The haunted hound; (23 page)

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bushes to a chestnut tree. He chmbed up after the fox and tied her up in one of the forks.

Then lie came down and started back through the bushes.

Jonathan wasn't paying much attention. He was akeady Hstening for Pot Likker, although he doubted whether Judy had even got back to let him out.

Then Mr. Worth said, ''Ohh!'' It was a sort of grunt and not a cry.

Jonathan turned around.

Mr. Worth either fell or sat down. Jonathan saw his hat sink slowly down out of sight.

''Dang it/' Mr. Worth said, agony in his voice.

CHAPTER TWENTY

he way Mr. Worth had said 'Dang it" alarmed Jonathan. ''What's the matter, Mr. Worth?'' he called, walking over toward the clump of bushes.

''Stay where you are!" Mr. Worth ordered. "A rattlesnake just hit me. There's another one in here somewhere."

Jonathan felt as though something had sucked all the breath out of his lungs. "Did it bite you?" he asked.

"Yes," Mr. Worth said. "I'm going to try to get out now. Don't you come near these bushes."

But Jonathan walked slowly toward therh, searching the ground with his eyes. On his way he picked up a piece of tree limb and broke off the end of it to make a club.

"Where are they?" he asked.

"I don't know exactly. I can just hear them."

Jonathan had reached the edge of the bushes and could see a little trail winding through. "Hadn't you better sta\' there and watch out until I can find them?" he asked.

"Don't come in here, Jonathan/'

"You just stay there," Jonathan said. "I've got a stick."

His breath was shivering in his mouth and he felt weak as lie started into the bushes.

Then, for the first time in his life, he heard a rattlesnake. He had often wondered what it sounded like and whether he would be able to reeognize the sound the first time he heard it.

But the noise he heard now eould come only from a rattlesnake. There was no other noise like it. The sound was a dry, shrill whir, rising and falling. It made his flesh crawl.

The worst part of it was that you couldn't tell where the sound was coming from. As Jonathan stood, one foot off the ground, the rattling seemed to be first in front of him, then behind, then on both sides.

Mr. Worth was begging. ''Don't come in here, boy. I can get out.''

''They're all around," Jonathan said. He took another step forward, searching with his eyes and holding his breath.

"They're big," Mr. Worth said.

Jonathan saw Mr. Worth at last, pushing himself up from the ground with his hands. When he got to his feet, he turned slowly around, facing Jonathan. His face was as white as paper, his eyes looking like burned holes, his lips an ugly gray. He looked, too, as though he were going to fall again.

Jonathan started toward him.

Then, so close that his next step would have put him on top of the thing, Jonathan saw the rattlesnake. The dirty yellow and black of its body blended with the summer-brown

leaves on the ground so that, until you looked directly at the snake, it was almost impossible to see it.

It was coiled, coil overflowing coil, and the tail sticking straight up in the air and moving so fast it was just a gray blur. The snake's head was drawn back on its arched neck and was swaying a little. A forked tongue licked in and out of the closed lips.

Before Jonathan could move a muscle, the snake struck. Its head flashed toward him about a foot above the ground, the body pouring toward him from the coils like something gushing from a bottle.

It was absolutely horrible. Jonathan could feel everything inside him writhing, his stomach churning, his lungs collapsing, his muscles turning into jelly.

The snake's jaws were wide open, and Jonathan could see the two little dark trenches in the dead-white mouth where the fangs lay when they were drawn back.

He could see the fangs, too. Long, needle-sharp and curved, reaching for him.

He had no time to swing his club, no time to turn and run. On each side of him the bushes were too thick to let him dodge.

He had been walking cautiously, his knees bent a little, so that now he was slightly crouched. Gathering all the power he had, strength flowing from his shoulders and down his back, he poured it into the muscles of his legs. Then he jumped straight up, at the same time tucking his feet up

as high as he could.

The snake missed him, flowing under him.

Jonathan was swinging with the club when he came down. The snake was coihng again, swiftly.

The club caught it solidly and knocked it back into the bushes. Then, as it started to coil once more, Jonathan got a clear swing at it and broke its head.

He was shaking all over and so weak he could hardh' hold the club as he turned and looked at Mr. Worth.

'There's another one, but I think he's over there,'' Mr. Worth said, pointing to his left.

''Can you walk?" Jonathan asked.

Mr. Worth nodded. "Go back now."

Jonathan turned around slowly, his legs weak, and got clear of the bushes. In a little while Mr. Worth joined him in a clear place with only low, dry grass on it.

Mr. Worth sat down and, with his pocketknife, cut his trouser leg ofiF above the knee. Then, twisting his leg around, he looked at the place where the snake had hit him.

Jonathan looked, too. On the calf of Mr. Worth's right leg, just below^ the biggest bulge, there w^ere two red punctures about an inch apart.

"He nailed me," Mr. Worth said, fumbling around in his pocket.

"What are we going to do?" Jonathan asked.

"Get the poison out first." Mr. Worth pulled out of his pocket something that looked like a short, fat rubber cigar. He pulled on it and it came in two. The ends were hollow and inside one of them was a roll of paper. Mr. Worth

pulled this out, unfolded it, and laid it on the ground. Inside the paper there was a small glass vial of reddish fluid, a long, thin rubber tube, and a little sharp-pointed blade.

''Been earrying this snakebite kit for years,'' Mr. Worth said. ''Glad I did.''

I le was still ashy white in the faee and his hands trembled a little as he snapped the end off the glass vial.

