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The Black Fawn
_Other books by_ Jim Kjelgaard
THE LAND IS BRIGHT
THE LOST WAGON
BIG RED
REBEL SIEGE
FOREST PATROL
BUCKSKIN BRIGADE
CHIP, THE DAM BUILDER
FIRE HUNTER
IRISH RED
KALAK OF THE ICE
A NOSE FOR TROUBLE
SNOW DOG
TRAILING TROUBLE
WILD TREK
THE EXPLORATIONS OF PERE MARQUETTE
THE SPELL OF THE WHITE STURGEON
OUTLAW RED
THE COMING OF THE MORMONS
CRACKER BARREL TROUBLE SHOOTER
LION HOUND
TRADING JEFF AND HIS DOG
DESERT DOG
HAUNT FOX
THE OKLAHOMA LAND RUN
DOUBLE CHALLENGE
SWAMP CAT
WILDLIFE CAMERAMAN
WOLF BROTHER
RESCUE DOG OF THE HIGH PASS
The Black Fawn
by Jim Kjelgaard
Dodd, Mead & Company
New York
(C) 1958 BY JIM KJELGAARD
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Tenth Printing_
NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION IN
WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER
_The characters, places, incidents and situations in this book are
imaginary and have no relation to any person, place or actual happening_
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 58-13083
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
To my wife
because, in twenty years together, the longest days I've ever spent were
those when we were not together
The Black Fawn
chapter 1
Evening shadows lowered like a cool, dark wing folding gently over the
day, but the coming of night brought no change in the refrain that over
and over again kept running through Bud Sloan's brain.
"I must not let them know I'm afraid. I must remember my manners. I must
not let them know I'm afraid! I must remember my manners! I must
not . . ."
He clenched his teeth as though somehow that would clamp down on the
unwanted words and shove them back into the dark recesses where they
belonged. But they were in his brain, not his mouth, and clenching his
teeth only seemed to make the refrain ring all the more loudly. He
opened his mouth and said before he could stop himself,
"I must not . . ."
"You must not what?" Gram Bennett asked.
She sat at the side of the little table in the kitchen and not at the
great one in the dining room as when all the Bennetts' eleven children
were home. Then Gramps sat at the head of the table and Gram at the
foot. But the little table was big enough now that there were only three
of them for most meals.
"Nothing." Bud choked. "I--I was just thinking out loud."
"You needn't be afraid to speak up, Allan. If there's something you must
not do, you have only to say so."
Gram spoke very gently, but Bud squirmed. He did not wriggle on his
chair for he had learned to hide as well as he could what he really
felt. To show your feelings was to show your weakness, and there was
always somebody ready to pounce on a weakness. He should have known
better than to talk out loud.
"Tell us, Allan," Gram coaxed.
"There's nothing to tell," he said, looking down at his plate and
feeling his cheeks flush.
* * * * *
He had come to live with Gram and Gramps only yesterday morning and it
seemed an eternity since the bus driver had stopped on the blacktop road
and pointed out the rutted drive leading to the Bennetts' huge old
farmhouse.
"That's it, son," he had said.
With his little bundle of belongings wrapped in a spare shirt and tucked
under his right arm--the orphanage did not furnish suitcases when they
farmed you out--Bud started up the drive with his head high and with
what he hoped was a fearless, manly tread. But his insides felt like
jelly that has stood too long in a warm place and his feet seemed to
weigh five hundred pounds each. If he had been sure no one was looking,
he would have burst into tears. He could not be sure, and not for an
instant must he forget that weakness made him an easy prey for whoever
saw it. He did not think of running.
Bud was twenty yards from the house when Gramps Bennett came around one
corner. Bud stopped in his tracks and grasped his bundle so tightly that
his knuckles whitened.
At first glance Gramps seemed to be a huge man, but after a second look
you saw that he merely seemed huge because he was short. He stood five
feet six in his work-scuffed brogans, faded blue jeans and an equally
faded denim work shirt. He seemed to be almost as big around as he was
tall. Hamlike hands hung from his shirt sleeves, a short, thick neck
rose from the collar. A stubby white beard almost hid Gramps' lips and
he had an aquiline nose, piercing eyes and a leonine mane of white hair.
Gramps' voice sounded like a lion's roar as he said,
"You the boy from the orphanage?"
"Yes, sir," Bud said, still trying to conduct himself as a man should.
"Got a name?" Gramps asked caustically.
"Yes, sir," the boy said. "Bud Sloan."
"Bud, eh? I've heard worse names. Come meet Gram."
Without another word or a backward look and with astonishing agility for
his bulk, Gramps turned on his heel and led the way to the kitchen door
at the back of the house. There was also a front door, but that was for
company use.
Bud felt better when he saw four cattle in a pasture near the barn. Two
horses raised inquiring heads over the bars of the paddock, pigs grunted
in their sty and chickens, ducks and turkeys roamed at will around the
farmyard. Then a big and furry farm collie came trotting slowly toward
the house.
Bud almost smiled. He had always understood animals. He did not know
why, unless it was because they always accepted him for what he was and
never cared where he came from or who supported him. His most cherished
memory of the orphanage was a pet kitten he had had there. His first
heartbreak had come when that kitten had been killed by a passing car.
Seeing the animals here seemed somehow to remove half his burdens.
Bud turned for a last look at the dog before Gramps opened the door and
he entered the kitchen to meet Gram.
"Why, Allan! How wonderful you're here at last!"
Bud writhed. For although his proper name was Allan, he hated it.
