When the dog came to the weed-grown border of the clearing, he stopped.
Then, knowing that his back could be seen over the weeds, he slunk down
so that his belly scraped the earth. He was tense and quivering, and his
eyes bore a haunted look. But there was nothing craven in them and
little fear. In all his life the dog had never feared anything except
the terrible torment that beset him now.
He was of no recognizable breed, though all of his ancestors had been
large dogs. There was a hint of staghound in his massive head and in his
carriage, and somewhere along the way he had acquired a trace of Great
Dane. His fur was silky, like a collie's, and there was a suggestion of
bloodhound in his somewhat flabby jowls. Without purpose or plan, the
blood of all these breeds had mingled to produce this big mongrel.
He was so emaciated that slatted ribs showed even through his
burr-matted fur. Had he eaten as much as he wanted, he would have
weighed about a hundred and ten pounds, but he had had so little food
recently that he was fifteen pounds lighter. Intelligence glowed in his
eyes. But there was also something in them that verged on desperation.
He moved only his head and moved that slowly. This dog knew too much,
and had suffered too much, to let himself be seen until he had some idea
of what he was about. He was looking toward a big white farmhouse that
was surrounded by a grove of apple trees. A thin plume of blue smoke
rose from the chimney, and a pile of freshly-split wood lay in the yard.
Busy white hens wandered about. White and black cows and two brown
horses cropped grass in a pasture. Pigs grunted in their pen and a black
cat sunned itself on the door step.
The dog's attention returned to the man who was splitting more wood. He
was thin, dressed in faded blue jeans and a tan shirt, and the blows of
his axe echoed dully from the hills surrounding the farm house. He
worked slowly and methodically. The dog drank eagerly of his scent,
although he did not leave his cover, for behind him there was only a
trail of torment, abuse and real danger. He had been wandering for two
months and his path was a long one, but because it was also a twisted
one it had not taken him too far from the place he had left. He had been
in villages and towns, through farm lands and forest, and wherever he
met men he had been stoned or clubbed. Three times--twice by farmers and
once by a policeman--he had been shot at.
The dog could not know that this was partly because of his appearance
and size. He was big and he looked wild. Had he cared to do so, he could
have killed a man. But what none of his tormentors could know was that,
though the dog feared little, he was almost incapable of attacking a
human being. What nobody could know either was that, most of all, the
dog was in desperate need of someone to love.
Until two months ago, everything had been different. When the dog came
to live with Johnny Blazer, in the hills behind Smithville, he was so
young that it always seemed he must have begun life with Johnny. It was
a good life and he had never wanted any other.
Johnny's cabin was big, with a kitchen and combined living-dining room
on the first floor and the entire second floor given over to many bunks.
It was necessary to have a big cabin because, in season, Johnny both
guided and boarded hunters and fishermen. During the winter, he trapped
furs, and when there was nothing else to do he worked at odd jobs or
searched out and sold medicinal roots which he found in the hills. A
lean, tight-jawed woodsman in his late thirties, Johnny had been the
dog's revered master.
Because he was a dog, and thus incapable of grasping the more complex
facts, the great animal did not understand that life was not the wholly
carefree and happy one it seemed. He could sense that Johnny avoided the
Whitneys, who--at various places in the hills--lived much as Johnny did.
Because they were Johnny's enemies, it followed that the Whitneys must
be the dog's enemies too. But he had never understood what took place.
Johnny and the dog were strolling toward Smithville when a rifle cracked
and Johnny took three staggering steps to fall forward. While the dog
hovered anxiously near, his master tried and failed to get up. The dog
knew that the scent of Pete Whitney filled the air, but there was no
connection between Pete and the fact that Johnny Blazer lay wounded in
the road.
For an hour the dog worried beside Johnny, whining because he could not
help. Then a car happened along. The two men in it lifted Johnny into
the car and were off at high speed.
The dog tried to follow, but though he could run very fast, he could not
keep up with the car. Outdistanced, he panted back to the cabin because
he was sure that Johnny would return there, too. He waited a week, never
venturing far away and eating only what he could find or catch. Then he
set out to look for Johnny.
He'd gone first to Smithville and the first person he'd met there was
Pete Whitney. The dog slowed to a walk, watching Pete warily and
bristling. He saw no connection between any of Pete's actions and
Johnny's disappearance, but all the Whitneys were enemies. He leaped
aside when Pete aimed a swift kick at his groin, then turned with bared
fangs. Unarmed, Pete shrank back against a near-by building and the dog
went on.
The alarm was sounded; Johnny Blazer's dog had come into town and
threatened a person. For a while--Johnny had many friends in
Smithville--nothing was done. But after two days, the dog was considered
a menace. Mothers of small children became concerned for their safety.
The first act of most men, upon seeing the dog, was to pick up and hurl
any convenient missile.
