The Land Breakers

by John Ehle

  “He’ll be on top of the fire coals if we don’t watch him.”

  “Can he read tracks well enough to know about his father?”

  “Which father is it you mean? They’s two up here, if I can read tracks at all.”

  “About Mooney.”

  “No, he don’t know. No need to worry him.”

  “It was that loose rock that took him off balance. He fell a ways, all right.”

  “I thought it was his left leg he hurt for a while, but it was the right one.”

  “Lost his powder, too.”

  “Must have happened soon after he fired that shot yesterday. Looks like he would a started back home for he’s got no powder. He might have one shot left, if his rifle’s loaded.”

  “He might a busted his rifle, too.”

  “He’s still on the trail, anyhow. He’s got a will as tough as that tree trunk. You can’t bend him. He come into the woods to kill the bear, and he’ll try to do it.”

  “He’ll not kill him with an ax,” Nicholas said.

  “He might. He’ll try anyway.”

  Fate was listening, but he didn’t open his eyes. He heard Jacob grunt and poke around with a stick in the fire. “Lacey’s been trailing him most of today,” Jacob said. “He’s often been close enough to watch him.”

  “Might a been,” Nicholas said.

  The dog began to bark, and the men were quiet. Then the dog stopped. “Must be a bear up there now,” Jacob said.

  “Or a deer.”

  “I wonder what ever happened to that bear that walked with Mina once up on that ridge. It was an old one and was reel-footed, like this one Mooney’s after. I never could decide why the bear followed Mina, unless it was kindness.”

  “Waiting for her to die,” Nicholas said. “He probably had chewed his teeth down to nothing, like an old cow. He had to wait for something to die.”

  “Well, that may be,” Jacob said. “This could be the same bear, you know it?”

  “You think he was heading back to the settlement tonight?” Nicholas asked.

  “I don’t know where he’s going. He might a got so old his mind has froze on him. They get hateful then, get revengeful when they begin to scent their own days of weakness ahead. They get like an old man, like me, and want what they’ve not got, or want what used to be, and they’re out of sorts generally.”

  They went on talking, and all the while, Fate knew Mooney was hurt, was out there on the mountain somewhere.

  “A bear’ll eat grass like a cow,” Jacob was saying. “They eat potatoes. In the Watauga country, they dig them up from the ground and eat them, and they like corn. They eat fish, which they catch for themselves. One swat of a paw and they’ve knocked a fish out of water. They can strike faster than a fish can move. They eat all sorts of berries and fruits, dig up roots and eat them like they can’t get enough, eat acorns and chinkapins and other nuts, tear open honey trees and eat the honey and bees both, eat grubs and bugs and insects, eat pigs and sheep; they’ll knock a bull down with a blow and eat him; kill an ox and eat him; in fact, I don’t know of nothing they don’t eat.”

  Fate wished he were home and off that mountain. The bigness of the mountain was above him and below them, and the blackness of the valley was like a pit.

  “Lacey tells of a white bear once in Watauga,” Jacob said.

  “White-haired?”

  “I wisht I’d caught him as a cub. I’d a put him on a rope and tamed him, and inside of a month I’d been a king of the Cherokee.”

  Nicholas chuckled.

  “I’d had all those Indian maidens around me, combing my beard and petting me, for the Indians come close to worshipping the bear. They even always pray before they slaughter one. I wonder why that’s so with a bear more than anything else.”

  “The bears are tougher.”

  “I wonder; I wonder. A bear when he raises on his hind feet and looks at you, holds those two front paws of his up, ready to knock down anything that comes near him, he looks so proud and able, he looks sure of hisself, for I guess he never has seen a creature he couldn’t kill. Even a panther he can kill. Then he looks away from you, seems to be looking off at the woods enjoying the weather and contemplating where he’s going to go once he’s knocked hell out of you. When you shoot him, he whoofs as if you’ve surprised him a mite, and then most likely he charges, moving faster than the word of God.”

  The dog began to growl low in his throat, but he grew quiet again.

  They were all quiet for a while, and Fate faded off into deeper sleep. Far off he heard the German say, “If Mooney catches up with this one, he’ll have his hands full.”

