The haunted hound; (21 page)

"I don't know. He might Just be way out in front."

"I can't stand it," Jonathan said pitifully. "W^hat'll we do if he's doing something wrong?"

"Nothing. He'll learn all by himself, Jonathan. But if

he's wrong, he ought to be wavering a httle by now. If it's a deer, or just nothing at all, he ought not to sound so strong and sure of himself/'

But the voice kept on, and it was sure of itself and strong.

And then another hound gave tongue.

Judy clutched Jonathan's shoulder. ''That's Sarko!" she whispered in his ear. ''Sarko wouldn't speak if it wasn't a fox."

And another bugling voice came up.

''Ben Brown!" she whispered.

Then a high, squealing, coarse voice. "Old Dora. She must have cut. Oh, Jonathan, listen to him! Listen to Pot Likker."

Now^ all the hounds were open, wide, and the valleys and hills were full of sound. But still the deep, bugling music of Pot Likker sounded above them all, and you could tell that he was the only one who had the fox scent hot and fresh. That he was the one out in front of the whole pack.

Jonathan heard one of the men say quietly, "Can't place that first mouth, can you?"

"Sounds a little like Jack Tatum's Sarah, but I'm not sure.

"Couldn't be Sarah. She just whelped. But it's a Trombo anyway."

Then another man said, "You know, that voice sounds like Bill Barrett's old dog Blue. I'd swear that that was Mister Blue if I didn't know that old hound had run his last race."

The first man said, a little louder, ''Dan, what dog is that? You haven't put old Blue in there, have you?''

Jonathan and Judy stopped breathing as they waited.

Slowly, "'Mister Blue's home under the house. Will," Mr. Worth said. "I don't know what dog that is. But I sure would like to."

Jonathan let out his breath. "Do }'0u think he really doesn't know?"

Judy whispered, ''He knows all right. He just isn't tell-mg.

The hound voices died one by one as they lost the scent. Then Pot Likker opened again. There wasn't any maybe in the way he said it; he was on it hot and going out of there, and he was telling the rest of the hounds that they could come with him if they v/anted to. But he didn't need any of them to tell him that he had that fox scent so strong he could hold his head up and just run him.

Judy pulled at Jonathan's hand. "We've got to go," she said urgently. "Pot Likker'll tree that fox in a minute and the whole crowd will be around with flashlights."

They got up and, for a while, sneaked away down the hill. When they were in the clear, they began to run as hard as they could.

Then, in a field lit by the rising moon, Jonathan saw them. The pack was strung out, going across the field, and Pot Likker was way ahead, his big black-and-white body stretching out and his voice floating back over him and spreading all over the country.

''Call him off," Judy said, panting. ''Quick. Here they come/'

As Jonathan tried to stop gasping, he saw the horses wheeling down the hill.

It took him a long time to get enough breath to blow the cow horn, but at last he sent the commanding, long, trailing tune down the valley.

Pot Likker slowly stopped giving tongue.

"That's breaking his heart," Judy said, still whispering, although there was no need for it now.

Jonathan blew once more.

Then Pot Likker came, loping along, miserable, his ears flopping, his tail almost dragging the ground.

Jonathan, his voice choked, grabbed his dog and sat down on the ground. "Oh, Pot," he cried, "you did it! You ran it, and you showed them all how to do it. Oh, Pot Likker!"

The hound looked back and shivered. The other dogs were baying treed and flashlights were skittering around.

The mournful crying of a train whistle floated across the field, and Jonathan stood up.

Judy had already started running, and he followed, watching her gold hair bounce with each step she took.

At the tracks they waited as the freight cars slowly clattered by. In the door of the caboose a man was holding a lantern so that they could see the handrail and the steps.

Judy swung herself up, the man catching her and swinging her to the platform. Then Jonathan went up.

Pot Likkcr ran along beside the caboose, looking up at Jonathan.

''Come on, Pot Likker. Jump/' Jonathan called.

It was so easy and graceful. The big body just seemed to rise and float, the paws tucked up, the long tail streaming out, and the ears flopping around.

Pot Likker landed on the platform and sauntered on into the little room just as though the leap was nothing at all.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

he moon had come up in a sky so clear that it seemed almost to ha\'e some of the deep blue of day. When the train slowed down for them to get off, the cinders covering the slope of the right of way looked like snow.