The Smithville constable, Bill Ellis, reluctantly set out to kill the
animal. But two hours earlier, having satisfied himself that he would
not find Johnny in Smithville, the dog had left. What he could not
possibly know was that his master was dead and the official cause of his
death was, "Bullet wound inflicted by a person or persons unknown."
As the dog wandered, hope faded. He could not find Johnny. But the dog
had to have a master because he was unable to live without one, and now,
as he lay in the tall weeds, all the deep yearnings in his heart
concentrated on this man splitting wood.
He half rose, minded to walk out and meet him, but memory of the rocks
and clubs that had come his way was not an easy one to banish and he
settled down in the weeds again. Then an uncontrollable longing for
someone to love and someone to love him overcame everything else and he
left the weeds.
He walked with his tail drooping in a half circle down his rear, but he
was not abject because it was not in him to be so. One or more of his
many ancestors had bequeathed to him a great pride and a regal inner
sense, and though he would run when a club or brick was hurled at him,
he could never cringe. He carried his tail low because that was the way
he carried it naturally, like a collie or staghound.
The man, setting a chunk of wood against the splitting block, had his
back turned to the dog and did not at once see him. The dog waited,
unwilling to intrude until he was invited to do so. The man raised his
axe, brought it expertly down, and the wood split cleanly. He stooped to
pick up the two pieces and when he did he saw the dog.
"You!"
Catching up one of the chunks, he hurled it with deadly aim and intent.
But even as he did this, the huge animal started to run, so that instead
of striking him in the head, the chunk of wood struck his right
shoulder. The dog felt quick agony that subsided to searing pain as he
kept running. Twenty seconds later he heard a rifle blast, and the thump
of a leaden slug that plowed into the earth six inches to one side. The
rifle roared a second time, and a third. Then he was safe in the woods.
He slowed to a walk, knowing that he could not be seen now and his nose
informed him that there were no other men around. For the time being he
was in no danger, but he was heartsick. Again he had tried, in every way
he knew, to find someone whom he might love and who in turn might love
him. Once more his overtures had brought him only hurt.
The dog could not know that the farmer, seeing him suddenly, had been
too startled to think. When he was finally capable of coherent thought,
he decided that a wild, dangerous and doubtless rabid wolf had emerged
from the forest and that its only intention could be to prey upon the
locality's flocks and herds. Failing to bring it down with his rifle,
the farmer got hastily on the phone to mobilize his neighbors. Within
half an hour a posse was out.
However, its members were farmers and not hunters. The only hunting dogs
in the area were a few fox and coon hounds and some rabbit hounds, and
they refused to interest themselves in the supposed wolf's trail. But
there was also a pair of big cross-bred brindle bulls and they were
urged into the woods. An hour later the dog met this pair.
Coursing a little open glade, they appeared in front of him and as soon
as they saw him they stopped. The bulls weighed only about fifty pounds
each, but they had had many battles and they knew how to fight. Lifting
their lips in anticipatory grins, they closed in.
The dog waited, anger rising in his heart. He too knew how to fight. For
the barest fraction of a minute he gauged the bulls' advance, then he
attacked. He was not as swift as he ordinarily was because he had not
eaten enough. But with his staghound and collie lineage, he had
inherited all the fluid, rippling grace of such dogs. It was not his way
to bore in, to seek a hold and keep it, but to slash and slice. He
struck the first bull, cut it to the shoulder bone, and leaped clear
over his enemy before there could be a return thrust. He whirled to face
the second.
It came at him with a short, choppy gait, eyes half closed and mouth
open as it sought any hold at all. As soon as it was able to get one, it
would clamp its jaws and grind until the piece of flesh in its mouth was
torn out. Then it would get another hold, and another, and literally
tear its enemy apart.
The dog waited, as though he were about to meet the bull head on. But
when only inches separated them, he glided to one side, ducked to get
hold of a front leg, and used all his strength to throw the bull clear
over his head. He turned to meet the second bull that, recovering, had
come in to grab his thigh.
Twisting himself almost double, the dog slashed and bit and each time he
slashed fresh blood spurted from the brindle bull's hide. The dog opened
his huge mouth, clamped it over the bull's neck, and shook his adversary
back and forth.
The bulls had courage, but they were cross-breeds and not the fighting
bulls that will gladly die if they can take their enemy with them. They
staggered twenty feet off and faced the dog warily, as though seeking
some new way to attack him. He waited, ready for whatever they might
do, and when he finally limped away he did so with his head turned to
see if he was being followed.
He was not afraid to renew the battle, but he wanted most to be let
alone by this ugly pair. In spite of all the rebuffs and even physical
violence that he had met up with, however, he could not abandon the
driving urge that had sent him forth. He could not live without a
master. Somewhere and somehow he must find one.
He passed from settled country into forest where there was only an
occasional clearing. When two deer fled before him he gave halfhearted
chase. But his shoulder still hurt and the battle had wearied him. When
the deer outdistanced him, he stopped to eat a few mushrooms that grew
on a stump. They were tasteless fare, but they helped still the gnawing
in his belly. Near the edge of a pond, he found and ate a fish that had
been hurt in battle with a bigger fish, and after that he caught a
mouse. All together were mere tidbits, and the dog thought wistfully of
the delicious meals Johnny Blazer used to prepare for him.