Gram was taller than Gramps, and slim. Her hair was gray. Sixty years
and eleven children had left their mark on her face and work-worn hands,
but her tread was lithe and easy as she advanced on Bud. When she
stooped to enfold him in her arms, she seemed taller than the Eiffel
Tower. Gram planted a resounding kiss on his cheek.
"Welcome, Allan, and may you be happy with us!"
Bud sputtered and squirmed away from Gram. It was the first time he
could remember being kissed and he considered it a degrading experience.
He looked up to see Gramps regarding him balefully.
"You told me your name was Bud," Gramps snorted.
"It is!"
"Pooh," said Gram. "It's Allan written on the card and it's Allan I'll
call him. Have a tart, Allan."
She gave him a crisp-baked tart filled with jelly. Bud meant to refuse
it, for he neither asked for nor wanted favors. But a boy's hunger
asserted itself and he accepted it, mumbled his thanks and began to eat
it, looking around the kitchen as he did.
He noticed only that it was much smaller than the kitchen at the
orphanage and that the huge, old-fashioned wood-burning range, the
wooden cupboards, the pantry off the kitchen and the worn furniture and
scuffed linoleum looked shabby in comparison with the antiseptic, modern
appointments of the orphanage kitchen.
Bud finished the tart and, stealing a glance into the adjoining living
room, saw a mounted buck's head peering glassily back at him. Hastily he
wiped his hands on his trousers and looked away.
"Do you think you'll like it here?" Gram asked.
"Yes, ma'am," Bud said dutifully.
"Will you have another tart?"
"No, ma'am."
"Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am," Gramps mimicked. "That all they taught you to
say at that there orphanage?"
"No, sir."
"Well, if you've had all you want to eat, Bud," Gramps said, looking
meaningfully at Gram as he emphasized the nickname, "we might as well
put you to work."
"Now, Delbert," Gram said, "I say that boy ought to rest his first day
with us."
"And I say he ought not," Gramps said firmly. "He might as well get the
idea why he's here from the first, and why he's here is to work. Come
on, Bud."
Bud said nothing as he turned to follow Gramps out of the kitchen, but
he was not worried. He had known he was coming to work. Tales from other
farmed-out youngsters had drifted back to the orphanage and some of them
were not pretty tales, but anything was better than continuing as an
object of charity. He was a man and he could stand on his own two feet.
Although he might not like what came, he could face it.
He felt a little better when they came onto the back porch. The big dog
that had been ambling toward the house when he arrived was now lying on
the stoop. It rose, wagged its tail amiably and touched Bud's hand with
a moist muzzle. No matter what happened, Bud thought, it couldn't be all
bad now that he had a friend.
Gramps did not stop or look back until they came to a broad cultivated
field in which orderly rows of fledgling crops had been so carefully
planted and so precisely spaced that they formed an exact pattern. The
dog, who knew that he was not to walk on cultivated ground, sat down at
the edge of the field. Bud asked his name.
"Shep," Gramps said, and then he pointed to the field. "Do you know what
those are?"
"No, sir."
"Beans," said Gramps, and the tone of his voice showed pity for anybody
unable to identify a growing bean. "Now stoop down here 'longside me."
Bud did as he was told and Gramps caught a bean, which had broad leaves
and a fragile stem, between his forefingers and held it gently.
"Have yourself a real good look."
Bud concentrated on the bean until a full minute later when Gramps said,
"Know what it looks like?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Now, everything in this field that ain't a bean is a weed. Every
weed steals from the beans just like a bank robber steals from a bank."
"I don't understand you, sir," Bud said.
"Think, boy, and quit calling me sir," Gramps said impatiently. "What
makes the beans grow big and strong, if not the goodness of the earth?
And what else do the weeds live on? For every weed that steals the
earth's richness, the beans suffer accordingly."
"That's wonderful!"
Gramps looked at him oddly, but Bud was too surprised and delighted to
notice. He had never thought of nature in such terms and it _was_
wonderful. Gramps got down on his hands and knees and, supporting
himself on both knees and with his left hand, deftly used his right hand
to pluck a small weed from among the growing beans. He held the weed up
for Bud to look at.
"There you are. A pigweed, and a month from now it would be waist high
to you. Its roots would be so big and grown so deep that when you pulled
it out a half dozen beans would come with it. Now, between the rows we
can hoe 'em out or cultivate 'em. But we can't use either a hoe or
cultivator on the rows themselves, and I guess even you can see why."
"Yes, sir."
Gramps' tone remained caustic but Bud refused to be ruffled. He would
earn his own way and the right to hold his head high.
"Sure you know what a bean looks like?" Gramps asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Then I want you to work down all these rows and pick the weeds out from
the beans."
Bud got down on his hands and knees and started on the first row. He was
more interested than he had thought he could be, for what otherwise
would have been an onerous task took on new meaning in the light of what
Gramps had told him. He was not just pulling weeds; he was destroying
robbers bent on stealing for themselves the goodness from the earth that
properly belonged to the growing beans.
When he thought he was surely at the end of the row, he looked up to
find that he was less than halfway down it. Then another sight caught
his eyes.
Beyond the barn and the pasture, where the cattle now stood lazily in
the shade of a single tree and chewed placid cuds, the unbroken green
border of the forest began. The trees were cutover hardwoods for the
most part, but here and there a pine rose above them and an occasional
gaunt stub towered over even the pines. Bud looked and wondered and
promised himself that, as soon as he could, he would go into the forest
and see for himself what was there. But now there were weeds to pull.
