"I'll tell you in a minute."
They got into the pickup. Ted started the motor that had not yet had
time to cool completely, and a trickle of warmth came from the heater.
John Wilson looked sharply at Ted.
"All right. Give."
"Did you notice anything unusual about that buck?"
"Only that it's the biggest I ever saw."
"It's also frozen solid."
"I--I don't understand."
"The weather hasn't been cold enough to freeze deer. Thornton never
killed that buck today."
"Then he--?"
"That's it exactly."
There was a short silence. John Wilson broke it with a quiet, "Is there
a story behind it?"
"There is."
"Want to tell me?"
Ted told of his love for the Mahela, and of a heart-rooted desire to
dedicate his life to helping people enjoy it. He spoke of his work at
Crestwood, and of his great dream to have a similar place, one day. He
related as much as he knew, which was as much as anyone knew, of the
story of Damon and Pythias. He told of Carl Thornton's commissioning him
to get both bucks before the season opened, of his refusal to do so and
the consequent loss of his job.
He described the camp, and how and why it was built. Then the bombshell;
Smoky Delbert's shooting and Al a fugitive in the Mahela. He spoke of
his father's near-passionate interest in true conservation, and of his
near-hatred for those who violated the sportsman's code. However, aware
of Crestwood's importance to the Mahela, knowing that this violation
would hurt and perhaps ruin Thornton, Al himself would not have reported
it. But now that Thornton was leaving, was there any reason why he
should be shielded?
There was another brief silence before John Wilson said quietly, "Don't
do it, Ted."
"You mean let him get away with it?"
"Under any other circumstances," John Wilson said, "I'd say drive into
Lorton and report him to the game warden. As things are with you now, if
you do, you'll hate yourself. How are you going to decide exactly
whether you turned him in to settle a grudge or because you're a
believer in conservation? I agree that he should be arrested and fined.
But arresting him won't return the buck to Burned Mountain. It won't do
anything at all except bring Thornton a hundred-dollar fine, and he can
spare the money. Yes, I'd say let him go and good riddance."
"But--"
"You asked my advice and you got it. If you turn him in, you'll hurt
yourself more than you will him. By all means report law violators, but
never let even a suspicion of personal prejudice influence your report.
It won't work."
"I guess you're right."
"I hope I am."
That night the temperature fell to zero, and every buck on every game
rack in the Mahela froze solid. There was no longer any evidence
whatever to prove that Damon, as Ted thought of the great buck on
Crestwood's game rack, had been taken by other than legal means.
Even if Ted wanted to do something now, his chance was gone.
* * * * *
For twenty days, always leaving the Harkness house before dawn and never
getting back until after dark, Ted and his guest had hunted Pythias.
They had seen deer, dozens of them, and Ted had dropped a nice
eight-point so close to his house that they had needed only fifteen
minutes to dress it out, slide it in over the six inches of crisp snow
that now lay in the Mahela and hang it on the game rack. John Wilson had
had his choice of several bucks, and at least four of them had been fine
trophies. But he had come to hunt the big buck that still lurked on
Burned Mountain and he was determined to get that one or none.
It looked as though it would be none, Ted reflected as he sat in front
of the blazing fire, tearing a bolt of red cloth into strips. Pythias,
who had sucked in his woodcraft with his mother's milk, had only
contempt for any mere human who coveted his royal rack of antlers.
The second day of the season, giving John Wilson ample time to post
himself in the white birches, Ted had gone to the bed in which they'd
seen Pythias on the first day. A small buck and two does had gone
through, but Pythias had not. Most deer have favorite runways, or paths,
that are as familiar to them as sidewalks are to humans. Pythias seldom
used one, and he never took the same route twice in succession.
Hunted hard every day, he hadn't let himself be chased from the top of
Burned Mountain. Staying there, he knew what he was doing. Sparsely
forested, the top of the mountain was given over to a devil's tangle of
twining laurel and snarled rhododendron. Some of the stems from which
the latter evergreen grew were thick as tree trunks, and some of the
winding, snaking branches were thirty feet long. It was heartbreaking
work just to go through one, and impossible for a man to do so without
making as much noise as a running horse. Once within the laurel or
rhododendron, and some thickets were a combination of both, it was
seldom possible to see seven yards in any direction. Often, visibility
was restricted to seven feet.
