The Preposterous Adventures of Swimmer

by Alexander Key

  “What’s your point, Hogarth?”

  “My point, Doctor, is that Swimmer had his reasons for running away. He’ll hate you if you take him back by force and cage him again.”

  “Nonsense! He needs to be taught a lesson.”

  “Treat him that way and he’ll refuse to work with you. Not only that, but it could be a very brutal business if Jules drives him out of his hiding place. We’ve reason to believe that more otters are with him, and they’ll probably be killed.”

  “I can’t help that.”

  “The devil you can’t! This happens to be a wildlife sanctuary. If you allow any sort of outrage here, I’ll give you some publicity you’ll never get over.”

  “Don’t threaten me with that one-horse paper of yours, Hogarth. I’m a man of means, and I’ll wreck you!”

  “Oh, no, Doctor. I’ll wreck you. My one-horse paper is merely a hobby. I’m Johnson Hogarth, and my comments are printed in hundreds of papers and read by millions of Americans.”

  There was a shocked silence. At last Mr. Tippet gasped, “Good heavens, I’d been thinking you looked familiar, but I didn’t realize you were Johnson Hogarth, the columnist!”

  “Should it make so much difference? Am I a man or a name?” Mr. Hogarth shook his head. “We humans haven’t much to be proud of. All I want is to make sure that Swimmer gets a fair deal—and that goes for all the other creatures.”

  Swimmer added Mr. Hogarth to his meager list of worthy humans and wondered what would really happen when the chips were down and Snake Eyes discovered the secret of the den’s entrance. Not, of course, that he intended for Ripple and Willow and himself to remain there very long after that event. But Snake Eyes was tricky, and with the thought of Doc’s money driving him on, he wouldn’t let anything stand in his way—much less a little nastiness with a club.

  Ever since the search had narrowed down to the tree, Swimmer’s uneasiness had been growing. Now, all at once, he had the awful feeling that something was very wrong. It was so overwhelming that he left the peephole and crept down to the main part of the den.

  In the dimness Willow and Ripple looked at him questioningly. There is more trouble somewhere?

  There is a wrongness. I feel it. The other entrance—when did you use it last?

  Before the ice melted, Willow told him. And Ripple added, This entrance was frozen.

  Let us try the other entrance now.

  Willow led the way. The tunnel was black and winding and suddenly so narrow from fallen rock that Swimmer stopped instinctively, then carefully backed out. In a moment Willow confirmed his fears. The rock walls had cracked and caved in, and the way was blocked completely. Nor could it be used as a temporary refuge, for there was no loose gravel or dirt available to seal it off tightly from the den.

  Swimmer was shaken. Even his leg, which had not troubled him since Clarence left, began to throb again. What a blatthead I was! he thought. Why didn’t we go to the beaver pond last night?

  But it wasn’t too late. If they worked it right, maybe they could slip past Snake Eyes and Jake and start downstream without being noticed.

  He climbed hurriedly to his peephole to study the possibilities, and again his hopes fell. In the short time he had been away from his post, Snake Eyes had taken the precaution of stretching a fishnet entirely around the tangle of roots. Now, both trappers were leaning over the net, using long willow switches to probe the curving holes.

  Even as Swimmer watched, Jake suddenly yelled as his flexible willow switch slid out of sight. “Found it! Trickiest thing I ever seen! I’ll git the bag net.”

  It was now, for the first time in his life, that Swimmer prayed. It was not to the remote god of humans that he prayed, for he rather doubted that this divinity had much time for poor otters beset by humans. Instead, his appeal went to the Great Force he had been too young to understand when captured and too shut away from in the lab even to feel. But he had been aware of it from the very moment of escape. It was the Power that directs the flow of streams, that designs the spots for nests and dens, that gives the food and brings new days, that lives and speaks in every growing thing beneath the sun.

  Please help us! he implored the Power.

  And instantly, because he was thinking of Ripple and Willow instead of himself, the answer came. It was so simple that he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it on his own, for even a one-eyed newt should have seen the straight of it.

  Of course, it rather upset his plan. But maybe, somehow, the Power would help him there.…

  Swimmer filled his lungs, pressed his face close against the opening, and called out as loudly and distinctly as he could in his smallish gnome voice:

  “Mr. Tippet! Mr. Tippet! This is Swimmer in the tree. Hold everything! I’m ready to make a deal.”

