The Strange White Doves (3 page)

Not, of course, until I met Turk did I begin to realize that the goat was trying to tell us something in nature's language, and became almost frantic when we failed to understand it. Naturally he went to Alice first because where animals are concerned, she is what might be called
simpático.

Simpático
is a Spanish word that means a great deal more than just sympathetic, as it is usually translated. If others find you
simpático,
they feel in you an unusual understanding, a sort of closeness and kinship that is far beyond the ordinary.

It had brought the goat straight to Alice without hesitation, and it brought Turk also—after he had sized me up and decided he could handle me. When he told me to keep my distance, he looked straight into my eyes, exactly as the goat had done long before. But Turk's message was a threat, the simplest and strongest message that can be conveyed to a dull-witted human. Several days later Turk looked at me again, using that same hard, peculiar stare. But this time he wasn't giving information. He was getting it.

Here is the reason: Bob, our woodsman friend, stopped by one afternoon and saw Alice feeding Turk. He was fascinated. “What a dog!” he whispered. “I'd sure like to have him.” He added, “I've seen that feller before, chasin' deer. He's a wild 'un. If the warden ever gets a shot at 'im …”

Turk had become a worry. The cats were afraid of him. So were the other dogs. Furthermore, our part of the valley is a deer crossing, a fact that Turk knew only too well. Our game warden was always on the watch for deer killers and had disposed of several of them in sight of the house. Obviously, if Turk hung around very long, he was in for trouble.

We talked it over. It seemed much better for Bob to have Turk and train him, than for the dog to run afoul of the warden. But how were we to catch him?

Bob solved it by appearing every afternoon so that Turk would become accustomed to him. Alice, somewhat against her will, agreed to snap a leash on Turk at the right moment and give him to Bob.

An afternoon came when all seemed to be in order. Turk was used to Bob and allowed us to approach within thirty feet of him while Alice fed him. Then I made the mistake of asking Bob how he intended to train such a dog.

“Why, I reckon I'll do it jest like I always do it,” he said. “You gotta let 'im know who's boss.”

Into my mind at that instant came a sharp vision of Bob's little mountain farm, with a pair of woebegone hounds tied to a tree near the house. Bob had a fine reputation as a trainer of hunting dogs, but like most men in the region he believed in using an iron hand to achieve results. Suddenly I could see Turk tied like the hounds but, unlike them, refusing to submit, and refusing all food in his utter hatred of confinement.

As the vision became unpleasantly clear in my mind, I saw Turk staring at me, his brown agate eyes boring deep into mine. Then he looked intently at Bob. All at once he backed away from Alice, whirled around, and trotted swiftly up the creek. At the spot where we had first noticed him, he paused briefly and glanced back.

He seemed to say, “No one shall confine me. No one. I am free. Or don't you know what freedom is?”

That, as nearly as I can express it, is the thought that came to me at that moment. He turned and trotted out of sight upstream. We never saw him again.

The more I thought about it afterward, the more certain I became that he knew Bob's intention from the first. The only reason he remained near us till the last possible moment was his feeling for Alice. She was
simpático
—probably the only creature in his life who was.

5

INSECTS HAVE FEELINGS?

T
HOUGH I WAS CAREFUL
not to mention Turk to the beekeeper, I tried to draw him out on other matters that might help in my search for answers. He has a surprising knowledge of the wild world around us, and much of it is not to be found in books. Also, I suspected he was aware of secrets I would find quite startling if I could get him to talk. But prying a truth out of him isn't easy.

“Do you think dogs can read minds?” I asked.

“Why not?” he answered. “Other things do.”

“What other things?”

“Look around,” he said. “You'd be surprised. There are all sorts of goings-on right under people's noses, but mighty few of us ever notice 'em. You know why? It's because most of us think we're better'n anything else, and smarter. But we're not.”

“You don't think humans are superior to other creatures?”

“Pshaw! Everything that lives is superior in some way to everything else. Doesn't that make us all sort of equal?”

“It's a good point to remember,” I admitted.