After what seemed an eternity, he reached the end of the first row and
turned back on the second one. He did not look up again, for he felt
guilty about stopping work. He tried to forget the ache in his bent back
and the strain on his legs, for he knew he must work. When at last he
came to the end of the second row and turned back on the third, he heard
Gram saying,
"I've brought you a drink, Allan. Real, honest-to-goodness ice-cold
lemonade. Come have some."
Bud rose to his knees, trying hard not to wince, and saw Gram, who was
wearing a faded gingham dress and a sunbonnet that had gone out of style
a quarter of a century ago. She was carrying a pail from which the
handle of a tin dipper protruded and in which chunks of ice tinkled.
Cold droplets clung to the outer surface of the pail.
Gram smiled as Bud came forward, and he looked at her warily. There was
no telling what might happen when people smiled. But thirst triumphed
over caution. He filled the dipper, drained it, and filled it and
drained it again. Ice-cold lemonade was delicious in any case and it
seemed twenty times better from a tin dipper.
"More?" Gram said.
"No thank you, ma'am."
"How is it going?"
"Very well, ma'am."
"Don't you work too hard," she said, and went off to offer some lemonade
to Gramps.
Bud went back to his weeding, crawling slowly along the lines of beans
with his eyes fixed on their lower stalks. Anything that was not a bean
must be a weed, Gramps had said, and Bud acted accordingly. By now the
romance of what he was doing had faded, but he kept on, determined to
pay his own way.
A sudden bellow from Gramps was as startling as the wail of a fire
engine. "Hey, Bud. Don'cha eat at noon?"
* * * * *
Bud rose and turned to face the old man, who said, "Don't the sun tell
you it's noon?"
"No," Bud said.
"When the sun's where she is, and when she don't cast 'nough shadow to
hide a grasshopper, it's noon."
Bud pondered this new and fascinating bit of lore. He looked at the sun
and tried to fix its position indelibly in his mind so that forever
afterward he would know when it was noon. Though the sun had never told
him anything before, from now on it would.
"Let's move!" Gramps bellowed.
Bud followed. Shep, who had devoted the cool portion of the morning to
sniffing out various creatures in their lairs and had then gone to lie
in the tall grass when the sun became hot, joined them. Bud and Gramps
washed at the old hand pump beside the stoop, rubbed their hands and
faces dry with a rough towel that hung over the pump and went into the
kitchen.
Bud sank wearily into his chair and it seemed to him that he had never
before known how good it could be just to sit down. But he had worked
too hard not to be even hungrier than usual, and he could not ignore the
smell of the food on the table.
Gram's lunch began with pork chops and mashed potatoes and ended with a
delicious chilled product of the kitchen's major concession to modern
living, a big refrigerator.
There was no time for conversation or anything else except eating.
Gramps emptied his plate first, pushed it back and sighed contentedly. A
moment later when Bud had drained his final glass of milk, Gramps said,
"How about getting back to work?"
"Yes, sir."
"Delbert," Gram said sharply, "that boy should rest."
"Pshaw. He'll rest better after he works harder. How 'bout it?"
"Yes, sir," Bud said without enthusiasm.
The morning had been hard and the afternoon was torture. But Bud stayed
grimly with the weeds until the sun lowered and Gramps called to him
that it was time for supper. Bud was almost reeling with fatigue and he
was grateful when Gramps pumped a basin of water for him to wash in.
Although he happily stuffed himself with Gram's supper, only his
resolution to show no weakness kept him from dozing once supper was
over.
Evidently as brisk as he had been in the early morning, Gramps bounced
from his chair. "If you're done, Bud, how 'bout giving me a hand with
the milking?"
"Delbert," Gram said, "you're a . . ."
"I'm a what?" Gramps asked innocently.
"A Simon Legree. You're working that youngster a sight harder than you
ever worked yourself."
Gramps said piously, "The Lord said there shall be a day and there shall
be a night. Man shall work for as long as day shall last. Right offhand,
I can't rightly recall if He said anything 'bout working nights, but I
expect He didn't know much about farmers or He would have. Anyhow, those
cows got to be milked."
"Until now you've managed very nicely to milk them yourself."
"But now I got a boy to help me with all the chores I used to do,"
Gramps said. "C'mon, Bud."
Bud trailed the old man to the barn where Gramps flicked on the switch
that lighted it. The first thing Bud noticed was the barn's odor,
pungent and sweet, with only a faint suggestion of rancidness.
Locked in their stanchions, the four cows were either nibbling grain
from the boxes that stood beside each of them or lustily chewing hay.
Bud stood back. Pulling weeds had been strange enough. The cows in their
stanchions were as alien as visitors from another planet.
Gramps went to the end of the stable, opened a small door and
disappeared through it. He returned with two milking pails. He kept one
and thrust the other at Bud, who took it although he hadn't the faintest
notion of what he was supposed to do with it.
"Ever do any milking?" Gramps demanded.
"No, sir."
"You'll never learn any younger. I'll show you."
He pulled a stool up beside a placid red and white cow that was so used
to being milked that she did not even move when Gramps began to strip
her udders. It looked easy. But when Gramps rose and motioned for Bud to
take his place, the best Bud could do was to coax a trickle from one
teat and a few drops from another. Gramps watched for a moment without
comment and went to milk another cow.
Bud continued the uneven struggle but there was less than an inch of
milk in the bottom of the pail when Gramps returned. He watched a moment
and said,
"Let me do it."
Bud was thankful, but he tried hard not to show that he was as he
surrendered the milking stool and let Gramps sit down. Milk hissed and
foamed into the pail as Gramps took every last drop of milk from the
cow's swollen udders. Bud went with him to the little room at the end of
the stable and, feeling guilty and ashamed, watched him pour the milk
into a can that stood neck-deep in cold water.
