THE LOST BUCK
An hour after sunrise, hunters and pack assembled at the appointed rendezvous, a centrally situated plantation. There was the usual exchange of pleasant badinage as to the relative speed, stamina and other qualities of the different hounds, who, now united in an imposing pack of twenty, combined almost every type known to the deer hunter, and each had its admirers. The older men preferred the native low-country stock, a blend, perhaps, of the blood of fox hound and beagle, bred for a hundred years or more from dogs brought from England long, long ago. These were fine, high-bred looking animals, mostly “blue speckled,” flecked with patches of black and fawn, whose twisted ears, soft as velvet, were long enough to tie under their wearers’ throats—very aristocrats of the dog world, from their long muzzles to the tips of their slender “rat” tails, not very fast, perhaps, but with noses so “cold” that they could follow a deer trail more than twenty-four hours old. Then, too, their cry! “Rolling tongues,” all of them, sweet and sonorous, whose blending of deep and high-pitched tones sent the blood tingling through the veins. The hard-riding youngsters, however, preferred the recently imported “English” dogs—thick-set, powerful creatures, white, with great patches of black and tan, broad-eared and “feather-tailed.” Their noses were not cold, nor was the music of their yelping “chopped” tongues inspiring, but they had great speed, and their feet were so hard that they could be run day after day without becoming footsore. Here and there, a somber spot inthe pack, was a black and tan and—a touch of flame—a big “red-bone” of a western North Carolina strain, a rangy fellow, bred to speed and endurance in a rough, red-fox country. So each type and each individual had special qualities and special advocates, and all were gathered—Countess, Echo, Music, Harper, Lead, Luck, Modoc, Rowser, Blueman, the panther-like Huntress, and many younger dogs—into a pack whose all-round efficiency could not have been matched between Ashley River and the tawny waters of the Savannah!
At last the horns were sounded, and horsemen and hounds passed up the Cypress road. Soon after crossing the two bridges a mile or so away, a short consultation was had, and the “Elliott Big Drive” was decided upon. The elder huntsmen directed the standers to their positions and, after allowing sufficient time for those who had been assigned the more distant passes to reach their stands, the two expert and daring riders who had been designated as the “drivers” put in the eager pack and they spread fanlike among the myrtles.
The old buck, whose trophies were the special object of this day’s hunt, had long baffled the Nimrods of the neighborhood. Unusually large and with a magnificent head of “basket” horns, his resourcefulness had always enabled him to escape his pursuers. He varied his tactics as occasion required. In the early fall and winter, while lying with does and yearlings in the myrtles, or on the sunny side of some broomgrass field, he would cunningly keep his place upon the approach of hounds and hunters, allowing his companions to spring up and lead the cry off on a long run for the river. Then, when the danger was over, he wouldsneak away and take sanctuary in some distant thicket. Later on, in February and March, when the bucks, having dropped their horns, herded together like timid sheep, he pursued the same course, allowing the younger and less experienced to “jump” at the approach of the pack and lead it away while he remained in safety. In his bachelor days, however, he changed his methods, and, at the first cry of a distant dog opening upon the trail, the wary buck would “sneak,” and, by the time the pack reached his erstwhile bed, they found only the outline of his burly body in the petticoat grass where he had made his luxurious couch, while the old fellow would be perhaps six or seven miles away in the Ti Ti across the Edisto, or in some remote and inaccessible fastness beyond the Toogoodoo. In summer, when his great antlers in the “velvet” were tender and sensitive to the slightest touch of twig or foliage, he avoided thickets and tangled places, skirting the ridges that rose like shoulders on either side of the narrow bays that intersected the great forests of long-leaf pine.
But on this crisp November day, the woods were clean and clear, with no tangle of summer foliage, and the big buck, now carrying iron-hard horns, was as free to run through swamp or thicket as on the higher knolls and ridges, and, cunning and deceitful, he changed his tactics from chase to chase, and kept his pursuers guessing as to whether he would “jump” or “sneak,” whether his course would be east, south or west. Northward he never ran, for thither lay the railway and the flat woods, with no rivers beyond whose waters lay sanctuary.