“Well, you've got to approach animals as an equal before you can become acquainted with them or learn much about them. Anyway, we make an awful poor showing when compared to some creatures. You've read about dolphins?”

I told him I had. I had been staggered to learn that dolphins not only have a highly developed language, but a memory that puts ours in the shade, and a brain that works many times faster than a human's.

“Then there's the wolf,” he said. “Stack him up against us, and he comes out way ahead. He's a better animal all the way around, and a finer gentleman.”

I have met only one wolf in my life, but the meeting was memorable. We came upon each other suddenly at the corner of a northern field, and we both stopped short and stared at each other. At that moment, while I was blinking and trying to tell myself I was seeing a stray dog and not a wolf, he instantly sized me up as being utterly harmless and practically beneath contempt. He went calmly on his way and disappeared into the growth at the side of the field, not even bothering to glance back at me.

At the time I did not know how he felt about me. But I'll never forget the look he gave me. It was exactly the same hard and penetrating stare that came from Turk.

If the wolf hadn't known I was harmless, he would have looked back to see what I was going to do. Moreover, if I had had a gun in my hand at the time and had been in a hunting mood, I doubt that I would have seen him at all. He would have known I was dangerous long before he came near me, and he would have been careful to avoid me.

The beekeeper's views are shared by many thoughtful people. In fact, it is almost impossible for us to grasp the truth about other creatures as long as we consider ourselves far above them. We must come humbly down to another level and meet them as equals. And we must realize that every one of them, be it a dolphin, wolf, crow, or even a grasshopper, is an individual and actually superior to us in some way.

As an individual, every animal is another living being on the same spaceship as ourselves, traveling toward the same unknown destination. Like us, it is equipped with special talents, a means of communication with other life around it, and a complete set of feelings. It knows joy and fear, love and hate, anxiety and grief, pride, yes, and even compassion.

Insects have feelings? Certainly they have! Who has never been stung by an angry wasp or an anxious bee? Who has never watched a happy fly circling in the sun? As for language, a grasshopper has a vocabulary of nearly five hundred different chirping sounds. Just because he makes them by rubbing a leg against a wing, instead of wagging a tongue, does not lessen their significance as a means of communication.

I don't know whether the housefly has his own special sound language, as most creatures seem to have, but he doesn't really need one. He is a very sensitive little fellow. And like Turk and the wolf, all the cats and dogs I have known, and innumerable other creatures who have looked hard into my eyes to discover what message lurked behind them, he is quite capable of picking up my thoughts.

Anyone who has trouble believing this can try stalking a fly with murder in his mind and a swatter in his hand. Watch carefully how the fly acts. Better yet, one can find a copy of J. Allen Boone's curious book
Kinship with All Life
and learn some amazing truths he will never forget. The chances are that he will never want to swat another fly.

Allen Boone, a well-known Hollywood figure and friend of animals, was the man who tutored Strong-heart, probably the most intelligent of all the great movie dogs. Early in their relationship Boone discovered that Strongheart could read his mind. This fact not only accounted for the dog's uncanny acting ability, but it was the undoing of many a crook, for he would not tolerate a dishonest person in his presence.

Boone soon learned what primitive man learned ages ago—that
all
creatures have the ability to read the thoughts of those around them. It is almost as necessary for their safety as their sense of smell. Some, like Strongheart, Turk, and my wolf, have this ability to a much higher degree than others. But all creatures have it, even mosquitoes and houseflies.

After Allen Boone discovered this, he actually made a fly his friend and trained it to come to his call and alight on his finger!

How did he manage it? By forgetting his supposed superiority and meeting the fly as an equal!

This is a good place to remember Albert Schweitzer, medical missionary and one of the world's greatest thinkers. He had a feeling for insects that was as remarkable as Boone's. In Dr. Schweitzer's philosophy, all life is related and closely bound together, and he did not believe in killing anything, not even a mosquito.