The north pasture of the Farm was bright with moonlight, the stacks of peanut hay shadowless. Pot Likker ran around each one, trying to make the cotton rats come out so he could get them.

''Wonder what time it is?" Jonathan asked, as he and Judy walked quietly along. Both of them w^ere tired. Not from working or staying up so late but because the excitement of Pot Likker's race had drained all the strength out of them.

''Don't know. About midnight, I guess."

Jonathan walked on in silence for some time. Ahead of him there were the dark trees now concealing the old, tall gray house.

After a while he said quietly, "My father's come back by now."

Judy looked at his face in the moonhght and saw that it was sad. ''My mother has, too. She got home before we left." Jonathan was surprised. 'Tou didn't tell me that.''

''I didn't want to/' Judy said. ''But " She looked at

Jonathan again. "I guess they'll think we're both being kind of bad, Jonathan."

Whyr

"Well, your father isn't going to understand that you haven't really run away from home. He just won't understand how it is about Pot Likker. And I told my mother a whopper. Uncle Dan, too."

"What'd you tell them?"

Judy wiggled around as though someone had poured cold

water on her. ''I wanted to hear Pot Likker on the race and

I didn't think they'd let me go. So Oh, well, I just told

evetybody a whopper. Now Tm kind of sorry. But Pot Likker was wonderful, wasn't he?"

'Tes," Jonathan said, remembering.

He could see the house among the trees. He walked slower and slower. ''Judy," he said, 'Svhat's going to happen? Last night was all right, but I don't know how long I can keep on living here all by myself."

She walked slower, too. ''Do you want to go back home, Jonathan?"

He thought about it for a long time. "No," he said. "I don't ever want to go back to the apartment and all that. But I've been thinking. I've been thinking all day long. What if my father really likes to have me live with him? What if he'll miss me maybe as much as he misses Mother? What about that, Judy?"

"I don't know," Judy said. "Does he love you?"

Jonathan thought about that, too. After a while he said, "I think maybe he does, Judy. He kind of acts like he does sometimes."

"I guess he has to because he hasn't got any wife," Judy declared. "Gosh," she said, "we're in a mess, Jonathan."

"We certainly are."

"All because of Pot Likker."

"He can't help it, Judy. He's just a dog." Then he laughed a little. "But he sure got me tangled up when he decided to be my dog."

''He really did. Course you're in a worse tangle than I am, but what am I going to do now? I told Mother I was spending the night at Uncle Dan's. And I told him I was going home.''

''Whew." Jonathan whistled. "'They're all bound to find out."

"I know it. And I can't tell them anything about you or Pot Likker. So what am I going to tell them?"

Jonathan pulled out a blade of high grass and started chewing on the crisp, sweet stem of it. ''J^dy," he said finally, "what would happen if we both told your uncle Dan all about everything?"

"It might work," Judy agreed. "But we've got to remember that Uncle Dan is grown up and married and everything. He might not understand."

Jonathan kicked at a clod of dirt. "I give up/' he said. "I just wish that we were all back beside the river coon hunting. We didn't have a thing to worry about then but coons biting us, and bears, and things like that."

As they walked into the shadowy darkness under the pine trees Judy suddenly said, "Oh, my, we forgot all about making a better bed for you, Jonathan. And everything else. And we didn't eat any lunch or anything except Mr. Duncan's sandwiches. I'm hungry."

"So am I. We can cook the rest of the eggs, though."

"All right. And maybe if you folded the horse blanket it wouldn't be so hard."

"I'll put it on the couch tonight," Jonathan said. "Maybe

the smell has faded some, too. Where'd Pot Likker go?''

"Down the pasture the last time I saw him/' Judy said.

They were almost through the grove of pines and could see the whole front of the house. Moonlight streamed down the columns, turning the old, graying paint white and glim-merv again. The porches were dark and the windows were black rectangles.

As Jonathan looked at it a great wish grew in him. He wished that his father would come here on some moonlit night and look at the house just as he was looking at it now. Or come on a sunny day and see how the trees and the fields and the ponds looked. If he would only do that, Jonathan thought, he couldn't help wanting to come back here to live.

Jonathan, walking slowly and thinking, was surprised when Judy grabbed him by the arm and yanked so hard he almost lost his balance. ''Whoa!" she said with just breath.

Jonathan pulled his arm away. 'What's the matter?"

"Sssh!" she hissed at him. "Look!"

