Big Red

by Jim Kjelgaard

Danny turned away. Old Majesty, unforgiving and terrible foe of every man in the Wintapi, was back again. Soon he would be raiding again, and this was a chance to kill him. He should be killed. Danny looked at Red, and swallowed hard. Red had bayed Old Majesty once, and might do it again. Only … Danny straightened. Ross had his heart set on making Red a varmint dog, and Danny had no intention of letting him hunt varmints. That issue had to be faced some time, and it might as well be now.

  “I reckon not, Pappy.”

  “What!”

  “I—I guess Red ain’t goin’ to be no varmint dog.”

  “Huh! What use would you put such a dog to?”

  “Well, he could hunt partridges.”

  “Them little brown birds? You’re funnin’! You wouldn’t waste such a dog on partridges.”

  Danny said desperately, “Look, there’s some things a man can do and some he can’t. Makin’ Red hunt varmints would be like makin’ one of Mr. Haggin’s blooded horses do Asa’s work. It’s right in Red’s blood to be a partridge dog.”

  “Oh. Did Mr. Haggin tell you to make him hunt partridges?”

  “Mr. Haggin didn’t say anythin’,” Danny said miserably. “I just know Red’s a partridge dog.”

  “How do you know it?”

  Danny tried and failed to put into words some of the things he had learned on his brief visit to New York and in his association with Mr. Haggin. Always before he had accepted Ross’s notion that a dog was a dog, something to be bent to the will of its master. But that wasn’t so. For thousands of years there had been special dogs for special functions, dachshunds for entering badger holes and subduing their occupants, greyhounds for coursing swift game, malemutes for sledge work, and only when you knew something of their blood lines could you really appreciate the fascinating story of dogdom. It was in Red’s blood to hunt birds, and partridges were the only game birds in the Wintapi. Making him hunt anything else would verge on the criminal. But how to explain all this to Ross?

  “I just know it,” Danny said miserably. “Red hunted the bear only because he thought it was goin’ to hurt me.”

  “Well, if that’s the way you feel …”

  Ross went stiffly into the cabin and prepared supper. After eating, he helped wash the dishes and took his accustomed place beside the stove. He ignored Red when the big setter tried to thrust his nose into his cupped hand and, sensing the rebuff, Red went back to Danny. Danny sat moodily alone. Ross was deeply hurt. He would not have been had Danny been able to furnish a single good reason why Red should be a partridge dog. But Danny himself knew of no reason save that Red had been born to hunt partridges. And that sounded silly.

  They went silently to bed. The next morning, when Danny got up, Ross had already gone. He had taken one of the hounds with him. But he hadn’t asked Danny to go along.

  Danny’s heart was heavy within him while he ate a lonely breakfast. But after eating, he opened the door and a flood of the sparkling October sunshine came spilling in. Red rushed outside, and went over to sniff noses with Old Mike. He came galloping back to Danny and reared to put both front paws on his chest. Danny pulled his silky ears, and stroked his smooth muzzle. If only Ross was there to see Red as Danny saw him! Then the autumn and the sunshine worked their magic. It was enough to be afield with Red. Ross would understand in time.

  Crisp, frost-curled leaves crackled underfoot when they entered the beech woods. Red went racing among the trees. But when Danny whistled he stopped, turned around, and came trotting back. For a space he walked beside Danny. Then he leaped a few feet ahead and stopped in his tracks.

  He stood with his body rigid and his tail stiff behind him. With a quick little rush he went a dozen feet and stopped again. Then in a slow, steady walk, he advanced twenty feet and stopped on a knoll. He raised one forefoot, stiffened his body and tail.

  “Easy. Easy there, Red,” Danny murmured softly.

  The dog trembled, but held his point. Danny leaned over, and as quietly as possible brushed the leaves from a half-buried limb. He hurled it into the brush at which Red was pointing, and a lone partridge thundered out. Red took three nervous steps forward, but halted at Danny’s, “Back here, Red.”