That idea rather shook me at first, for at the time when I read the doctor's work I was being thoroughly bitten by mosquitoes. During my angry slapping, most of Dr. Schweitzer's philosophy went in through one eye and out the other. Soon I learned that a bright mosquito can pick up a swatter's thoughts and actually outwit him! So, much against my will, I was forced to respect the rascal.

Even so, it took some doing before I could accept Dr. Schweitzer's point of view. Acceptance came in time, as my understanding grew, and with it my feeling of human superiority took a tumble. It tumbled even more after Zan caught the doves and we began asking questions that were hard to answer.

One of the first things I stumbled over—and it is one of those incredible truths which has been right under my nose all my life—is how completely we have lost contact with the natural world around us.

That is a frightening fact, for it could mean death for all of us.

6

THE TERRIBLE INTENT

H
AVE YOU EVER WONDERED
why some people can walk through the woods and see all kinds of wildlife, whereas others see nothing?

The answer to that is something I learned while trying to solve the mystery of the doves. We have lost all contact with that great natural world beyond our doors. In fact, we are so far out of step with it, so destructive and uncaring, that we seem like insensitive invaders from another planet.

When you enter a wild area, all life around you is very much aware of how you feel about it. The way you feel decides how much of that life you see.

Suppose you are out hunting and are all fired up about bringing home your share of the game. The chances are that you will see very little game close enough to shoot. With every step forward you are broadcasting the fact that your intentions are deadly.

Just being a human is bad enough. The experience of centuries has taught wildlife that you cannot be trusted and that you are better avoided. And when you become a killer on the loose, every creature wants to hide.

Indian hunters of old knew that their deadly intentions could be felt by the game they stalked. But they
had
to kill for food, so they were careful to turn their thoughts to something else while they crept forward into shooting range. A Cherokee even offered a little prayer just before he shot, begging the creature's forgiveness for taking its life.

Now, suppose you are out hunting and suddenly change your point of view.

My cousin had that experience while hunting deer in Colorado. In the beginning he and a friend tramped many miles through the mountains, and the only deer they saw were a few in the distance, swiftly retreating. Then the hunters became lost, and for several heartbreaking days they struggled through the wilderness, trying to find a way out. Now they saw deer, dozens of deer. Many of them were only a stone's throw away, and this in spite of the fact that both hunters were still carrying their rifles in plain sight. But by that time neither man had the least interest in killing anything. They were exhausted and frightened, and all they wanted was to get home.

When man is in trouble, the creatures around him know it, and the list of those which have been of help is endless. In their book,
The Strange World of Animals and
Pets,
Vincent and Margaret Gaddis give many instances of animals, and even birds, coming to the assistance of humans in need. This, of course, will be no surprise to anyone with a cat or a dog. These animals know instantly when something is wrong. If they are unable to right it, they can pour out sympathy in unlimited quantities.

There is another kind of hunter, who never carries a weapon, who always sees the wildlife around him. He goes forth to discover and admire, not to kill. And since all living things, even plants, like to be loved and told how wonderful they are, they are not reluctant about showing themselves when this person comes along.

Most hunters of this kind are naturalists. By that I mean
amateur
naturalists, people who would not dream of destroying a creature so it could be stuffed for a museum. Many of them, if they discovered something very rare, wouldn't tell even their best friends about it for fear the news would spread and tragedy result. As a rule these people are loners, and when they go forth to see what they can see, the world of nature usually meets them more than halfway. Sometimes it practically snows them under.

In one of his outdoor books, Edwin Way Teale tells of a friend who is always surrounded by a cloud of birds every time she goes walking in her woods. They alight on her hands, head, arms and shoulders until they no longer have standing room. Other nature writers tell of similar cases, and they are by no means as rare as you would think. One, of course, is my neighbor the beekeeper. I have never seen him without a considerable chorus of feathered companionship, though most of his friends fly away at my approach. Another such case was my great-uncle, a ripsnorting old rascal who was never quite tamed even in his final days. But the birds, as well as the small animals around his farm, thought he was great. When he became too ancient to stir far from the rocking chair on his porch, the birds would come to him. They would settle all around him, and take turns singing!