Then Jonathan saw the two people sitting on the wide steps of the house. The man he recognized instantly. It was his father. Beside him there was a lady in a white dress.

"Who's the lady?" Jonathan asked.

"My mother."

Jonathan followed Judy for a few steps, until they were both behind one of the trees. Then, for a long time, they just stood and looked at the people on the steps.

Jonathan's father and Judy's mother were talking, the

murmur of their voices coming out among the trees. It was quiet, slow talk. Jonathan and Judy couldn't hear any of the ^\'0^ds, but as they listened neither one of them believed that there was anger in the talk.

At last Jonathan said in a low whisper, 'Tie's come to take me back."

*'Yes,'' Judy said.

Helplessly Jonathan said, ''I can't go, Judy. I just can't go. Pot Likker would die."

''Yes," she said.

Jonathan straightened, squaring his shoulders and holding his head up. ''If I sneak away now, I could go down to the end of the pasture before I blew for Pot Likker. We could go on through the woods until we got to the river."

"I can't go with you," Judy said, helpless, too.

*'I didn't mean you. I meant me and Pot Likker."

''Oh. That would be reaJJy running away, Jonathan," she said so quietly he could hardly hear her.

"What else can I do?" he asked.

She didn't answer for a long time. "Maybe \ou ought to go and talk to him, Jonathan. Maybe he'll understand."

"What if he won't?"

Judy slumped against the tree. "I just don't know, Jonathan. Things have been getting bigger and bigger e\'er since yesterday. Now everything's too big for us."

"Yes," Jonathan said. "All right, I'll talk to him. But he'll have to understand about Pot Likker."

"He will," Judy said. "He's your father, Jonathan.

Fathers understand things pretty well. Like Uncle Dan."

"All right/' Jonathan said. "You ready?''

"I guess so/' Judy said, her voice trembling a little.

Together, so close that their shoulders sometimes bumped as they walked, Jonathan and Judy came out from under the trees and across the sun-burned grass toward the house.

Mr. Barrett and Judy's mother stood up when they saw them coming. Side by side they came down the steps and stopped on the ground, waiting.

"Hello, son," Jonathan's father said.

"Hello, darling," Judy's mother said.

"Hello," Jonathan and Judy said together.

Jonathan looked at his father's face, but it was in shadow and he couldn't tell what kind of expression it had. Then he looked at Judy's mother. He was surprised at how young she looked.

His father took a step and held out his hand to Judy. "Hello, Judy," he said. "I'm Jonathan's father."

"I know," Judy said.

Then her mother shook hands with Jonathan. As she did she suddenly leaned down close and whispered, "You two are rascals, but don't worry."

Jonathan wished that his father would sit down again. He looked so tall and far away standing up.

"Dad," Jonathan said, his mouth dry and his tongue stiff, "I've got a dog. He was a wild dog but he isn't any more because he decided that he wanted to be my dog. So

now he is my dog and I have to take care of him/' Jonathan was afraid that if he stopped talking his father would just say, "'It's time to go home/' But he had to stop, for he couldn't think of anything else.

'That's good, son/' his father said. 'AVhat does he look like?"

''You want to see him?" Jonathan asked.

"Of course."

Jonathan whipped the horn around and blew one long, commanding note. Then, confidently, he said, "He'll be here in a minute."

As they waited, Judy's mother asked, "Haven't you e\'er had a dog before, Jonathan?"

"No, ma'am," Jonathan said. "Well, not like this one/'

"It's Pot Likker, Mother," Judy broke in.

"The one you and Dan claimed didn't have any instincts?" she asked.

"That's the one. We were wrong all the time. Pot Likker was just waiting for somebody he thought was good enough to love. So he found Jonathan. Jonathan can just say, 'Come here,' and Pot Likker will leave even a big, juicy steak and come. You see. Pot Likker gave himself to Jonathan so naturally Jonathan has to take care of him for all the rest of his life."

"Naturally," she said.

Then Pot Likker came, big and fast in the moonlight. When he saw the grownups, he skidded to a stop a little way away.

226

I

''Come on, Pot, they're all right/' Jonathan said.

Pot Likker walked slowly the rest of the way and sat down, leaning against Jonathan's leg.

''Good-looking," Jonathan's father said. Stooping, he looked closer. "A lot like a hound I used to ha\'e named Mister Blue."

"Mister Blue's his father. Dad,'' Jonathan said.

His father asked, "Oh, is old Blue still alive?"