  Danny’s knees were suddenly weak and he sat down. Red came over with wagging tail and lolling tongue, and Danny passed both arms about his neck. Starry-eyed, he sat still, in his mind living and re-living the scene he had just witnessed. It was a thrill to hear hounds strike a trail, to listen to them baying their quarry, and their final frenzy when they cornered it. But this! The hounds were good workmen, but the setter was an artist. And not even Ross had suspected how keen his nose really was. Danny rose.

  “Come on, Red.”

  They found three more partridges. On the second, Red broke a little. But on the third he was more steady and the fourth he held perfectly. Danny gasped anew each time. Red was scenting the birds at such distances and holding them so well that even seeing it was hard to believe. But four were enough without any shooting. Making any hunt tiresome was a certain way to spoil a dog. Danny took Red for a walk high up on Staver Plateau, where only sweet fern grew and there were few grouse. A sullen resolve that was forming in his mind reached fruition there. If Ross didn’t want him on the trap-lines he certainly wasn’t going to beg to be taken along! He didn’t have to trap. The fifty-dollars a month Mr. Haggin was paying him was more than enough to meet his share of their common expenses. He swung down the plateau toward home.

  The early autumn twilight was just dimming the day when he arrived. A light in the window told that Ross was there before him. Danny opened the door, and Red slid unobtrusively in to lie on the floor. Ross, who was standing over the stove, turned and spoke.

  “Hi-ya.”

  “Hi-ya,” Danny replied, and busied himself setting the table. From time to time he stole a furtive glance at Red, and once looked with mute appeal at his father’s back. But his eyes squinted slightly and the same stubborn mouth that was Ross’s tightened in grim lines. Once more he looked at Ross’s back, and found the determination not to speak until his father did, melting away. Danny tried to make his voice casual.

  “Where’d you go today, Pappy?”

  “Out.”

  Danny flushed, and his face set in stubborn lines again. Maybe Ross thought he couldn’t make a partridge dog out of Red. He’d show him! He’d prove such a dog much more valuable than a hound, and every bit as practical. But proving to Ross that any partridge dog was worth the food he ate wasn’t going to be any easier job than moving Staver Plateau with a toy tin shovel.

  After supper Danny sat by Red for a while, stroking his ears and tickling his chin. But Ross ignored the dog completely. And, as though he understood, Red had nothing to do with him.

  Partridge season and the first snow came together. Ross, as usual, was up long before daylight and away on his trap-lines. When Danny went out with his shotgun and Red, he looked longingly at the tracks in the snow. Always before, he and his father had gone trapping together. Resolutely he shouldered his gun and walked in an opposite direction, toward the pine and hemlock thickets where the partridges would certainly seek shelter from the snow.

  They approached a thick growth of hemlock, and Red ranged ahead. He came to a stiff point, and Danny edged up.

  A partridge burst out of the hemlocks, showed itself for a split second between the branches, and Danny shot. A ruffled heap of brown feathers, the bird came down in the snow. Red hesitated, looking around at Danny as though asking for instructions. Danny waved a hand forward.

  “Go on,” he said. “Get him.”

  Red padded forward, and stood uncertainly over the fallen partridge. He looked up, and back at the bird.

  “Give it to me,” Danny said gently.

  The setter lowered his head to sniff the partridge, and grasped it gently in his mouth. Danny took it in his hand. He threw it down in the snow and Red picked it up again. They went on, and Red pointed three more grouse, which Danny shot. The last one, thoug
h Red went about it in an awkward fashion, he picked up and brought back. His tail wagged furiously and his eyes glistened at the lavish praise that the feat called forth from Danny. But four birds were the limit.

  Danny arrived home first that night, and had supper ready when Ross came in. Ross had no furs, as he had set his traps only that day, but he opened his hunting jacket and took out four partridges. He laid them on the table, and turned silently away to remove his coat and wash his hands.

  Danny’s cheeks burned. Ross had had no dog. And every one of the four partridges had been shot through the head with the little .22 pistol that he sometimes carried on his trap-line visits.

