After a week's intensive manhunt, Albert, "Al" Harkness is still at
large in the wild Mahela. Harkness, named by Clarence Delbert as
the man who shot him from ambush, escaped from two officers the
same night he was apprehended. Delbert, still in critical
condition, has supplied no additional details. Corporal Paul
Hausler, of the State Police, has expressed confidence that
Harkness will be captured.
Ted pushed the paper aside and stared across the table. For three days
the hunt had been pressed with unflagging zeal. Only Pete Tooms and the
duly deputized Delberts had gone out for two days after that and now,
Ted understood, even they were staying home. They had discovered for
themselves what Ted and Loring Blade had known from the start: if Al
chose to hide in the Mahela, he couldn't be found. But the item in the
paper cast a shadow of things to come.
Al could hide for a while, perhaps for a long while, but without proper
equipment or a place to stay, even he couldn't live in the wilderness
when winter struck with all its fury. Sooner or later, he would have to
come out, and what happened when he came was so terribly dependent on
what was in the letters! Ted slit the first one open and read,
Dear Mr. Harkness:
I saw your letter in the _Courier_ and we would like to rent your
camp for the first two weeks of deer season. Can you let me know at
once if it is available? There will be ten of us.
Ted put the letter aside and picked up the next one. That likewise
wanted the camp for the first two weeks of deer season. There would be
eight in the party. But there was a very welcome, "I enclose an advance
to hold our reservation," with a twenty-dollar check made out to Ted. He
folded the note over the check and took up the third letter. That also
wanted the camp for the first two weeks of deer season. Ted turned to
Tammie.
"Doesn't anybody hunt anything except deer?"
But the fourth letter, containing a deposit of ten dollars, was from a
party of grouse hunters who wanted the camp during the first two weeks
of grouse season, and the fifth had been written by a man representing a
group of hunters who obviously liked to do things the hard way. Scorning
anything as easy as deer, grouse, squirrels, or cottontails, they wanted
the camp for bear season. There was no deposit enclosed, but if they
could be persuaded to send one, the camp would be rented for another
week. The next five letters, two of which contained deposits of twenty
dollars each, were all from deer hunters who wanted to come the first
two weeks of the season and the one after that was from a confirmed
grouse hunter who wished to come the first week. Ted picked up the last
letter, one of two that were typewritten, and read:
Dear Ted Harkness:
For lo, these many years, my silent feet have carried me into the
haunts of big game and my unerring rifle has laid them low. I have
moose, elk, grizzlies, caribou, sheep and goats to my credit.
Honesty compels me to admit that I also have several head of big
game to my discredit, but that happened in the days of my callow
youth, when I thought hunting and killing were synonymous.
Presently, in my mellow old age, I still love to hunt. But I have
become--heaven help me!--a head hunter. In short, I want 'em big or
I don't want 'em. I do not have a whitetail buck to which I can
point with pride. Living in the Mahela, and I envy you your
dwelling place!, you must know the whereabouts of such a beastie.
The simplicity of your ad was most impressive and I always did
admire people who sign themselves "Ted" rather than "Theodore." I
do not want your camp, but do you want to guide a doddering old
man? Find me a room, any old room at all as long as it's warm and
dry, and I'm yours for three weeks. Find me a buck that satisfies
me and, in addition to your guiding fee, I'll give you a bonus of
twenty-five dollars for every inch in the longest tine on either
antler.
Humbly yours,
John L. Wilson
Ted re-read the letter, so friendly and so obviously written by a hunter
who had experience, time and--Ted tried not to think it and couldn't
help himself because his need was desperate--money. The Harkness house
was very large and, now that Al was not in it, very empty. There was no
reason whatsoever why John L. Wilson, whoever he was, should not stay
here. Twelve dollars a day was not too much to ask for board, room and
guide services. As for the twenty-five dollars an inch--there were some
big bucks in the Mahela!
Ted sat down to write, "Dear Mr. Wilson: Thanks very much for your
letter--" He crumpled the sheet of paper and started over, "Dear Mr.
Wilson: There are some big bucks--" Then he crumpled that sheet and did
the only thing he could do. "Dear Mr. Wilson: I am going to tell you
about Damon and Pythias."
Ted told, and he was scrupulously honest. His father, born in the Mahela
almost fifty years ago, had never seen bigger bucks. Certainly they were
the biggest Ted had ever seen. In their prime now, royal trophies, a
couple of years would see them in their decline. Ted gave it as his
personal opinion that both were at their best this year. Next season,
they would not be quite as good and the year after, Ted thought, both
would bear the misshapen antlers that are so often the marks of old
bucks. But just getting a shot at either would involve more than a
routine hunt. The two bucks were very wise; many hunters had tried for
them and nobody had come near to getting either. It might very well take
three weeks just to hunt them, and Ted could not guarantee success.
However, though they were far and away the biggest, by no means were
Damon and Pythias the only big bucks in the Mahela. He concluded by
writing that Mr. Wilson could stay with him, and that his fee for board,
room and guide service would be twelve dollars a day.
Ted sealed the letter, addressed it, put two stamps on, marked it air
mail and turned to the others. He shook a bewildered head. The way Carl
Thornton ran Crestwood, catering to guests had always seemed the essence
of simplicity. Obviously, it had its headaches.
Of the dozen applicants for his camp, eight wanted it in deer season
only and all wanted the first two weeks. Ted screened the letters again,
then narrowed them down to the three who had sent advances. They'd
offered earnest intent of coming, the rest might and might not appear.
But which of the three should he accept?
