The haunted hound; Read online

  "Do you? Really?" Judy asked. "You ever been in the engine?"

  "No, but I've been in the caboose."

  Judy walked along with him to the railroad tracks. Soon they could hear the train pulling up the long hill.

  "I bet you don't know the engineer any better than I do," Judy declared as the train came in sight.

  "How well do you know him?" Jonathan asked.

  "Not at all."

  Jonathan began to trot along, Judy beside him. Mr. Duncan leaned out the cab window. ''Hi, Jonathan/' he called.

  ''Hi. Can I ride back with you?"

  "Sure. Hop on behind."

  "I be doggone/' Judy said. "You do know him, don't you?

  "I said I did. Good-by."

  Jonathan grabbed the handrail of the caboose and let the train's motion swing him up the steps.

  Judy slowly stopped trotting. She waved, and he waved back to her.

  "How do, Jonathan?" Dollar Bill said. "Breaking the law again, eh?"

  "Looks like it," Jonathan said, grinning. "You going to put me in jail?"

  "Not me. I don't like 'em. Too confining."

  Jonathan laughed and sat down. "Did you see that little girl with me?"

  "Yeah."

  "She and her uncle are going coon hunting tomorrow. For three days. They wanted me to go along, too, but I cant.

  "Three days? Where'll they sleep? What'll they eat?"

  "I don't know," Jonathan admitted, not having even thought about it. "But I really wish I could go with them."

  "What'd they do with a coon if they caught it?"

  Jonathan hadn't thought about that cither. "I don't know. Are they good to eat?"

  ''Search me/' Dollar Bill said. "I never heard of anybody eating a coon."

  ''I don't believe I ever even saw one."

  ''Oh, I've seen 'em. They're about the size of a smallish dog. They tell me a coon'll bite your hand off if he gets a chance."

  "I guess Judy knows how to handle them."

  "That that little girl's name?"

  "Yeah, Judy Shelley. She's about the smartest person I ever met. She knows all about hunting and dogs and horses and everything." Jonathan paused. "I wonder where they will sleep?" he asked.

  "On the ground, I guess. I tell you, Jonathan, they can have that for all I care."

  But to Jonathan it sounded wonderful.

  After the train stopped in the freight yard Mr. Duncan gave Jonathan a lift uptown in his car. Then, when he was alone, walking along the lighted streets jammed with cars of people going home after working in an office all day, Jonathan felt sad. He thought of the openness of everything out at the Farm, and the quietness. No horns blowing and motors growling, no people shoving each other.

  And when he got to the apartment house and went in he hated the faint smell of antiseptic that always hung in the air.

  1^^^^

  CHAPTER TEN

  here was no sign of Mrs. Johnson, but Mamie was in the kitchen. ''Hi, Jonathan."

  ''Hi. Don't we ever eat around here?" "You don't never stop. What you want?" "Anything. You ever been chased by a bull, Mamie?" "Who, me? As long as bulls leave me alone, I leave bulls alone. I just don't like those Jong horns they got." Jonathan told her about the bull while he ate. When he finished, Mamie said, "You should have cut that animal up and brought him home. I'd like to gnaw on a real old-timey country steak. This city stuff is so tenderized and pasteurized and mogenized it ain't got no meat taste left in it. Next time you go out there, get us a steak, Jonathan. A good-sized slab of it, hear?" Mamie was getting enthusiastic. "You could slip back out there tomorrow because your dad won't be here." "Where's he gone?"

  "New York. He told you last week he was going." "I was flunking in school last week, so I don't remember

  I

  anything that happened. How long's he going to be gone?''

  ''Coming back before supper on Sunday/'

  Jonathan jumped straight up out of the chair and got to the door in one leap. ''Where you going?" Mamie called.

  "Coon hunting," Jonathan said, banking around the library table and braking to a stop in his father's den. He grabbed the phone book and turned to the Millersville section. He was going through the W's when Mamie came to the door.

  "What you up to?" she demanded.

