Jim Kjelgaard

“ Many that recklessly flung themselves into the slough, when they were hot on Old Joe's trail, had come within a breath of entering that Heaven which awaits all good coon hounds.
Even if a hound made its way to the base of the sycamore, and some had, Old Joe was still safe. Hunters who would enthusiastically fell smaller trees recoiled before this giant. The most skilled axeman would need hours to chop it down. Climbing the massive trunk, unless one were equipped with climbing tools, was impossible. ”

“ Harky said.
"Pooh!" Melinda scoffed. "There haven't been a thousand hounds and two thousand hunters in the Creeping Hills during the past hundred years!"
"Old Joe's been prowling that long," Harky declared.
"Rubbish!" said Melinda. "He's just a big raccoon who's smart enough to climb a tree that can't be felled or climbed. Even my own father believes he's been here forever, but you should know better. You've been taught by Miss Cathby."
Harky sneered, "Miss Cathby don't know nothin' about nothin'."
"Harold!" Melinda was properly shocked. "Don't you dare talk that way about Miss Cathby!" ”

“ Raw Stanfield with the lantern, Butt Johnson with a torch for shining treed coons and a .22 rifle for plinking them out of the trees, Mun with his coon-hunting axe, Melinda with serene self-assurance, and Harky with a miserable feeling that it couldn't be very long now before the whole world went to pot, they set off through the night.
Misery was Harky's only feeling. If he had another, he told himself sourly, he wouldn't dare put stock in it. When girls horned in on coon hunts anything could happen and it probably would. ”

“ Old Joe would happily rob the owl's nest and eat his mate's eggs when and if he could find them, and if he had nothing more important to do. This night there was much of importance that cried for his attention.
Like all raiders with enemies that plot their downfall, he'd attended to his first duty before he ever showed himself. With only his nose protruding from the den, he'd read the stories the wind carried and found nothing he must hide from, or match wits with, in any part of it. The wind had intensified his excitement and increased the urge that had awakened him and sent him forth. ”

“ Smooth as a fishing loon, the pup went down headfirst and straight to his objective. Reaching the anchored sucker, he swiped at it with a front paw. The sucker did not move. The pup, who did not seem to know that he was where no dog should be and trying what no dog should try, made another attempt. Failing a second time, he tried a third.
Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, Harky voiced the astonishment that he had not dared express while the pup was in hearing:
"Jinglin' all peelhaul! Sue's pup for sure!" ”

“ Harky Mundee, who knew that a hound should not be heavily fed just before a hunt, still thought it unwise and unfair if they were allowed to run on a completely empty stomach. He chose a pork chop bone and some scraps of meat for Duckfoot's supper and took them out on the porch. Nobody had to tell him what had happened.
Duckfoot, who was always fed as soon as Mun and Harky finished eating, appreciated his suppers. Nothing except the scent of a coon could force him to be absent when his meal was ready, and the only place he might have scented a coon was down in the shocked corn. ”

“ The ancient sycamore's trunk, rooted in gravel beside a brooding slough filled with treacherous sand bars, was five feet in diameter at the base. With only a slight taper, it rose for twenty-five feet to the first crotch. Peering down through leafless twigs and branches, the owl saw the entrance to Old Joe's den as a gaping dark hole squarely in the center of the crotch. ”

“ Warming to her subject, she sketched the Garden of Eden, traced the history of mankind, disposed of witches and witch hunters in a few hundred well-chosen words, explained the laws of genetics, and finished with conclusive proof that a coon hound cannot mate with a duck.
Harky listened, not without interest. When it came to telling stories, he conceded, Miss Cathby was even better than Mun and almost as good as Mellie Garson. Nor was she shooting wholly in the dark; Harky himself did not believe that Duckfoot had been sired by a duck. ”

“ It was not for Sue to understand that in more ways than one the dog's life might well be the envy of many a human. She had never wondered why she'd been born or if life was worth living; she'd been born to hunt coons, and every coon hunter, whether biped or quadruped, found life eminently worth living. ”