Pythias haunted those thickets that varied from an eighth of an acre to
perhaps eighty acres. Chased out of one, he entered another, flitting
like a gray ghost through the scrub aspen that separated them. Then he
lingered until the hunters came and entered another thicket. Only when
going through the aspens, where he knew very well he could be seen, did
he run. In the thickets he walked or slunk, and he never made a foolish
move.
* * * * *
Every day there'd been snow--and John Wilson and Ted had had tracking
snow for seventeen of the twenty days--they'd found Pythias' bed and
his fresh tracks. His hoofmarks were big and round, and they indicated
him as surely as a robe of ermine or a scepter marks a king. But except
for the first day, when he'd been hopelessly out of range, the two
hunters hadn't seen him even once. Pythias could never conceal the fact
that he had walked in the snow. But he could hide himself.
Methodically, Ted continued to tear strips from his bolt of red cloth
and lay them on the table. Tammie, grown fat and lazy during the three
weeks he'd been confined to the house--even though Ted had let him out
for a run every night--raised his head and blinked solemnly at the
fireplace. Bone tired, John Wilson turned in his chair and grinned.
"You have enough of those red ribbons so you could fasten one on half
the deer in the Mahela. Think they'll work?"
"I don't know of anything else. We've tried everything."
"It's been a good hunt," John Wilson said contentedly, "and a most
instructive one. I don't have to have a buck."
"But you'd like one?"
"Not unless it's Pythias."
"We have one more day and I have plans. Here, let me show you."
Ted tore the last of his red cloth into strips, pulled his chair up to
the table, took a sheet of paper and a pencil and drew a map. John
Wilson leaned over his shoulder.
"This is the Fordham Road," Ted explained, "the first left-hand fork
leading from the Lorton Road. Climb over the mountain and drop down the
other side. The first valley you'll see, it's right here, is Coon
Valley. You can't miss it, there's a turnout and hunters have been using
it. Park the truck and walk up Coon Valley. In about half a mile, or
right here, you'll come to three sycamores near a big boulder. On this
slope," Ted indicated it with his pencil, "there's a thicket of beech
scrub. You can see everything in it from the top of the boulder, Glory
Rock. Climb it and wait."
"That's all? Just wait?"
"That's all. If I can put him out of the laurel, there's at least an
even chance he'll cross the ridge and try to get back into the thickets
at the head of Coon Valley. If he does, he'll come through the beech
scrub."
"And if you can't?"
"He won't."
"What time do you want me there, Ted?"
"There's no great hurry. He isn't going to leave his thickets easily. It
will take you about an hour to reach the mouth of Coon Valley and maybe
another half hour or forty-five minutes to get set on Glory Rock. If you
leave the house by half-past six, you should be there soon after eight.
That's time enough."
"How long should I wait?"
"Until I pick you up, and I will pick you up there. I may not come
before dark. If I can put him past you, I will."
"As you say, General."
The tinny clatter of Ted's alarm clock awakened him at half-past three
the next morning. He reached down to shut it off, reset it for half-past
five and stole in to put it near the still sleeping John Wilson. Ted
breakfasted, gave Tammie his food and a pat, donned his hunting jacket,
put the strips of red cloth into the game pocket and stepped into the
black morning.
He bent his head against the north wind and started climbing Burned
Mountain. He knew as he climbed that he was pitting himself against a
force as old as time.
The woodcraft of Pythias, or any deer, shamed that of the keenest human.
Deer could identify every tiny sound, every wind that blew and the many
scents those winds carried. They knew everything there was to know about
their wilderness and they were all masters of it. No human could hope to
equal their senses.
But Pythias, the greatest and most cunning of all, was still a beast. He
knew and could interpret the wilderness, but he couldn't possibly apply
reason to that which was not of the wilderness. If his confidence could
be shaken....
It was still black night when Ted reached the summit of Burned Mountain,
but he had crossed and re-crossed it so many times in the past twenty
days that he could do so in the darkness. Pythias was there, and
possibly he already knew that Ted was back on the mountain. But he'd
feel secure in the thicket where he was bedded and he would not go out
until he was flushed.
Ted sought the aspen grown aisles between the thickets. He hung a strip
of red cloth on a wind whipped branch, walked fifty yards and hung
another. The night lifted and daylight came, and an hour later Ted tied
his last strip of cloth to a twig. Carrying no rifle--but Pythias
couldn't possibly know that--he put his hands in his pockets to warm
them. Now he had to flush the big buck.
