As the machine purred along the two miles of road that wound up the side of Sonoma Mountain, Michael scarcely looked at the forest-trees and vistas4 of wandering glades5. He had been in the United States three years, during which time he had been kept a close prisoner. Cage and crate1 and chain had been his portion, and narrow rooms, baggage cars, and station platforms. The nearest he had come to the country was when chained to benches in the various parks while Jacob Henderson studied Swedenborg. So that trees and hills and fields had ceased to mean anything. They were something inaccessible6, as inaccessible as the blue of the sky or the drifting cloud-fleeces. Thus did he regard the trees and hills and fields, if the negative act of not regarding a thing at all can be considered a state of mind.
He looked up at sound of his old name, and made acknowledgment by flattening8 his ears a quivering trifle and by touching9 his nose against Harley’s shoulder.
“Wait till they meet,” Harley smiled in anticipation11. “Jerry will furnish enough excitement for both of them.”
“If they remember each other after all this time,” said Villa. “I wonder if they will.”
“They did at Tulagi,” he reminded her. “And they were full grown and hadn’t seen each other since they were puppies. Remember how they barked and scampered12 all about the beach. Michael was the hurly-burly one. At least he made twice as much noise.”
“Three years ought to have subdued him,” Harley insisted.
But Villa shook her head.
As the machine drew up at the house and Kennan first stepped out, a dog’s whimperingly joyous14 bark of welcome struck Michael as not altogether unfamiliar15. The joyous bark turned to a suspicious and jealous snarl16 as Jerry scented18 the other dog’s presence from Harley’s caressing19 hand. The next moment he had traced the original source of the scent17 into the limousine20 and sprung in after it. With snarl and forward leap Michael met the snarling21 rush less than half-way, and was rolled over on the bottom of the car.
The Irish terrier, under all circumstances amenable22 to the control of the master as are few breeds of dogs, was instantly manifest in Jerry and Michael an Harley Kennan’s voice rang out. They separated, and, despite the rumbling23 of low growling24 in their throats, refrained from attacking each other as they plunged26 out to the ground. The little set-to had occurred in so few seconds, or fractions of seconds, that they had not begun to betray recognition of each other until they were out of the machine. They were still comically stiff-legged and bristly as they aloofly27 sniffed28 noses.
“They know each other!” Villa cried. “Let’s wait and see what they will do.”
As for Michael, he accepted, without surprise, the indubitable fact that Jerry had come back out of the Nothingness. Things of this sort had begun to happen rapidly, but it was not the things themselves, but the connotations of them, that almost stunned29 him. If the man and woman, whom he had last seen at Tulagi, and, likewise, Jerry, had come back from the Nothingness, then could come, and might come at any moment, the beloved Steward30.
Instead of responding to Jerry, Michael sniffed and glanced about in quest of Steward. Jerry’s first expression of greeting and friendliness31 took the form of a desire to run. He barked invitation to his brother, scampered away half a dozen jumps, scampered back, and dabbed32 playfully at Michael with one forepaw in added emphasis of invitation ere he scampered away again.
For so many years had Michael not run with another dog, that at first Jerry’s invitation had little meaning to him. Nevertheless, such running was an habitual33 expression of happiness and friendliness in dogdom, and especially strong had been his inheritance of it from Terrence and Biddy, the noted34 love-runners of the Solomons.
The next time Jerry dabbed at him with a paw, barked, and scurried35 away in an enticing36 semi-circle, Michael started involuntarily though slowly after him. But Michael did not bark; and, after half a dozen leaps, he came to a full stop and looked to Villa and Harley for permission.
“All right, Michael,” Harley called heartily37, deliberately38 turning his shoulder in the non-interest of consent as he extended his hand to help Villa from the machine.
Michael sprang away again, and was numbly39 aware of an ancient joy as he shouldered Jerry who shouldered against him as they ran side by side. But most of the joy was Jerry’s, as was the wildest of the skurrying and the racing40 and the shouldering, of the body-wriggling, and ear-pricking, and yelping41 cries. Also, Jerry barked; and Michael did not bark.
“He used to bark,” said Villa.
“Much more than Jerry,” Harley supplemented.
“Then they have taken the bark out of him,” she concluded. “He must have gone through terrible experiences to have lost his bark.”
* * * * *
The green California spring merged42 into tawny43 summer, as Jerry, ever running afield, made Michael acquainted with the farthest and highest reaches of the Kennan ranch in the Valley of the Moon. The pageant44 of the wild flowers vanished until all that lingered on the burnt hillsides were orange poppies faded to palest gold, and Mariposa lilies, wind-blown on slender stems amidst the desiccated grasses, that smouldered like ornate spotted45 moths46 fluttering in rest for a space between flight and flight.
And Michael, a follower47 always where the exuberant48 Jerry led, sought throughout the passing year for what he could not find.
“Looking for something, looking for something,” Harley would say to Villa. “It is not alive. It is not here. Now just what is it he is always looking for?”
