The Preposterous Adventures of Swimmer (12 page)

“Pshaw, his own dog can do that.”

“But he doesn't know it. All he knows is that he's done things he wouldn't want the world to hear about. Jake would like to catch you and hold you for ransom, and put the squeeze on Doc, for Doc would pay big. But Jake's afraid to try it. He's superstitious too. So they both decided they'd better get rid of you, and fast.”

Swimmer was shocked. “Aw, fiffle,” he muttered, glancing at Ripple. “Now, we'll have to find another den. Maybe we'd better—”

He stopped, for Ripple was suddenly alert. Then he caught the dog scent on the night breeze. It was Scruffs scent, and now he could hear the big dog coming swiftly down through the woods, making no effort to conceal his movements. Something must be very wrong for Scruff to act that way.

Seconds later the tawny beast reached the edge of the firelight. He halted abruptly and gave a low urgent growl.

Clarence, startled, leaped to his feet. But Swimmer said, “It's about Penny. Something's happened. He wants me to come and help.”

9

He Releases a Prisoner

C
larence said quickly, “Try to find out where she is, and what's wrong.”

Swimmer looked at Scruff a moment and reported, “She's locked up somewhere. A sort of small place, and not far from the house. He'll lead me to it. He thinks I can handle the lock.”

“Maybe you can, but you've no business going up there alone.”

“Aw, don't treat me like a gloop. Scruff will be with me, and he can sure lick anything I can't.”

“Wait,” said Clarence. “There are too many things coming to a head at once. Let me think a minute.” He stood scowling into the dark while he rubbed his long jaw. Abruptly he said, “We'll all go, at least as far as the fence. And, Swimmer, I'd better carry you.”

“Huh? What for?”

“Now who's acting like a gloop? When we leave here, we're not coming back. Do you want that devilish hound to trail you to the next place? He knows your scent.”

Swiftly Clarence trod out the tiny fire and soaked the embers with a cup of water. He threw his sleeping bag and knapsack over one shoulder and lifted Swimmer to the other. Finally he reached for his hiking stick and hesitated. “Where's Willow?”

“Gone traveling with friends. She won't be back.”

“Good! If Snake Eyes comes; he'll gas an empty tree. Let's go.”

There was only starlight overhead, and not much of it sifted down through the trees, but Swimmer had little trouble keeping Scruff in sight. Clarence, though, was forced to use his flashlight continually, and he moved slowly up the long slope, taking care not to stumble. Ripple was a silent shadow, gliding between the dog and the man.

They crossed the winding brook that splashed down from the trout pools and at last gained the fence. It was an old barbed-wire affair overgrown with honeysuckle. While Scruff waited impatiently on the other side, Clarence set Swimmer down with a grunt of relief and peered through the dim apple orchard beyond.

“You used to weigh twenty-seven pounds,” he muttered under his breath, “but now it feels like a hundred. H'mm. I've got really good night vision, but I can't make out any buildings from here.”

“I can,” said Swimmer. “Why don't I go ahead with Scruff? If I can't open the place she's locked in, I'll come back for you.”

“Okay. But watch it, pal. If you have any trouble with that dog up there, let Scruff handle him. Tell Scruff to chase him 'way off to one side to divert attention.”

Swimmer crept under the fence. Ripple followed.

You had better stay here
, he told her.
There may be trouble
.

Then you will need me. We must learn to work together
.

Silently they followed Scruff through the orchard. Swimmer limped confidently, his bad leg forgotten as his senses sharpened to the many messages brought on the night breeze. They rounded the lower trout pond, crept past the side of a small barn Swimmer had seen from the fence, then all three stopped abruptly.

Directly ahead, shrouded by evergreens, lay the trout farm cottage. From one lower window came a dull glow of light. Off to the left, and much too close to the cottage for comfort, were three small buildings. Swimmer realized instantly that Penny must be in one of them, even though he had not yet caught her scent. But Tattle's scent was strong from the area to the right of the lighted window.

Swimmer had barely scented and located Tattle, when the fickle breeze turned and began to come from the opposite direction. It was the worst thing that could have happened.