Night had fallen when he stopped suddenly, his nose tickled by the
tantalizing odor of food. Mingled with it was the smell of wood smoke
and a man. The dog's nose informed him that there was a creek, and he
caught the faintly-acrid smell of cinders and steel that meant a
railroad. The dog slowed to a walk and went closer to verify with his
eyes what his nose had already told him.
There was a creek spanned by a railroad bridge. Beneath the bridge was a
small, bright fire over which, on a forked stick, hung a pot of
simmering coffee. Crouched beside the fire was a man, and because there
is a difference in the odors of young and old, the dog knew that this
was a young man.
The dog padded silently through tall, wild grass growing beside the
creek. He drooled at the odor of food, but because painful experience
had taught him to be very careful in all dealings with men, he did not
go any nearer. He licked his chops with a moist tongue and excitement
danced in his eyes. How he would love to be near that fire, partaking of
the food and the caresses of the young man!
But he had better be careful.
* * * * *
At the same time that the dog met the farmer who hurled the block of
wood at him, Jeff Tarrant was walking down a dusty road that led into
the town of Cressman. Two days past his eighteenth birthday, his face
betrayed his youth. Healthy as sunshine, he walked with a spring in his
step and his head held high. His rather loose lips formed a grin that
seemed permanently fixed. His blue eyes sparked and a shock of curly red
hair that needed cutting tumbled on his head. Even if it were not for
the pack he carried, he would have commanded a second glance.
The pack, made of both canvas and leather and with straps at strategic
intervals, was huge. It began at Jeff's hip line, extended two inches
over the top of his head, and it was bulging. Across it, in black
letters as big as the pack would accommodate, was:
TARRANT
ENTERPRISES
Ltd.
Jeff himself had designed the pack to fit his needs, and he had done the
lettering. It described him perfectly, for what nobody except Jeff knew
was that Tarrant Enterprises was limited to whatever might be in the
pack.
He walked cheerfully, for it was a cheerful day, and he gave thanks for
the sparsely-settled country and the little-traveled road on which he
found himself. In the first place, this was the only kind of country in
which Tarrant Enterprises, Ltd., could flourish. Secondly, the day was
made for walking. When Jeff found himself on traveled roads, he was
forever being offered rides, and for the sake of both courtesy and good
business he always accepted. But there had been no rides today.
Descending a hill, Jeff looked down at a junction of two forested
valleys, up one of which a train was puffing. He looked at it closely,
while the smile in his eyes and that on his mouth seemed to grow a
little more pronounced. Railroad tracks meant towns somewhere, and the
sort of business Tarrant Enterprises, Ltd., could do in towns depended
on circumstance.
Jeff sniffed deeply, for part of his success depended on an ability to
sense what lay ahead, just as a hunter must sense what is in the offing.
Now he had wood smoke in his nostrils, and he was not surprised when he
rounded an outjutting corner of the hill and saw a farm house.
Jeff whistled happily as he approached the house and knocked on the
front door, and he had the most gracious smile Tarrant Enterprises,
Ltd., could muster up for the woman who opened it.
"Good afternoon, ma'am. I represent Tarrant--"
"Don't want nothin'!" she rasped. "Never buy nothin' from peddlers!"
Hard work, loneliness and collapsed dreams had all left their marks, so
that she was almost as weather-beaten as the house. But Jeff saw at a
glance that the place was neat and clean, and since she did not close
the door, he entered, swung the pack from his back, and laid it on a
table.
"Get it off!" she scolded. "Don't want no dirty pack on my table! Don't
want nothin' from no peddler nohow!"
Jeff sniffed hungrily. A delicious incense, the mingled odors of roast
chicken and fresh-baked bread, blessed his nostrils. He said slowly and
with dignity,
"I am not a peddler, ma'am. I represent Tarrant--"
"Now, look! I just broke my parin' knife an' I got no time--"
"Ah!"
Like magic, and seemingly without visible motion, the pack opened. From
it Jeff took a paring knife with a gleaming blade and a shiny black
handle.
"Only seventeen cents, ma'am. Blade of finest steel and hilt of genuine
polished wood! Holds its edges and its temper, too! A lifetime knife!"
She looked at the knife, longing in her eyes. When she glanced again at
Jeff, she was not so hostile.
"Got no money," she admitted.
Jeff laughed. "I asked for none! Our conversation became so fascinating
that I had no chance to explain that I represent Tarrant Enterprises,
Ltd. We have long recognized the needs of people such as yourself,
people who prefer the refined quiet of country life to crowds and
cities. But country life, as you must know, is not without
inconveniences. Our only aim is to bring to the doors of people such as
yourself whatever may not be available."