Back in the house he fell asleep as soon as his head struck the pillow.
He was too tired to notice the room or anything except that he was in
bed.
He seemed scarcely to have fallen asleep when he felt someone shaking
him awake. Bud opened his eyes to see the murky dawn at the windows and
Gramps standing over him.
"Come on," Gramps said. "We don't lay abed on farms."
Bud waited until Gramps had gone, for now that he was awake, it didn't
seem possible that he could hurt in so many places and all at the same
time. Then he climbed stiffly out of bed and dressed. When he walked
downstairs to breakfast, his head was high and his step was as firm as
he could make it.
The second day was a repetition of the first, except that when the beans
were finished, Gramps set him to weeding onions. But more and more often
Bud raised his head to look at the surrounding forest, and he renewed
his promise to himself to find out what lay behind those trees at the
edge of the forest.
* * * * *
Bud looked resentfully down at his empty pie plate and, as much as he
wanted to, he could not look up again.
"I guess," Gram said, "that a body needn't tell all he knows and is a
fool if he does. Whatever it is you mustn't do, don't do it. I'm sure
Delbert will do the milking tonight. Why don't you go for a walk in the
woods?"
He sprang up with renewed energy and went outside. Shep rose to tag
along with him and together they entered the cool forest.
Bud walked slowly. He did not know how to interpret the things he saw
and heard around him, but he did not doubt that all of it was wonderful.
He jumped when an owl cried, was frightened for a moment when a dead
snag crashed with an unearthly noise and laughed when a jay shrieked.
His confidence mounted so that when he heard two sharp, blasting snorts,
he continued to advance.
Two minutes later he stopped in his tracks. Not twenty feet away, its
wobbly feet braced to keep it from falling, a tiny fawn no more than two
hours old stared at him in wide-eyed wonder.
chapter 2
The fawn trembled on legs so new and untried, and so slender that they
seemed scarcely able to support his jack-rabbit-sized body. His ears
were ridiculously long and his staring, fascinated eyes were all out of
proportion to his tiny head. The white stripes and spots that mark the
young of all white-tailed deer stood out against an undercoating of hair
that was abnormally dark; on the neck and shoulders it was nearly black.
The gentle Shep wagged his tail and took a step nearer this tiny wild
baby. Raising a front foot, the fawn tapped a hoof no bigger than a
twenty-five-cent piece and looked back over his shoulder at the laurel
copse where the doe had left him. Scenting the approach of a dog and a
human being, she had fled. The little buck should have stayed in hiding,
but his natural curiosity had overridden the doe's warning not to move.
For a moment Bud was too bewildered and delighted to think clearly. Then
he was lifted on a cloud of ecstasy and sympathy. He was sure the fawn
had been abandoned by his father and mother or that they were dead. Like
Bud, the little buck was left to shift for himself in a cheerless and
friendless world, and Bud felt that he was forever bound to this tiny
deer. There was a bond between them that nothing else could share and
nothing could ever break. As long as either endured, Bud decided, each
would love the other because each understood the other. They were
brothers.
"Hi, little guy," Bud said softly.
Shep, tail wagging, head bent and ears tumbled forward, stayed beside
him as he took the fawn in both arms. Soft as a cloud, the fawn
surrendered to his embrace and gravely smelled his arm with a nose as
delicate as an orchid.
"Don't be afraid," Bud crooned. "You won't be hurt. Nothing will ever
hurt you."
He spoke almost fiercely, mindful of his own many hurts, and stared into
space as he cradled the fawn. Shep sat near, his jaws parted and beaming
approval as only a dog can. Bud's heart spiraled upward. Now, at last,
he had found a true friend.
He was unaware of passing time or of long evening shadows. He only knew
that he wanted to stay with this little black buck forever.
* * * * *
"What'd you find, Bud?"
Bud had not heard Gramps Bennett come up behind him. A terrible vision
of the glass-eyed buck's head in the farm living room arose in Bud's
mind and he looked about wildly for a place in which to hide the fawn.
But it was too late to hide it, and he turned slowly, so as not to
startle the little buck, and said truculently,
"Shep found this little lost deer."
"Well, now," Gramps said, ignoring Bud's belligerent tone, "doggone if
he didn't. Cute little feller, too, and he's sure taken a shine to you."
Gramps stooped beside the pair and stroked the fawn softly. Bud stared
at him, for Gramps was no longer the tyrant who acted as if Bud were a
machine for getting beans weeded and cows milked.
"Its . . . Its . . .," Bud tried to get out.
And then he could not explain. How could he describe all the terror, all
the loneliness and all the fear that he had felt to one who had never
known these things? Bud gritted his teeth and looked stubbornly away.
"Its what?" Gramps asked.
"Its father and mother have run away and left it," Bud blurted out.
"Let me put you straight on that, Bud. Its mother ran away when she
smelled or saw you and Shep coming. Fathers of baby deer like this,
well, they just don't care much for their young 'uns."
Bud was astonished. "You mean it had no father?"
Gramps said solemnly, "I haven't seen any fawn-carrying storks round
here for might' nigh two years. This baby had a father all right, maybe
Old Yellowfoot himself."
"Who's Old Yellowfoot?"
"If you'd been round here for two months 'stead of just a couple days,
you'd never ask that," Gramps said. "Old Yellowfoot's nothing 'cept the
biggest and smartest buck ever left a hoofprint in Bennett's Woods or,
as far as that goes, in Dishnoe County. Why, Boy, Old Yellowfoot's got a
rack of antlers the like of which even I never saw, and I've been
hunting deer in these parts for, let's see, it's lacking two of fifty
years."