Swiftly, for the three of them were aware of the danger on the instant, they headed for the group of small buildings. But they had covered less than half the distance when Tattle caught the scent of the invaders and set up a wild and almost hysterical yapping.

Get him!
Swimmer ordered Scruff.
We'll find Penny
.

As Scruff charged, he and Ripple raced for the nearest building. From the direction of the cottage came a sudden snarl followed by a frightened shriek from Tattle.

Precious seconds were lost before Swimmer discovered that Penny was not in the first building but in the third. As he reached up to find out how the latch worked, he could hear her dry sobs inside. He started to call out to her, but thought better of it. Someone else might hear him. And what if he couldn't open the door?

It didn't have a regular lock, but a hasp that folded over a staple. Thrust down through the staple, securing it against all possibility of being opened from within, was an old screwdriver.

Ordinarily such a simple arrangement would have given him no trouble at all. But the screwdriver had been rammed down through the staple with such force that he was unable to budge it. Nor could he reach high enough to grasp it by the handle and pull it upward. It had to be pushed from below, and he could stand on only one foot to do it.

Somewhere in the distance Swimmer could hear Tattle's panicky yelps as he dodged for his life. Over in the cottage lights suddenly came on, flooding the porch and the pools. A door slammed. Someone cursed and ran outside, and a spotlight swept the barn and the orchard. Seconds later there was the sharp report of a rifle.

As he struggled frantically with the screwdriver, he heard another shot and then another. He knew it was Weaver's rifle, for it had the same sound as the weapon that had been used against him days ago. Desperately he tugged and twisted, but the jammed metal held tight.

Suddenly another small pair, of “hands” like his own was helping, and Ripple was adding her strength to the upward thrust. All at once the screwdriver loosened, and seconds later they were inside.

“It's us!” he gulped to the huddled form on the floor, his gnome voice sounding very froglike in his haste. “Scruff brought us the word. Quick—let's get out of here!”

“But—but—I don't know what to do,” Penny sobbed. “I—I—I've no place to go.”

“Yes, you have—you've got friends, now. Hurry!”

As she got uncertainly to her feet, Swimmer plucked at the scrap of tarpaulin she was clutching tightly about her and drew her outside. He realized at once that her eyes were so swollen now that she could hardly see.

“Lead her, Ripple,” he said aloud. “This way.”

Ripple caught a corner of the tarpaulin between her teeth, and they started around the corner of the building in a direction that would take them well away from the trout pools and the barn. They had barely reached the orchard when there was another shot. Before the echo of it had died away, they were startled by a piercing cry of pain and fright.

“Pa!” Weaver Sykes yelled shrilly. “Pa! Help me, Pa! I'm caught!”

Penny gasped. “Oh, dear! I knew it would happen! I just knew it.”

“Knew what?” Swimmer muttered, not in the least concerned over Weaver's agonies. His worry was for Scruff. From the moment the big dog had started the diversion, Swimmer had been aware of Scruff out there, drawing the attention away from them. But at the sound of the last shot the connection had been broken. It had been broken by a bullet.

“It's that awful last trap,” Penny was saying. “The one Mr. Sykes refused to look for. It was the biggest of all—and now Weaver's caught in it!”

“Let 'im stay caught,” Swimmer growled. “He—he shot Scruff.”

“Oh, no!” Penny wailed. “Scruff's my friend! Where is he? Help me find him!”

“Clarence will take care of him if he's still alive. It happened down there near the fence where Clarence is waiting. Let's get moving!”

To Weaver's cries were now added more sounds from the cottage. A door banged, there were angry oaths, and someone pounded across a porch, down the steps, and out upon the gravel. Once, through the trees, Swimmer glimpsed the hurrying form of Grady Sykes vaguely outlined by the cottage lights.

Penny could not move fast, and it seemed to take forever to reach the fence across the lower slope of the orchard. They had come out, Swimmer figured, a good hundred yards or more from the spot where he had left Clarence.

When they had crawled under the wire, he said to Penny, “If you'll wait here with Ripple, I'll go and get Clarence. We'll be heading in this direction anyway.”

“Aw'right,” Penny whispered. “And—and please excuse me for being a crybaby. But when you get tired of trying to tough it out, it sort of helps.”