  But Jonathan had found Mr. Worth's number and was calling it.

  Nobody answered. "Still outdoors, I guess. Til call back later."

  He and Mamie went back to the kitchen. "Look, Mamie," he said, "Mr. Worth and Judy are going coon hunting tomorrow. They'll be back by Saturday. And I want to go with them. Wouldn't it be all right?"

  She thought a minute. "I guess so, Jonathan."

  Then he remembered. "Oh, shucks! What about Mrs. Johnson?"

  Mamie thought again, longer. Then she began to smile. "You just forget all about that. Wouldn't do for you to tell her a bunch of fibs, Jonathan. You leave all that to me. All you got to do is get out of here early in the morning. Before she wakes up. I'll take care of the rest. You just be sure you get back here Saturday, you hear?" bure.

  "And bring me one of them coons, Jonathan. Til cook that rascal so sweet. Bring me a nice, fat young one—not one of them old tough swamp coons/'

  ''Are they good to eat, Mamie?*'

  'They the best!''

  "What should I take to hunt coons?"

  "Wear you some old rough clothes and take a big sack along to bring me back that coon, that's all. And watch out for 'em. They'll bite you and claw you something fierce. They got teeth sharp as a Saturday-night razor."

  Jonathan ran back to call up Judy again. Still no one answered.

  He called the number all evening, and no one ever did answer. Worried for fear they would leave before he could get there, Jonathan at last went to bed.

  By five o'clock the next morning he was ready to go, but there wasn't a bus leaving for Millersville until nine, so there was nothing for him to do but pace up and down in the bus station or wander around and around the block.

  When he at last got to the Farm, he ran all the way to Mr. Worth's house.

  They had already left.

  "About an hour or so ago," Mrs. Worth told him. "They didn't think you were coming, Jonathan."

  "I tried to call up last night, but the phone didn't answer."

  "That husband of mine," Mrs. Worth said. "As soon as it's time for him to go to bed he puts a pillow on the phone

  so it won't bother him during the night. We're on a party hne and it does do a lot of ringing/'

  Jonathan had never been so disappointed in his hfe. *'Well/' he said, "I might as well go on back home then/'

  ''Why don't you catch up with 'em, if you want to go? They couldn't have gone far because both of them will be dawdling along, peering at everything and just taking it easy.

  ''You think I could?" Jonathan asked, the excitement running in him.

  "Bound to before nightfall/' she declared. "They'll be by the water's edge then."

  Jonathan started to leave right then, but remembered that he didn't even know where to go.

  "They headed down the river," Mrs. Worth told him.

  Jonathan started off again, then came back. "You don't think anything will—bother me, going by myself, do you?"

  "No. Just watch for snakes as you go along. Rattlers and cottonmouths."

  "What should I do if I see one of them?"

  "Go around—real wide."

  Jonathan suddenly had an idea. "Do you suppose, Mrs. Worth, that }0u could, maybe, lend me some kind of dog to go along with me? I mean, just some kind of dog you haven't got any use for or anything?"

  Mrs. Worth shook her head sadly. "Jonathan, Dan and Judy have got these dogs trained so they won't go with anybody but them. You couldn't get one of these dogs out of

  the yard without a rope around his neck. The only dog I ever saw that they couldn't train was Pot Likker—but even if he was here, he wouldn't go with you."

  'Well/' Jonathan said slowly,
''I guess Til just go on by myself.''

  She patted him on the shoulder. ''Nothing's going to bother you, Jonathan. If you don't catch up with them in a few hours, come on back."

  "All right." Jonathan got his fishing tackle from where he'd left it. "Good-by," he said.

  " 'By. Holler every now and then so they'll hear you."

  He nodded.

  As he went through the yard and down past the stables the dogs went along with him, old Mister Blue beside him and others running around or smelling him. Jonathan badly wanted a dog to go along with him, so, when he was out of sight of the house, he began working on Mister Blue.

  He talked to him and rubbed his ears, then walked a few paces and called to him. Mister Blue seemed perfectly willing to come along.