  The partridge season wore slowly on, and by the last day Danny knew that his hunch had been the correct one. Red was not only a partridge dog, but he was a great partridge dog; one in a million. He found the birds and pointed them so carefully that only the wildest ones flushed before the gunner could get his shot in. It had taken him only nine trips afield to learn perfectly the art of retrieving. Regardless of how thick might be the brush or brambles in which the bird fell, Red would find it. And, though he had hunted every day, Danny had not yet lost a wounded bird. Red paid no attention to the rabbits that scooted before him, or to the chattering squirrels that frisked in the trees. And, when he hunted, no scent save that of partridges drew the slightest interest. Now, on this last day of the season, he and Danny were going out for one last hunt.

  Ross, as usual, had already gone, and a few flakes of snow hovered in the air. Little wind stirred and the naked trees were silent. But the blue-black horizon and the clouded sky foretold a heavier storm to come. Danny went back into the shanty and buttoned a woollen jacket over the hunting shirt he already wore. He dropped half a dozen twelve-gauge shells into his pocket.

  “Goin’ to be weather, sure enough,” he murmured. “Winter’s nigh here, Red.”

  The hard little snow flakes rustled against the frozen leaves, and it seemed to Danny that they were falling faster even before he came to the edge of his father’s field. But he forgot them then because Red came to a point. Steady as a rock, he stopped just a little way within the woods. Danny flushed the bird. It soared up and out, dodging between tree trunks and twisting about. But for one split second it showed through the crotch of a big beech and Danny shot. The bird dropped to the ground and Red brought it in.

  They went on, deeper into the beech woods where they had found so many partridges. But Red worked for an hour before he pointed another, and that one flushed so wild that Danny had no shot at it. It was noon before he killed another, and at the same time he awoke to the necessity of getting back to the cabin before he had trouble finding it. The snow was falling so fast that the trees were only wavering shadows. And there was a rising wind, which meant that the heavy snow would be accompanied by a gale. Danny snapped his fingers.

  “Here, Red.”

  The dog came in reluctantly. His ears were flattened, and his tail hung dejectedly. He knew as well as Danny that they should have killed four birds. And he considered it his fault because he had found only three. Hopefully he started once more toward the hemlocks. But the boy turned toward the cabin.

  The wind whipped his clothing about him, and drove snow into his eyes. He bent his head and turned his collar up. There was a foot of snow on the ground, and all open places were drifted waist-deep. Red stayed behind, following the trail Danny broke, and floundering through the drifts.

  It was nearly dusk when they reached the cabin. Danny opened the door, stamped the snow from his feet, and sank into a chair. Red crouched full length on the floor, looking at Danny from the corners of his eyes. The boy grinned, and went over to pull his ears.

  “Wasn’t your fault, you old fool,” he said affectionately. “You found what there was to find.”

  Red leaped happily up and went over to sit beside the door. But Danny took his jacket and hat off, and draped them over a chair. He started a fire in the stove, and shook his head.

  “Nope. Not again. We got all we had comin’, anyhow. There’s a passel of canned partridges in the cellar as’ll come in right handy if vittles get scarce.”

  Red returned to his place on the floor and lay disconsolate. Danny cut thick slices from a ham, and peeled a great pot full of potatoes. Ross would be hungry after bucking the storm, would want good things to eat and plenty of them. But Danny worked with deliberate slowness, trying in the routine of household chores to still the worried voice crying within him. Ross should have been home before this.

  He went to a window and peered into the inky blackness, fighting back a rising panic. This was no time to lose his head. He waited another ten minutes.

  Then he made up a pack: a thermos of coffee, enough food for three days, a knife and axe, plenty of matches, and two woollen blankets. He put on his warmest coat, pulled a felt cap down over his ears, and took his snowshoes from their peg on the wall.

  With a happy little whine and a furiously wagging tail Red sprang up to join him. Danny looked at him. The dog could not be of any use. He would hunt only partridges, would pay no attention to Ross’s scent, even though they passed within ten feet of him.

  “Reckon not, Red. This here’s one hunt I got to run alone.”

  Red flattened his ears, and begged mutely. Danny looked away and back again. Red wouldn’t help any. But he would be company, and certainly could do no harm.

  “All right. C’mon.”

