The Healer (17 page)

While the boy was trying to see into the narrow, dark entrance, Wolf reappeared, frantic with anxiety. He came so close that several times Billy thought that the coyote was coming right up to him, but Wolf always kept a few yards away. He would cringe, then turn and run a few feet, come back, and take off again. When the boy tried to follow him, making soft, crooning noises and assuring the coyote that he meant no harm, Wolf would slow down until Billy was nearly up to him and then go on, moving so awkwardly that Billy wondered if he might not be injured. At last the boy realized what was going on.

"You're just trying to lead me on, Wolf," he called. "You want to get me away from the den. I know Blackie's in there and she must have pups. I don't want to hurt them, I only want to see them."

Wolf listened intently but came no closer. Billy put his head down close to the den's entrance and listened. There was no sound. Still, this must be the place.

Billy turned to look down across the valley. It was astonishing that the den had not been found before since the semicircle of brown earth, thrown up by the digging, made a scar on the green side of the hill that must be visible for half a mile. Far below him, he could see a team of five mules dragging a manure spreader with the farmer directing his team from the jolting seat. Yet apparently the man had never bothered to look up at the hillside. Billy wondered why Wolf, usually so clever, had dug the den in such an exposed place. He finally decided that Wolf had picked this location because it gave him a good view over the valley and he could see any danger approaching. The coyote, shrewd as he was, did not realize that if the den was a good vantage point for him it also meant that others could see it equally well. Perhaps this was because Wolf was color-blind and did not realize how sharply the brown earth stood out against the green grass.

Billy hurried back to the farm, full of his great discovery. On the way, he began to have doubts. For some time now, the game warden had been driving around the district in his jeep, looking for the remnants of the dog pack but more especially for Wolf and Blackie. There was a dirt road, hardly more than a wagon trail, running along the bottom of the hill. Luckily the warden had not as yet driven along it, but he would sooner or later and when he did, he was sure to see the den. That would mean the death of Blackie and the pups and probably Wolf also, for Billy was sure that in his desperation to save his family, the coyote would expose himself. Billy had already seen how accurate the warden was with his rifle.

Abe Zook would know what to do, but did he dare to tell the braucher about the den? Zook might well be as implacable as the game warden. Even Billy had his doubts of the advisability of letting Wolf and Blackie raise their litter in the heart of the farming country. The coydogs, once they were grown, would be as great a menace to livestock as the dog pack. Billy was still wondering what to do when he heard Wasser's bark and the familiar rattle of the guinea fowl.

Zook was away digging herbs and did not return until almost dark. In the meanwhile, Billy had milked the cows, fed the horse, and gotten dinner ready. He had found a dead squirrel on the road, killed by a car, which he gave to Dracula; after the owl had finished, Billy allowed Grip to play with the tail. To Billy's great relief, the braucher had had a good day. He proudly laid out his collection of herbs on the table, explaining in great detail the value of each, and Billy pretended an interest he was far from feeling. After they had eaten, Billy broached the vital subject.

"I found the werewolffen den," he began. Zook started and instinctively looked toward the rifle on the wall. Billy went on hurriedly, "If I tell you where it is, you have to promise not to kill them."

"And what of the pups?" demanded the old man.

"You told me I could have a dog, you never said what kind of a dog. Let me have the pups. I'll keep one, and I know plenty of people would like to have them for pets."

Abe Zook stared at him. "By you is a great foolishness. Such animals you cannot make tame."

"How do you know?"

"I know. And of what good are they? They cannot track like a hound; they will not protect a place like a dog, and always they will kill stock."

Billy saw his last chance slipping away. "You just say these things. You don't know what they can do. Won't you even give them a chance?"

Abe Zook said nothing. He was wondering if the werewolffen had really put the boy under a hex. Such things had happened. It was a very deep matter. And there was always the chance that the boy might really be a great braucher who could know matters hidden from ordinary people. He decided to move cautiously.

"We do not take the gun," he said finally. "We take only Wasser and the spades."