  8

  He Holds a Parley

  On Mr. Tippet’s strained and shattered face there was a curious mixture of shock and disbelief. On Mr. Hogarth’s face there was only a great wonder. Snake Eyes, in the act of cutting himself a chew of tobacco while he waited in the water for Jake, dropped his plug and stared upward like a man rudely slapped. Jake, who had just climbed to the bank, became a temporary idiot, for he merely stood there blankly and shook his head.

  It was Mr. Hogarth who first found his tongue. “Is that really you, Swimmer?”

  “It’s me, Mr. Hogarth. I’m almost over your head in this hollow place. And I’m mighty glad you’re here and on my side. Please, tell Mr. Tippet to tell Snake Eyes—Jules, I mean—to take the net away from the tree. They’ve no right to bother my friends. I’m the one they’re after.”

  Mr. Tippet gasped, “What—what is this? Some kind of a joke?”

  Mr. Hogarth said, “It’s no joke, Mr. Tippet. I can just make out Swimmer’s face up there in that hole between the leaves. He knows how to talk.”

  “But—but that’s impossible!”

  “Oh, come now! I once knew a dog that could talk, and I understand some dolphins are very proficient at it. Mr. Tippet, Swimmer made a request. What are you going to do about it?”

  “Oh, devil take it! Swimmer, what’s this all about?”

  “I told you I was ready to make a deal, Mr. Tippet. Tell that Jules to take his net away first and go back to where he has his dog tied up. I—I’ve got friends here with me and I don’t want him anywhere around.”

  Mr. Tippet shook his head, a little dazed. “But Swimmer, he—he’s not going to hurt your friends. He’s been expressly warned not to.”

  “Phooey!” Swimmer cried. “I know what’s in his scumpy mind better than you! He’s all set to gas the tree and kill my friends when they come out—and then say he couldn’t help it. He wants their pelts!”

  “Swimmer, you—you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I do too! He’s a dirty snake-eyed skrink, and I say get rid of him! He’s the one that trapped me years ago and killed my mother!”

  Before the astounded Mr. Tippet could pull his wits together, Snake Eyes came sloshing out of the creek, cursing. His threats were drowned in the sudden blast that came from the walkie-talkie.

  “Tippet! Confound it, Tippet, what the devil’s going on there? Explain yourself!”

  Mr. Hogarth, being much nearer, calmly picked up the walkie-talkie and said, “Doctor, this is Johnson Hogarth again. Mr. Tippet is having some trouble adjusting to an interesting new development. It may surprise you to know that Swimmer can talk. He is now trying to make a deal—”

  “Talk? Talk? Swimmer has a high I.Q., but speech is beyond him. What nonsense is this?”

  “It is not nonsense. Swimmer can talk, and he has a fine command of language, as four witnesses here can testify. Pardon me, but I see another development on the way. Here come Clarence and that Cherokee lawyer, Hiram Owl, and I believe that’s a Wildlife Commission officer with them. H’mm. I’m afraid you’re missing something by not being here, Doctor.”

  Swimmer was so glad to see Clarence’s face again that he
almost cried out, but caution held his tongue. Clarence was clearly up to something, and it had to do with the law. But what?

  Below him Clarence spoke politely to Mr. Tippet and Mr. Hogarth and introduced Mr. Owl. The lawyer was a quiet, square-bodied little man with a brown-gold squarish face that did indeed look like a dried apple, as Clarence had said, for it was crossed with a thousand small wrinkles. It surprised Swimmer when the lawyer and Mr. Hogarth shook hands, smiling, and called each other by their first names.

  “By the look in your eye, Hiram,” said Mr. Hogarth, “you’re ready to spring something. Another legal bomb?”

  “Johnny,” said Mr. Owl, “it’s just a small token of my respect for the otter clan, of which I happen to be a member.” He nodded toward the very blond young man in the khaki uniform and continued, “Gentlemen, this is Patrolman Swensen of the Wildlife Commission. Mr. Tippet, Patrolman Swensen is bringing you a restraining order from Judge Moffet’s office.”

  “A restraining order?” Mr. Tippet said sharply. “To restrain me from doing what?”

