A Satisfactory Daniel

by Edison Marshall

A Satisfactory Daniel

THE STORY OF OLD DAN, YOUNG DAN, LITTLE DANNY, AND A FAMILY OF BEARS

By Edison Marshall

OLD DAN'S bones were chilly and lean, and so his favorite chair was on his front porch, in the sun. He would roost there like some old bird, his hard, dry, sun-yellowed hands clutching the chair arms and suggesting claws, and his bright eyes, like a hen's, sharply watching the hillside in front of the house.

He did not talk much, but what he did say, from his chair in the sun, carried a long way through the wood-grown hills of his neighborhood. The reason was that he had had a long time to sit and think things out and particularly to watch what went on upon the sunlit hillside; and the mountain men know that thinking is better than reading books.

The house stood a long way from any village, and thus the view was not spoiled. Flowers blossomed and died and scattered seed, so that the hillside might be beautiful another year. Little trees grew, and leaves fell and rustled. Cautious ground squirrels ran, paused, flirted tails, and collected pine nuts for the hard winters.

Indeed, the hillside was a veritable cinema of the seasons. The migratory birds held a spring jubilee here after their winter travels, and told outrageous lies to the jays and chickadees, who had remained as winter caretakers. In the summer, snakes came out of their mysterious hiding places; and because they also loved to remain motionless in the sun, Old Dan sympathized with them, and would not think of killing them, except, perhaps, some old scandalmonger with a particularly venomous tongue. Young does, hushed and trembling from the sheer wonder of living, brought their fawns into the manzanita shade.

In winter the hillside was banked white, and nothing passed at all except starved, furtive things that haunted the night. In this season Old Dan envied the tourist birds, and even the snakes in their grottoes; for the mountain winter is long and harsh and bitter, and his bones cracked and ached from the cold.

It was fall now—the loveliest of seasons, except for the threat of winter whispering through it. Old Dan's eyes loved color, and he found it—fabulous carnivals of color to warm the chilling currents of his blood. Browns and yellows and reds, with all the shades between, overran every deciduous tree and shrub. Gold was poured everywhere, and a yellow haze made him feel warm and tranquil.

In this season scurrying activity went on among the old man's forest friends. The buck deer pranced and showed off, and almost ran in circles in their excitement. The grouse joined up into nervous, foolish, hysterical communities. The woods were agog with all kinds of rumors—tales of berry patches breaking down with their load of fruit, of hillsides cobblestoned with acorns, and weather forecasts of disaster and sudden death.

So perfect and still was one late October afternoon that Old Dan's son came out to sit with him on the front porch. This was Young Dan, a mountain man in his prime, lean and powerful as a cougar; and since he had learned the mountain trick of silence, could smoke his pipe and say almost nothing at all, and could enter freely into communion with the golden outdoors, he was superior company.

The two watched the trees casting long shadow bars across the hillside. They saw the sun spray through tinted leaves; and they followed, with slow-moving gaze, a buzzard calmly circling above the tree tops. This respected bird, an undertaker of parts, had not anticipated any business in this particular section; but he took a turn around, just to make sure. One can never tell about such things, in the forests. Everybody is a prospect.

Shortly after the buzzard completed his observations, a visitor of real eminence came into view on the hillside. This was no common sight, even in the wilderness—a large black creature with a queer, shuffling gait and a droll and absent-minded manner. She suddenly appeared, after the manner of wild things, out of nowhere, and as she moved through the yellow haze and among the colored leaves she added pleasantly to the picture.

Which of the two men saw her first it would be difficult to decide. Young Dan was in his prime, but if those cold, gray eyes of his could pick up an object—particularly a moving object in a maze of light and shadow—more quickly than those queer bright beads under Old Dan's grizzled brows, events had taken a strange pass. However, the former was the first to get into action. In fact, the latter did not get into action at all. He smiled dimly, the more so when he saw two small editions of the black creature immediately behind her, and he pointed his thumb in a short gesture, but he did not leave his chair.

Young Dan sprang up, seized a rifle which was kept near the door, and, swiftly working the bolt, threw a shell into the chamber.

"It's a b'ar!" he exclaimed. "Watch me bowl her over!"

He threw his gun up, and his eye leveled to the sights. Then Old Dan spoke from his whiskers.

"Hold your fire, young un," he said quietly.

Young Dan lowered the gun, and turned with a look of surprise.

"What d'ye mean? That b'ar 'll get out o' sight in a minute."

"Let 'er, Dan—let 'er. Ye don't want her."

He eyed his son until he saw the younger man let the gun fall from its position of readiness. Then, to all indications, he returned to his musings.