  By the time he got past the pasture where the bull was still standing under the hickory trees, there were only two or three dogs still with him, but Mister Blue trotted along beside him, and Jonathan began to feel a great deal better. It would be lonesome down by the river, he thought, and having Mister Blue with him would make everything all right.

  They came out of the woods beside the river at the sand

  bar. It hadn't changed much, he thought, since the old days when he had had birthday picnics here. There was the big bend in the river with the sand bar on the inside. The sand was ghstening white in the sun and the river was low and clear.

  Jonathan stopped for a moment, looking at the tracks in the sand. There were many dog tracks but, among them, he could see where Mr. Worth and Judy had turned and gone down the river.

  Acting as though he was just out for a little stroll, Jonathan said, ''Come on, Mister Blue." Then he started walking.

  In a moment he stopped. Mister Blue wasn't with him.

  Jonathan turned around very slowly and looked back. ''Come on, Blue,'' he said quietly.

  But the dog just stood there at the edge of the sand bar. His forehead was wTinkled and his ears pricked up a little so that his face looked sad. But he didn't move.

  Jonathan made his voice sound cheerful. "Hie away, Blue. Come on, boy!''

  Slowly, looking back at him. Mister Blue turned and trotted away through the woods, going back to the house.

  It seemed a lot lonelier there without him. Jonathan whistled once and called, but he knew it wasn't going to do any good.

  He started to hurry then. In most places the river was narrow and deep, well over his head, but below the bends it would widen out. Jonathan soon found that Mr. Worth

  and Judy tried to keep out of the thick bushes along the banks as much as they could. When their tracks disappeared, Jonathan found that if he waded across the river he would find them again on the other bank.

  Every now and then he would stop and yell, but nothing ever answered except some woodpeckers as big as pigeons with bright red heads and black-and-white feathers. They would screech and holler and fly along, keeping up with him and making a lot of noise.

  After a while Jonathan realized that he was enjoying himself. The sky had a few high white clouds in it, the sun was bright and hot, so that wading, sometimes up to his chest, cooled him off. He kept watching for snakes but saw none, and among the many diflferent tracks in the sand beside the river he didn't see any that looked big enough to have been made by a bear or anything like that. Some of the big bird tracks, he guessed, were made by wild turkeys. And there were all sorts of four-footed animal tracks which he could tell apart but couldn't tell what they belonged to.

  Every time he came around a bend all the turtles sunning themselves on half-submerged logs would slide off into the water. He often saw herons, mostly standing in shallow water on one foot. When he scared them, they would fly off, seeming to be too lazy to tuck their long legs up. They made a harsh squawking noise.

  Fish broke, making big swirls and circles on the water and, when he waded into the shallows, the schools of little fish would scatter in all directions. But if he stood still they

  would come and bite his bare toes. They bit kind of hard and, until he found out that it was only little fish, he wouldn't stop once he started wading.

  And al\ays, wandering down the banks of the river, were the two sets of human tracks. Mr. Wortli had big feet and his big toes spread way apart. Judy had little feet, with close-together toes. Jonathan guessed that, like him, they had their shoes tied by the laces and slung around their necks.

  For a while he was very hungry but, since there wasn't anything to eat, he kept on going. Slowly the hungry feeling went away as he went on, hour after hour, the day fading, the shadows gro\'ing longer and deeper.

  At one place the river was too deep to wade and the banks were high and straight up and down on both sides. Being careful about snakes, Jonathan climbed up one bank, going on hands and knees sometimes to get under the thick bushes. Up on top there was a faint trail which he followed until he could see the river widening out again, the banks sloping down.

  Jonathan was crawling along, not making much noise, when, down at the river's edge, he saw something move.

  Bushes were in the way so, making no noise at all, he crawled a little closer.

  There was a furry animal down there. It was grayish brown with black ears and nose. Although he had never seen one alive, Jonathan was prettv sure it was a coon.

  He kept crawling closer and closer, until he could see what the coon was doing.