Steward it was, and Michael never found him. The Nothingness held him and would not yield him up, although, could Michael have journeyed a ten-days’ steamer-journey into the South Pacific to the Marquesas, Steward he would have found, and, along with him, Kwaque and the Ancient Mariner49, all three living like lotus-eaters on the beach-paradise of Taiohae. Also, in and about their grass-thatched bungalow50 under the lofty avocado trees, Michael would have found other pet—cats, and kittens, and pigs, donkeys and ponies51, a pair of love-birds, and a mischievous52 monkey or two; but never a dog and never a cockatoo. For Dag Daughtry, with violence of language, had laid a taboo53 upon dogs. After Killeny Boy, he averred54, there should be no other dog. And Kwaque, without averring55 anything at all, resolutely56 refrained from possessing himself of the white cockatoos brought ashore57 by the sailors off the trading schooners58.
But Michael was long in giving over his search for Steward, and, running the mountain trails or scrambling59 and sliding down into the deep canyons60, was ever expectant and ready for Steward to step forth61 before him, or to pick up the unmistakable scent that would lead him to him.
“Looking for something, looking for something,” Harley Kennan would chant curiously62, as he rode beside Villa and observed Michael’s unending search. “Now Jerry’s after rabbits, and fox-trails; but you’ll notice they don’t interest Michael much. They’re not what he’s after. He behaves like one who has lost a great treasure and doesn’t know where he lost it nor where to look for it.”
Much Michael learned from Jerry of the varied63 life of the forest and fields. To run with Jerry seemed the one pleasure he took, for he never played. Play had passed out of him. He was not precisely64 morose65 or gloomy from his years on the trained-animal stage and in Harris Collins’s college of pain, but he was sobered, subdued. The spring and the spontaneity had gone out of him. Just as the leopard66 had claw-marked his shoulder so that damp and frosty weather made the pain of the old wound come back, so was his mind marked by what he had gone through. He liked Jerry, was glad to be with him and to run with him; but it was Jerry who was ever in the lead, who ever raised the hue67 and cry of hunting pursuit, who barked indignation and eager yearning68 at a tree’d squirrel in refuge forty feet above the ground. Michael looked on and listened, but took no part in such antics of enthusiasm.
In the same way he looked on when Jerry fought fearful comic battles with Norman Chief, the great Percheron stallion. It was only play, for Jerry and Norman Chief were tried friends; and, though the huge horse, ears laid back, mouth open to bite, pursued Jerry in mad gyrations all about the paddock, it was with no thought of inflicting69 hurt, but merely to act up to his part in the sham70 battle. Yet no invitation of Jerry’s could induce Michael to join in the fun. He contented71 himself with sitting down outside the rails and looking on.
“Why play?” might Michael have asked, who had had all play taken out of him.
But when it came to serious work, he was there even ahead of Jerry. On account of foot-and-mouth disease and of hog-cholera, strange dogs were taboo on the Kennan ranch. It did not take Michael long to learn this, and stray dogs got short shrift from him. With never a warning bark nor growl25, in deadly silence, he rushed them, slashed72 and bit them, rolled them over and over in the dust, and drove them from the place. It was like nigger-chasing, a service to perform for the gods whom he loved and who willed such chasing.
No wild passion of love, such as he had had for Steward, did he bear Villa and Harley, but he did develop for them a great, sober love. He did not go out of his way to express it with overtures73 of wrigglings and squirmings and whimpering yelpings. Jerry could be depended upon for that. But he was always seriously glad to be with Villa and Harley and to receive recognition from them next after Jerry. Some of his deepest moments of content, before the fireplace, were to sit beside Villa or Harley and lean his head against a knee and have a hand, on occasion, drop down on his head or gently twist his crinkled ear.
Jerry was even guilty of playing with children who happened at times to be under the Kennan ægis. Michael endured children for as long as they left him alone. If they waxed familiar, he would warn them with a bristling74 of his neck-hair and a throaty rumbling and get up and stalk away.
“I can’t understand it,” Villa would say. “He was the fullest of play, and spirits, and all foolishness. He was much sillier and much more excitable than Jerry and certainly noisier. He must have some terrible story to tell, if only he could, of all that happened between Tulagi and the time we found him on the Orpheum stage.”
“And that may be the least little hint of it,” Harley would reply, pointing to Michael’s shoulder where the leopard had scarred it on the day Jack75, the Airedale, and Sara, the little green monkey, had died.
“He used to bark, I know he used to bark,” Villa would continue. “Why doesn’t he bark now?”
And Harley would point to the scarred shoulder and say, “That may account for it, and most possibly a hundred other things like it of which we cannot see the marks.”
But the time was to come when they were to hear him bark again—not once, but twice. And both times were to be but an earnest of another and graver time when, without barking at all, he would express in action the measure of his love and worship of them who had taken him from the crate and the footlights and given him the freedom of the Valley of the Moon.