"Judy takes care of him."

His father said quietly, "I'm beginning to understand a few things, son."

"So am I," Judy's mother said. "Why don't we go down to my house and fix something to eat and then try to understand a lot more? Or aren't you children hungry?"

"Sort of/' Judy said.

"Let's do that," her mother said.

Before they moved, though, a car's lights swept up the dri\'e. In a minute Mr. Worth drove up in his truck.

"Hi, folks. Hi, Mary. Well, doggone if it isn't Bill Barrett! Hi, Bill."

"Hello, Dan. Glad to see you."

"What's going on anyway?" Mr. Worth asked. "I get home from a peaceful fox race and the Little Bird tells me all about Jonathan running away from home and Judy being about to get her mouth washed out with soap." Then he looked down at them. Now, his voice quiet, he said, "It's Pot Likker, isn't it?"

Judy nodded.

''I was afraid so. When I saw that dog drop that steak and come when Jonathan called him, I knew that there was going to be trouble."

Judy's mother said, ''Vm still hungry."

''The Little Bird's fixing something for all of us/' Mr. Worth said. 'Xet's go eat and take care of this trouble afterward. Jump in, Mary, you and Judy." He held the truck door open for them. ''See you soon, Bill."

''Be right along, Dan."

The pickup truck swung on around the circle. Jonathan watched the red taillights growing dim. When they were gone, he turned and looked up at his father.

"Are you going to make me go back. Dad?"

His father went over and sat down on the bottom step. Jonathan sat down beside him, Pot Likker on the far side.

"Son, I don't believe in making people do things. But, on the other hand, I hate to have you staying here alone in this gloomy, lonely old house."

"Gloomy! It isn't gloomy at all. And I'm not lonely. Pot Likker stays with me."

"And sleeping on a horse blanket."

"Oh, well. Judy and I just forgot to do anything about that. But we will." Then, suddenly, Jonathan wondered ho\\' his father knew so much about everything. "Dad," he said, "how did you know?"

"Dan told me."

That hurt Jonathan. He didn't want to think that Mr. Worth would tell on him.

His father must have felt his hurt because he said quietly, ''Jonathan, Dan Worth told me only because you're my son and you were in trouble. He couldn't do anything else, could he?''

"But I'm not in trouble, Dad. There's nothing wrong at all. Everything is fine! It's better than it ever has been. I mean, at least, since—"

His father said slowly, "Son, a boy doesn't run away from home unless he's unhappy and in trouble."

* Well " Jonathan said. It was so hard to explain to his

father. "Well, look, Dad, I mean in town there wasn't very much for me to do. Nothing but the movies and school all the time. I guess I Just wasn't having much fun, that's all. But out here, well, I mean, there's Pot Likker and Judy and everything like that. I wasn't running away from you. Dad, because you weren't hardly ever there anyway."

"Wasn't there?" his father asked, surprised.

"Well, I mean you were working most of the time and you had to go away a lot and things like that."

"Oh, I see," his father said. "Did it seem to you that I was away more than I was at home?" Then, before Jonathan could answer, he went on very slowly, "Did it seem to you, son, that I wasn't there?"

Jonathan thought about that for a while. In his memory it seemed to him that, really, there were only Mamie and Mrs. Johnson in the apartment. If his father w^as home he was usually in the den, with the door closed. And he went

on a lot of trips. At last Jonathan said, ''Well, I guess that's just about the way it seemed to me, Dad/'

In the moonlight he saw his father's hands clenched together, the fingers straining against each other. Then, almost in a whisper, he said, ''I don't blame }'0u for running away, son/'

Jonathan moved closer to him. ''I didn't really run away. Dad. I just came here. This is home, isn't it?"

His father didn't seem to be listening as he sat on the steps staring down at the ground.

Jonathan kept on. ''Dad, why don't we both come here to live?"

It took a long time for him to answer, but at last he looked up. "I don't see how we can work it out that way, son."

Jonathan felt exactly as though something hard, coming fast, had hit him in the face. "Is it because you'd have to think about Mother out here?" he asked.

"Yes. That's part of it."

'T don't understand that. I don't see how thoughts about her just stay here in this house or in the woods or the fields around here waiting for you to come here and think them. The thoughts I have about her can happen any\vhere at all. Not just out here."

