A STORY FOR HALLOWEEN 3
or, The Story of Old Smeller
by Luke Blanchard
Old Smeller came to live with the Mills family when Hobby was five. At first he was so savage they had to bind him to a post with a chain. He howled with rage and strained at the chain, and Hobby thought he would bust loose. But it was a heavy steel chain, and the links held firm. Ma, who was soft-hearted, said they should just let him go. “We’ve gotten by till now without one.” Pa said it was impossible. “He’d kill us, Doris. He has our scent now.”
After they’d starved the hairy for two weeks Pa thought they could risk turning him loose. He went and got the new whip from the barn. It was a long one, specially made for training hairies, with a lash impregnated with silver. He went into the pen. Billy stood by with his rifle ready.
The hairy howled and snapped at Pa, but he kept his distance and tossed the lash of the whip over his shoulders. In an instant all the fight went out of him. He tried to pull away from the lash and whimpered. Pa wound it once around the hairy’s neck to be safe and moved in close to undo the lock. When the chain was released the hairy fell forward and pawed at the ground. Pa stepped a few paces back, and then tossed his arm to unwind the lash. He drew it away, and held it ready.
It took the hairy time to recover. He looked up at Pa. Hobby could see the hatred in the hairy’s eyes. Suddenly he leaped forward, but Pa was ready and cracked the whip across his face. He did it a couple of more times for good measure, and the hairy fell into the crouch and cringed away from him.
After half an hour Pa took a break - it was important to not get too tired - and Wilbur, the farmhand, took over. They continued to take turns until they’d been at it three hours. Then Pa decided to call it a day and told Hobby to toss in the meat. Hobby threw it as close to the hairy as he could, and the hairy grabbed it and ate it greedily. When the drug had done its work Pa and Wilbur bound him to the post again.
The next day they repeated this treatment, and the next day again, until the hairy was thoroughly broken and could be controlled with a silver crop. “He’s ours now, boys,” said Pa, “But never forget what he is. A hairy can turn on you any time, even after years. They have an instinct to kill.”
Helen wanted to name him Prince, but Hobby said he stank and called him Old Smeller. The name stuck. They gave him simple carrying jobs first. When he was used to them Pa and Wilbur tried him out as a hunter. He took to it quickly. Every day Hobby and Helen laid fresh wolfsbane around the pen, to keep him from running away overnight.
Pa showed Hobby how to control the hairy with a crop. They got into the habit of letting him doze in front of the fire while they ate dinner. After dinner Hobby liked to scratch him behind the ears while Ma read aloud from the Bible.
When Hobby was older Pa let him and Billy go hunting with Old Smeller by themselves. Hobby taught the hairy to lie on his belly by the river and snatch out fish, like a bear. When they had enough Billy and Hobby would smoke a fish over a fire and share it with him. Most of his meat he ate raw, but he seemed to like that.
Then came the day. Billy and Hobby were out hunting, and Hobby spotted a small deer. Old Smeller chased it down and tore out its throat. Then they made him hoist it on his back and started for home. Billy didn’t like how Old Smeller was behaving. Something was distracting him: he kept stopping and looking about. Billy told Hobby they had better get a move on and started prodding Old Yeller with his crop to get him to pick up the pace.
Hobby’s shoelace came undone, and he fell behind as he stopped to do it up. When he looked up he screamed. A timber wolf had come out of the forest, and was between him and the others. There was foam at its mouth, and it was readying itself for a spring.
Hobby’s scream caused Billy to spin around. When he saw what was happening he froze: he couldn’t think what to do. But before the wolf could spring Old Smeller bounded forward and hurled himself upon it. They rolled about on the ground, both furiously scratching and biting. Then Old Smeller forced back the wolf’s head and buried his fangs in its neck.
Hobby insisted on bandaging Old Smeller’s wounds before starting back. Before he would let him do it Billy gave Old Smeller a little drugged meat to calm him down. Old Smeller was very reluctant to leave his kills - Billy decided to forget the deer - but with some firm handling and prodding they eventually got him moving. They herded him into his pen and sent Helen to get Pa so they could tell him what had happened. When Pa heard about the foam at the wolf’s mouth he turned grim.
“That could be rabies, and from the looks of things he took three or four good bites in the fight. We’ll have to keep the old boy in his pen for a while and keep an eye on him.”
“What should we look for, Pa?”
Pa suddenly looked much older. “It takes hairies differently to other animals. When I was Hobby’s age I had a hairy called Gnasher. He caught it, I think from a rabbit he took that I let him eat. About two weeks later he suddenly became gentle and friendly. Until then he’d always been a vicious cuss. We didn’t know what was happening until his hair started falling out. Rabies only does that to hairies. Then they make sounds imitating human speech, like parrots.”
“What did you do?”
“I had to shoot him.”
Hobby couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t had Old Smeller, and the thought losing him made him feel cold. Each morning when he took him his breakfast he kept an eye out for tell-tale signs of aggression. And each morning Old Smeller would snarl and snap, or attempt to take a bite out of his hand. It was such a relief. “Good boy! Good old boy!”
But after three weeks there came a day that was different. When Hobby arrived at the pen with his breakfast Old Smeller didn’t snarl and bare his fangs the way he usually did. While he was gobbling his food from his hands he didn’t dart glances at Hobby of pure malice. Hobby told himself that this was just because Old Smeller had been shut up for so long, but the next day he was the same. And Hobby thought in places his pelt had a thin look. Soon he was clearly shedding, and developing bald patches.
Feeding and grooming Old Smeller had been Hobby’s job ever since that time the hairy had stalked Helen while she was fetching the eggs. She had shut herself in the hutch and screamed and screamed until Pa came to get her, and never trusted the hairy after. Hobby thought of him as his, and knew that killing him should be his job too.
He told the others, and went and got his rifle. He started to load it with the silver bullets. His sight was a little blurry.
“I don’t mind doing it, Hobby.”
“I’ll do it, Pa.”
They knew he’d rather do it alone. Hobby got from the icebox the rest of the cows' brains that the hairy loved so much, and went out to the pen.
“Here’s a birthday treat old feller. Good old boy.”
Old Smeller took the meat and sniffed at it cautiously. Hobby wondered if he’d caught the catch in his voice. Once he was sure of it he began gobbling it greedily. Hobby levelled the rife.
As his finger tightened on the trigger Old Smeller suddenly looked up, and his eyes widened in fear. “DON’T” he croaked. The next word was drowned out by the gun.
Hobby took the rifle back to the cabinet and went and sat down on his bed. He felt drained. His father came in and sat down beside him. He put his arm over his shoulder and they hugged.
After a while Hobby said, “Did yours speak when he died, Pa?”
He felt his father’s muscles tighten. “Yes, son.”
“What did he say?”
It was a long time before Pa answered.
“He'd been babbling nonsense for a couple of days. But his last words were ‘Please, no, I’m a man.’”
Replies
Great story!
Thanks, Cap. If anyone doesn't know, the story is a parody of Old Yeller. I read a short version of the story as a kid, perhaps in some Disney book.
This post displaced the thread Avengers 2 trailer: How awesome is this?? from the home page.
Good stuff, LB!
Thanks, Baron.