"You . . ." Bud hugged the fawn a little tighter. "You shoot the deer?"
Gramps said seriously, "You look at that fawn, then you look at me, and
you ask in the same tone you might use if you thought I was going to
murder some babies, 'You shoot the deer?' Well, I don't shoot the deer.
I could, mind you, 'cause next to lacing your own shoes, just about the
easiest thing round here is shooting a deer. But I don't even hunt the
deer. I hunt Old Yellowfoot and some day, so help me, his head'll hang
'longside the one you saw in the sitting room."
"I could never like it!" Bud said.
Gramps remained serious. "You say that, but you don't know what you're
talking 'bout 'cause you never tried it. You see this baby and he sure
is cute as a button--he's going to be a black buck when he grows up--but
right now he hasn't the sense of a half-witted mud turtle. That's not to
be wondered at. He hasn't had time to learn sense and, if he had any, he
wouldn't let you handle him like he was a puppy. You think he's so
pretty, so nice, so friendly, and you're right. You think also he's a
deer, and he sure is. You go astray when you think anybody who'd shoot
this fawn, a deer, is more brute than human and you're partly right.
But, Boy, there's as much difference 'twixt this baby and Old Yellowfoot
as there is between a sparrow and an ostrich!"
Interested in spite of himself, Bud asked, "What's the difference?"
"The difference? Old Yellowfoot ain't as smart as the men that hunt him.
He's a darn' sight smarter. Hunt him high and hunt him low, and if you
get one look at him, in cover too thick for shooting or so far off that
it's useless to shoot, you can call yourself a hunter. Hang his head on
the wall and you're in a class with the best. Old Yellowfoot's educated
and he got his education the hard way. Hunters gave it to him. For the
past five years, fifty hunters I know of have had him marked. Nobody's
brought him in, and that says enough. But maybe, come deer season, you
and me will nail him. What say?"
Bud stirred uneasily, for this was something new to him. In every crisis
of his life he had found the love and affection he craved in animals. It
was unthinkable to hurt, let alone to kill, a bird or beast. He asked
finally, "How long have you been hunting Old Yellowfoot?"
"Ever since he's sported the biggest rack of antlers of any buck I know.
That's five years."
Bud breathed a little easier. Gramps had hunted the big buck for five
years; it was highly unlikely that he would kill him the sixth year.
When Bud remained silent, Gramps asked again,
"What say? When the season rolls round, are you and me going to hunt Old
Yellowfoot?"
Bud said reluctantly, "I'll go with you. I'll carry your gun."
"Pooh!" Gramps snorted. "In the first place it ain't a gun. It's a
rifle. What's more, you'll be carrying your own. Seven boys and four
girls Mother and me raised on this farm. Every one hunted, and when they
left the farm, they left their rifles and shotguns. One of 'em's sure to
suit you."
Bud thought of a beautiful dapple-gray toy horse with a real leather
saddle and bridle that he had seen in a store window when he had been
six. He had wanted that horse more than he had ever wanted anything and
every night he had prayed for it. But after his birthday had come and
gone and his letters to Santa Claus been unavailing, he had concluded
that dreams never come true and from then on had stifled his desires.
Now, listening to Gramps, Bud wanted a gun of his own more than he had
wanted anything since the dapple-gray toy horse. He was not sure just
what he would do with a rifle, except that he would never kill anything,
but that did not lessen the glory of having one of his own like Daniel
Boone, Jedediah Smith, Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill and a host of other
heroes.
"Gosh," Bud said at last.
"I know what you mean," Gramps said, "and it's time we were getting
back. Mother will fret if we're away too long."
Bud stooped and gathered the black fawn in his arms. It was as wispy as
it looked and seemed to have no weight as it snuggled contentedly
against him.
Gramps said, "We'll leave him, Bud."
"Leave him?"
It was a cry of anguish. The thought of abandoning the little buck,
already once abandoned, was unbearable. He had forged a true bond with
another living creature that had nobody except him. He couldn't leave
it.
"We'll leave him," Gramps repeated firmly. "He belongs in the woods."
"Hunters will kill him!"
Gramps smiled. "Come deer season, that little guy won't have aught
except buttons. Next year he'll be a spike--that's a buck with no tines
on his antlers--or maybe a forkhorn--that's a buck with one tine. He's
safe for a while. If he's smart and lucky, maybe he's safe for a long
while."
"He'll die with no one to look after him!"
"He has somebody to look after him. Maybe his pappy don't pay him any
heed but, though she run off and left him when you and Shep came, his
mammy sure thinks a heap of her son. There are those who say she'll
never come back now that he's been handled and has human scent on him.
If ever they say that to you, you tell 'em, 'Hogwash.' She'll be back."
Bud hesitated. All his life he had searched for something, and now that
he had found the fawn, he was being asked to leave it. Rebellion mounted
within him.
"On second thought," Gramps said disinterestedly, "fetch him along if
you've a mind to. His mammy'll be sorehearted for a time when she comes
back for him and he ain't here, but she'll get over it."
Bud gasped. The mother he had never known was a hundred different
people, most of them imaginary. He had never known exactly what she was
like, or even what he wanted her to be like. But if he ever found her,
he knew how she would feel if he were taken away.
"We'll leave him," he said.
He put the fawn down, and the little black buck minced a few steps and
jerked his tail playfully. As he watched, Bud knew that the bond between
him and the fawn would remain. They were blood brothers even if their
form and species were different.
