Novel 1968 - Down The Long Hills (v5.0) (5 page)

Snuffling, and making an angry rumbling sound, the animal nosed around among the bushes and rocks for some time before the pain of his wounds took him away. There had been nothing to guide him, for in falling, Ashawakie had left no trail, and the bear’s search was futile.

Ashawakie looked around now and muttered to himself, remembering the happening. It was his closest brush with death, and he recalled the episode and the area with distaste. Was it an omen, that he had been led back here by the children?

Were they children, or were they, after all, the Little People? Had they brought him back again to this place where he had known fear? To the place of the bear?

Chapter 5

U
NTIL NOW, HARDY had lived in a state of apprehension, fearing the dangers of the trail less than he feared his inability to cope with them. But now, suddenly, he found himself confident. They had been on the trail for several days, and they had survived.

He was up on Big Red and the stallion was moving along at a pleasant gait. Betty Sue was sleeping peacefully, and for the first time she was not whimpering in her sleep. But above all, he felt that he was thinking well about their situation.

It was the fish that began it. Hardy had crossed the stream twice during the last half-mile, and then had re-entered it and traveled a quarter of a mile upstream in the water.

There are few trails that, given time, cannot be worked out by a good tracker, and Hardy had small hope of losing the Indian. All he could do was play for time; and perhaps he could gain as much as an hour—maybe several hours.

It was while riding in the water that he saw the fish, and for the first time he began to realize how much his worry had kept him from making the most of the country.

Back home he had often watched the Indian boys making fish traps of branches and reeds; in fact, he had helped them, and had caught fish by that method. Here he was, going hungry with a stream close by that was filled with fish.

His arm was aching from supporting Betty Sue’s head, but his mind was busy with the problem. To make a fish trap he would need a little time…he could make one, with good luck, in an hour or less. He could set it at night, and perhaps find fish in the morning. His bad luck was that he had to keep moving.…

Or did he?

Suppose he left the trail? By now the Indian would be sure he was headed west, as most white men were, and was keeping to the trail. What if he selected some not too obvious spot and left the trail entirely? Suppose he took to the hills and camped beside some small stream until he could catch a good meal or two, perhaps even enough fish to smoke a few for the days ahead?

He could broil the fish over a fire, or in the coals. As far as that went, he could make a dish out of bark, as his father had taught him. There were plants around that could be cooked with meat or fish…he just had not been thinking.

The air was fresh and cool, the stream rustled along over the rocks, and occasionally wind stirred in the trees. When the wind came down off the snowfields on top of the mountains, it was chill. Several times, topping out on small rises among the trees, he had looked back. So far he had not seen the Indian once, but he felt sure he was back there.

The trouble with leaving the trail was that he might miss his father, who he still felt must be searching for him. But his father was a man who used his head, and he knew how Hardy thought. Of course, in the past there had been those signs they left for each other, signs to indicate a change of direction, or to show when the trail was abandoned. Undoubtedly any sign he left for his father the Indian would see, too. The usual way to leave sign was with rocks: one or two rocks piled on top of another, with a rock beside the pile to indicate direction, or a broken branch to point the way.

From among the trees Hardy looked ahead and saw where, a few hundred yards off, a smaller stream flowed into the river from the south. It was just what he wanted.

Descending the bank, he found a good place to get into the water, and then rode along upstream. The water was rarely more than two feet deep, and was running swiftly. Riding along until he was opposite the inflowing stream, Hardy went on upstream a short distance farther, and then came up out of the water and, doubling back through the trees, rode a little way toward the hills.

After he had gone a short distance, he returned to the bank of the larger stream at the spot where the smaller one entered it, and placed a broken branch in a bush beside the trail, the butt end of it pointing in the direction he had taken. There was a chance, since Hardy had not used such a method before, that the Indian might miss its significance. His father, he was sure, would be looking for such signs as they had used for each other, and this one was the most frequent.

That night Hardy and Sue camped by a small stream near a grove of willows, and Hardy set to work to make his fish trap. First, he gathered a number of thin willow withes and tied them all together at one end with another, thinner withe. Then he made several hoops, graduated in size, and pushed the smallest hoop as far down toward the tied end as possible, and tied it to the willow withes. He placed the other hoops, each somewhat larger than the next, within the cone of willow, trying each in place. When he had the trap ready for use, he put it in the stream and returned to their camp.