“Aw, fiffle, everybody has to cry,” Swimmer told her. “Even otters.”

If you haven't cried, you haven't lived, he thought, as he began following the fence toward Clarence. He had cried more than once in his life, and the way he felt at the moment he was on the edge of doing it again. He wouldn't have believed he could feel this way over a ding-blatted old dog, practically his born enemy. But Scruff was different.

When he reached the right place along the fence, the only sign of Clarence was his scent. Of Clarence himself he could see nothing. But he could hear voices. At last he made out two dark shapes far over on the right where the brook from the trout pools curved down under the fence.

“But I can't stand up, Pa,” Weaver Sykes whined. “It hurts something awful. I think my leg's broke.”

“Your dang leg ain't broke! You oughta had better sense than to step down in that water, slap in the one place I told you to keep away from. Of all the tomfool—”

“But I couldn't help it, Pa! I'd just shot that big varmint of a dog. I seen 'im fall, an' I was running to git close enough to finish 'im off—”

“You sure you seen 'im fall?”

“Sure I seen 'im! I ain't blind.”

“Then where is he now?”

“Danged if I know! If he's gunshot …”

“He'll be meaner'n a bear. We'd better git back to the house. C'mon, Weaver, I done freed your foot but I don't aim to carry you. Git up an' try to walk.”

Swimmer had heard enough to piece together what had happened. Suddenly he turned and crept carefully over to the curving bank of the brook and followed it a few yards downstream. Almost immediately he found Clarence crouched under the edge of the bank holding Scruff's limp body.

“Is—is he dead?” Swimmer gulped.

“No. His heart's still beating. Where's Penny?”

Swimmer explained, and he added, “Her eyes are swollen shut.”

“Oh, lordy!” Clarence shook his head. “This calls for some tall thinking. Those Sykes fellows gone yet?”

“They've just left.”

“Well, we can't stay here, so I reckon I'll carry Scruff over to where Penny is. We'll figure it out from there.”

Swimmer wondered how Clarence was going to manage such a load, for he was still carrying the sleeping bag and knapsack. But the black man merely crouched, pulled Scruff's body over his left shoulder with one hand, and thrust himself upright with his hiking stick.

A few minutes later they reached the spot where Penny and Ripple were waiting, and the big dog was gently lowered to the ground. Penny held back her tears while Clarence carefully examined Scruff with the aid of his flashlight.

“It's a head wound,” Clarence muttered finally. “Doesn't look too bad, but it grazed the skull. Knocked him out cold. Good thing I was close enough to see him fall, and that Weaver stepped in the trap. Otherwise he'd be a dead dog now.”

“But—but how long before he'll wake up?” Penny asked tremulously.

Clarence sighed wearily. “It's a concussion, so it might take hours. And he'll probably be shaky for sometime afterward.”

“W-what are we going to do?”

“That's just what I'm trying to figure,” he said slowly. “Penny, how far is the nearest telephone from here?”

“Oh, goodness, it must be miles and miles. Mr. Sykes has the only one between the gap and the bridge.”

“H'mm. Before I could walk to a phone, it would probably be after midnight, and I'm the wrong color to be knocking on somebody's door at that hour. Now, let me think …”

“Who did you want to phone?” Swimmer asked.

“Mr. Hogarth. Thought I might get him to come out and take Penny some place for the night.”

Swimmer said, “Why not call Mr. Owl?”

“He's not home. If we had found Penny earlier, he'd planned to take her back to his place and skip a meeting he was going to in Asheville. But he went on to the meeting, and I understand he was going to spend the night with friends. So …”

Clarence spread his hands and looked worriedly at Penny. She was huddled under her scrap of tarpaulin, shivering in the mountain chill. It was turning colder.

“Penny,” he said, “we've got to camp somewhere tonight, but we can't do it here, and We'll have to stay away from the creek. Do you know of a spot to the west of us where there's a spring?”

“Oh, s-s-sure,” she said, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. “If—if you'll j-just k-keep walking straight ahead p-past the corner of the fence, you'll come to a n-nice spring that runs down through the rocks. Clarence, h-have you any ch-ch-chocolate left?”