Reluctantly he fell in beside Gramps and, with Shep tagging at their
heels, they started back toward the farmhouse. Bud turned to look again
at the fawn. He thought he saw the doe emerge from a thicket and return
to her lost baby, but he realized at once that he was imagining what he
wanted to see. Then they rounded a bend and the next time Bud looked
back he could not see the fawn at all. He stifled an almost overpowering
urge to run back to the fawn.
"His mother will really come back to care for him?" he asked Gramps.
"Don't you fret, she'll come back and like as not she's there now. Do
you like to fish for trout, Bud?"
"I don't know. I've never tried it."
"What did you fish for?"
"Nothing. I just never fished."
"Imagine that," Gramps said happily. "You'll start, with me tomorrow
morning. I'll show you the biggest gosh-darned brown trout as ever
sucked a fly off Skunk Crick, and ain't that a heck of a name for a
crick? But this trout, he's named right good. Old Shark, they call him,
and he's busted enough leaders and rods to stock a good-sized tackle
store. Wait'll you see him."
The way Gramps spoke of Old Yellowfoot, the great buck, and Old Shark,
the great trout, drove the black fawn from Bud's thoughts. He fought
against it, but he could not help a warm feeling toward this man who
spoke of wild creatures, or at least of mighty wild creatures with near
reverence and who believed that, if you were going to kill, or try to
kill them, you should pit yourself against a worthy opponent.
What had happened to the old farmer who had seemed able to think only of
starting the day at dawn with milking his four cows and of ending it
after dark with milking the same cows? Then Bud's conscience smote him.
"We can't fish tomorrow!"
"And why not?"
"I came here to work."
Gramps said dryly, "The work is always with us, and sometimes it seems
like Old Shark's always been with us, too. But while the work won't end,
Old Shark will if I lay another fly into him. Or maybe you'll do it?"
Bud started to speak and stopped. Many a time during his years in the
orphanage he had watched prospective parents come and go, and he had
yearned to go with some of them. Then, along with most of the others who
had passed the age of seven without being adopted, he had finally
realized that nobody wanted him. Nor would anybody want him until he was
old enough to work. And if he did not work, how could he justify his
existence?
"What were you going to say?" Gramps asked.
"I'm not afraid to work."
"'Course you ain't. Nobody worth his salt is afraid to work, but there's
a time for work and," Gramps paused as if for emphasis, "there's a time
for fishing. Tomorrow we'll milk the cows, turn 'em out to pasture, and
go fishing."
"Yes, sir."
"Call me Gramps," Gramps said.
"Yes, Gramps," Bud said warily. He was bewildered by the idea of going
fishing when he should be working. Where was the trap, he wondered?
They came to the house, went around to the kitchen door, and Shep went
to his bed on the back porch. The kitchen was brightly lighted, and Bud
thought he saw Gram back hastily away from the door, as though she had
been watching for them. But when they entered, Gram was sitting at the
table knitting. Near her, at Bud's place, was a tall glass of cold milk
and a huge cut of strawberry pie. Gram looked over her glasses and
frowned at Bud but she spoke to Gramps.
"Delbert, you were a long while bringing Allan back."
"Now, Mother," he said, "it's been nigh onto fourteen years since
anybody saw a man-eating lion in Bennett's Woods."
"Hmph!" Gram snorted. "It might not be so funny if that boy had strayed
into the woods and got lost."
"But he didn't get lost," Gramps said reasonably. "Bud and me, we met
out in the woods and had us a good long talk."
Something in Gramps' voice turned Gram's frown into a smile.
"Well, you're both here now and I suppose that's what matters. Allan,
sit down and eat your pie and drink your milk."
"I'm really not hungry," Bud protested.
"Pooh! All boys are hungry all the time. Sit down and eat."
"Yes, ma'am."
He sat down, took a long drink of the cold milk, ate a fork full of pie
and found that he was hungry after all. Looking around Gram's kitchen
as he ate, he thought of the one at the orphanage where, in spite of the
thousands of dishes he had wiped there and the bushels of potatoes he
had peeled, he had never been invited to sit down to a glass of cold
milk and a cut of pie. It was a very disquieting thing, and his wariness
mounted. He looked furtively around again for a trap, but Gram had
returned to her knitting and Gramps was delving into a leather-covered
case.
Gramps' case was a homemade thing divided into a number of small
compartments. One by one, he took from their respective compartments an
assortment of varicolored objects and arranged them on a piece of
newspaper. They looked like insects but were made from tiny bits of
feathers and wisps of hair. Each one was arranged about a hook. The
biggest was not large and the smallest was so tiny and so fragile that
it looked as if the merest puff of wind would whirl it away. Bud looked
on agog.
"Dry flies," Gramps said. "I don't know what he'll take, but we'll try
him first with a black gnat."
"Yes, sir."
"Call me Gramps," the old man growled.
"Yes, Gramps."
This time it slipped out, naturally and easily, almost warmly, for the
flies were so interesting that Bud forgot everything else. Although he
had never been fishing, he had always believed that you fished with a
stout pole, a strong hank of line, a hook and worms for bait. But these
dry flies were plainly conceived by one artist and tied by another. It
was easy to see that only an artist could use them properly. Gramps took
one of the smaller ones between his thumb and forefinger, and the fly
seemed even smaller in comparison with the hand holding it.
"Yup, I think a number-fourteen black gnat is what he'll hit, which
proves all over again what a darn' old fool I am. Saying aforehand what
Old Shark will hit is like saying it will rain on the seventh of May two
years from now. Might and might not, and the chances are three hundred
and sixty-four to one it won't. Have a look, Bud."