  Danny went outside, and Red waited impatiently in the snow while he took a toboggan from its elevated platform. When Danny started off through the night, the dog ran a little ahead. Danny watched him work carefully toward a brier patch, and grinned wryly. Red was still ashamed of his inability to locate more than three partridges, and was trying to make up for it.

  The snow was drifting down in great feathery flakes that dropped softly to earth. The wind had abated and it was not as cold as it had been. But if Ross was helpless, he could freeze. Danny put the thought from his mind and plodded grimly on. Lately, he had scarcely spoken to his father, but he still knew where to look for him. Last night Ross had brought in two muskrats and a mink, pelts that could be trapped only along waterways. Therefore he must have run the traps in Lonesome Pond. Today he would cover the fox line on Stoney Lonesome ridge.

  But, even though he would search until he found his father, Danny was aware of the near hopelessness of his mission. If Ross was lying unconscious, after having been caught in a slide or struck by a falling limb, the snow would cover him, and he might not be found until it melted. Danny clenched his fists and tried to drown the thought. Ross was too good a woodsman to have such an accident. But, Danny admitted, nobody was too good at anything to guard against unforeseen accidents. It was just as well to face possibilities as to close his eyes to them. He must be ready for anything.

  Red came trotting happily back, and was away again. As Danny dragged the toboggan up the long, steep trail his father took to Stoney Lonesome, he looked down at his feet. They seemed barely to move. Yet he saw by a dead stub beside the trail, that served them as a landmark, that in an hour he had come almost three miles. That was fast travel in deep snow when a man had to drag a toboggan.

  It was too fast. A quarter of a mile farther on Danny stopped to rest. He panted heavily, and sweat streamed down his face and back. He took the felt hat off and opened his jacket. Red returned to stand anxiously beside him.

  “If only I’d taught you to hunt men instead of partridges,” Danny half sobbed. “If only I had!”

  He turned to go on. Ross had to be somewhere, and he was as likely to be near the trail as anywhere else. But if he wasn’t, his son would go to all the traps, and from them he would branch out to scour every inch of Stoney Lonesome. Ross couldn’t die. Why, there would be hardly anything worth while if it wasn’t for his father. That foolish quarrel over Red! Danny should have let him hunt varmints or anything else Ross wanted. If only he could talk to his father just once and tell him how sorry he was!

>   Danny stumbled, and sprawled in the snow. He rose, angry and shouting. He had fallen over Red, who had come to a point in the trail.

  “Go on!” Danny snapped.

  Red took three uncertain steps forward and stopped again. Danny rushed angrily toward him. He reached down to grasp Red’s collar, but the toes of his snowshoes crossed and he stumbled forward again. His bare hands plunged deeply into the snow. They hit something soft and yielding, something that gave before them. It was a man’s trousered leg. Danny dug frantically, and lifted Ross Pickett from his snowy bed. His hand went under Ross’s shirt.

  His father was warm and his heart still beat.

  the next day, back at the cabin, danny served his father two roasted partridges and a great heap of mashed potatoes. He propped Ross up on pillows, and grinned when he began to wolf the food.

  “For a man as should of been dead, you’re sure hungry,” he observed. “How come you can eat so much?”

  Ross grinned back. “Can’t kill an old he-coon like me.” He tore off a great strip of breast meat and held it up in his fingers. “Come here, Red. Come here and have some vittles.”

  Red padded daintily across the floor, and his wagging tail thanked Ross for the offering. Danny’s eyes shone, because the two things that he loved best now loved each other. Ross looked at him.

  “ ’Twas a mighty lot of foolishment to fight over the dog, wasn’t it? But even if I hadn’t got over my mad, like the mule-head I am, and was waitin’ for you to say somethin’, I sure would know what a pointin’ dog is now. When that old trail give way beneath me I thought I was a cooked goose for certain. How come the dog found me, Danny?”

  Danny said soberly, “Red found you on account he’s got a better nose than any hound dog.”

  It was the first lie he had ever told his father. But it was more evasion than lie. Red was a partridge dog through and through. And, when he had pointed there in the snow, he had pointed not Ross, but the two partridges Ross had shot and put in his pocket.