The Incredible Journey (13 page)

Elizabeth’s attitude was the complete reverse of her brother’s: she was completely and utterly convinced that her Tao was alive, and that sooner or later he would return. Nothing could shake her
confidence, even though there had been no word of her cat since he had left the Nurmis’ so long ago and so many miles away. She dismissed all tactful efforts to explain the odds against his return—someday, somehow, a penitent Siamese would reappear, and, after a scolding due a thoughtless truant, he would receive with pleasure and surprise his new red collar.…

But she was the only one who held this cheerful confidence. After the kindly James Mackenzie had telephoned with the news that both dogs had been alive ten days ago, the family had pored over the map and seen the barrier that stretched between them and any admitted hope: wild, lonely terrain, rugged and cruel enough to beat down the endurance of any fresh and powerful dog, let alone the sick, half-starved, exhausted one that Mackenzie had described, leader and part sight for another whose willing heart could not withstand for long the betrayal of his years. All that could be hoped for now was that the end of their journey had come quickly and mercifully in that wilderness.

Longridge was visting the Hunters; and, partly to get away from the depressing telephone calls from well-meaning but ill-informed people, and partly because it was Peter’s twelfth birthday the following Sunday, he suggested that they all go and camp out in the Hunters’ summer cottage on Lake Windigo. Even though it had been closed for the winter, they could take sleeping bags, using only the living
room and kitchen which could be warmed by the Quebec heater.

At first there had been some qualms from Elizabeth about leaving the house in case Tao should choose that week end to return, but Longridge showed her that Lake Windigo lay on the direct westward route that he had traced on the map, and reminded her that Tao knew the surrounding area for miles from his many expeditions with the dogs. Elizabeth packed the red collar and seemed satisfied—too easily, he suspected, dreading her disillusionment.

The cottage was full of memories, but it was easier to accustom the mind to new ones and train it to the loss in surroundings that were so different at this time of year. It was as if they were discovering new land; a cold lake empty of boats, the few cottages nearby all blindly shuttered, locked and empty. Trails that they did not even know existed were apparent, now that the trees were bare and the undergrowth had died down. Peter had a new camera, and spent hours stalking chipmunks, squirrels and birds with it. Elizabeth spent most of the days in a precarious treehouse they had built the previous summer between three great birches on the lake shore.

On the last afternoon, the Sunday of Peter’s birthday, they decided to make a last expedition, taking the old Allen Lake Trail, then cutting off up the face of the hill to Lookout Point, and returning by the lake shore. It was an exhilarating walk through the
crisp, clear air, the leaves thick and soft along the quiet trails, and over everything the indefinable healing peace and stillness of the northland bush.

They walked for the most part in companionable silence, each busy with his own thoughts. To Jim Hunter a walk without a dog lacked savor—and he remembered other fall days when, gun in hand, he had walked through this same peaceful solitude, Luath ranging from side to side: the excited summons to a treed partridge, and the gentleness of his dog’s mouth around the soft fallen bird; then dawns and dusks on Manitoba marshes and lakes crowded his memory—freezing hours of patient waiting shared in canoes and blinds and stubble fields. The thought of Luath’s last retrieve as Mackenzie had described it affected Hunter more than anything else; for he knew the frustrated humiliation his dog would, feel with a pain-locked mouth and a bird to be brought in.

Peter had taken a short cut up the steep rock-bound side of the hill. He sat on a log, staring into space, and he too remembered this time last year—when he had tried to train Bodger as a gun dog by throwing a stuffed leather glove into the bush after firing a BB gun: the willing co-operation and eager retrieves the first day; then, increasingly limp-tailed boredom and sulky ears, followed by deepening deafness, limping paws, and an unbearable air of martyrdom; and terminated two days running so subtly, by Bodger’s appearance out of the bush with a diligent, puzzled expression—but no leather glove.
The corners of Peter’s mouth lifted when he remembered the scene that followed—the third day’s throw and shot; then his quiet stalk after his White Hope into the depths of the bush—and the wily Bodger furiously digging a third glove grave.…

He sighed now—in his sudden loneliness rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand—and picked up his camera, for he could hear his family coming.

They sat for a long time on the flat rocks of the Lookout Hill, where long ago the Indians had built their warning signal fires, looking across the endless chains of lakes and tree-covered hills to the distant blur that was the great Lake Superior. It was very peaceful and quiet: a chickadee sang his poignant little piece for them, and the inevitable whisky-jack arrived on soundless wings to pick up cooky crumbs from within a few feet. Everyone was silent and pre-occupied.

Suddenly Elizabeth stood up.

“Listen!” she said. “Listen, Daddy—I can hear a dog barking!”

Complete and utter silence fell as everyone strained their ears in the direction of the hills behind. No one heard anything.

“You’re imagining things,” said her mother. “Or perhaps it was a fox. Come along, we must start back.”

“Wait, wait! Just one minute—you’ll be able to hear it in a minute, too,” whispered Elizabeth, and her mother, remembering the child’s hearing was
still young and acute enough to hear the squeaking noise of bats and other noises lost forever to adults—and now even to Peter—remained silent.

Elizabeth’s tense, listening expression changed to a slowly dawning smile. “It’s Luath!” she announced matter-of-factly. “I know his bark!”