Bud took the delicate mite in his own hand and held it gingerly. The
longer he looked, the more wonderful it seemed.
"Where do you get them?" he asked.
"I tie 'em. Got good and tired of using store-bought flies that won't
take anything 'cept baby trout or those just out of a hatchery that
haven't any sense. Let's see it, Bud."
Gramps returned the fly to its proper place and Bud was half glad and
half sorry to give it up. He was afraid he might damage the fly, but at
the same time he yearned to examine it at length. He stole a glance at
Gramps' huge hands and marvelled. It was easy to believe that those
hands could guide a plow, shoe a horse, fit a hoe and do almost any job
that demanded sheer strength. But it seemed incredible that they could
assemble with such perfection anything as minute and fragile as a dry
fly.
Suddenly, and surprisingly, for he was no more aware of being tired than
he had been of being hungry, Bud yawned. Gram looked up.
"You'd best get to bed, Allan. Growing boys need their rest as much as
they do their food."
"Good idea, Bud," Gramps said. "If you and me are going to get the
milking done and hit Skunk Crick when we ought, we'll have to roll out
early."
Bud said good night and went up the worn stairs to his room. For a
moment he stared out of the window into the night, yearning toward the
little black buck and worrying about how it was faring. It seemed
impossible for anything so small and helpless to survive. But he was not
as desperately worried as he had been, for Gramps had said that the doe
would return to take care of it. And Bud knew that in Gramps he had at
last found somebody he could trust.
Leaving his bedroom door open to take advantage of a cool breeze blowing
through the window, Bud stretched luxuriously on the feather-filled
mattress and pulled the blankets up to his chin. Gram's voice came up
the stairway.
"Well, Delbert?"
"He came round," he heard Gramps say. "He came round lot sooner'n I
figured. Found himself a fawn, he did, cutest little widget you ever
laid eyes on and almost black." There was a short silence and Gramps
finished, "He thought it was 'nother orphan."
"So?"
"So tomorrow morning Bud and me are going to fish for Old Shark."
"How will he tie that in with being worked like a Mexican slave his
first two days with us?"
Gramps said, "You take a skittish, scared colt out of pasture and put it
to work, you work it hard enough so it forgets about being skittish and
scared. And Mexicans aren't slaves, Mother."
"You, Delbert!"
"It worked," Gramps said.
Gram sniffed, "So'd Allan, and no wonder. You wouldn't go down and pick
a boy, as any sensible man would have done. You wrote a letter saying
we'll give bed, board and schooling to a strong, healthy boy who's
capable of working. Send the boy! I hope Allan didn't see that letter!"
"It's no mind if he did, and why do you suppose I wrote in 'stead of
going in? Think I wanted that horse-faced old bat who runs the place to
have fits?"
"Miss Dempster is not a horse-faced old bat!" Gram said sharply.
"She'd still have fits if she had to figure out anything not written
down in her rule book, and it says in her book that older orphans are
for working only. Anyway what does it matter? Ain't we got a young'un
round the place again?"
"Yes!" Gram sighed. "Thank Heaven!"
Bud heard the last of this conversation only dimly, for sleep was
overcoming him. He was even more vaguely aware of someone ascending the
stairs, pausing beside his bed and planting a kiss on his cheek. Then he
was lost in a happy dream of a mother who loved and cherished him and
whom he loved and cherished.
chapter 3
The oil lantern that hung from a hook in the ceiling of the cow stable
cast a progressively weaker glow as the light of a summer dawn became
stronger. Bud sat on a milking stool, his head pillowed against the soft
flank of the same red and white cow that he had tried so hard, and so
futilely, to milk when he had first come to live with Gram and Gramps
Bennett.
Milk did not surge into the pail as it did when Gramps milked; Gramps
milked a cow almost as though the animal's teats were spigots that he
could turn on at will and with no effort on his part. But there was no
comparison between this and Bud's first sorry attempt to coax milk from
the same cow. Her name was Susie, and when he gave her an affectionate
pat she turned and looked at him with mournful eyes.
As Bud began to strip the last few squirts from each teat, he thought
about the day ahead. He had slept soundly and the dawn had been so faint
that his bedroom window was almost black when Gramps had awakened him.
Bud had sat up hastily and a bit guiltily. His dream of a mother was
still with him and in that uncertain moment between sleep and
wakefulness, he half believed the dream was real.
Gramps had said, "Time to get under way, Bud," and then left.
Bud had dressed and gone at once to the window to stare toward the place
where he had left the black fawn. As he stood there, he had heard a
thousand faint scrapings, rustlings and murmurings of an entire world
that seemed anxious to greet a new day, and he had whirled around to go
down the stairs, through the empty kitchen and on out to the cow barn.
He was coaxing a final trickle of milk from Susie when Gramps said,
"Let me have your pail and turn 'em out, will you?"
Bud wondered again that a man of Gramps' age and bulk could move so
stealthily. Bud had not known Gramps had been beside him in the woods
last night until the old man had spoken, and now Gramps had surprised
him again. Bud surrendered his pail proudly for this was the first time
he had been able to milk one cow while Gramps was milking three. Then he
freed the cows from their stanchions and walked behind them as they
lumbered out the open barn door and down the lane to the pasture.
"See you at the house," Gramps bellowed.
By the time Bud came into the kitchen, Gram had transformed it from the
empty, silent and forbidding room it had been when he had walked through
it earlier. Now the big stove cast a warm glow, hotcakes were browning
on a griddle, bacon sizzled in a skillet, the coffeepot steamed and
Bud's milk was poured. Gram glanced up and the corners of her eyes
crinkled.