He and his guest had left the great animal in one of the larger thickets
last night, but it was almost certain that he hadn't passed the whole
night there. Ted circled the thicket, found Pythias' unmistakable tracks
and followed to where the big buck had nibbled tender young aspen shoots
and pawed the snow to get at the dried grass beneath it. Thereafter
Pythias had done considerable wandering. Ted worked out the trail and
discovered where his quarry had gone to rest in another thicket.
He tracked him in, and he'd done this so many times that he knew almost
exactly what to expect. The big buck would wait until he was sure
someone was again on his trail, then he'd get up and sneak away. There
would be nothing except tracks in the snow to mark his going. A man
could not travel silently through the thickets, but a deer could.
Deep within the thicket, Ted found the bed, a depression melted in the
snow, to which Pythias had retired when his wandering was done. The
tracks leading away were fresh and sharp, no more than a couple of
minutes old, but they were not the widely spaced ones of a running buck.
Knowing very well what he was doing, aware of the fact that he could not
be seen while there, Pythias always walked in the thickets.
However, when he decided to leave this thicket, he had leaped through
the scrub aspen separating it from the next one. It could have taken him
no more than a second or so. If a hunter had been watching, he would
have had just a fleeting shot and only a lucky marksman would have
connected. Ted followed fast. There were no cloth strips in these
aspens.
But when he came to where Pythias had intended to leave the next
thicket, he discovered where the big buck had set himself for the first
leap then wheeled to slip back into the laurel. Ten feet to one side,
the strip of cloth that had turned him still whipped in the wind.
Pythias had tried again to leave the thicket, been turned a second time
by another fluttering cloth and leaped wildly out at a place where Ted
had hung no ribbons.
The buck's pattern changed completely. He was safe in the thickets, knew
it, and had never deigned to run while sheltered by friendly brush. Now
he was running, either in great leaps that placed his bunched feet six
yards apart or at a nervous trot. Ted began to have hopes.
Pythias had the acute senses of a wild thing plus the cunning of a wise
creature that had eluded every danger for years. But the wilderness he
knew changed only with the changing seasons. What did the fluttering
cloths mean? Where had they come from? What peril did they indicate?
Pythias' tracks showed that he was becoming more nervous.
Ted pushed him hard. The buck could not reason, but if he passed enough
of them safely and discovered for himself that there was no danger in
the red ribbons, he would pay no more attention to them. An hour and a
half after taking the track Ted knew that, at least in part, he had
succeeded.
Unable to decide for himself what the fluttering cloths meant, Pythias
swung away from the thickets into beech forest. Now he ran continuously.
In the thickets, knowing very well that he could not be seen, he had
walked until the fluttering cloths introduced an unknown and possibly
dangerous element. This was beech forest, with visibility of anywhere
from fifty up to as much as two hundred and fifty yards. A hunter might
be anywhere and well the buck knew it. He was going to offer no one a
standing shot.
Ted followed swiftly, for now the hunt had a definite pattern. A young
buck, chased out of the thickets on Burned Mountain, might linger in the
beeches. A wise old one would hurry as fast as possible into the
thickets at the head of Coon Valley, and the nearest route lay through
the scrub beech at Glory Rock. Ted was still a quarter of a mile away
when he heard the single, sharp crack of a rifle.
He left the trail and cut directly toward Glory Rock. A volley was very
picturesque and sounded inspiring, but whoever ripped off half a dozen
shots in quick succession was merely shooting, without much regard to
aiming. Ted murmured an old hunter's adage as he ran, "One shot, one
deer. Two shots, maybe one deer. Three shots, no deer."
He ran down the slope into Coon Valley and found John Wilson standing
over Pythias. The hunter's delighted eyes met Ted's, but mingled with
his delight was a little sadness, too.
"I now," John Wilson said, "have lived."
"You got him!"
"I got him, poor fellow!"
"He'll never be a better trophy than he is right now."
It was true. At the height of his powers, Pythias faced a certain
decline. Soon he would be old, and the wilderness is not kind to the old
and infirm that dwell within it.
John Wilson laughed. "I know it. Look at him! Just look at him! I'll bet
his base tine is thirteen inches long!"