  “From doing what you’re doing, sir,” Patrolman Swensen said politely. He stepped forward and presented Mr. Tippet with a folded paper. “It’s a new one to me, sir, but it’s absolutely legal, for the judge explained it to me himself. It, er, forbids anyone to trap, catch, or in any manner to restrict the liberty of any wild, or formerly wild, creature indigenous to this area, while within the boundaries of a wildlife refuge.”

  “In other words,” said Mr. Owl, “the law forbids you to touch Swimmer as long as he’s here in the refuge.”

  Mr. Tippet stared at him, then glared accusingly at Clarence. Suddenly he snatched the walkie-talkie from Mr. Hogarth, and said hoarsely, “Doctor, this is Tippet. Were you able to hear enough to know what’s happened here?”

  “Yes, confound it, I heard it,” Dr. Hoffman’s voice roared back from the speaker. “Who is responsible for this—this infernal idiocy?”

  Mr. Tippet leveled an accusing finger at Clarence, but before he could say anything the black man reached for the walkie-talkie and said politely, “Dr. Hoffman, this is Clarence. You can blame me for the restraining order, sir. I got it for Swimmer’s own good. You see—”

  “No, I don’t see. I don’t see at all! When I hired you I expected loyalty—”

  “Sir, all my loyalty at this point is for Swimmer. If you’d just try to understand his side of it—”

  “Clarence,” Dr. Hoffman interrupted, and now his voice was like a grinding iceberg, “I’ll have to remind you that Swimmer is a laboratory creature whose training has cost me a fortune. As such, he is my private property to do with as I wish, and he has no rights whatever.”

  This was too much for Swimmer. “Ding blatt it!” he shrieked. “I’ve got rights, same as anyone else! If you wouldn’t act so skrinky, Doc, we might get along!”

  There was an abrupt silence below. Every head jerked toward him. Patrolman Swensen’s mouth gaped open, and he seemed powerless to close it. Mr. Owl’s wise black eyes crinkled, and he smiled with a secret delight.

  From the speaker Dr. Hoffman’s voice demanded, “What the devil was that noise?”

  Clarence said, “That was Swimmer, sir, and he insists that he does have rights.”

  Swimmer called, “Clarence, let me speak to him. I was all set to sell myself down the river when you came. Now, I don’t have to, glory be! Maybe I can make a real deal!”

  Clarence said worriedly, “If you can read my mind, Swimmer, you’ll realize I wasn’t able to buy very much on my shopping trip. Are you sure you know what you’re doing now?”

  Swimmer gulped. He saw clearly at last that Clarence had wanted to buy the mortgaged trout farm through the bank. Only, something had happened. Swimmer said, “Maybe we’d better let Mr. Owl handle this. I’m sorta shy on law-training, and Mr. Owl looks like my kind of man. Will you represent me, Mr. Owl?”

  Mr. Owl’s black eyes crinkled again. He smiled and nodded. “It would be a pleasure, Swimmer. Just tell me what you want done!”

  “The net’s the first thing,” Swimmer said. “Tell the Wildlife officer to make that dirty trapper take it away. Then he can drive the scummy skrink and his rotty dog and his helper off the place. Ding ’em to dongnation, I never want to see ’em again!”

  Swimmer drew a deep breath. The big deal was next. In spite of Clarence’s failure at the bank, he was sure something could be arranged, and that Mr. Owl could work out the details. The main thing was to hold what people called a top-level conference. And the sooner, the better, for something told him that a delay might be dangerous. “Mr. Owl,” he said, “tell Doc Hoffman that if he wants me to go on any more lecture tours with him, he’d better come out here right away and have a little talk.”

  By the timekeeping arrangement in the back of Swimmer’s mind it was five minutes after three that afternoon when the great Dr. Rufus Hoffman, accompanied by Mr. Tippet who had gone to meet him at the road, came down through the forest to join the group under the beech tree. The trappers and the Wildlife man had left, and there remained only Clarence, Mr. Owl, and Mr. Hogarth.

  Dr. Hoffman had been anything but pleased with the idea of the meeting, and Swimmer knew he was considerably less pleased now as he moved with implacable dignity to the tree. Ignoring Clarence, Dr. Hoffman merely nodded at Mr. Owl and bestowed his handshake only upon Mr. Hogarth, whom he obviously considered worthy by reason of reputation. Finally he sat down on a campstool provided by Mr. Tippet and frowningly surveyed those in front of him, like God sitting in judgment. With his great shock of white hair and white moustache and goatee, he was an impressive and commanding figure.