Early the next morning they started out, Wasser bounding eagerly alongside. Within an hour they had reached the den but when Wasser examined the hole, he showed no excitement nor was there any sign of Wolf.

"We dig still," said Abe Zook. The den was deep and Billy worked harder than he ever had before. When they finally broke into the main chamber, it was empty. Only bones, a few feathers, and the dried entrails of some quarry remained.

"The wolf was knowing that we would come," said Abe Zook, wiping his sweating face. "He has moved them. Yet with pups they do not go too far. Already we should have been putting Wasser on the trail. We do it now."

After considerable trouble the hound picked up the trail, but it was cold now and they went slowly. Abe Zook did more of the tracking than Wasser, looking for claw marks, bent grass and dead leaves curling where the fugitives had stepped on them. Wasser finally found a good stretch of damp earth shaded by tall hardwoods where he could track, and he went ahead more confidently while the humans held back so as not to confuse him with their scents. They saw the hound break into a lope and for the first time heard him give tongue. Wasser had gone on a few hundred yards when he suddenly burst into the excited viewing cry.

"Quick!" snapped Abe Zook and they began to run. Wasser was far ahead now, screaming his head off, and it was impossible to catch up with him. Then they heard the baying stop short, followed by a terrified yelp. Regardless of brambles, Abe Zook tore through the woods with Billy panting in the rear.

"That's him!" yelled Billy. Wasser was running back past them. In spite of their calls, the hound was too frightened to stop. They followed him as best they could and found Wasser on an open hillside, whimpering and licking a long, clean gash in his shoulder. Billy held him while Abe Zook examined the wound.

"The wolf," said the old man briefly. "See how he cut once with his long teeth. That is how they are fighting, never taking their grip like a dog. He teased Wasser away from the trail of the female and the pups and then turned on him. He has beaten us still."

"Will he hide them this time so the warden can't find them?" asked Billy hopefully.

Abe Zook hesitated before he answered. "That young man is not a fool," he said, and Billy knew it was a wrench for the old braucher to admit that any man in uniform could know something. "We will see."

To the relief of the farmers, but to Billy's apprehension, Jim Stoltzfoos proved to be far from a fool. He drove along the roads in the evenings with a siren going. Time after time the dogs would howl in response to the wailing sound. They were often bitches with their pups, and the warden would stop the car and mark the approximate spot of the howling. Then he would come back the next morning and look for the den.

Billy knew that this use of the siren would be a fatally effective trick with Wolf, for even a distant fire siren was enough to start the coyote wailing. A woman had come to Abe Zook with a child who suffered from bladder weakness, and the braucher had taken Billy with him to collect wild strawberry leaves. These leaves, made into a tea, were a sovereign cure for such a complaint—or so Abe Zook believed. They were busy on a hillside when a distant shot sent the crows cawing and a cock pheasant screaming.

"I've got to go," said Billy and rushed away before Zook could stop him. He tore through the underbrush at top speed, fearful of what he might find, dodging back and forth to avoid the worst tangles, until he was close to the place from whence the shot had come. Then he crawled forward.

Ahead was a little clearing. Stoltzfoos was walking across it carrying the dead body of a large half Doberman whose swollen udders flapped as she swung to and fro over the man's shoulder. The warden carried her to his jeep, threw her in, and got out a long, thick length of woven wire. He unraveled the end and then went to the den, an enlarged fox earth. Running the wire inside, he felt around. Billy heard an unhappy squealing. The man twisted the wire and then pulled out a pup, his woolly coat entangled in the sharp wires. The man killed the pup with a quick blow back of the ears and ran the wire in again.

Billy felt that if he had had a gun, he would have shot the murderer.

The man pulled out six pups, all of whom met the same fate. Then after prolonged probings with the wire, he took his victims to the car and drove away.

Billy put his face down on the dead leaves and cried. He was still sobbing when Abe Zook came up, moving so softly that the boy did not hear him.

"He's not going to do that to my coypups," Billy gasped through his tears. "I'll get a gun and kill him first, I mean it."

