“I’ll be coming in a minute,” Gurri answered quite calmly.
Afterward, in a sheltering thicket, Geno scolded her for her rashness.
“Don’t you understand?” he exclaimed irately. “The Kings are dangerous. You must keep away from them.”
“How do you know?” Gurri asked.
“Why, Mother told me.”
“How does Mother know?”
“That’s a ridiculous question. Of course, Mother knows.”
Gurri surveyed her brother from his head to his farthest hoof.
“Geno,” she said in a troubled voice, “we are both nearly grown up. I, for one, cannot always be told what is good and what is bad, what is safe, what dangerous.”
“How else are you going to find out?”
“I don’t know. By experience, perhaps.” She turned to Faline who was peering fearfully through a screen of leaves. “Mother why are the Kings dangerous?”
“Why?” Creases of worry formed between Faline’s eyes. “Why, of course they’re dangerous. Anyone can see that.”
“How?”
“Well, look at them—how huge and coarse they are. Great, overgrown brutes . . . !”
“I think they’re beautiful. I think they’re well named ‘Kings,’ ” Gurri said at last in a rush of words. “You think my father’s beautiful, don’t you?”
“Why, of course he is!”
“But those great stags look just like him. I can’t see why a thing should be less beautiful because there’s more of it.”
Bambi’s deep voice, unexpected as usual, chimed in from near at hand.
“That’s an arguable point, my child.”
“Arguable! I should think it is!” Faline said agitatedly, hardly noticing her husband in her dismay. “What with owls and now these monsters, I don’t know what’s come over the girl.”
“Greetings, Faline,” Bambi said equably. “Greetings, my children.”
Thus forcibly reminded of due etiquette, they returned his salutation; but Faline was not to be stopped.
“You really must do something about your daughter, Bambi,” she insisted. “She’ll be finding a good word for Him next, or for His loathsome dogs.”
“As far as the Kings are concerned,” Bambi said slowly, “she’s right Faline. The Kings are related to us. . . .”
“But, Bambi . . . !” interposed Faline.
“It’s true that something separates us and that no one knows what this barrier is. . . .”
“It’s fear,” Gurri asserted vehemently.
“Perhaps. But then I’ve found that fear always takes root in good soil. When there’s no reason for it, it quickly dies. But fear does not excuse us for encouraging our eyes to deceive themselves. Fear then becomes hatred, which is an ugly thing. Only through the eyes of hate can the Kings be seen as ugly.”
“But, Bambi . . .” Faline began again.
“Look at them, Faline, honestly, without prejudice, terror or hatred. You will see that even their great strength is beautiful. This, Gurri discovered at once—her eyes have, perhaps, been opened too early. This, others of us have had to learn.”
“I should think,” Faline remarked rather huffily, “that the scars on her shoulder would warn her to learn slowly.”
“There you are right, Faline.” Bambi spoke with his eyes on Gurri. Since the adventure with Him a deep understanding and affection had grown up between these two. They maintained the dignified, sometimes almost remote, relationship which exists between father and child in the forest; but underneath it a close companionship and understanding flourished. “Gurri, whatever doubts or speculations trouble you, remember that caution must be the watchword of our kind. Don’t let your curiosity lead you to rashness.”
Darkness now hid the trees of the forest. The elk left for their pasture in the glade of tree stumps. Faline, Gurri and Geno went off to the meadow, while Bambi stayed for a moment, watching them go.
The pathway, the meadow and all the clearings in the undergrowth were speckled with the pale mauve cup of meadow crocus. The tangled grass seemed already to be oppressed and thin with the knowledge of the coming cold.
“Those flowers,” Faline said rather sadly, “are a sign that the time of ease is nearly over. Soon winter will be on us with its bitter winds and snow.”
“Does it last very long?” Geno inquired.
“Yes. Sometimes it seems that it will never end.”
“When will it come?”
“No one knows exactly. Soon.”
They were standing, now, under the apple-tree by the pool.
