The haunted hound; Read online

  Judy wasn't anywhere around. He kept hollering for her, but nobody answered.

  Maybe, he thought, she was fishing—or trying to.

  Jonathan decided to take a short cut across the stable pasture to the Big Pond. With his rod and reel still in the case, he climbed a high board fence with barbed wire on top and started down the long pasture.

  None of the dogs came with him, but he could hear them playing and arguing as they went back toward the house.

  He kept calling for Judy.

  The pasture was square. At the far end there were four or five hickory trees for shade, but the rest of it was open and flat.

  He wasn't paying much attention as he walked along, clipping off daisies with the end of the light rod case. He wondered ^^'here Judy w^as and then what had become of Pot Likker. It was a pity that something had happened to him. He was a good-looking, big, strong dog and, even though he might have been without anv good instincts, Jonathan just hated to think of any dog getting bit by a rattlesnake and dying out in the woods somewhere.

  And he was the last of the long line of hounds going back into Jonathan's great-grandfather's time.

  Jonathan had been lucky with rattlesnakes and had never seen one alive. But he remembered in the old days when his father would give a dollar to anyone who brought in a dead one. Jonathan recalled one in particular. WTien the man held it up by the tail it was longer than his father was tall and it was as big around as a man's leg. Jonathan remembered his father saying that a snake that size could knock a man down if it struck him.

  Poor Pot Likker, Jonathan thought.

  Perhaps it was because he had been thinking about snakes and was jittery; anyway, Jonathan stopped in his

  tracks when he saw something move among the hickory trees.

  He was about fifty feet from them, having come almost the length of the pasture, and something big and gray moved among the trees.

  He stood perfectly still, staring. A Brahma bull came out into the clear, moving away from him, but watching him.

  The animal was slate gray on the body with dark gray foreshoulders and hump. It was big—the biggest bull he had ever seen.

  It stopped walking, turned, and stood without moving, looking straight at Jonathan.

  The bull's horns swept out from his head in a long curve. His big floppy ears drooped. Above his head Jonathan could see the Brahma hump, and, below, the dewlap hanging down almost to the ground.

  For a long moment neither Jonathan nor the bull moved a muscle. Jonathan could suddenly hear bugs and birds making noises. Faintly, far away, he could hear dogs. But the noises only made everything seem more silent where he was with the bull.

  As though he had eyes in the back of his head, Jonathan could see the long way down the pasture he had come. He guessed that it was a good quarter of a mile. And he was in the middle—to the fence on either side of him was another quarter mile.

  Suddenly, very clearly, he remembered when he was a

  little boy once asking his father if a bull could outrun a man. His father had laughed and said, ''A man wouldn't get started, son. A bull can outrun a horse for a good while.''

  Jonathan's flesh began to crawl and prickle all over. His instinct was to start running, running with all the strength he had. But he stood still, trying to think. If he ran, the bull could catch him. He was sure of that.

  He couldn't get to the hickory trees; the bull was in the way.

  Maybe, Jonathan thought, the best thing to do was to walk away—toward the fence. Walk slowly away. Then the bull wouldn't think he was scared. Maybe the bull wouldn't even notice him, because bulls couldn't see very well anyhow. And maybe this was a tame bull, a gentle bull.

  Jonathan remembered that book about a bull named Ferdinand, who wouldn't hurt a fly. Maybe this was a Ferdinand kind of bull.

  Jonathan looked at the bull harder, trying to find out what the bull was thinking about.

  Although he wasn't moving, he still looked dangerous. He wasn't pawing the ground and snorting the way bulls in the movies do; he wasn't shaking his head or jabbing with his horns. He was standing absolutely still. But he looked terrible.

  Jonathan's whole body felt stiff and awkward as he swung slowly and lifted one foot off the ground. He put the foot down gently, feeling the grass give way under it. Then he picked up his other foot.

  All the time he kept watching the bull.

  He had taken three long, slow steps when the bull's big hairy ears shot straight forward and stayed pointing right at him.

