The haunted hound; (17 page)

And the dogs and horses and everything Judy had. And all the things she knew about the woods and what lived in them. It almost made him feel ashamed the way she knew what made what tracks in the sand and even what the animal was doing when he made them.

About the only thing Jonathan could do as well as she could do was fish. And, he thought to himself, maybe he could even fish a litth better than she could.

He was sitting on a log, his feet in the water, not even fishing, when Pot Likker come out of the woods and over to the log.

''Hello, Pot Likker," Jonathan said, smiling at him.

Pot Likker whanged his tail on the sand and then put one front paw on Jonathan's knee.

The hound was thin, all his ribs showing, and ragged looking with beggar lice stuck to his hide.

Jonathan started cleaning him up some. He got the beggar lice off and then began on the ticks.

As he worked, he kept trying to think of some way he could keep Pot Likker. The dog must love him, Jonathan reasoned, because he came around whenever Jonathan was by himself. And Pot Likker was lonely—about as lonely as Jonathan was.

They just naturally belonged together, he decided.

Jonathan was thinking so hard that he didn't see Judy coming toward him. But Pot Likker did, and he disappeared into the woods.

Judy must not have seen the dog because she came up without saying anything about him. ''Mussels are all right,'' she said. ''Try one."

She had two or three of them on a leaf which she held out to him. Fried, they looked a little more like oysters.

Jonathan took one and bit off some of it. He chewed on it for a while and, so as not to hurt her feelings, finally swallowed it.

"Isn't that good?" she asked.

"Well," Jonathan said.

"You don't think so?"

"Well ..."

"Stop saying just 'well.' Are they good or not?"

"They're not bad. But they're not very good. I believe if you fried some mud it would taste about like that."

Judy nodded. "That's what I thought. Until I tasted them I was sort of planning to go into the river mussel business and make a lot of money, but I don't guess people would like 'em much, do you?"

''Not after the first bite anyway/'

''Oh, well"—she started back again—"maybe I'll cook some gator fleas."

Jonathan shuddered and then said, "You want to see something funny, Judy?"

"Maybe," she said. "How funny?"

"Something you won't believe if you see it."

She became interested. "What kind of thing, animal or vegetable?"

"Animal. But you'll have to hide."

"Why?"

"It won't happen if you don't. But if you just sort of wander back up the river a little, then hide so you don't show, maybe it'll happen."

"What's going to happen?"

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "But hide anyway and let's see.

"All right." She threw the mussels into the river. "What happens if nothing happens?"

"Nothing."

"Well, go ahead. Make it happen." She walked away.

He waited, watching her, until she was completely hidden in some thick willow bushes beside the river. He couldn't even see her looking at him.

Not saying it loud enough for her to hear, he called, "Here, Pot Likker. Here."

Slowly, looking upriver toward where Judy had gone, Pot Likker came out on the sand.

Jonathan hugged and patted him and talked to him.

After a while he felt Pot Likker's body stiffen. Then, in one leap, he was gone again.

Judy was standing out in plain view.

Jonathan stood up. Just before Pot Likker reached the thick woods, Jonathan, his voice not loud, but very firm, called, 'Tot Likker! Come back here. Heier

The hound went on for a few more steps, then slowed and turned his head back.

Still firmly, Jonathan said, ''Here, Pot Likker.''

Inside it felt as though his heart had stopped beating and he wasn't breathing any more. Somehow, Jonathan knew that in the next few seconds Pot Likker was either going to go completely wild and spend the rest of his life as far from humans as he could or—he was going to be Jonathan's dog.

Jonathan could almost hear the seconds ticking away. He was afraid to call again for fear that his voice wouldn't be strong enough. It might tell Pot Likker that he wasn't sure what Pot Likker was going to do.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Judy, and he was glad that she was the kind of girl she was. Anybody else w^ould have moved, or said something, or done something that would break whatever it was that he could feel between him and Pot Likker. But Judy must have known that this was the time when Pot Likker was going to make up his mind once and for all. She didn't move a muscle nor make a sound.

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That was the longest time Jonathan had ever spent in his whole life. Ever}'thing around him seemed to stop and watch to see what Pot Likker was going to do. He didn't even see a bird flying or, behind him, hear a fish jump.

Pot Likker stood at the edge of the woods, his whole body tense, his legs quivering a little, his head turned back so that he was looking at Jonathan.

Jonathan, still afraid that his voice might tell Pot Likker that he wasn't sure of his obedience, slowly held out one hand. With two fingers he beckoned Pot Likker to come.

Pot Likker moved then. Still watching Jonathan, he walked along the edge of the woods until they came down to the river. Then, at last, he turned and followed the river, coming gradually closer and closer to Jonathan.

Jonathan said quietly, ''Good dog. Pot." Then, with Pot Likker sitting on his haunches at Jonathan's feet, Jonathan waited for a second or so before he reached down and patted Pot Likker's head.

The long black tail with the white tuft on the end banged the sand, and Pot Likker leaned against Jonathan's leg.

Still patting the dog, Jonathan, with his other hand, beckoned for Judy to come.

She came step by step, but steadily. Jonathan could feel Pot Likker quivering as he watched her, but he kept patting him and talking to him.

When Judy was almost there, Jonathan sat down on the log. Pot Likker followed him, pressing up against the log and Jonathan's leg.

''Oh, Jonathan,'' Judy whispered. ''He's your dog now/'

"You think so?"

"I know he is. See if he won't follow you."

Jonathan stood up. In an ordinary tone he said, "Come on, Pot," and \\'alked away across the sand bar. He w^as careful not to look back, although he wanted more than anything in the world to know what Pot Likker was going to do.

The dog got up at once and trotted after Jonathan.

"See?" Judy said.

Jonathan began to run as fast as he could.

