The Collected Short Stories of Harriette Simpson Arnow

King Devil's Bargain

Jeing rfJel'il's cJ3argain The story was signed "H. Arnow," a pen name Arnow used to give her husband, Harold, credit for his contributions to the work. Probably written in 1939 or the early 1940s, this unpublished story is from Arnow's novel Hunter's Horn (1949). en'light was darkness in the valleys, and the Ballous were finishing supper whenJaw Buster Anderson's horn call came floating down from the ridge crest. Zing, the grizzled fox hound, ran to the road gate and whined, but Nunn sat still by the eating table with a wedge of molasses bread in one hand and a glass of buttermilk cold from the spring in the other, and listened, frowning. The Keith horns from across the creek were soon answeringJaw Buster, and almost immediately after, there came a strange horn with an ugly tinny sound, blown it was plain by no practiced hand. Milly stopped with a spoonful of green beans half way to Deb's open mouth, and looked through the kitchen door, "Why that's a comen from Rans Cramer's place, but Rans he ain't got no hound." "Oh yes, he has," Nunn said in some disgust, and went on to tell between bites about that big hound pup the Sextons had, hardly nine . 185 . MICHIGAN: THE 19405 & AFTER months old and already as big as Zing; he was Zing's pup all right, looked just like him, and his mother was a brindly little bitch out of Ulie Lou Hargis , one of the best hounds that ever smelled a fox. Jaw Buster had wanted the pup bad; but the dirty Sextons wouldn't sell him to Jaw Buster. They owed him for hauling their cross ties; he'd offered them twenty dollars on the debt, but they'd sold to Rans for fifteen dollars cash. Wasn't that mean? "Rans don't know nothen about fox hunten an hounds," Nunn went on. "All he wants is to keep th pup three days an double his money on Jaw Buster. He come by th barn last night with th pup, a braggen his brags, an a sayen th pup ud make a better hound than Zing, an-." "An be th one to git King Devil, Pop," Lee Roy interrupted. "Sometimes I think nothen'ull git that danged fox," Nunn said, and listened again. Jaw Buster was blowing for Rans to bring his pup across the creek and up the hill, but Rans was holding out for the valley. Zing loped through the door, ran up to Nunn and laid his nose on his elbow and whined, and when Nunn gave him no answer, he whined and nudged his arm. Nunn turned around and looked at him, "Listen, Zing, if you an Rans Cramer think I'm a goen to let you run yerself to death ever nightjist fer some ole gray fox, an mostly so's Rans's pup can learn th ways a fox hunten, you're crazy-You've got to save yourself fer King Devil come late fall." Zing whined at the word King Devil, and Lee Roy, the oldest boy, said eagerly, "Go, Pop, mebbe you'll git King Devil this very night." Milly tried to catch Lee Roy'S eye and shut him up; and failing, she gave Zing a sharp worried glance. He was livelier than he had been back in the hot weather, but he still didn't look any too well about the eyes. He'd nearly killed himself in the spring with long, heart-breaking chases after the big red fox that Nunn and the children called King Devil. Zing and every other hound in the country had chased him for going on five years and for all the good they'd done they might as well have chased the wind. Nunn hated him not only for his thieving ways with young lambs, chickens, and even suckling pigs, but for the endless, hopeless chases he led the hounds, wild races full of guile and trickery that had never led to a den. Outside there was a talking back and forth of horns, and Zing ran back to the kitchen door and listened a moment, whirled and ran to the high shelf and stood with his paws on the wall under it, stretching up until his . 186 . KING DEVIL'S BARGAIN eyes were level with the shelf. He scolded...