat cold and carefully calculating. The boy shrugged. Nels was a nice person. But an idea soaked into his head about as easily as sunbeams penetrate mud. Probably he'd broken some rule which he had not understood and still didn't understand, and Thornton was punishing him. But putting him on halftime, and Nels with five children to support, seemed like extreme punishment.
Ted drove on to Lorton, where, even though most of the town's residents were his friends, he could not help feeling self-conscious. Smoky Delbert's shooting had brought Lorton more fame, or notoriety, than it had known since its founding. The story had been in most of the State's papers and gained wide distribution through a couple of news services. Parking in front of the First National Bank, Ted left Tammie in the truck, dropped his stamped letters in a mailbox and walked up the dimly lighted stairs that led to the law offices of John McLean. Edith Brewman, McLean's ageless secretary, had not yet come in but John McLean was rummaging through her desk.
He looked up and said, "Howdy, boy."
"Good morning, Mr. McLean."
Ted stood awkwardly, a little embarrassed and a little lost. Just how did one approach an attorney and what did one say to him? John McLean continued to paw through the desk and Ted studied him covertly.
A huge, gaunt man in an ill-fitting suit, with unkempt gray hair and a black tie askew on his collar, John McLean looked like anything save the successful attorney he was. His dress and person were part of a clever act. Slouching into a courtroom, he was more apt to provoke snickers than admiration. But an opposing attorney who underrated him, and most did, literally fell into his clutches. There was a silver tongue behind John McLean's rather slack lips and a razor-sharp brain beneath his gray hair. He grinned loosely now.
"Edith's too darn' orderly. When she puts something away, I can never find it. What can I do for you?"
"I'm Ted Harkness, Mr. McLean."
"I know."