“I don’t see much sense in worrying about anything until it’s here,” Gurri said.
The voice of the screech-owl chimed in from the apple-tree.
“Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today,” he said somberly.
They all looked up, giving him welcome.
“It is a fact, however,” he went on, “that things are never so bad as they seem.”
“Everything you say,” Geno said rather irritably, “contradicts itself.”
“Of course it does,” the screech-owl rejoined obscurely. “Otherwise, how would anyone ever keep to the middle of the road?”
“I think I see what you mean,” Gurri mused. “It has something to do with what Father said. Love and hatred are extreme emotions. In the middle you have . . .”
“Tolerance and freedom,” the owl cut in sharply.
Faline began to crop the grass.
“It’s very clever to talk like that, I suppose, but for my part I know that winter is a time of great hardship and danger. I think you should live through it before you are so sure about it, Gurri.”
“I’m not afraid to, Mother.”
“It’s stupid to say you’re not afraid of something you know nothing about.”
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” the screech-owl intoned.
“I suppose there’s a contradiction of that, too,” Geno said.
“Certainly there is. I always qualify that statement by remembering that nothing ventured, nothing have.”
“Yes,” Faline remarked with sudden authority, “and when you add those two statements together, it becomes clear that it is good to know and understand the perils that face you before you meet them. When the leaves fall and the thickets are bare and He comes with His thunder-stick, it is well to know how and where to hide from Him.”
“Something is coming!” the owl warned them sharply.
All three roe-deer stiffened to attention.
“It’s Rolla and the children,” Faline decided.
The two families had remained on apparently friendly terms, but still there was a sort of tenseness between them which took the edge off their cordiality.
Rolla and her children stopped some yards away, sniffing the air. Geno trotted to meet them. He would have liked to wipe out this strangeness and restore the old basis of happy friendship.
“Greetings, Aunt Rolla,” he said. “Hello, Boso and Lana.”
The newcomers returned his welcome. Geno went on anxiously:
“Mother says winter is almost here. Can’t we play a really good game tonight? There may not be much more chance.”
Gurri joined him. “Oh, yes, do let’s. It would be fun!”
“You’ll have to run around when winter gets here,” Rolla told them, “to keep warm. Tonight seems to me to be a good time for a comfortable chat.”
“Let them play.” Faline said. “It’s better for them.”
“I don’t understand,” Rolla replied distantly, “why it’s impossible for us to talk any more.”
“Curiosity killed the cat,” said the screech-owl.
“Cat?” repeated Geno. “What’s ‘cat’?”
“Cat is the opposite of dog,” the screech-owl explained. “The cat sat on the mat, it was a fat cat.”
“For goodness’ sake, don’t listen to that stupid creature,” Rolla exclaimed. “Gurri, I think you’ve behaved very badly t
oward us. We’ve always been your good friends and interested in everything you do. . . .”
“Oh,” Gurri cried with abrupt impatience, “must this go on forever? Can’t a person have any privacy . . . !”
“Gurri!” Faline said reprovingly.
“But, Mother . . . !”
“Constant dripping wears away a stone,” the owl muttered.
“Of course, if that’s how you feel about it!” Rolla said haughtily.
Geno said shamefacedly, “Look here, can’t we just drop it and play?”
His well-meant effort fell flat. The rift between the two families now stood wide and forbidding. It would require tragedy to bridge it.
Chapter Thirteen
SEVERAL DAYS LATER, JUST AS dawn was cracking the eastern sky, Faline, Gurri and Geno arrived at their sleeping place. They had not had time to settle down when they heard hurried hoofbeats on the path. Rolla came dashing in on them.
“Faline, Geno, Gurri,” she said breathlessly, “is Boso with you?”
Lana burst through the underbrush to join her mother, panting as heavily and even more frightened.
Faline looked bewildered. “Boso here? No, of course not. He left with you.”
“Yes, so he did,” Rolla muttered wildly, “but he’s disappeared.”