  “This,” he ground out coldly, “is the most outrageous thing I ever heard of! Where’s Swimmer?”

  “Right here, Doc,” said Swimmer, as he limped up from the pebbly area and settled beside Clarence. “As Mr. Owl told you, I’m willing to make a deal. But first each of us will have to make a few con—con—What’s the blatted word?”

  “Concessions,” said Clarence.

  “That’s right. Concessions. But Mr. Owl will explain it to you.”

  Dr. Hoffman seemed not to hear. He was staring at Swimmer with open-mouthed surprise. “Why,” he exclaimed, “you really can talk! Somehow I couldn’t quite believe it.”

  “Oh, he can talk,” Mr. Owl said drily, “and he’s not at all backward in the use of language. It should add considerably to his box-office appeal.”

  “Mr. Owl, I am hardly interested in box-office appeal. I am a scientist as well as a man of means.”

  Mr. Owl nodded, smiling faintly. “Yes, but I happen to know that your income from lecturing has gone up enormously since Swimmer began appearing with you. Therefore, before he appears again, he must have a contract giving him a percentage of the earnings.”

  “That is utterly ridiculous,” said the doctor. “I presume you and Clarence are planning to pocket most of it?”

  “Not one penny of it. There are some men, Doctor, whose minds do not happen to work that way. Clarence has an adequate pension, and I have more than I need. Our only reward will be Swimmer’s friendship.”

  “Oh, come now,” Dr. Hoffman said irritably. “What kind of game is this? Swimmer has no use for money!”

  “But I have!” Swimmer burst out. “And it’s a whump-dooley of a good use too! I—I want to adopt Penny Jones.”

  “What?”

  Mr. Hogarth said, “Doctor, he has a great regard for that little redheaded girl I told you about earlier. We’ve explained to him about the difficulties of adoption, but Mr. Owl thinks he can work out something by which I will be the legal guardian and Swimmer a sort of contributing associate. In other words, his income would go to Penny’s support and future schooling. She’s a most extraordinary—”

  “I have no interest whatever in extraordinary children,” Dr. Hoffman interrupted coldly. “Is this the only reason you wanted a contract?”

  “By no means,” said Mr. Owl, smiling his odd
little smile. “Swimmer insists upon several other points. First, the establishment of a summer laboratory in this section of the mountains—he prefers the trout farm, and I understand it can be bought. Next, he wants Clarence to remain with him, as usual, and he requests that Miss Primm be brought from the city, along with the white mouse and the mynah bird. Miss Primm, by the way, can be Penny’s companion and governess.”

  After a pause, Mr. Owl went on, “We come, finally, to what could be the most important part—”

  “You mean he wants more?” Dr. Hoffman said with thunderous sarcasm.

  “Yes,” Mr. Owl admitted. “And I’m sure you’ll find this part uncommonly interesting. In fact, the entire world—”

  “I don’t want to hear it!” the doctor thundered, rising. “I’ve heard enough already. This is preposterous, utterly preposterous! Do you think for a moment I’d ever allow myself to be dictated to by—by an animal? An overgrown member of the weasel family? The very idea of it is revolting. When I regain possession of him—and I will—he’ll be taught a lesson! Come, Tippet. Show me the way back.”

  Swimmer felt as if he had been slapped and kicked. He had had it all planned for Ripple to come out at this time and be introduced. Mr. Owl and Mr. Hogarth had already met her, and they had really flipped. Mr. Owl had said, “Why, she’s just as you described her, Swimmer. She’s as cute as a water bug and as bright as a chickadee!” And Mr. Hogarth had added, “What a pair you’ll make! Dr. Hoffman’s bound to love her.”

  But now the bright vision of Ripple and himself wearing silver bells onstage together went glimmering.

  Swimmer stared, stricken, at the doctor’s retreating back. “You—you—” he burst out. Then he found his tongue and cried, “Sure, maybe I am an overgrown weasel. But I’d rather be that than a puffed-up member of the ape family, like you! That’s what you are—a skrinky old swelled-up blattheaded ape!”

  Dr. Hoffman paused briefly and glared backward, mouth agape as if he could not believe his ears. Mr. Hogarth chuckled and said, “You tell ’im, Swimmer—and I’ll tell the world!”