Remembering the fish trap had jogged his memory about other things, and he thought of the arrowhead, or
wapatoo,
a water plant growing in ponds and slow-moving streams. The tuberous roots could be boiled like potatoes, or roasted in hot ashes. He remembered that there had been two seasons when the potato crop failed, and he and his father had eaten the
wapatoo
instead. The Indians used to find them while wading and would pick them with their toes from under the muddy water. Hardy wished he could find some now.

Foraging around through the brush the children found a few more nuts, which they ate as they searched, and also some chokecherries. It was not enough to satisfy their appetites, but it did help.

The night was cold. The stars were clear and bright. The gleaming mountain peaks were crystal sharp against the sky.

When daylight came, his fish trap had three good-sized trout in it and, baked in coals, they tasted good. For the first time neither of them felt hungry.

The deep glen where they had taken refuge was reached by a narrow trail, long untraveled, to judge by its condition, except by wild game. They had found a spot concealed among great fallen trees, and although there was little grass, the stallion browsed off the low-growing plants and brush, and seemed content. During the day Hardy spitted several fish on sticks above the fire and smoked them as best he could, and while the fish smoked the children gathered serviceberries. It was then that Hardy found the track.

He had never seen a grizzly bear track before, but he knew it at once by the long claw marks made by the front feet. He had heard about these from Bill Squires.

The grizzly had apparently been gathering berries there, perhaps only the day before, and his tracks were all around. Hardy studied them with care, his scalp prickling as he thought that the bear might not be far away. Of course the grizzly might travel far in foraging for food—he might be miles away, even now. But the thought of the roasting nuts or fish…if the bear was anywhere nearby, the smell would attract him.

Later, Hardy found more tracks on the open trail, and he was puzzled by something. One of the forepaws, he decided, was curiously crippled, and mentally he began to call the grizzly Old Three-Paws.

It was already late on the second day in the glen when Hardy found the tracks. To leave now, with their fish still not thoroughly smoked, and to ride out and try to find another camp at this hour was more than he wanted to do.

“We’ll stay,” he said to Betty Sue, “but if you hear anything in the night, you touch me awake. But don’t move, and don’t speak.”

She looked at him with big eyes. “Why?”

“Just do what I tell you,” he said firmly.

“Why?”

He did not want to tell her, but it was better than having her asking questions. “I think there’s a bear somewhere around,” he said, “a big bear.”

Suddenly he thought of Big Red. The small space in which he had picketed the stallion gave him too little room. It was no more than fifty yards across, and scarcely that wide. Not enough room to get away, nor enough to fight in, and no living creature he knew of could match a grizzly. And Hardy thought that, while a grizzly prefers nuts and berries or roots, he would not miss a chance to add red meat to his diet.

It was already dusk, but he made his decision—they would have to leave. They would have to go at once.

Hurriedly he began to get their few things together. He started toward Big Red, and the horse side-stepped nervously, keeping his head turned toward the forest. His ears were pricked, his eyes wide, his nostrils flaring.

“All right, Red,” the boy said gently. “You let me put Betty Sue up. We’re going to leave.”

The stallion ducked his head a little, but his eyes stayed on the forest.

O
LD THREE-PAWS WAS coming on. He was a huge grizzly, a little past his prime, and he was cranky. Born with a streak of meanness, it had doubled and redoubled since the injury to his paw long before.

He had been on a long sweep around his territory, a sweep some twenty miles around, and he was coming back to that corner he much preferred. He was returning from an unsuccessful hunt, hungry and fierce.

The wind was from him and toward them, or he might have caught the man-smell then and turned aside. But as he drew nearer he caught tantalizing, unfamiliar odors mingled with familiar ones. He recognized the smell of horse—he had eaten horse once or twice—and he knew the smell of raw fish.