  Jonathan, his leg muscles quivering, picked up his foot qgain.

  Everything exploded.

  The bulFs tail stood straight up, it threw up its head, and

  was running full speed instantly. Jonathan had never in his life seen anything start going that fast so quickly. One second it was standing there looking at him; the next it was pounding toward him, head high, the spread of horns reaching for him.

  Jonathan, too, was running. His lifted foot drove down and he was running for his life.

  He felt lonely enough to cry. Ahead of him was so much of the flat, green, peaceful pasture with the fence so far

  away. There was nothing out there with him, no friend, no dog, nothing to help him.

  And the bull.

  Jonathan, running until his breath was dry and hot in his throat, turned his head until he could look back.

  What he saw made him stumble and almost go down. The bull was coming so fast.' For an instant Jonathan thought, Why run? It was so useless. But he kept on running.

  He could hear the way the bull's feet pounded down on the ground. It made a noise like faraway, steady thunder. And there was another noise, too—a loud, sharp snorting noise coming as regularly as the puffs of steam from a train.

  The distance to the fence was forever. Jonathan, terror clammy on him, again looked back.

  The bull was on him. Its head blotted out the whole sky for an instant, and then the bull brought his horns down to start the hook.

  Jonathan saw the sharp point of the almost straight horn, and suddenly he felt his skin tightening and drawing away, dreading the driving touch of the horn point.

  There was nothing he could do now.

  He wondered what it was going to feel like. He wondered if a bull could drive one of those horns all the way through you? And he knew that it could, easily; drive it through you and lift you up and throw you away.

  Then would it stamp on you? he wondered.

  CHAPTER NINE

  lonathan had heard foxhounds giving tongue on a race. Those times had been long ago; when he and his father and mother had hved at the Farm and had done a lot of fox hunting.

  But Jonathan still remembered a little about the different kinds of barking, depending on what the hounds were doing. At first, before they were anywhere near the fox, they just kept up a sort of fretful, arguing, disappointed barking. Then, when they settled down, their voices got happy and went rolling over the country.

  Finally, when they were up close to the fox and really stretched out, the sound they made changed entirely. It would send shivers up your back to hear them as their voices seemed to go down deeper in their chests, to roll more, to just fill up everything, . . .

  As he ran across the pasture he waited for the first strike of the bull's horns. Behind him now, close, the bulFs snorting was loud; the pounding of his feet shook the ground Jonathan was running on.

  Curiously, though, above it all Jonathan could hear—

  even above the dry rasping of his own breath—the sound of a foxhound. He knew that he was so scared then that he wasn't thinking straight, or hearing right, but he kept on hearing a noise hke a foxhound.

  And it wasn't the baying of a dog at the moon, nor the barking of a house dog at a stranger, nor the idle yapping of a feist dog with nothing else to do. This was the big sound, the right-on-top-of-the-fox sound.

  It seemed to be getting closer and closer, the noise of it swelling until it was drowning ou
t the snorting and pounding of the bull and drowning out even the throbbing of Jonathan's blood.

  Waiting and waiting for the horn to strike him and yet not feeling it drive into him, he at last turned his head a little.

  A dog was coming across the pasture. He was big and black-and-white. He was coming so hard that he looked stretched out and longer than he really was.

  And he was making all the noise. From his big chest he was rolling it out.

  The dog upset the bull. The bull didn't stop going for Jonathan, but he slowed down a little and kept swinging his head from side to side, looking.

  Then Pot Likker was there. He went in for the bull's hind legs and bit at them, all the time roaring at the bull.

  It saved Jonathan. The bull stopped running and began trying to hook the dog. Soon dog and bull were going around in a wild circle. Pot Likker darting in and snapping

  at the bull's heels, the bull hooking at him with his long horns.

  Jonathan stopped running and stood, fascinated.

  And then, as in a slow-motion movie, he saw the bull get the dog. The horn swept in low, just o'er the grass, and caught Pot Likker under the chest.

  Jonathan yelled and instinctively started toward the bull.

  Pot Likker didn't make a sound.