One of the standers, well-mounted, took up a distant pass at Elliott’s Wells, the site of a settlementabandoned many generations ago. Concealing his horse in a thicket at the rear of the stand, he returned to the knoll, stood in front of a great pine, a giant among its lofty fellows, and listened for the cry of the pack. But listening was difficult and no cry came to his ears. The wind was high, and, singing among the pine tops like æolian harps, rose and swelled and softened and died away, now whispering of the wold with its peaceful sheep, and quiet meadows where cattle grazed, now thundering of stormswept mountain tops and the break of ocean surges on rockbound coasts, and again softened to the lap of sluggish wavelets on the shining shores of placid bays, and sighing told of those that grieved, and shrieked with the anguish of those that suffered, and softened again with the laughter of little children, and told the myriad stories and waked the thousand memories that the weird and mysterious songs of the wind among the pines bring to those whose hearts are attuned to nature. More than once the stander stood at attention, thinking he heard the cry of a distant hound, but, with a lull in the wind, the aural will-o’-the-wisp was gone, so misleading are the wind-sounds to even the trained ear. An hour passed. Two hours—but only the wind was heard, no bay of dog, no blast of horn betraying the presence of hunter or hound anywhere in the great expanse of forest.
Not far away was an old graveyard, one of the Colonial villages of the dead occasionally found in the low-country forests. The lettering on the marble slabs that covered the eternal sleepers revealed them as members of important families, many of them children who died of fever during the summer months before the days of quinine, deep wells and wire screens.The stander, while listening for the cry of the pack, read the lichen-covered inscriptions on the tombs and mused like Gray and Omar. With a whimsical smile, he looked at the towering crown of a great water-oak deep-rooted in the mould of a stout-hearted 17th century squire—a “five-bottle man” perhaps, and marveled at the alchemy of nature that could, from Madeira, Port and old Jamaica Rum, resolve a dew to nourish a Water Oak! Then, with ineffable sadness, he read the brief life-stories of God’s little children, “Mary,” “Anne,” “William,” “beloved daughter,” “beloved son” “of —— and —— his wife,” “died August 171-,” “died September 172-.” A cherub deep-carved in the marble, the line “Suffer little children to come unto Me”—no more! Seven, eight generations of men and women had lived their lives and passed since these little children were taken home 200 years ago! Yet, how near the tragedy seemed! The father returning from field or forest to find the mother in agony over the stricken child, no doctor, no ice, no effective medicines. The brilliant eyes, the burning cheeks, delirium, the end. The little mound in the woodland, wet with a mother’s tears, the graver’s chisel in the marble—and that was all. So men and women lived, and little children died—two hundred years ago!
At the end of the fourth hour of waiting, the stander, hearing only the wind-harps among the pine-tops, and realizing that, either the pack had jumped and been led by the chase out of the drive—a cunning old buck sometimes running contrary to all precedent—or that, striking no trail, the drivers had “blown out” of the Big Drive and called the hunt together for exploitation elsewhere, mounted hishorse and rode due west through the woods for the Willtown road, which, running north and south, and nearly parallel with the Edisto and its tributary Penny Creek, would be crossed by any deer making for the river. Just as he reached the road, he accosted a negro walking toward Parker’s Ferry X-Roads, and asked if he had heard horns or hounds.