“ No longer threatened, Old Joe became his usual arrogant self. Despite Pine's exalted opinion of his big dog, Old Joe knew the creature for the idiot it was. The guinea hens, though wild, were stupid enough to seek the same roost every night, and they roosted in a grove of small pines. Old Joe, who'd taken his last guinea hen six nights ago, went straight to the grove.
He had no way of knowing that sometimes the gods smile on those who refuse to court favor.
Five days ago, just after Old Joe's last visit, Pine Heglin's cherished mongrel had gone strolling past a limpid pond on Pine's farm. ”

“ Though unattended corn could not suffer as neglected animals would, Harky would endure untold agony if he first had to haul it to the barn and then husk it. If pigs and chickens had nothing to eat they could always be eaten, thus solving the twin problems of caring for them and satisfying one's own appetite. Corn in the shock lured coons, but not even Old Joe could break into a corn crib. ”

“ A good thing was never to be taken for granted, and there was much that could happen to any hunting hound; Mellie had only to remember Precious Sue. Though he fervently hoped she wouldn't, Glory might go the same way, and where would he find another coon hound of equal quality? There was only one source.
However, there was a great deal involved. It was blasphemy even to think in terms of ordinary coon dogs when Glory was simultaneously in mind. There were only two hounds on Willow Brook worthy of her, Thunder and Duckfoot. ”

“ Could anyone guess that the hallowed traditions of the Creeping Hills coon hunters would topple simply because a girl took part in a coon hunt?
Mellie shook his head sadly. Melinda, not exactly a woman, was not exactly a girl either. She was, Mellie told himself, old enough to cast the monkey wrench that usually lands in the gears whenever women intrude on affairs that by every law of God and nature belong exclusively to men.
The wreckage had been fearful indeed; Mun Mundee laid up with a broken leg; Raw Stanfield and Butt Johnson afraid to show their faces on the lower reaches of Willow Brook ”

“ Harky pondered a question that has bemused all great philosophers: how can humans be so foolish?
Working at that rhythmic speed which Mun considered ideal for hoeing corn, missing not a single stroke, Harky went on. Discontent became anguish, and anguish mounted to torture, but Harky knew that the wrong move now might very well be ruinous. Like all people with great plans and strong opposition, he must suffer before he gained his ends. ”

“ Mun Mundee owned some horses, some cattle, and some pigs. He also owned some chickens. Old Joe had not been hungry when he left the sycamore, but neither had he expected an opportunity to confound Mun Mundee. Old Joe licked his lips a second time. When he thought of the chickens, he was suddenly ravenous.
He left Willow Brook and crawled under the barbed-wire fence. He did not slink or hesitate, for he had chosen his night well; the waning moon left complete darkness behind it. The Mundees would be asleep in their house and Precious Sue on the porch. Nobody hunted coons in winter. ”

“ Nothing could be worse than another day on the pickle keg.
Listlessly Mellie caught up a handful of pebbles and shied them one by one at a knothole in the woodshed wall. He shook his head and uttered a despairing moan. Tossing pebbles at the knothole was the only game he'd invented to beguile the passing hours, and at first it had been interesting because he made a bull's-eye only about one time in twenty. Now it seemed that every pebble he tossed sailed through the knothole as naturally as a trout swims up riffles. ”

“ It was far better to butcher it, an idea Harky had played with, but no matter how long the winter might be, two people couldn't eat six cows, four pigs, and sixty-nine chickens. There'd always be the horses left anyway.
Grimacing as he did so, Harky pitched another forkful of hay down the chute. Livestock should really be taught to eat coon meat so a man, with complete freedom of conscience, might spend all his time hunting coons. Maybe, if cows ate something besides hay, they wouldn't be such fools.
Harky thought suddenly of the last time he'd attended Miss Cathby's school, and shuddered. ”