  "3

  It had caught a fish somehow and seemed to be playing with it.

  Jonathan was surprised by the way the coon used its front feet, which had long, hairless black fingers. It looked to Jonathan as though they were a lot more like hands than feet. And, as he kept watching, he found out that the coon wasn't playing with the fish at all. It was getting the scales off.

  Jonathan had never seen anything like that before. The coon, always looking around with little jerks of its head, would dip the fish down into the water and then, scooping up sand, would rub it hard between its two long-fingered black hands. The coon never seemed to look at what its hands were doing or even seem to know or care. It was as though the two fast-moving black little hands belonged to something else.

  It had a big, bushy, brown-and-gray striped tail which it used to keep its balance while it scaled the fish. When the coon finished scaling, it stuck one sharp fingernail into the belly of the fish, then—still not paying any attention—it slit the fish open and scooped it out. Then it began eating. It would take a bite, lay the fish down, wash its hands in the river, then pick up the fish, wash it, and take another bite.

  Jonathan began to wonder if there was any way he could catch the coon. It would be pretty good, he thought, if, when he caught up with Judy, he already had a good-sized coon.

  Maybe, he thought, he could chase it into the river, and,

  by keeping it in the middle, he could get it so tired he could grab it. Then, because he had forgotten to bring a sack, he could wrap it up in his shirt.

  But when Jonathan moved again the coon looked once in his direction and began to run, holding the rest of the fish in its mouth.

  Jonathan jumped up and ran after it. The coon didn't seem to be going very fast, nor even trying very hard, but it was going a lot faster than Jonathan could go. Soon it ducked up into the bushes. For a little while longer Jonathan could hear it moving.

  W^atching the coon eat had made Jonathan hungry again, but he still didn't have anything to eat so kept on going. Now he really wanted to catch up wath Judy. He could tell by the sun that it was late and by the way his stomach felt that it was close to suppertime. They must have stopped, he figured, to eat, so that he was now gaining on them.

  He expected to see them every time he came around a bend in the ri'er. And \'henever he stopped and yelled he expected to hear an answer.

  But each bend of the river was empty, and the only answer he ever got was from the pileated \'Oodpeckers.

  Then the tracks disappeared. Jonathan followed them along a narrow strip of sand and then waded the river.
But there w^ere no tracks on the other bank. He went down river all the way to a bend, but the tracks didn't reappear, so he went back.

  Putting his feet down exactly in Judy's tracks, he walked

  step by step to the edge of the water. Then there were no more tracks.

  Maybe, he thought, they had waded down the middle of the river. So he did, too. But soon the water was up to his chin and getting deeper. Maybe it wasn't over Mr. Worth's head, but Judy would have to swim. There was no reason to make her do that, Jonathan decided, so they must have come out in the thick bushes on the same side.

  But there the ground was too hard to make tracks in.

  For a long time Jonathan searched for a sign of the way they had gone but found none.

  He came back at last to the sand bar and sat down to think.

  If he kept on going down the river, he might get ahead of them. If, for instance, they had gone off to the side chas-

  ing a coon or something and he went straight, he would end up ahead of them. That way he could walk for the rest of his life and never find them.

  If he stayed right here, waiting for them to come back to the river, they might come back a different way. If they came out below him, they'd go on down river and not even know he was looking for them. If they came back here, or upriver, they'd find him.

  After a while Jonathan narrowed it down. He could either stay right where he was and wait, or he could give up and go to the Farm.

  Slowly and sadly Jonathan gave up. Judy and Mr. Worth must have left the river close to where he was, but there was no reason to be sure they would come back the same way they had left. They could make a wide circle and hit the river either way up or way down it. The best thing for him to do was to go back to the Farm.

  He got up slowly and turned upriver.

  Then he saw the sun. For a long time he hadn't paid much attention to time. The day was just bright and sunny and would last forever. But now the sun was down on the tree-tops, already there was night in the shadows. It wouldn't be long before dark.