And in the meantime, running endlessly with Jerry over the ranch, he learned all the ways of it and all the life of it from the chickenyards and the duck-ponds to the highest pitch of Sonoma Mountain. He learned where the wild deer, in their season, were to be found; when they raided the prune-orchard, the vineyards, and the apple-trees; when they sought the deepest canyons and most secret coverts76; and when they stamped out in open glades and on bare hillsides and crashed and clattered77 their antlers together in combat. Under Jerry’s leadership, always running second and after on the narrow trails as a subdued dog should, he learned the ways and habits of the foxes, the coons, the weasels, and the ring-tail cats that seemed compounded of cat and coon and weasel. He came to know the ground-nesting birds and the difference between the customs of the valley quail78, the mountain quail, and the pheasants. The traits and lairs79 of the domestic cats gone wild he also learned, as did he learn the wild loves of mountain farm-dogs with the free-roving coyotes.
He knew of the presence of the mountain lion, adrift down from Mendocino County, ere the first shorthorn calf80 was slain81, and came home from the encounter, torn and bleeding, to attest82 what he had discovered and to be the cause of Harley Kennan riding trail next day with a rifle across his pommel. Likewise Michael came to know what Harley Kennan never did know and always denied as existing on his ranch—the one rocky outcrop, in the dense83 heart of the mountain forest, where a score of rattlesnakes denned84 through the winters and warmed themselves in the sun.
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1
crate
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| vt.(up)把…装入箱中；n.板条箱，装货箱 | |
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automobile
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| n.汽车，机动车 | |
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3
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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vistas
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| 长条形景色( vista的名词复数 )； 回顾； 展望； （未来可能发生的）一系列情景 | |
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glades
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| n.林中空地( glade的名词复数 ) | |
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6
inaccessible
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| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
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ranch
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| n.大牧场，大农场 | |
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8
flattening
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| n. 修平 动词flatten的现在分词 | |
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9
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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scampered
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| v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑，惊惶奔跑( scamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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13
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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14
joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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16
snarl
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| v.吼叫，怒骂，纠缠，混乱；n.混乱，缠结，咆哮 | |
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17
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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18
scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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19
caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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limousine
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| n.豪华轿车 | |
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21
snarling
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的现在分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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22
amenable
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| adj.经得起检验的；顺从的；对负有义务的 | |
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23
rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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24
growling
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| n.吠声, 咆哮声 v.怒吠, 咆哮, 吼 | |
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25
growl
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| v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣 | |
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26
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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27
aloofly
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| 冷淡的； 疏远的； 远离的 | |
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28
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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29
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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steward
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| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
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31
friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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32
dabbed
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| （用某物）轻触( dab的过去式和过去分词 )； 轻而快地擦掉（或抹掉）； 快速擦拭； （用某物）轻而快地涂上（或点上）… | |
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33
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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35
scurried
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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enticing
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| adj.迷人的；诱人的 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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38
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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39
numbly
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| adv.失去知觉，麻木 | |
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40
racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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41
yelping
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| v.发出短而尖的叫声( yelp的现在分词 ) | |
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42
merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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43
tawny
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| adj.茶色的，黄褐色的；n.黄褐色 | |
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44
pageant
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| n.壮观的游行；露天历史剧 | |
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45
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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46
moths
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| n.蛾( moth的名词复数 ) | |
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47
follower
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| n.跟随者；随员；门徒；信徒 | |
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48
exuberant
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| adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的 | |
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49
mariner
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| n.水手号不载人航天探测器，海员，航海者 | |
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50
bungalow
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| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
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51
ponies
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| 矮种马，小型马( pony的名词复数 )； ￡25 25 英镑 | |
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52
mischievous
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| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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53
taboo
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| n.禁忌，禁止接近，禁止使用；adj.禁忌的；v.禁忌，禁制，禁止 | |
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54
averred
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| v.断言( aver的过去式和过去分词 )；证实；证明…属实；作为事实提出 | |
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55
averring
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| v.断言( aver的现在分词 )；证实；证明…属实；作为事实提出 | |
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56
resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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57
ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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58
schooners
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| n.（有两个以上桅杆的）纵帆船( schooner的名词复数 ) | |
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59
scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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60
canyons
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| n.峡谷( canyon的名词复数 ) | |
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61
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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62
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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63
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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64
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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65
morose
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| adj.脾气坏的，不高兴的 | |
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66
leopard
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| n.豹 | |
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67
hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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68
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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69
inflicting
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的现在分词 ) | |
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70
sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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71
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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72
slashed
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| v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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73
overtures
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| n.主动的表示，提议；（向某人做出的）友好表示、姿态或提议( overture的名词复数 )；（歌剧、芭蕾舞、音乐剧等的）序曲，前奏曲 | |
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74
bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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75
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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76
coverts
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| n.隐蔽的，不公开的，秘密的( covert的名词复数 )；复羽 | |
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77
clattered
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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78
quail
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| n.鹌鹑；vi.畏惧，颤抖 | |
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79
lairs
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| n.（野兽的）巢穴，窝( lair的名词复数 )；（人的）藏身处 | |
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80
calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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81
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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82
attest
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| vt.证明，证实；表明 | |
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83
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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84
denned
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| vi.穴居（den的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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