“Maussuh, uh binnuh stan’ een Willtown road close to Mas’ Edwu’d Baa’nwell’ Clifton place, w’en uh yeddy de dog duh comin’ fuh me, en’ uh stop fuh liss’n. Bimeby, uh see de mukkle duh shake, en’, fus’ t’ing uh know, de deer jump out de t’icket en’ light een de big road en’ look ’puntop me! ’E foot fall saaf’ly ’pun de groun’ same lukkuh cat duh sneak ’puntop’uh bu’d. ’E tu’n ’e head en’ ’e look ’puntop me lukkuh somebody, ’cep’n’ suh ’e yeye big lukkuh hawn owl’ eye. ’E look at me so positubble, uh t’ink mus’be ’e duh haant, en’ uh dat ’f’aid ’e gwine t’row one spell ’puntop me, uh tu’n ’way me head. W’en uh look roun’ ’gen, ’e gone! Yuh come de dog’! Uh nebbuh see summuch dog’! Dem full’ de road, en’ dem woice’ roll ’tell you nebbuh yeddy shishuh music. Dem cross’ de road, en’ dem gone! Attuh leetle w’ile, uh yeddy’um duh gib dem toung een de gyaa’d’n uh ole Maussuh’ Clifton house wuh dem Nyankee bu’n down eenjurin’ uh de wah. De gyaa’d’n big ez uh cawnfiel’, en’ ’e full’uh high rose bush duh climb up ’pun de tree, en’ all kind’uh briah en’ t’icket dey dey. Uh yeddy de dog’ mek uh sukkle roun’ de gyaa’d’n, den dem stop. Bimeby, yuh come de ole buck duh run puhzackly ’pun ’e back track, en’, w’en ’e git to de big road weh him lef’ me duh stan’up, uh t’awt at de fus’ ’e bin gwine jump ’puntop me, but ’e tu’n shaa’p roun’ en’ light down de road gwine Paa’kuh’ Ferry Cross-road’. ’Erun ’traight een de big road, en’ uh’ spec’ ’e gone ’way todduh side Allstun’ Abenue befo’ de dog’ git back to de big road on ’e trail. De dog’ comin’ so fas’ uh git out ’e way fuh l’em pass, en’ dem so hasty, dem nebbuh ’top fuh smell weh de deer tu’n off down de road, en’ dem gone uh bilin’ t’ru de mukkle t’icket on de back track weh dem come f’um, en’ dem run ’bout uh mile befo’ dem fin’ out sun dem bin ’puntop de back track, den dem tu’n roun’ en’ come back fuh weh uh binnuh stan’ up. One leetle blue speckle’ toad bus’ out de pack en’ tek de fresh trail weh de buck jump off de back track, en’ gone! Soon ez dem todduh dog’ yeddy him woice, dem lef’ de ole trail en’ bu’n de win’ down de big road on de fresh track. Da’ duh de las’ uh shum, en’ uh nebbuh yeddy’um no mo’ attuh ’e done gone.”
Sure enough, the veteran Echo, the most intelligent dog in the pack, was running wide when she reached the road for the second time and detected the old buck’s maneuver. With a roar, the pack followed her at top speed down the open road, but, by the time the cry reached the Allston place on Penny Creek, the buck, with two or three miles the start of them, had run directly through the negro quarters, causing general consternation in the settlement, and had taken the water at the landing. Instead of crossing, however, he swam rapidly up stream and, aided by the flood tide, was a mile away before the pursuing pack reached the water’s edge. True to their usual practice, they crossed the creek and spread over the swamp on the other side in search of the trail, but trail there was none. The puzzled hounds ran up and down the bank for several hundred yards, whimpering with disappointment, but, for them that day, the buck was lost as completely asthough the brown waters had swallowed him up, and one by one the disappointed dogs reluctantly recrossed the stream, and, as there was no sound of horn to summon them, singly and in groups they made their way to their respective homes.
Realizing that the buck had run far out of the chive, and, by giving all the passes a wide berth had lost the hunt, the sometime stander of Elliott’s Wells followed the spreading slot of the deer in the “big road” as far as Allston’s, and, riding up to the quarters, sought information of hounds and quarry from an old negress who was seated on the steps of her cabin, trying to loosen, with a tough horn comb, the kinky wool of a little black girl who sat on a lower step between her knees.