With half anger, half wonder, Young Dan saw the she-bear lead her cubs across the hillside and vanish into a thicket of young trees. With a rather exasperated air he took his seat.

"What got a hold of you, pop?" he asked. "Why didn't you want me to shoot that b'ar?"

At first the old man did not seem to have heard the question. He sat peering into the farther reaches of the hills.

"Young un, I don't know," he replied at last.

"Jest a notion?"

"I reckon so—jest a notion." He sighed and spread out his arms. "Young un, I've killed things all my days," he went on gravely. "I've killed b'ars by the hundred. I've killed wolves and painters and lynx cats—enough to fill up this whole big house." It was a big house by the mountain standards. It contained four rooms, and was plastered inside. The old man glowed with pride to look at it. "Enough to fill it up to the roof," he went on. "Sometimes I think about 'em—pertickler at night."

He stirred uneasily. Both men knew an instant's acute embarrassment. Such personal confessions come hard, to the mountain people.

"You killed 'em cause you needed 'em," Young Dan urged. "What would we do for meat, if it wasn't for the game? And them varmints deserves to die."

"Maybe so—maybe so; but if they deserves to die, I've been wonderin' why the Almighty Lord ever let 'em be borned. That's what I been wondering, young un. Boy, I've killed deer for meat, and that's all right, and I've killed varmints for skins and for killing my stock, and that's all right, and I've killed other critters for the fun of killin', and maybe that's all right, too. I don't know. I ain't sure. It's natural, anyhow. What I'm ashamed of is killing things because I thought they ought to be killed. Holdin' court on 'em—that's what I'm shamed of.

"This 'ere killing business ain't half what it's cracked up to be. I'm tired of killing things. I'd sooner let 'em live, if there's a chance. That old she-bear and her cubs—didn't we enjoy seein' her waddling across the hill? Maybe she kills stock. Somehow I doubts it. Maybe she's a varmint. All I do know is, she never hurt me any. If she goes and kills some other feller's stock, he can go and kill her, if he wants to. You and me—why shouldn't we let her go on, sniffin' and waddlin' and grubbin'? We wouldn't tech her meat. You and me and our women folks ain't so low we has to eat b'ar meat. Her skin's good for nothing this early in the fall, even if we wanted it, which we don't.

"I didn't go for to talk so long. Young un, those critters are put on earth for something besides jest to kill. I haven't found out jest what, and I guess maybe I never will. Somehow, we could get along together better if we wanted, too."

"Oh, well!" Young Dan yawned, and filled his pipe. "Her skin 'll be better later on, anyways."

II

Exactly as Old Dan had predicted, the she-bear continued sniffing and waddling and grubbing across the hillside. On the way some grand adventures occurred. Once a ground squirrel scurried off through the leaves, and the two cubs had a most delightful but quite hopeless chase after it. Once a grouse, jumping up under their feet, almost scared them into hysterics. They played games, consisting mostly of falling over each other and biting and tickling. They were spanked by their mother, and they gobbled whole delectable colonies of fat grubs which the old bear showed them under a rotted log.

The real event of the day, however, occurred after they had made a long loop around, and were crossing back near the lower fence corner of Old Dan's pasture.

In this fence corner little Danny, four-year-old son of Young Dan, was playing some sort of game. One of the cubs discovered the child first, and scampered toward him in great glee. The two were about of a size, and really had a good deal in common. Danny was rather chubby and awkward, and had he possessed a woolly coat of black fur he might have passed for a fairly plausible bear cub himself. Since he was tired of playing by himself, and since the cub was an interesting-looking playmate, chubby and bright-eyed and enterprising, Danny welcomed him with unfeigned delight.

Fortunately, neither knew the least thing about the other. The cub had never been close to a human being before, and certainly Danny had never seen a bear. They started out their acquaintance with no preconceived prejudices. The best part of it all was that they smelled delightful to each other.

One who has not studied animals cannot imagine how important this point was. Cubs, and in all likelihood babies, judge things sometimes by their taste, occasionally by their feel, often by their sound, and frequently by their appearance; but when they are really in doubt, they rely on their sense of smell.

Now it happens that human beings have a terribly offensive smell to all wild creatures. This fact does not particularly flatter homo sapiens, but a fact it remains, and we might as well make the best of it. If any kind of wild animal smells a man, even for the first time, he can be counted on to separate himself from the malodorous biped with promptness and dispatch. The only exceptions are those of man-eating carnivores and a few other animals whose noses are abnormally inefficient.