Abe Zook lifted him gently. "To the house come. I give you a tea that will make you sleep."

What was in the tea Billy never knew, but within a few minutes he was asleep. In his sleep he dreamed.

He was standing on the porch of a great house with fat white pillars, and below him was a terrace that swept away into a formal garden with carefully trimmed hedges, pools full of lily pads, and bright green lawns. Billy started to run down the terrace. He went faster and faster until he was flying. In spite of his speed he could see every detail of the gardens : the way the water hung, suspended around the lily pads, just how the granite stones in the rock garden were chipped, and the precise pattern of the twigs in the privet hedges as he floated over them. The odor of the pollen from the flowers was so strong that it made his head swim, and the hot sun overhead made droplets of sweat rise on his forehead. He could hear the mutter of the bees in the rose garden. Then he swept over an ornamental iron fence and was floating over a field. He recognized the field, for ahead were the three apple trees, including the huge dead tree where he often lay to have his dreams.

He could slide swiftly over the tops of the weeds like a man on a surfboard rushing toward shore, propelled by invisible waves. Swiftly as he went, he could still see the most exquisite details in the weed-jungle below.

He could watch the mosaic of the minute field flowers; he could see the sun shining on the armored backs of the beetles; he could count the flutes in the feathers of a field sparrow sitting on her eggs. He was only mildly surprised to observe that the field was also populated by little men.

At first, he caught only a few scattered glimpses of them and thought that he might be mistaken. Then he saw a gnome-like creature trying to pry a bumblebee out of the trumpet of a columbine, using a twig as a lever. The gnome had a bucket half full of pollen beside him which he had obviously been filling before the bee came along. The bee was continuing to burrow into the flower, making a noise like an irritable plane revving up. A few minutes later, Billy passed a pilot black snake lying out on a deposit of shale, shedding his skin. Two little men were helping him, one peeling off the dry skin from the snake's glistening new scales and the other carefully rolling up the dry hide, apparently intending to save it for some purpose of his own. Billy would have liked to have seen how they got the delicate, brown-paper hide off the snake's eyes without hurting him, but he was unable to stop.

He seemed to be suspended by the clouds of pollen thrown up by the grasses. The hot sun on his back gave him a comfortable, sleepy feeling and he had never felt so contented. He passed a group of the little gnomes ministering to a field mouse whose leg had been broken by a trap. A lady fairy held the patient's head in her lap while two men prepared the matchstick splints. When the time came to set the leg, the men signaled the little woman, who covered the mouse's head with her apron. The mouse made no sound while his leg was set, although his whiskers twitched convulsively.

Through the grass was coming a procession of animals that seemed huge compared with the tiny men leading them. Billy saw it was the puppies whom the game warden had killed. Now they were alive, and even though they fell occasionally over their big paws, they seemed happy and eager. Billy could see the marks in their baby wool where the wire had twisted it, but a little man was walking beside them, combing the wool straight with a thistle leaf.

Then they're all right
Billy thought, and slowly he came awake.

He was lying on his bed, fully dressed except for his shoes.

For a long time the boy lay there convinced that what he had seen was the truth, the real truth, while the world around him was a dream. His head hurt and his mouth tasted strange. He went to the spring house and drank dipper after dipper of cold water. Then he played with Wasser for a while until, feeling sleepy again, he returned to his bed. This time there were no more dreams.

For the next week, Billy saw no signs of Wolf and Blackie, and the boy decided that they had left the district. There was plenty of farm work to be done and Billy could not get away until after supper. One evening he went to the swamp with his fishing pole. There were bass and sunfish in the swamp and in the evening they were usually rising after insects. Billy had seldom induced a bass to strike at his lure, but that afternoon Wasser had managed to catch a wood mouse without killing it, and Billy had learned from Abe Zook that a live mouse was perfect bass bait. He tied the little creature to the end of his line, fastened a hook to its back, and let it swim across the still water. Before it had gone ten feet, a bass struck. It was a big fish weighing over two pounds and Billy was soaked above the knees before landing it. Then he sat down to rest.