"My land, Allan. It's really going to be a big day."
"Yes, ma'am," he said stiffly.
Her smile became wistful and Bud flushed and looked away. It was easy to
fight back when the enemy had a ferocious scowl and charged with
clenched fists. It was hard when the weapons were glasses of cold milk
and big wedges of pie, smiles, tender glances and soft words, and when
the enemy seemed to know exactly what you were thinking. But Bud had no
intention of letting himself be deceived.
Gramps, who was nowhere in sight when Bud entered the kitchen, appeared
presently with a jointed fly rod that had a reel attached to the reel
seat.
"Try this on for size," he said.
He placed the butt end of the rod in Bud's hand, and the boy tightened
his fingers around the cork grip. The tip swayed downward. When Bud
jerked it up, it collided with a chair and the rod bent in an arc before
he could swing it away. Bud stood there frightened, not knowing what to
do and not daring to move. The rod undulated and quivered like a live
thing that had a mind and a will of its own. It seemed to defy control.
"It ain't a club," Gramps said. "Don't grab it like one. Let me show
you."
He took the rod from Bud. Tensed like a hunting cat about to pounce, the
rod still seemed to have a life of its own. But it had surrendered its
will to Gramps. He was master of this delicate rod just as he was master
of so many things, and Bud could not help admiring.
"I'll string her up and let you try her out."
"Not in my kitchen you won't," Gram said firmly. "I'll have no more
dishes broken by practice casts."
On the point of arguing, Gramps reconsidered and said meekly, "I'll show
you when we get on the crick. Take her and hold her this way."
He put the rod back in Bud's hand, placing it with Bud's palm just back
of the seated reel and arranging his thumb and each finger for proper
balance. Bud remained afraid to move it, or to shift even one finger,
for now he commanded the rod. If he made one wrong move, and any move he
made might be wrong, the rod would again command him. Gramps stepped
back for a critical study.
"It'll do," he pronounced finally. "I pondered on starting you out with
one of the old seven-ounce rods but what the dickens. You're going to
fish for trout, you ought to begin right and you can't begin right
'thout the right tackle. Four and a half ounces this rod weighs 'thout
the reel, and you'll be put to it to find a better. It took me a solid
six weeks, working every night, to put her together the way I wanted
her."
"Do you make these, too?"
"Yup. Something to do on long winter evenings."
"Breakfast," Gram announced. "They're only good while they're hot."
Bud laid his rod across two chairs and sat down to golden-brown griddle
cakes, bacon and milk. He couldn't help looking at Gramps. At the other
meals they had eaten together, Gramps' table manners had been correct
enough. Now he didn't even seem to be thinking about food, as he put two
pancakes together, laid two strips of bacon on the topmost pancake and
doused everything with syrup. Then he rolled the bacon in the pancakes
and ate the rolled mixture with his fingers. It was plain that in his
thoughts he was already out on Skunk Creek. Gramps was no blase
sophisticate who had tasted all he could stomach of life by the time he
was thirty. His eye to the grassroots, Gramps had long ago understood
that everything was as old as creation itself and yet was eternally new.
Nothing ever lost its sheen; some eyes just couldn't see it.
Gramps finished and looked meaningfully at Bud's place. Bud hastened to
finish as Gramps rose.
"It isn't polite to eat and run, Mother, but the day's getting no
younger. Ready, Bud?"
"All ready," Bud said, forebearing this time to add "Gramps."
"Bring me back at least one to eat, Delbert," Gram said. "I haven't had
trout in almost three weeks."
"How'd you like Old Shark?" Gramps asked.
"I wouldn't," Gram sniffed. "In the first place, I'll believe you have
him when I see him. In the second, if you should get him, who's going to
eat him after you're through showing him to everybody in Dishnoe County?
I want an eating fish, not a showing trout."
"Sure," Gramps said.
Gramps brought another rod that was not jointed but had a reel on the
reel seat. He gave Bud a leather-bound case similar to the one from
which he'd taken dry flies last night, a limp leather case containing
wet flies, and two leader boxes.
"Your flies and leaders," he explained. "If you're going to be a trout
fisherman, you need your own tackle. Get your rod and come on."
Gingerly, hoping Gramps would carry it for him but taking it up himself
when Gramps told him to, Bud tried to place his hand exactly as it had
been when Gramps showed him how to balance a fine fly rod. After a
little experimentation he found the proper grip, but his hand remained
stiff on the butt. After looking appealingly at Gramps, who saw the look
but pretended not to, Bud clenched his teeth and grimly resolved to
carry through. Gramps went out first and Bud wondered how he would open
the door after Gramps had closed it but Gramps stopped and held it
open.
"'Bye, Mother."
"Have a good time," Gram called. "Good-by, Allan."
"Good-by, ma'am."
To Bud's relief Gramps continued to hold the door open as if he had
something else to say to Gram. Thus the first major hurdle was taken;
Bud was out of the kitchen without either breaking his rod or anything
else. Then, apparently forgetting what he intended to say, Gramps let
the door close.
Shep rose to join them when they emerged onto the porch, but Gramps
ordered him back. Ears drooping and looking abused, Shep sat down in
front of the door and watched. When they were fifty yards away, he
barked hopefully.
"It'll do you no good," Gramps said firmly. "Can't have a dog along when
you're trout fishing," he said to Bud.
"Why?"
"He scares the trout."
"How can a dog scare trout?"
"'Cause trout are scary, Bud. A shadow'll send 'em scooting and a dog
can cast a shadow."