“Disappeared!” Gurri echoed sharply. “What do you mean, Aunt Rolla?”
Rolla tried to gather her wits together. “Why, we were going home just as usual—Boso was making short detours off the path as he always does, he’s very curious, you know. I thought nothing of it when I didn’t hear his hoofbeats following mine, until suddenly I realized . . .”
Words failed her. Geno said hesitatingly: “Did you hear—the thunder-stick?”
“No! Oh, no, nothing like that!” Terror shone in Rolla’s eyes. “I heard nothing, nothing at all, not even the rustle of a leaf.”
“If only Bambi were here!” Faline said.
Gurri’s voice was brisk. “But he’s not. We must handle this ourselves.”
Geno stood by his sister. “Gurri’s right,” he announced. “We must search for Boso. Probably nothing has happened, and we’ll find him looking for us just as we are seeking for him. We must split up and each take a different path.”
“That’s right,” Gurri nodded. “I’ll go this way.”
Without waiting to see what the others would do she slipped quietly away.
The forest was very still. Already some of the songbirds had left for their winter homes, and with the coming of cooler weather those that remained did not seem to be astir so early.
She walked quietly, ears at full pitch of attention, nostrils held high. A pheasant broke cover and flapped with startling clatter of wings into the upper air. Gurri stopped. It seemed to her that the threshing sound the game bird made was echoed farther ahead. She listened intently. There was no doubt of it. There were sudden frantic rustlings, the snapping of twigs. She hurried forward. An old, overgrown trail crossed her own, entering a tangled thicket. Boso was there, his head caught in a snare.
“Boso!” she cried. “Boso, what has happened?”
The trapped Boso plunged and struggled. He could not answer. The noose around his neck made speech impossible. Indeed, there was no doubt that he was slowly strangling.
Gurri’s cries brought Faline, Rolla, Geno and Lana hurrying toward her from four different directions.
“What is it?” trembled Faline.
“My poor child,” Rolla cried, “why do you lie there like that? Why don’t you get up?”
Geno examined the noose. “Gurri,” he said in an eager aside, “is this anything like the vine you were telling me about?”
Gurri looked at it carefully. “Yes,” she whispered, “it is. It doesn’t feel the same, but it looks just like the vine.”
Brother and sister regarded each other in horror across Boso’s heaving body.
“Boso,” Gurri whispered urgently at last, “don’t struggle. It’s no good. I know, because I beat myself against a thing like that. Don’t struggle, Boso. Save your strength.”
Rolla said to Faline in anguished tones, “Do you think He had anything to do with this?”
Faline could not tell her. Never before had she seen anything like this. But the answer came on the wind. All of them scented that sharp heavy odor together.
“He!” whispered Lana, trembling in every limb.
They heard the crackling and crashing of bushes as they gave way before his careless advance. Gurri said suddenly: “It’s the brown He!”
They fled on a wave of terror, but Gurri controlled herself after she had run a short way, and stopped again.
She heard that hoarse voice as she had heard it once before.
“Why, what’s the matter here?”
Gurri waited anxiously for the sound of the thunder-stick, but it did not come.
Instead He went down on His knees beside the feebly struggling Boso. The sound of His voice was terrible with anger.
“Those poachers again,” He growled. “Well, young fellow, you’re in a pretty bad way. Let’s get that thing off your neck.”
With strong, gentle fingers He loosened the noose. Boso was free. The young deer began to take in great gulps of air. His glazed eyes rolled wildly.
“Steady now,” He chided him. “Take it easy. No one’s going to hurt you. That’s it. Deep and easy.”
Gurri listened, quivering. Boso staggered to his feet. As consciousness returned to him, terror also struggled in his brain. The scent of Him was suffocating. Boso took what he thought was a tremendous leap, but it was actually little more than a clumsy stumble. At that He laughed louder than the crow.
“All right,” He roared, “on your way. I guess there’s nothing much wrong with you. Unless you’d rather stay here and watch me handle the fellow who dared to set this trap!”