Evidently the human smell that animals hate and fear does not develop in children of the age of four, because the bear cub took very kindly to little Danny. On the contrary, the child had a sweet little odor that was somewhat like that of a bear. To Danny, the cub smelled excellently, friendly and playful and enterprising.

The cub's small shoe-button eyes twinkled. Danny's larger, lovelier eyes—full of light as a mountain brook, and jewels beyond price to his mother—fairly crackled. Both were just as pleased as two small animals can be. Danny got up on his knees, quite enraptured. The cub made queer, inarticulate grunts and wheezes, which, because they were instinctive, his friend could understand better than any possible English.

It was an auspicious introduction, but the indications were that their acquaintance was to terminate before it fairly began. The old she-bear had not seen Danny at first, being busy at that moment in tipping over a rotten stump; and to look up and see her beloved cub sniffing at the little boy disturbed her considerably.

She was suspicious of strangers, to start with. On three past occasions meeting with strangers had proved most unpleasant experiences, the three encounters being with a skunk, with a porcupine, and with an Airedale terrier. She was not greatly frightened, yet this little figure had a faint suggestion of some foe most deadly and terrible, and, keen though her brain was, she could not tell what enemy this was. She rushed up, accordingly, with the idea of knocking her cub away before he burned his fingers.

If at that instant she had detected the human smell, no one could predict for certain what would have occurred. It is faintly possible that in her desperate haste to rescue her cub she would have done some damage to Danny—perhaps striking at him as she tore by; and even a chance blow from this full-grown black bear would have inflicted disastrous damage. In some ninety-nine chances out of a hundred, however, she would have swung about in the air, with a speed hardly to be reconciled to her general awkward appearance, and bolted off into the woods, frantically signaling for her cubs to follow.

It happened that no terrifying odor reached her. Just as the cub had done, she smelled something friendly and playful and unfrightened.

Particularly she was made aware that this small creature was not afraid of her, and this was another tremendously important point. Through some queer animal reasoning she decided that she need not be frightened of little Danny. Frightened things are apt to stick spines into one, or inject deadly poison, or nip at one's hamstrings; but creatures who sat quietly, and had bright welcoming eyes, were simply brothers of the wood. As was the case with the cub, he had no prejudices to overcome.

Doubtless, had he known this animal to be a bear, the little boy would have been profoundly frightened, because he had heard a bear story now and again from an imaginative aunt; but he was too young to trouble himself about identifications. The two creatures had life in common, and this was the only introduction that they required.

What else went on in the minds of either no human being may say for sure. Certainly Danny had not the least idea of being afraid. He scrambled to his feet and ran toward the strange creature, hoping that something interesting would come to pass. Certainly the bear figured out various things about the child, separating him somehow not only from her enemies, but from those lesser creatures of whom she was, by the nature of her dentition, the technical enemy.

Perhaps she found godhead in him. No one knows. Wild beasts have strange ways and inscrutable thoughts. Perhaps she discerned signs of friendship and trust. It was at least possible that she had a sentiment of motherhood; for she was a mother, first of all.

Sufficiently it is that she did not flee in panic from the place, and she even forgot to punish her cub for its temerity. As she tried to check her momentum, her fast run evolved into an awkward and comical trot, and she fetched up directly in front of the child. She stretched out her muzzle. Danny extended his hand.

It was merely a pleasant meeting. Probably it seemed nothing extraordinary to either of them. The bear family started to walk on, after a short time, to investigate some berry patches, and to turn over some rotten logs. Danny chased one of the cubs, and one of the cubs chased him, and then he sat down again in the fence corner.

It was all in the day's business. Stranger things than this happened every hour. Of course he dreamed most of them, but what difference did that make? Since the supper hour was nigh, he did not feel like following his new friends any farther up the hill.

He trotted back to the house and had his supper. His mother was just sticking him away into one of those old-fashioned boat-bottom cradles when he happened to remember something.

"Danny saw one big dog, two little dogs," he informed the woman. "They played with Danny."

Since her son was rather given to somewhat dubious recitals of his adventures, and since strange dogs were not common in the neighborhood, Young Dan's wife scarcely paid any attention.

III

The hillside in front of the house had a southern exposure, and it stayed warm long after the surrounding glens and vales were chilly and inhospitable with beginning winter. The leaves hung on shrubs and deciduous trees, while in less favored districts they were already dew-wet and moldering on the ground. The place was, as it were, of a resort that stayed open late, and the wood folk who correspond to men-about-town gathered here because no place else remained for them to go.

Old buck deer idled in the chaparral thickets. One very lean and always hungry cougar, a most unprincipled coward, crept like a senile eavesdropper through the coverts, looking after the deer. Small things—grouse, hares, squirrels, and such like—became quite sociable with one another through frequent meetings.