Pot Likker ran in circles around him, jumping and playing, his long ears flapping.

Jonathan grabbed him, and they rolled over in the sand.

Then he walked back to where Judy was. When he stopped, Pot Likker stopped, too.

"Pat him and see what he does," Jonathan told her.

Judy reached out her hand and patted Pot Likker lightly on the head.

Pot Likker didn't even look at her. Instead, he kept his eyes on Jonathan.

When Judy pulled her hand back, Jonathan said, "He doesn't mind if you pat him, but I don't think he cares w^hethef you do or don't."

"He doesn't. All he cares about is what you do." All of a sudden Judy hugged herself and whirled all the way around. "Isn't that swell, Jonathan? Now you've really got a dog of your own. And I mean he's yours and nobody else's and never will be. I've heard a lot about one-man dogs, but the

only ones I ever saw were trained to be that way. They weren't hke Pot Likker. He's your dog because he wants to be and he loves you. He couldn't possibly love anybody else or be anybody else's dog." Then she whirled all the way around again.

Pot Likker sat on his haunches and looked at her as though he thought she was about as foolish a human as he had ever seen.

But Jonathan wasn't looking at anything. He could hardly see for the tears coming up in his eyes.

''Yes/' he said, his voice choked with tears, ''he wants to be mine but—I can't have him!"

g^^n

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

onathan was afraid he was going to cry. He didn't want Judy to see him do that so he turned his back to her. The tears felt hot and tight in his eyes, but he made them dry up before they spilled out. Doing it made his throat ache, and he had to blink several times before he could see clearly.

Behind him Judy said softly, 'What's the matter, Jonathan?"

''Nothing," he said.

"Yes, there is."

He turned slowly around. "It's just that I wish things were different. I wish my father had different feelings and that I could keep a dog."

Judy looked shocked. "He's got to let you have this one."

"He would if he could, I guess." Then he told her about the rules in the apartment.

When he got through, Judy said, "What I can't understand is why your father keeps on living in such a place. And he doesn't even have to because he could live in the house at the Farm. What's the matter with him, anyhow?"

So Jonathan told her about his mother and how his father couldn't bear to think about the Farm any more. "I mustn't even let him know that I come out here/'

''Poor you/' Judy said, looking at him, her own eyes a little wet.

''So I can't keep Pot Likker," Jonathan said.

Judy's face changed. Her voice did, too. "You've got to keep him, Jonathan."

Jonathan felt helpless. "But I canty Judy."

"I don't care! You've got to. Pot Likker gave himself to you, Jonathan, so you've got to take care of him. He's going to go where you go no matter where it is, so you've just got to take care of him."

Jonathan felt as though things were pulling him apart. "But how, Judy? Even if I sneaked him into the apartment. Dad or Mrs. Johnson would find him."

Judy sounded helpless, too. "I don't know. But youVe got to do something. Pot Likker's a funny dog, Jonathan. All his life he's been waiting for you to come. Then, when you did come, you went away again, leaving him behind. So he decided to go wild. But you came back. Now he's changed his mind—for good. If you leave him again, it'll break his heart and he'll die, Jonathan."

The tears were coming back in his eyes. "If I told him to stay with you, wouldn't he do it? Especially if I came to see him a lot?"

Judy slowly shook her head. "No. He's going to follow you, Jonathan, until you go somewhere where

he can't possibly get in. Then, if you don't come get him soon, he's going to he down and die. He Joves you, Jonathan."

Jonathan touched Pot Likker's head hghtly with his fingertips. ''I love him, too."

''Then you've got to do something," Judy said.

But Jonathan hardly heard her. He was thinking hard, planning.

It was a desperate thing to do, he thought, but there just wasn't any other way. He couldn't go away and let Pot Likker die. And, he thought, his father wouldn't miss him much, after a while. Most of the time now, Jonathan believed, his father didn't even know he was around.

''Judy," he said, when he had made up his mind, "could I come and live at your house with Pot Likker?"

She looked suddenly scared. "What are you going to do, Jonathan? Run away?"

He nodded. "Can I stay with you?"

Judy was more scared but she nodded.

"What would your mother say?"

She thought for a moment. "I don't know, Jonathan. She acts awful grown up sometimes."

"I guess she'd tell my father and he'd come and make me go home, wouldn't she?"

He could tell that it hurt Judy to admit it as she said, "Well, she might, Jonathan."

Sadly, he changed his plans. "Maybe Mr. Worth would let me stay with him?"

'*He would," Judy said, then thought a httle, ''but I don't think the Little Bird would. She'd be like my mother. She wouldn't understand that you had to take care of Pot Likker."

''No, I guess not."

Jonathan slowly sat down on the log. Pot Likker moved over and leaned against his knees. When Jonathan patted his head, Pot Likker flailed the ground and looked up at Jonathan, his cold black eyes flicking back and forth.

Judy came and sat down near him. She began to sift sand through her fingers. "What can we do?" she asked.

"I've got some money. Maybe a lot," Jonathan said. "I could get it and go away somewhere."

"Maybe you could get a job on a farm somewhere. Can you plow?"

He shook his head. Then, as clear as a picture, he saw the whole answer. Jonathan laughed. "I don't have to go anywhere or find a place to stay, Judy. I'll just stay in our house at the Farm."

"Yes!" Judy said, getting excited. "That's it, Jonathan. There's a house and everything right there for you. And I could bring you things to eat and let you know when the coast is clear and all."

Jonathan felt really happy. "And it wouldn't be exactly running away, either, would it? Because, after all, it's Dad's house. I'd just be living in my own father's house. That's not running away, is it?"

"Certainly not," Judy declared. "What difference does it

make where a person sleeps? He's no good to anybody when he's asleep anyhow/'