  He heard Jacob say, “I wonder what Lacey is waiting for,” and Fate wondered what he meant. He faded off from them, and his mind dwelled on Indians and bears.

  Before dawn they heard the dogs in the valley far off. The hound voices came up to them, a bellowing, howling music, hounds baying as they ran. Fate sat up and caught hold of Henry, who was straining at the leash to be off, and Jacob got up at once and told Henry to hush. He looked at the boy and Nicholas. “What the devil is it?” he said. But he knew what it was. Somebody had put dogs on the trail; even Fate knew that, and the dogs were racing along the mountain near its base. Fate could tell that they were traveling fast, probably near the Plovers’ clearing, running toward the German house.

  “Those are Harrison’s hounds,” Nicholas said.

  “There are seven in all, sounds like,” Jacob said.

  The dogs made a fearful musical melody, yet the voice of each dog was distinct. Fate could count the voices, each one clear; there was nothing husky about any of them.

  Jacob patted Henry, who was anxious to be gone. “You can’t catch up with them, Henry,” he said. “Those dogs are a long way off.”

  “Running up past the riverhead,” Nicholas said. “Done gone past that.”

  “I think so,” Jacob said. “But they’re in that cove yet, and they’re on a warm trail. That bear might a struck again this morning. Might a struck at Harrison’s place, and Harrison let him have his pack.”

  “The bear’s not in their sight yet, though,” Nicholas said.

  “That’s so. The dogs ain’t seen him yet.”

  Nicholas’ eyes brightened as he stared into the valley. “Listen to it. You can’t help listening to it. For a thousand years, men have followed that sound.”

  Baying, rising and falling, the sound went on, sweeping along the valley floor, starting up the mountain. Henry was so nervous he wouldn’t lie down, and even Jacob got snapped at when he tried to quiet him. There was a loyalty in the dog that went back even further than his loyalty to Jacob.

  “Henry, you ain’t going to get in no fight this morning,” Jacob told him sternly, but the dog pulled at the leash until he almost choked himself.

  “They’ve crossed that oak-topped ridge,” Nicholas said, “that little masty ridge.”

  “They ain’t caught sight of him yet, but they’re blazing ground, ain’t they?”

  The men watched as if they could see them over to their left, still making a big arc, for they had gone upriver past the headwaters, had kept bearing to the left, had kept coming around, had crossed the oak-topped ridge and had charged down into the shallow valley beyond. Now they were beyond the ridge of the mountain itself.

  Jacob started throwing goods into his pack. “Hurry, boy,” he said to Fate. “They’re still coming around.”

  Henry was chewing on the leash and howling now and then. “Henry, shet up,” Jacob said, but the dog snarled at him. “Damn you, I don’t want you gone,” Jacob said, and he tried to pat the dog, but the dog wouldn’t allow it. The dog growled at him, and Jacob growled back; then Jacob shrugged and said all right, and the dog grew gentle.

  Jacob took the leash off, and the dog licked his hand. The leash was off, but the dog lay there, his head between his paws. Jacob ran his hand over the dog’s head and neck and spoke gently to him. “Now, don’t do nothing crazy
, Henry. Don’t get yourself cut up or killed. You’re getting on in years, damn you, so you slow down, you hear? Don’t try nothing fancy out there. Them seven others are younger’n you, and they ain’t got your experience, but they’ve got more strength left. You hear?”

  The dog had got tired of listening to him. He cocked his ear toward the hound music and was ready to be off.

  “All right, damn you, git,” Jacob said, and the dog left in a burst of power, was gone before Fate knew he had left, was gone faster than any dog the boy had ever seen leave before, was gone like an arrow released from a strong bow, and not toward the hounds, either. Henry went up the side of the mountain, as if he knew where the hounds were going and would meet them.

  Fate stood by the horse and watched the dog as long as he could see him. “He don’t howl,” he said, disappointed.

  “What you mean?” Jacob said. “He’ll howl when he gets on the trail.”

  “What’s he gone up there for?” Fate asked, still critical.

  “He’s gone to meet him. He’s got a notion that the bear is making an uphill circle.”