"Thing knoeked me down," Mr. Worth said, dipping the little blade into the fluid.

"Shouldn't I go get somebody?" Jonathan asked.

"Not yet." Mr. Worth felt the outside of his poekets, then said, "Get me a little pieee of wood, Jonathan."

When Jonathan brought a pieee, Mr. Worth broke it off to the size he wanted. Then, feeling with his fingers, he found the artery in the baek of his leg. He put the pieee of wood against it, then wrapped the rubber tube around his leg and twisted it so that it pressed the wood hard against the artery.

He was sweating, drops of moisture running into his eyes and dripping off his ehin.

"Glad that one missed you," Mr. Worth said. "Close, though."

Jonathan nodded. He felt siek and seared.

When the tourniquet was tight, Mr. Worth looked at his wrist wateh. "Have to slaek that off after a while."

Then, twisting his leg around, he got the little knife blade. He held it with one hand while he poured some of the brown fluid on the fang marks. "Iodine," he said.

Then he paused, looking at Jonathan. "Feel all right?" he asked.

Jonathan nodded again.

''I don't.'' Mr. Worth tried to smile, but it wasn't very good. ''Do you think you could cut me up a little, Jonathan? I can't get at it very well."

''I guess so. What do you want me to do?"

Mr. Worth held out the shiny knife blade. As Jonathan took it, he saw that it was razor sharp with a long, pointed blade.

'Tirst, cut right through each fang mark. Then go through both of them. A kind of H, Jonathan."

Mr. Worth twisted over so that he was almost lying on his face. Jonathan, the knife glinting as his hand trembled, sat down beside his leg.

''It won't hurt/' Mr. Worth said. "It's like that Indian toting a rock so he'd feel rested when he put it down. It hurts too much already for me to feel the knife."

Jonathan brought the knife close to his leg but, then, he couldn't do it.

Mr. Worth must have suspected that for he said, "Do it as fast as you can, Jonathan. Do it fast and we can get the poison out before it goes all through me. Go ahead."

"All right," Jonathan said, his voice faint.

He put the point of the knife down on Mr. Worth's flesh. As he pressed, the skin just went down without breaking.

Jonathan gulped and closed his eyes for a second. Then, when he opened them, he made his hand stop trembling.

Holding his breath, he pressed harder and harder, until the point of the knife sank into the skin. Blood poured out, scaring him, but, making his hand be steady, he drew the knife along, cutting through the fang hole and going on a little farther.

"Good," Mr. Worth said. "Now the other one."

Jonathan made another slice.

"Hurt, Uncle Dan?" he asked.

"Not at all," Mr. Worth said. But sweat was standing on his forehead in separate little drops.

Jonathan sliced again, making the bar across the H.

Mr. Worth let his breath out in a long stream. "Now, Jonathan, wet the lips of those rubber things, squeeze all the air out of them, and put them right on top of the fang holes. They'll suck, see?"

Jonathan put the vacuum cups on and watched them slowly come back to their original shape. He took them off, emptied the blood and \enom out of them, and put them back on again.

"There's a red streak going up your leg, Uncle Dan," he said.

"Stop it if you can. Keep slicing across it with the knife. Make slices about an inch apart. You don't have to make them as deep as the others. Just get them bleeding well."

It was easier for him to use the knife now, and he kept making little cuts as the red line ad\'anced up Mr. Worth's leg. He also kept emptying the cups and putting them back on again.

It was quiet there as he worked, and Mr. Worth now lay down flat, his face turned sideways. Sometimes he closed his eyes, but most of the time he just lay looking at nothing.

'Tm counting on Judy coming straight back here in a hurry," Mr. Worth said. ''As soon as she lets Pot Likker go, she should come straight here so as not to confuse him."

Then, in the quiet, Jonathan heard the faraway voice of Pot Likker striking on the fox scent.

Mr. Worth raised his head a little, listening. "Isn't that beautiful, Jonathan?'' he asked quietly.

Jonathan Just nodded.

"If I've got to be rattlesnake bit, I'm glad I can listen to a fox race while you get the venom out."

In a minute or so Judy came riding up. When she saw Mr. Worth on the ground, she jumped off her horse and ran to him.

"Uncle Dan!"

"Rattler got me, Judy. Ride back and get a car."

"I'll get Mother to bring the jeep."

"That's the thing. Ask the Little Bird to have anti-venom ready at the hospital, will you? Tell her not to worry, too. Jonathan's got most of the poison out so I'll be all right."

Judy just nodded, her face drawn with horror. She got back on the horse and was gone before she even settled into the saddle.

"Looks like we're going to lick this thing, Jonathan," Mr. Worth said. "The thing that kills you after a snake bite is a lot of moving around. That just pumps the poison all over

vou. But youVe gotten rid of most of it before it could get into my blood stream/'

'How do you feel?''

"Sick," Mr. Worth said. "Danged sick."

'Will it take her long to get here in the jeep?"

Mr. Worth almost laughed. ''That's the gallopingest vehicle you ever saw. Shouldn't take more than ten, fifteen minutes/'

Jonathan changed the vacuum cups again. "The blood looks redder now," he observed. "It was sort of pale and watery at first."

"That was venom mixed with it. But keep on pumping, Jonathan. Let's get it all out."

Jonathan kept on working. Pot Likker's big voice was coming closer, but Jonathan listened to it only when he had nothing else to do.

"Pot's running a nice race," Mr. Worth said. "I told you he would. He isn't paying any attention to the deer scent. Now listen while he goes off through that neck of woods. Remember?"