“Mauma, have you seen anything of a deer or dogs?”
The old woman, true to her training, tried to rise to drop a curtsy before replying, but the wide-eyed imp of darkness between her knees sat stolidly on the hem of her homespun skirt and prevented her rising.
“Git up, gal, ent you hab sense ’nuf fuh mek yo’ mannus w’en you see w’ite people? Uh bin agguhnize ’long all dem fowl’ fedduh en’ t’ing you hab een you head, en’ dem tanglety up ’tell uh cyan’ git ’um out, en’ you hab no bidness fuh gone en’ creep t’ru da’ fowlh’us’ winduh fuh git dem aig’. Git up en’ gone!”
But long before she reached the end of her sentence, the girl was up and gone, and, with a deep curtsy, the old woman answered the hunter.
“Maussuh, ’bout two hour attuh middleday, dish’yuh nigguhhouse yaa’d bin full’uh nigguh’, ’cause duh Sattyday, en’ all dese’yuh ’ooman duh wash dem clo’es. All ub uh sudd’nt, uh yeddy’um holluh same lukkuhroostuh holluh w’en ’e see hawk’ shadduh ’puntop de groun’, en’ eb’ry Gawd’ nigguh, ’ooman en’ chillun alltwo, drap eb’ryt’ing wuh dem got een dem han’ en’ run fuh dem house. Uh look ’roun’ fuh see wuh ’smattuh mek’um fuh holluh, en’, ef you b’leebe me, suh, one deer duh comin’ down de paat’, big same lukkuh ole Baa’ney, Mas’ Rafe dem bull! ’E hawn big ’nuf fuh hol’ bushel tub, en’, w’en ’e jump, ’e rise een de ellyment high mo’nuh dem house ebe’. W’en ’e look ’puntop me wid alltwo ’e yeye, uh ’f’aid suh de debble dey een’um, en’ uh drap ’pun me knee een de du’t en’ uh pray! Bimeby uh look ’roun’, en’ uh yent see nutt’n’ but ’e tail. De pyo’ tail dat big ’e kibbuhr’um, en’ ’e ’pread out w’ite lukkuh buckruh’ shu’t buzzum duh Sunday w’en ’e yent got on no weskit! ’E gone duh crick, ’e jump een, en’ nobody shum no mo’! All de nigguh’ come out dem house fuh look, en’ attuh w’ile dem yeddy de dog’ duh comin’, en’ dem run back ’gen. De beagle’ tayre up de street ’long dem foot, en’ dem mek shishuh woice de fowl’ fly up ’puntop de roof, en’ dem jis’ leely w’ile come down. Tengky, Maussuh, Gawd bless you, suh!—Come’yuh, gal! Yo’ head full’uh fedduh’ ’tell ’e stan’ same lukkuh frizzle’ hen! Come’yuh!”
Meanwhile, the big buck’s sensitive ears told him what had happened. He knew that the pack, at fault and silent, a mile behind him, was out of the running for that day, at least as far as he was concerned, and, touching bottom on a little wampee-covered spit of land that thrust itself into the creek, his dun and dripping body rose from the waters as he leisurely walked to shore, landing conveniently near a dense canebrake, within whose safe seclusion he found a dry bed untilnightfall. With the rising of the moon soon thereafter, he slowly fed his way homeward through the forest, pausing, first near the edge of the Baring backwater, and then on every knoll where he could find a grove of the beautiful swamp white-oaks, for his favorite autumn food, the great over-cup acorns. At last, as the morning star blazed in the east and the far off roosters—long before Maude Adams won her spurs and her tail-feathers in Edmond Rostand’s Chanticler—heralded the coming of the dawn, the old fellow returned to his bed among the myrtles in the Big Drive, and, full of acorns and the satisfaction of having again outwitted his pursuers, lay down to his well-earned rest, undisturbed by dreams of horn or hound.