  “Which it is,” Nicholas said. “But Henry might turn the bear, if he meets him head on.”

  “He’ll tree him, more’n likely,” Jacob said.

  Nicholas looked up at the peak; then his gaze trailed to the right, to the gap that separated the peak from the ridge. “That’s where Henry’s headed,” he said. “It might be that’s where the bear’s coming through, if he carries out a tight circle.”

  “There or at the gap the other side of the peak,” Jacob said.

  “That bear’s running like a streak,” Nicholas said. “Probably loped along easy for a time, but he knows now.”

  The dogs were over beyond the ridge, to Fate’s right as he looked up the mountain. The hounds were over on the far side of that long ridge, in the far valley, where yesterday Fate had been. That was a long way off, and he didn’t understand how they could be over there when only a while before they had been in the settlement.

  The men without a word got up at the same time and started up the mountainside, leaving the horse for Fate to bring. They began to run, clambered upward. They made their own path; they went up the steep way, seemed to Fate, moving toward the east gap.

  “They’ve swung in,” Nicholas shouted back. Jacob stopped. Fate saw Jacob’s face, saw that Jacob was breathing heavily, was gasping for breath, and Fate thought he saw pain there, but he could not be sure, for Jacob turned from him and started up the mountainside again.

  The baying was loud now, coming along the far side of the ridge. “Damn, damn,” Jacob said aloud. “Damn that, listen to that.”

  “They see the bear,” Nicholas called, and leaped into the air. He began to run faster toward the gap, flailing one arm out as he ran to balance the weight of his rifle.

  The howls of the hounds had grown more frantic; they were yapping now.

  “Damn, damn,” Jacob said, running upward, slipping on the rocks, finding his footing again, a shaft of pain crossing his face as he moved toward the gap. “Come on,” he told Fate, who could not keep up. “Tie that horse, damn it, and keep up.”

  “He’s coming through that gap,” Nicholas called back, and swung around, ran upward again, yelling out in his excitement. They could not reach the gap in time, Fate knew. Nicholas might reach it, but not Jacob. Jacob was running toward a spot below the gap where doubtless a brook fell from the high place. Jacob was tearing through a thicket now which ripped at his clothes, was going forward powerfully, driving forward, his great legs beating against the thickets that tried to hold him, his powerful arms shoving back the bushes. The noise of the pack was close, was almost on them. The sound increased, and Fate knew the pack had reached the gap.

  Above them they could see the gap, and below them was the brook bed, with brown and gray rocks and green ferns along it. The dogs were loud now. Fate heard a shot from above; Nicholas had fired. Almost at once he saw Jacob take aim. Fate heard the gun fire just as he saw the bear, a huge bundle of dark-brown fur moving like a flash of a prayer down that brook bed, tumbling, rolling and crashing through laurel, leaping, rolling again, running, tumbling, twisting himself around every obstacle, over rocks, through bushes with great blows and noise, hurtling forward, disappearing below, almost before Fate had seen him and well before he believed what he saw.

  Henry appeared. “Get him, Henry,” Jacob shouted, and began to run down along the top of the branch gorge, waving his leather hat at the racing dog, which was a streak of brown, and behind Henry came the pack, their voices loud, filling Fate’s ears so that he could hear nothing except the noise they made as they moved without seeming to touch the ground, a pack of streaks of fur baying as they ran, and finally, behind them, running as best he could, waving his hat as he ran, came Nicholas, yelling out, “It’s him, it’s him, it’s the big bear, by God, it’s him!”

  They found the horse and sat down on the rocks to get their breath. They were bleeding from hand and face cuts, but they didn’t care. The hounds were in the valley now and were louder than before. It was restful to hear them now, to sit high on the mountain and listen to them without moving even so much as a finger.

  “He went down that hill like a landslide,” Jacob said. “He rolled. Did you see him, boy?”

  Fate nodded.

  “He left them dogs, once he hit that gap. A dog ain’t been born yet that can match a bear going downhill.”

  “Have they got it to the valley yet?” Fate asked.

  “The bear’s turned,” Nicholas said. “He’s going along above the settlement. He’s swinging on around the mountainside, finding new territory to lose them in. He’s above your mama’s clearing now.”