The bear family found pleasure in visiting the place, and came often; but they were not the same care-free trio that Danny had encountered earlier in the fall. The cubs were inclined to be whimpery, and their mother was impatient, not so humorous, and perhaps a little mournful. Instinct already warned them of the approaching darkness of hibernation—a transition which is not greatly different from death. Their coats were already growing long and dense—fine rugs, in Young Dan's opinion.

Because the hillside had no brooks in which he might fall and drown, no dangerous gorges or cliffs, and no place within easy walking range for him to be lost, Danny was allowed to come here as often as he wished and to stay as long as he liked. He played in the fence corners of the upper pasture, and he amused himself in the way of small cubs in general. No doubt he beheld many strange sights, many signs and mysteries which great men would have envied.

One morning he saw some queer, greenish clods billowing up behind the hill. He watched them for a while, as they spread and grew till they filled up all the space beyond the evergreen spires; and then he forgot about them, to watch a covey of partridges that had alighted close by. In a grown person's eyes, these birds would have been seen to behave in a most curious and significant way. Although this was the hour in which they were usually busy among the weed seeds, all of them ran into the thick brush and collected in a small, compact ring. Here they crouched, as if waiting for a mother's wing to cover them, uttering meanwhile low, uneasy chirps.

It came about that Danny forgot about them, also, in a moment more. From a long way off he heard a most curious rushing, whistling sound. Something seemed to be sweeping through the trees. Suddenly frightened—with that instinctive terror which children know, and which is almost the most terrible sight on earth to see—he started to run toward home; but the giant who ran across the tree tops was too fast for him. Before he was well started, the foe smote the hillside.

The great, still trees, so impassive, so thoughtful, so ineffably dignified, began to bow and whip. They cried out in profound agony. All the shrubs writhed and wrenched at the same momentous instant, with a violent energy almost beyond conception. One moment, and all the air was full of hurtling leaves, colorful and gorgeous strippings from the trees. The next, and the leaves were gone. The shrubs writhed naked, and the snow of the norther eddied in their place.

The cold dropped down, a temperature close to zero, in a gray sheet filling the hollows. In that sudden cold, small and fragile things, unprotected by nature's many mercies, could not live.

Many and dreadful were the voices of the hill. Trees bellowed, like giants under torture. The air itself seemed to shriek and roar. The very earth was articulate. Small, shrill, all but lost among these, was a voice which at that instant Young Dan would have given his magnificent life to hear.

"Mamma! Mamma!" a child cried, as it ran before the wind.

The gusts whisked the sound afar, so that remote glades and untrod coverts heard this same cry trembling through them:

"Mamma! Mamma!"

Here was small prey for such a foe. Bewildered, half blinded, utterly lost, the child tried to run. A little figure, falling and running and falling again, Danny advanced among the writhing trees. Of course, he moved with the wind. Even stronger creatures were forced to do the same. Into the cold hollow he was driven, and the wonder never died how far he ran in the few brief moments he could run at all—almost a quarter of a mile across the hillside. By this time the dead grass stems were already shrouded by the snow.

Of course, any sustained struggle against the storm was out of the question; yet the truth remained that Danny ran, instead of hiding. That he was not instantly crushed by its onslaught, and that the instinct to flee superseded that to crawl into a covert and die, has hidden significance. This boy was the son of Young Dan, the grandson of Old Dan, and perhaps the vigor of life was strong in him. Certainly he went far before he gave up.

It was almost a quarter of a mile beyond his starting point that the snow record showed where Danny got down on his hands and knees and started to crawl into thick brush. Even now it was exhaustion, rather than cold, that halted him; but the cruel cold would seek him out soon enough in the snow-wet covert. He no longer cried out to his mother. Such had been the first impulse of his terror; but now the darkness and the silent refuge were left. No sound came from him, but the tears were freezing on his cheeks as he thrust apart the slender waving limbs.

Brief though it was, little Danny had fought a good fight. Many older children would not have come so far. The mountain strain is a strain of warriors, and it manifests itself in babes.

Now he was ready to rest; yet it was to be that he should go on. The mountains, mysterious and old, have wanton gods—or perhaps it was just a matter of inscrutable law.

Out of his snow-filled eyes Danny suddenly made out three familiar figures. They were moving slowly across the hillside just beyond the covert where he was. They were not looking at him; but in this moment of tragic solitude, not only his gaze but his imploring arms went out to them.