  The bull threw up his head, and Jonathan saw Pot Likker slide down the horn a little way. Then, with a sharp twist of its neck, the bull threw him away.

  The dog turned slowly over in the air and then began to \Tithe, twisting and turning.

  Pot Likker hit the ground with a crash which made Jonathan feel sick. And he didn't move; just lay there sprawled out on the grass.

  The bull went for him, his head high, looking for him and thrashing his horns around.

  Jonathan ran toward the bull yelling, ''Hey! Hey!'' He discovered then that he still had the rod case, and as the bull lowered his head to gore the dog, Jonathan walloped him across the rump with the rod case.

  It was enough to distract the bull, and he wheeled around, looking for Jonathan.

  Then everything happened at once. As the bull threw his head up to charge Jonathan again, Jonathan turned and started to run. He was going full tilt when he hit something and went down in a heap.

  Something grabbed him and hfted him clean off the ground, and for a moment he thought the bull had him, then he saw fingers.

  It was Mr. Worth. And around the bull were a dozen dogs, with Judy sicking them on the bull and driving him back toward the hickory trees.

  Mr. Worth set Jonathan down on his feet. Mr. Worth still looked scared as he started to laugh. ''What you doing, hitting my bull, boy?'' he asked.

  ''I wish rd had a club instead of this,'' Jonathan said, holding out the dented rod case,

  Judy came back and stared at him. ''What were you doing?" she asked.

  "Me?" Jonathan said. "That bull was trying to kill me."

  "He'd do it, too," Mr. Worth declared. "Ain't a meaner bull in the world than that Brahma. How'd you get tangled up with him?"

  Jonathan said a little sheepishly, "I was taking a short cut to the pond. I didn't even see him until he walked out from under those trees."

  "And all of a sudden he flung up his old tail and was on top of you," Mr. Worth said. "That old Galdy, he's a fast-moving critter."

  "But what stopped him is what I want to know?" Judy asked, puzzled. "When we saw you, you were hitting him with that thing you've got."

  "Pot Likker," Jonathan said. "He bit his heels and made him stop."

  'Tot Likker!" Mr. Worth said. "Coiildn'tVe been him. He's been gone for days. Probably dead by now from snake-bite.^'

  ''No, he isn't/' Jonathan said. "Come on, I'll show you."

  He led them over to where the bull had thrown Pot Likker. The grass \'as flat where he had hit.

  But Pot Likker wasn't there.

  Jonathan squatted down and looked at the place. There wasn't any blood, just the grass beginning already to straighten up again. "I be doggone," he said, standing up and getting his bearings to be sure. "He landed right here. See? The bull got him up on his horn and threw him. It must have knocked the wind out of him because he didn't get up again. And there isn't any blood."

  Mr. Worth and Judy looked at the place. "You sure it was Pot Likker?" Mr. Worth asked. "It could've been almost any other dog. Maybe you were a little excited and all."

  "I was plenty excited," Jonathan admitted. "But I'm sure it was Pot Likker. I saw those two little patches of brown hair right over his eyes. And he was black-and-white and big. It had to be Pot Likker."

  Mr. Worth shook his head. "Dangedest thing I ever heard of. Now, just supposing it was Pot Likker, how, for instance, did he know you were out here?"

  "W^ell, I was calling Judy every now and then. I thought maybe she was fishing or something."

  Mr. Worth nodded. ''Yep, he could've heard that all

  right if he'd been close by. But why should he come when you call? He doesn't come for anyone else and he never came for you before/'

  ''I don't know," Jonathan said. ''All I know is, he came."

  ''And now he's gone again/' Judy said. "He's a funny dog."

  Jonathan looked at her and laughed. "I like him. I'm crazy about him."

  "Well you might be/' Mr. Worth said. "He saved you from a goring sure as shooting. Old Galdy is about as mean a bull as I ever heard of, and he'd have been real rough if that dog hadn't caught his attention."