  “Did you see him tumble, boy?” Jacob asked. “Lord, they don’t hurt themselves for some reason. He took those two gunshots and didn’t even stop.”

  “I don’t know that I hit him,” Nicholas said.

  “He don’t care one way or the other,” Jacob said.

  They listened to the hounds awhile; then they ate a piece of cold bread and started walking along the side of the mountain in the direction the dogs had gone, moving to their own right as they faced the valley floor. They walked for an hour. Fate got tired, and once he mounted the horse and tried to ride, but the ground was rough, the horse could scarcely keep its footing, so he got off. He was tired to death, but he kept up, and the bear kept changing his course, switched around below them, came back this way, then went the other, uphill and down, until he and the dogs were at a place downriver. Toward afternoon the bear made its circle and started back, running along the river valley, then coming up the edge of the ridge moving slower, until at last it treed.

  Fate could tell the difference in the voices of the hounds. The bear had treed to rest, and the dogs were barking at him to come down. At once Jacob and Nicholas started running, and Fate tied the horse and ran after them. He ran until his legs were shaky, so that he couldn’t be sure of running much farther.

  Nicholas stopped, waved them to be quiet.

  They crept forward. The hound sounds were loud and were from close by now.

  Fate was the first one to see the bear, and he pointed him out to Jacob. The bear was sitting high in a hickory tree, was gazing off unconcernedly across the valley, enjoying the breezes. When he looked down and saw them, he considered who they might be disinterestedly, watched them lazily, contentedly, as if he had been watching them all along.

  Abruptly he started down the tree. Nicholas ran, Jacob following, Fate last in line. The boy broke through the thicket in time to see the bear reach the ground. Nicholas fired. The bear slapped down a dog, then caught another one in its paws and crushed it as if it had been a puff ball, threw it aside and started up the mountain. Dogs began biting at his heals as he ran.

  Fate sank down to the ground, stunned by the show of strength he had seen and by the death of the dog.

  The men stopped at the base of the tree where the bear had b
een. “I know I hit him that time,” Nicholas said.

  Jacob knelt beside the dead dog, one of Harrison’s males.

  Another dog was licking its wounds nearby. “That one’s all right,” Nicholas said. “Come on, girl,” he said, clicking his fingers to her. The dog got up. He patted her head, and she wagged her tail. “Go on home, girl,” he told her. He picked up a stick and threw it toward the settlement. “Go on, girl,” he said.

  She stood watching him, wandering what he meant.

  “She’ll get home,” Jacob said, “or follow us,” and he stared along the ridge to find the horse.

  They had barely reached the horse when they heard the bear tree again, and at once Nicholas was off running uphill, but Jacob hesitated this time. He closed his eyes and stood near the horse, a grayness to his skin now; then he shook his head. “Come on, boy,” he said, and started up the mountain.

  They moved this time toward the northeast, toward the top of the east range. They went as fast as they could over the tearing, hard terrain, the sapling limbs scraping against their hands and faces and bruising their bodies. The urgency of the hounds pulled them on.

  Nicholas was far in the lead. Jacob was too tired to stay near. Fate lingered with him.

  They heard a gunshot and stopped, wondering if Nicholas had fired, but Jacob said it was not Nicholas’ gun and that the bear was yet some distance from them. He began to run, and when he caught up with Nicholas, he found him confused about the shot, too. “Who you reckon fired it?” Jacob asked him.

  “It might a been Lacey, or Mooney firing his last one.”

  “It’s not likely old man Harrison or Grover, or them cross-river men, not on a hunt this tedious,” Jacob said. He was panting for breath and holding a hand against his chest, as if his chest were trying to heave itself away from him.

  They started moving in the direction of the hounds, but before they had gone half a mile, they heard the trail voices of the hounds again; the bear had left the tree and was off running.

  “Whoever it was didn’t kill him,” Nicholas said.

  Jacob stopped all of a sudden, stood listening. Fate asked him something, but Jacob waved him quiet. After a pause, a smile came over his face. “You hear that? You hear Henry?” he said.