They were alive. They were bigger than he, and in some ways stronger. They were not in league with the storm, and therefore they must be fighting it. They were his only recourse. They were friends. Most of all, they were alive! He was a child, with the God-given wisdom of children, and he knew that these were friends, not foes. Had he not met them before?

"Wait—wait for me!" he cried.

Thrusting upward with his hands, he scrambled to his feet. He ran toward them, crying.

The old she-bear, drifting with the wind, paused and raised her muzzle. One of her cubs whimpered beside her.

"Danny's coming—wait for Danny!" the child called again, toddling as fast as he could through the snow-wet leaves. No conscious thought, but far wiser monitors, guided him. "Danny wants to come, too!"

The bear sniffed, and Danny pressed close to her wet fur. Then she started slowly on, across the hollow. She did not go directly with the wind now. She had turned off at a slight angle, as if she, too, were guided.

Not two, but three followed close to her now—three cubs, as far as the old gods who rule the hills could see. One of them could go but slowly, but she paused and waited when the distance grew too wide between.

IV

Within an hour after the four passed, there was other traffic through the glade. One was an aged man, who walked with a bowed head, but in his stride was that peculiar vigor of movement which belongs to the mountain people generally. The other was a man in his prime. They were searching, but the dread of finding that for which they searched was only less than that of searching in vain.

The snow, swirling futilely for a while, now lay quiet over everything, and the air was clear of flakes. The wind's might had passed, but it still sobbed wearily in the thickets. The cold, however, remained—clutching, killing cold, in which unsheltered, fragile creatures could not live long.

They had found Danny's tracks, and had read the story of his flight down into the hollow. It was a bitter thing to follow the faint, rounded imprints, all but filled with snow—to see where the little boy had fallen and scrambled up again, to picture in too vivid fancy the tragic, futile struggle.

Presently they came where the tracks merged with others. If Old Dan had not been so long in the hills, if he were not skilled in reading the old trail and the cold trail, he could hardly have believed his eyes.

For a short distance the two men followed along without daring to think.

"Oh, merciful God!" Young Dan cried in utter horror. "Those b'ars are tracking Danny!"

Old Dan turned a stark, white face, and then trod on again.

"It can't be!" he answered. "You never heard of sech a thing!"

"You know they are! Their tracks run along together. They knew he was at their mercy. Oh, damn your soul for not letting me shoot 'em that time on the hill!"

They followed on. No further words passed between them. Soon they paused, stricken with the knowledge that their search was at an end.

A great fir had fallen in some windstorm of months or years before; and where the great roots were torn up, a deep cavity was left. Four sets of tracks led into this cavity, but only three came out. The former were stale—perhaps an hour old; but the latter were stark fresh. These were plain to read—the she-bear and her two cubs had either heard or smelled the approach of the men, and had escaped from their hiding place only a few seconds before.

Looking up, Young Dan verified this premise. Three dark figures were just now disappearing in the distant coverts.

"We'll find him down in there—what's left of him," Young Dan predicted in a level tone. "Those devils followed him!"

He stared at the sudden shining of his father's eyes. This man was old, and the wisdom of great age is almost comparable to that of children.

"I don't know, young un," he answered. "Oh, there will be signs and wonders!"

Quickly he dropped down into the cavity. He found a narrow opening—a tunnel left by an old root. From within its depths he heard a faint wail.

"Danny's here!" a voice cried. "Don't run away from Danny!"

That little cry made history in the hills. Young Dan's prediction had been true—in the still haven of the lair was found his boy, but quite a little was left of him, after all. No cold had reached him here, warmed by the furry bodies of the bears. In the way of their kind, the three had sought shelter from the storm, perhaps with the intention of making this place their winter den; and Danny had curled up in the black, warm heap with his friends. Bewildered, suffering a violent reaction from his struggle with the storm, and failing at first to recognize his grandfather, he seemed reluctant to come out.

Thus the affair turned out right for Danny, for Young Dan, and for Old Dan, who went around for a long time afterward with slightly protruding eyes. To all appearance, it also ended happily for the bear family, for Young Dan decided that his house could get along without three bear rugs on which he had counted. He even went so far as to admit publicly that he was not at all sorry he had spared the black trio that day on the hillside.

The circuit rider of the district also received indirect benefits from the child's strange experience. For a long time thereafter, Old Dan, Young Dan, and little Danny came regularly to church, and would sit in a row, looking very pious. They could not have explained why they were affected in just this way; but their presence prompted the minister to one of the best sermons of his career—a sermon on the theme of Daniel in the lions' den.

Little Danny remained the hero of it all—a very small but satisfactory Daniel, who mindly wondered what the excitement was all about.