“ Harky turned the door knob and made his decision as he did so. The new and radical, as represented by Melinda and Miss Cathby, must go. The old and steadfast, as embodied in the immortality of Old Joe and the probability that Duckfoot's father was really a duck, must be restored to the pedestal from which it had toppled. But Harky needed Mun's advice, and he was so intent on the problem at hand that he only half heard his father's greeting.
"So ya finally come back, eh? Of all the blasted, lazy, pokey, turtle-brained warts on the face of creation, I jest dunno of a one wust than you!" ”

“ Harky shuddered again and pitched furiously until he had all the cows could eat. He jammed his fork into the hay and scrambled down the ladder to the barn floor.
Formal education could mean the ruin of a man if he didn't watch out. Miss Cathby had enthused about the poem and its author, but in the first place, hay was not harvested in June. It wasn't even ripe until July, and whoever wrote so touchingly of new-mown hay had never stood under a furnace-hot sun and pitched any.
Duckfoot, who had been waiting in the chaff on the barn floor, sidled up to Harky. ”

“ But Harky felt that this autumn the hunting would be different. Old Joe was in for trouble. Precious Sue had a pup who looked like a natural-born coon hunter. With his web-footed paws he was as skillful in the water as any coon. And on land, Duckfoot had a nose that beat every other hound hollow.
Harky had a few troubles of his own. First there was school. Miss Cathby was nice, but she was a teacher. She called Old Joe a raccoon. And she said he could not live forever because he was mortal. ”

“ Birds were not particular as long as they had something to hold their nest together. As soon as he found another place not likely to attract Mun's eye, perhaps he'd better move his tackle from the nest. Good hooks and line were not so easy come by that a man could get reckless with them.
Leaning slightly forward, the position in which Mun thought the wielder of a hoe would do most work, and slanting his hoe at the angle Mun favored, Harky sighed resignedly as the blade uncovered a fat and wriggling earthworm. ”

“ But though he might safely have retrieved this treasure, Old Joe sighed, circled two yards around it, and waded into the pool. Trappers who know all about a coon's inclination to put a paw on anything shiny often bait their traps with nothing else.
Once in the pool, Old Joe went about his fishing with a businesslike precision born of vast experience. Crawfish, whose only means of offense are the pincerlike claws attached to their front end, back away from danger, and this bit of natural history was basic to Old Joe's hunting lore. ”

“ Again Mun was puzzled.
"All," Harky declared. "Mellie Garson gets mule-kicked; Melinda brings Glory to horn in on our hunt; we get Old Joe up in his sycamore; Melinda says it ain't no witch tree and Old Joe's naught but a big coon; you believe her and try to climb; you bust your leg; Raw and Butt don't want no more part of us—and," Harky wailed, "I can't even take pleasure on account you can't make me fetch the corn in!" ”

“ She sighed comfortably, went back to sleep, and was shortly enjoying a happy dream about another coon hunt.
When the sun reached its peak she rose, lapped a drink from the dish of water Rafe had left for her, and sought the shade of her kennel. Rafe would return with evening. She would be fed, sleep in her kennel, and tomorrow would be another day.
Rafe did not come with twilight. The rope trailing beside her like a rustling worm, Sue came out of her kennel and whined. She was not lonesome for Rafe, but she was hungry. Sue paced anxiously for as far as the rope would let her go. ”

“ The softest-footed bobcat had nothing on Mun when it came to silent stalks. More than once, when Harky thought his father was fuming at home, Mun had risen up beside him and applied the flat of his hand where it did the most good.
Harky contented himself with dancing along, and he never thought of the reckoning that must be when he returned home tonight, because in the first place tonight was a long ways off. In the second, there were always reckonings of one sort or another. A man just had to take care he got his reckoning's worth. ”

“ Far and away the greatest coon hound ever to run the Creeping Hills, Precious Sue would never run again. If she were alive, she'd be with the pup. But Harky's new feeling had to do with the thought that the pup was destined to become even greater than his mother. ”