  Judy called the dogs and started back up the pasture. "Next time you get tangled up with a bull/' Judy said, "don't run. Drop down on the ground sort of slow and curl up as little as you can, then he can't see you—maybe. He might tromp you some, but he might not ever see you and gore you."

  "There isn't going to be any next time," Jonathan said.

  "Well, you can't count on that," Judy said.

  Mr. Worth laughed. "You should've seen Judy taking her own advice one time, Jonathan. Old Galdy had broken out and Judy didn't know it and walked slap up to him before she saw him. Old Galdy heisted his head and his tail and was going full speed before Judy even knew he was in the same field with her. And did she drop down and curl up like a sensible person would? Shucks, no, not Judy. She stood right there, and when that bull lowered his head to

  no

  hook her, she leapfrogged him pretty as you please. She bounced onee halfway down him, leapfrogged again, and hit the ground doing one hundred and six miles an hour. Why, she beat that bull to a pine sapling by one snort. There wasn't a limb on that pine closer than twenty feet from the ground, but Judy went right up that clean trunk like she was in an elevator. And the next thing that bull knew was, she was sitting on that limb chunking him with pine cones. But you, Jonathan, next time Just squuch up on the ground.''

  ''How'd she get down?" Jonathan asked.

  ''I had to get a plowline and let her down."

  ''Shucks," Judy said. ''If you'd waited until after I got over being scared, I could have come down all right. But you wouldn't give me time to get over shaking."

  Jonathan glanced at her. His own knees had been shaking for a minute or so and chills had been running up and down his spine. He knew it was silly because the danger was all over, but he couldn't help it.

  "Isn't that the way it happens to you?" Judy asked him. "You get scared after whatever happens is through?"

  Jonathan nodded. "My knees are shaking now."

  "I wondered where that rattling noise was coming from," Mr. Worth said, laughing.

  That cured Jonathan's shakes.

  "How was the exam, Jonathan?" Judy asked him as they got to the fence and climbed over it.

  "I turned things into dollars. I made a hundred."

  ''A what?'' Then she looked very pleased. ''So you passed?''

  Jonathan nodded.

  ''Why, that calls for a celebration/' Mr. Worth said. "It calls for a real bang-up, down-the-river coon hunt. Don't you think so, Judy?"

  "Oh, boy/" Judy said. "What are we waiting for?"


  "I can't go before tomorrow," Mr. Worth said. "But we could sure start tomorrow. What's today—Tuesday? That'd bring us out at the ferry by Saturday, say. Then we wouldn't miss church."

  "When?" Jonathan asked.

  "About Saturday. It's only twenty or thirty miles."

  Jonathan could feel sadness all inside. Slowly he shook his head. "I couldn't stay away that long. My father would find out."

  "Find out what?" Mr. Worth asked. "Shucks, boy, I'll go call him up right now and tell him you've got to go along. You made a hundred, didn't you?"

  "Wait. Wait," Jonathan said. He wondered how he could explain to them about his father and the way he felt about the Farm. Then he decided that there wasn't any way to do it. "I just can't go," he said slowly.

  Judy's shoulders slumped and the shine went out of her eyes. "We would've had some fun," she said.

  Mr. Worth was disappointed, too. "Well, if you can't, you can't. But I've been feeling the need of a little hunt for some time, so let's me and you go anyway, Judy."

  ''All right/' Judy said, but without much enthusiasm.

  'We'll start tomorrow. We'll take old Slewfoot and Strive and maybe a puppy or so."

  She nodded. Then she looked at Jonathan. ''Isn't there any way you could come, too?"

  Jonathan shook his head. "No."

  At the house, Judy got her rod and reel and for an hour or so they practiced casting.

  Finally it was time for Jonathan to go home. He had forgotten to ask when a bus was going to town and Mr. Worth told him there wouldn't be another one for a long time.

  Then the pickup truck wouldn't start. Mr. Worth fussed about it, and they all looked for the crank but couldn't find it.

  At last Jonathan thought of Mr. Duncan. "When does the freight train go by?"

  "Six o'clock, more or less," Judy said.

  "I know the engineer. Maybe he'll give me a ride."