Ted solved it by consulting the postmarks on the letters. All had been
mailed the same day, but one had been stamped at ten A.M. and the other
two at two P.M. Ted wrote to the author of the letter with the earliest
time mark, a Mr. Allen Thomas, and told him that the camp was his for
the first two weeks of deer season. The other two checks--if only he had
three camps!--he put in envelopes with letters saying that, he was very
sorry, but the camp had already been reserved for the time they wanted.
Then, in a flash of inspiration, he opened both letters and added a
postscript, saying that the camp was still available for the last week
of the season. He grinned ruefully as he did so and seemed to hear Al
saying, "'Most missed a pelt there, Ted."
Ted assured the other deer hunters that his camp was reserved for the
first two weeks but open the third. He contemplated bringing his price
down to forty-five dollars for that week. Then he reconsidered. Most
hunters thought that hunting would be much better the first of the
season than it ever could be the last, and, in part, they were right.
Unmolested for almost a year, during the first days of the season game
was apt to be less wary. As compensation, during the latter part of any
season there were seldom as many hunters afield. Anyhow, deer hunters
who really wanted a camp would not let an extra fifteen dollars stand in
the way of getting one.
Writing to the bear hunters, Ted accepted a tentative reservation that
would be confirmed as soon as he received a deposit of ten dollars. Too
many people made reservations with no deposit; then, if something arose
that prevented their honoring their reservations, they simply didn't
come. Anyone who paid money in advance would be there or cancel in
plenty of time to get their money back.
Ted told the grouse hunters who'd sent a ten-dollar deposit that the
camp was theirs for the first two weeks of the season and he pondered
over the other grouse hunter's letter.
Nobody at all had applied for woodcock season because, Ted decided,
woodcock are so uncertain. One of the finest of game birds, they are
also migratory. A few nested in the Mahela, but they were too few to
attract sportsmen. Depending on conditions, flight birds might and might
not be in the Mahela during the season and some years they by-passed it
completely. But when they came, they offered marvelous shooting.
Ted wrote the second grouse hunter, a Mr. George Beaulieu, that the only
vacancy he had left was for the third week of grouse season. But was he
interested in woodcock? If he was, and if he would advise Ted to that
effect, Ted would be happy to call him long distance in the event of a
worthwhile flight.
Tammie rose, yawned prodigiously and lay down to sleep on his other side
for a while. Ted shuffled the pile of letters, which he needn't put in
the mailbox because he was definitely going into Lorton in the morning,
and pondered.
It hadn't worked out quite as he'd hoped it would, with the camp rented
continuously throughout six weeks of small game hunting and three of
deer. He figured with his pen on a discarded piece of paper. The camp
was definitely rented for two weeks of grouse and one of bear hunting at
forty-five dollars a week. That added up to a hundred and thirty-five
dollars. It was certainly rented for two weeks of deer hunting at sixty
a week, thus he would have a hundred and twenty dollars more.
Ted sighed wistfully. Two hundred and fifty-five dollars was by no means
an insignificant return on their investment, even if they had put a
price on their labor, and they could look forward to the next hunting
and fishing seasons. If Al were here, they'd be happy about it and
eagerly planning more camps.
But Al wasn't here, and all that mattered now was that, by the end of
deer season, Ted could be certain of having at least two hundred and
fifty-five dollars in cash. If John Wilson came, stayed with Ted for
twenty-one days, and paid him twelve dollars a day, that would be two
hundred and fifty-two dollars more. If Mr. Wilson got a buck that
satisfied him, and the buck's antlers had one tine nine inches long--
"Cut it out!" Ted advised himself. "Cut it out, Harkness! Count on what
you know you'll have, and that's two hundred and fifty-five dollars."
Tammie, hearing Ted's voice and thinking he was called, came over to sit
beside his master. He raised a dainty paw to Ted's hand and smiled with
his eyes when the boy took it. Ted glanced at the clock.
"Great guns! Twenty past one! We'd better hit the hay!"
He shucked off his clothes, put on his pajamas and crawled into bed. But
even though he was tired, sleep would not come because he was thinking
of Al. How was his father spending this chilly night--and where? In some
cave perhaps, or some thicket. Ted tried to put such thoughts behind
him. Wherever Al might be, that outdoorsman was warm, dry and even
comfortable. But Ted's mind insisted on seeking the gloomy side, and he
was brought out of it only when Tammie whined.
Instantly Ted became alert. Taught to whine but never to bark when a
stranger came near the house, Tammie was warning him now. The boy
slipped out of bed, and, in the darkness, he felt for his shoes and
pulled them on. He laced them so there would be no danger of tripping
over the shoelaces and soft-footed across the floor to take a five-cell
flashlight from its drawer and his twelve-gauge shotgun from its rack.
Out of the night came a sound that has been familiar since the first
ancient man domesticated the first chickens. It was the sleepy squawk of
a hen protesting removal from its warm roost. Ted opened the door
softly, stabbed the darkness with his light and trapped within its beam
a figure that ran from the chicken coop toward the forest.
"Get him, Tammie!"
Tammie rippled forward, and the light magnified his bobbing shadow
twenty times over. He was not a dog but a monster, a nightmare from some
antediluvian swamp, bearing down on the fleeing man. He rose into the
air, struck the runner's back with his full weight, knocked him
sprawling and snarled over him. It was what he'd been trained to do and
it was all he'd do unless his captive tried too hard to get up. Then a
little fang-work might be necessary, but this prisoner wasn't even
moving.
Ted shined his light into the terrified face of a young ne'er-do-well
known to his parents as Sammy Allen Stacey, to himself and a few of his
intimates as S.A., and to too many others as Silly Ass.