"Jonathan, it's hard for you to understand because }'Ou're still fairly young. But, belie\'e me, it's better for both of us to give up the Farm. Remember, son, it won't be long before you're in college. After that }Ou'll have a job and a living to make. You don't realize it, perhaps, but you'll be a grown

man in not too many more years. You don't want to sit out here on the Farm doing nothing, do you?''

'Tes/' Jonathan said. ''Only there's a lot to do here."

His father stood up. When the moonlight struck his face Jonathan saw that his eyes were sad, his lips tight together.

'AVe don't seem to be making much progress, do we, son?'' he asked.

*'I don't know/' Jonathan said.

His father started to walk to\\'ard the car. Jonathan followed him, his hand on Pot Likker's shoulders.

At the car, as his father got in, Jonathan said, ''Couldn't you just come out here for a little while, Dad? Maybe just until school starts again? Then, if you get too sad, we can go back to town."

His father started the car. "We'd better get under way," he said.

Jonathan watched the moonlit trees. Then they hammered across the pipes of the cattle guard and turned, rolling out on the highway.

Jonathan held Pot Likker close and listened to the whisper of the tires on the paved road. Somehow, to him, the sound was a city sound, and he knew that he was going back to all the rest of the city sound. The Farm was fading away behind like things in dreams fade when you wake up and try to remember them.

His father drove slowly, so that the dark woods on one side barely flowed by while, on the other side, the railroad tracks were silver lines.

Gradually everything began to get simple. Jonathan thought that it was like looking down into clear water. When the ripples on it finally died, you could see all the way down to the bottom.

He was sure that what he had done had deeply hurt his father. And that if he didn't go back to town now it would hurt him even more.

Jonathan knew, at last, for sure that his father loved him.

Jonathan also knew, at last, that he loved his father.

But there was Pot Likker. He was only a dog; he was a ''dumb brute.'' You couldn't explain things as complicated as all this to Pot Likker. All he could understand was that if Jonathan abandoned him it would mean that Jonathan didn't love him.

What could he do? Jonathan asked himself. What could he do?

"Dad," he said, "I'm sorry about—well, about everything."

"It's all right, son."

They turned in at the Worths' gate. Jonathan felt that there was only a little time left and that they were wasting it. As his father pulled up behind the pickup and turned the lights off, Jonathan said quietly, "What's going to happen, Dad?"

"We'll have to work out something, son," his father said, opening the door.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Jonathan walked slowly toward the Worths' house. In the moonlight he looked down at Pot Likker staying very close to him. Pot Likker must have known that there was trouble. His tail was drooped and he walked slowly, often looking up at Jonathan.

The Little Bird met them at the door. Jonathan asked, ''Can Pot Likker come in, too, Mrs. Worth?''

She just gave Jonathan a little hug and pushed him toward the kitchen.

Judy was sitting at the table eating scrambled eggs and bacon. Her mother was over by the stove grinding coffee in a long-handled mill which made a steady grating noise. She smiled at him and said that there would be something for him to eat in a minute.

Jonathan sat down close to Judy and whispered, ''Did they wash your mouth out with soap?"

Judy grinned. "Not yet. What'd your father say?"

"Nothing yet. Only he won't come live with me at the Farm."

Judy's mother asked, ''Where's your father, Jonathan?''

''Out there. He's coming, I guess."

She put the coffee mill down and went to the door. "Bill, do you want some eggs and bacon?" she asked.

"Please, Mary," Jonathan's father said from the other room.

"Be ready in a minute," she said. Then she came over to the table and put her hand lightly on Jonathan's shoulder. Jonathan looked up at her. She was so clean-looking and she smelled fresh and good. Her eyes were wide apart like Judy's and her mouth looked like it was always trying to smile, just the w^ay Judy's did.

"I didn't know you knew my father," Jonathan said.

"We've known each other a long time, but I hadn't seen him for years."

Then Jonathan's father and Mr. Worth came in and pulled up chairs, his father sitting down opposite him.

Mr. Worth sat with the chair turned around, his legs straddling the back. "Judy," he said, "you and Jonathan should have been with me tonight instead of chasing around getting folks all upset. You'd have heard some real hound music." Then he looked across at Jonathan's father. "You should've been there, too, Bill. There hasn't been a hound like that running in this part of the country for years."

"What was it like?" Judy asked, her face innocent.

"We were up on Widow's Hill—you remember the senator. Bill?—and we weren't expecting anything out of the

ordinary. Just a little fox running with a pack of things we call foxhounds these days.