Boso did not accept the invitation. The marvel of his freedom became clear to him. With returning vitality, he wheeled to cover. His hoofbeats drummed loudly on the hardening earth. Gurri remained motionless, her shining hide hardly disturbed even by her breathing.
She saw Him move with purpose. He, too, it seemed, was skilled in woodcraft when He cared to use it. He slid, like a snake, behind a tree. Complete silence reigned, but not for long.
Then Gurri heard other clumsy hoofbeats. Another He came worming through the undergrowth, a sly, furtive creature with a pouch like Perri’s on his back. Before he reached the place where Boso had been trapped, the brown He sprang out.
“All right,” He snapped, “the jig’s up!”
The second He seemed frozen with surprise and fear. The brown He snarled:
“Get going, now! We don’t want your sort poaching around here. I’m taking you in.”
“You and who else!” rasped the poacher.
“I don’t think I’ll need any help,” The brown He said coolly, advancing with clenched fists. “Are you going on your feet, or must I carry you?”
The poacher crouched like the fox before a spring. A little thunder-stick flashed dully in his hand.
“Keep your hands to yourself!” He threatened.
The brown He sprang. There was a sound of struggle, of savage rage, a thunderclap.
Gurri could stand no more. She bolted through the trees, back to their place of safety.
* * *
The gamekeeper loosed a terrific blow with his right fist. It felled the poacher as a bee falls when, in headlong flight, it strikes itself against a tree. The gamekeeper tore free the snare, picked up the fallen pistol.
“Now, if you’ve had enough, get going! I think we’ll put you where you’ll do no harm for some time.”
They went together, leaving the forest to peace.
* * *
Gurri discovered a scene of joy in the clearing. Boso was there and all of them were making a fuss over him. Only Faline seemed distraught. Her ears were cocked, her eyes wandering for Gurri. When Gurri joined them, she sought relief in scolding.
<
br /> “You’ll be the death of me,” Faline cried. “Where have you been? What have you been doing?”
“The brown He and another He were fighting. I saw them.” Gurri shuddered. “It was terrible to watch.”
“Two Hes fighting!” marveled Geno. “Do they, then, fight among themselves?”
It was strange news. It ran among the creatures of the forest like fire through dry grass.
“Two Hes fighting—Gurri saw them; and it was for Boso! Boso’s safe! What are things coming to?”
Chapter Fourteen
IN THE FALL, WHEN FROST snaps at the shrinking grass and leaves come fluttering from the trees in heraldry of red and brown and gold, the Courts of Chivalry return to the forest.
Then it is that the Kings assert their regal rights, roaming the forest paths with challenge rumbling in their throats, their eyes agleam with glow of battle, their many-pointed antlers couched like lances at rest.
Echoing these warlike cries, the honking geese arrive, their arrow-headed flight seeming to pierce the graying skies as though they were indeed the advance guard of the winter’s storm.
Geno and Gurri were aware, if only dimly, of the strident spirit of the times. They heard the elk moving, their antlers clicking on the branches of the trees; they sensed the piling-up of tension that was like an omen of the coming storm; they saw the entrants in this tournament whipping themselves into the rage for conquest.
Bambi advised them wisely.
“This is the time,” he said, “to take the hare’s advice. Be prudent, never rash. Efface yourselves. Don’t let curiosity lead you into trouble. When the King stags come, don’t cross their paths.”
He had hardly completed his sentence when a great stag entered the arena of their clearing. With a word of command, Bambi melted into cover. They followed him.
“Remember what I said now,” he bade them sternly. “And, Faline, a cool head is worth more than thickets at a time like this.”
Faline watched him go with trouble in her eyes.
“It would be nice if he could stay with us,” she said wistfully.
Geno and Gurri answered nothing. They were watching the stag. He had with him five hinds, his women-folk. Advancing to the center of the clearing, he threw his head back, so that his antlers brushed his shoulders, and sounded his great challenge.