Old Three-Paws weighed about nine hundred pounds. He was not quite as quick as he used to be, but he was still quick, and he could crush the skull of an ox with one blow of his good paw. He feared nothing on earth, and earlier that day he had lumbered past a mountain lion. It spat and snarled, then darted past him on the narrow trail, turning to snarl after him. Old Three-Paws ignored the cat as something beneath his notice.

He was not far from the camp when he first smelled horse; then he got the smell of smoke, which he did not like, and that tantalizing smell of smoked fish, which was different from any smell he had ever encountered before.

Old Three-Paws stopped on the trail and lifted his nose inquisitively. He was not afraid, but he was curious. This was a narrow, secluded canyon. His own den, where he would soon be crawling in for the winter, was only a short distance farther on. He sniffed again, and growled deep in his chest. Now there was, faintly, a tinge of man-smell on the wind.

He left the trail and went down the slope toward the water, pausing from time to time to sniff the wind. He drank at the stream, stared into the gathering dusk, for it was darker among the trees, and then he turned again toward the smell. He was hungry, and he wanted meat…and there were, too, other possibilities of food where the man-smell was. He had raided camps before this…and gotten away with it.

Three miles farther back on the trail, Ashawakie had come upon the trail of his old enemy. With a thrill of superstitious fear, he recognized the bear track, then noted the crippled forepaw. He remembered his last, desperate swing with the knife, and the paw streaming blood. That had been his final glimpse of the red-eyed bear as it knocked him sprawling over the cliff.

Ashawakie, descendant of generations of warriors stood irresolute.

Only a little farther up the trail was the great red horse…he had found hairs left in the bark where the horse had scratched himself…and he wanted that stallion. The children—if real children they were—would be there too.…And the bear.

The tracks of the bear were fresh, made only a short time before; and that bear had almost killed him once. For months, although he told no one, he was charged by a red-eyed bear in his dreams, and he would wake up cold with sweat, seeing again those slavering jaws, those gleaming teeth, and the wrinkled, curled-back lips.

He checked his rifle, then the bow and arrows he carried against the possibility of damage to the rifle.

Ashawakie had his own pride, a fierce pride in his strength, and he had taken many scalps, counted coups many times. He would ride on. But the fear of the bear rode with him, that bear that was, that must be, an evil spirit incarnate, a monster who lived only to destroy him. His fingers strayed to his medicine bag, and touched it lightly. He would need his medicine.

A
WIND MOVED the leaves ever so gently, and Hardy’s eyes grew round as he moved toward the horse to lift Betty Sue to its back. The stallion side-stepped quickly, moving away from the burden for the first time. Hardy hesitated, wanting desperately to be away, yet aware that the stallion sensed danger and wanted to be free to move.

He led Betty Sue to a large tree, and hoisted her to a limb. “You sit still,” he warned, “and don’t make a sound.”

He got out his bow and his arrows. They were pitiful weapons against the might of a grizzly, but he had nothing else.

Again the wind rustled, and something stirred in the brush. Crossing to the big horse, Hardy reached up and unsnapped the picket-rope from the halter. “There you go, Red, you do what you need to do, and I’d not blame you if you run out of here.”

The stallion’s head was up, nostrils flared. Suddenly, angrily, he pawed the earth.

In the brush the grizzly peered through the leaves, his red eyes blinking. Deep in his chest, he gave a growl. He recognized the stallion for what he was, or should have been, the leader of a herd. He had met such creatures before, but usually they fled, leading their mares away in a swift rush that left Old Three-Paws far behind. Only when he was about to attack a mare with a foal did the stallion stand to fight; and there are few things more terrible in battle than an infuriated mustang stallion.

Three-Paws took a slow step forward. The stallion was a good twenty yards off, and the grizzly wanted his first charge to be decisive. One blow of his good paw and that stallion would be down with a broken neck; but the grizzly knew from past experience that a fighting stallion was like a demon unleashed, swift to dart in, to spring aside, to retreat.

Big Red was larger than any mustang stallion Three-Paws had ever seen, but the grizzly was not worried. He merely wanted to get it over with quickly. He crept forward…one step…another.

Hardy’s heart was pounding, and his mouth was dry with fear. He backed toward the tree. “Betty Sue,” he whispered hoarsely, “climb up. Climb to that big limb above your head.”