“Don’t do this to us, Liz,” said her father gently, disbelieving. “It’s …”

Now Peter thought he heard something too:
“Shhh …”

There was silence again, everyone straining to hear in an agony of suspense. Nothing was heard. But Elizabeth had been so convinced, the knowledge written so plainly on her face, that now Jim Hunter experienced a queer, urgent expectancy, every nerve in his body tingling with certain awareness that something was going to happen. He rose and hurried down the narrow path to where it joined the broader track leading around the hill. “Whistle, Dad!” said Peter breathlessly, behind him.

The sound rang out piercingly shrill and sweet, and almost before the echo rebounded a joyous, answering bark rang around the surrounding hills.

They stood there in the quiet afternoon, their taut bodies awaiting the relief of suspense; they stood at the road’s end, waiting to welcome a weary traveler who had journeyed so far, with such faith, along it. They had not long to wait.

Hurtling through the bushes on the high hillside of the trail a small, black-tipped wheaten body leaped
the last six feet down with careless grace and landed softly at their feet. The unearthly, discordant wail of a welcoming Siamese rent the air.

Elizabeth’s face was radiant with joy. She kneeled, and picked up the ecstatic, purring cat. “Oh, Tao!” she said softly, and as she gathered him into her arms he wound his black needle-tipped paws lovingly around her neck. “Tao!” she whispered, burying her nose in his soft, thyme-scented fur, and Tao tightened his grip in such an ecstasy of love that Elizabeth nearly choked.

Longridge had never thought of himself as being a particularly emotional man, but when the Labrador appeared an instant later, a gaunt, stare-coated shadow of the beautiful dog he had last seen, running as fast as his legs would carry him towards his master, all his soul shining out of sunken eyes, he felt a lump in his throat, and at the strange, inarticulate half-strangled noises that issued from the dog when he leaped at his master, and the expression of his friend’s face, he had to turn away and pretend to loosen Tao’s too loving paws.

Minutes passed; everyone had burst out talking and chattering excitedly, gathered around the dog to stroke and pat and reassure, until he too threw every vestige of restraint to the winds, and barked as if he would never stop, shivering violently, his eyes alight and alive once more and never leaving his master’s face. The cat, on Elizabeth’s shoulder, joined in with raucous howls; everyone laughed,
talked or cried at once, and for a while there was pandemonium in the quiet wood.

Then, suddenly—as though the same thought had struck them all simultaneously—there was silence. No one dared to look at Peter. He was standing aside, aimlessly cracking a twig over and over again until it became a limp ribbon in his hands. He had not touched Luath, and turned away now, when the dog at last came over including him in an almost human round of greeting.

“I’m glad he’s back, Dad,” was all he said. “And your old Taocat, too!” he added to Elizabeth, with a difficult smile. Elizabeth, the factual, the matter-of-fact, burst into tears. Peter scratched Tao behind the ears, awkward, embarrassed. “I didn’t expect anything else—I told you that. I tell you what,” the boy continued, with a desperate cheerfulness, avoiding the eyes of his family, “You go on down—I’ll catch up with you later. I want to go back to the Lookout and see if I can get a decent picture of that whisky-jack.” There will never be a more blurred picture of a whisky-jack, said Uncle John grimly to himself. On an impulse he spoke aloud.

“How about if I came too, Peter? I could throw the crumbs and perhaps bring the bird nearer?” Even as he spoke he could have bitten back the words, expecting a rebuff, but to his surprise the boy accepted his offer.

They watched the rest of the family wending their way down the trail, Tao still clutched in
Elizabeth’s arms, gentle worshiping Luath restored at last to the longed-for position at his master’s heels.

The two remaining now returned to Lookout Point. They took some photographs. They prised an odd-shaped fungus growth off a tree. They found, incredibly, the cylindrical core of a diamond drill. And all the time they talked: they talked of rockets, orbits, space; gravely they pondered the seven stomachs of a cow; tomorrow’s weather; but neither mentioned dogs.

Now, still talking, they were back at the fork of the trail; Longridge looked surreptitiously at his watch: it was time to go. He looked at Peter. “We’d better g—”he started to say, but his voice trailed off as he saw the expression on the face of the tense, still frozen boy beside him, then followed the direction of his gaze.…

Down the trail, out of the darkness of the bush and into the light of the slanting bars of sunlight, joggling along with his peculiar nautical roll, came—Ch. Boroughcastle Brigadier of Doune.

Boroughcastle Brigadier’s ragged banner of a tail streamed out behind him, his battle-scarred ears were upright and forward, and his noble pink and black nose twitched, straining to encompass all that his short peering gaze was denied. Thin and tired, hopeful, happy—and hungry, his remarkable face alight with expectation—the old warrior was returning from the wilderness. Bodger, beautiful for once, was coming as fast as he could.

He broke into a run, faster and faster, until the
years fell away, and he hurled himself towards Peter.

And as he had never run before, as though he would outdistance time, Peter was running towards his dog.

John Longridge turned away, then, and left them, an indistinguishable tangle of boy and dog, in a world of their own making. He started down the trail as in a dream, his eyes unseeing.

Halfway down he became aware of a small animal running at lightning speed towards him. It swerved past his, legs with an agile twist and he caught a brief glimpse of a black-masked face and a long black tail before it disappeared up the trail in the swiftness of a second.

It was Tao, returning for his old friend, that they might end their journey together.