Storyteller, Colin & Anne Brookfield [best fiction books to read .TXT] 📗

a heavy heart, knowing that he would never see his Jemma again.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Jake received notification of his conscription into the army and had to leave Nero in the care of a friend. Scarcely six months of active service had passed, when he received a leg wound that would put him out of the war, so once again his thoughts returned to Nero, and whether Jemma had survived.

Although the field hospital had removed the bullet from his leg, the bone was shattered, so he was repatriated back to the United States for treatment. Eventually his leg recovered sufficiently for walking with a stick, but not to return to the war, so he was demobilised and returned to Oregon.

Jake was soon reunited with his dog. Nero was not young anymore and seemed now to be showing his age, not that it stopped him sitting with Jake on the veranda every evening.

One late afternoon, Nero’s ears pricked up and he whimpered. From the undergrowth came a low growl; it was a very dangerous male cougar. Jake told Nero to go inside whilst he loaded his gun. This time, he would use it only for protection, because he would never again use his gun for the senseless act of killing an innocent creature of Nature.

As the animal crouched low to strike, he saw something that brought joy to his heart. Another cougar – this time a female – came bounding over and got between Jake and the male. It was Jemma.

Jake put his gun down and sat back in his chair as Jemma ran over to him. She seemed to be reassuring her mate that everything was safe, so he turned and went back into the trees.

The joy of seeing her again, made Jake cry as he hugged his friend, with Nero bouncing around in excitement. However, she had not returned just to protect Jake.

She disappeared back into the forest, and within minutes, returned with a newborn cub in her mouth. She had wanted him to see her baby.

Jemma returned every evening after that with her cub, so that Jake could see it growing, until it was old enough to fend for itself. After that, she always returned alone.

Jake never hunted again; instead he became a staunch advocate of the abolition of this evil pastime.

 

A Truck Full of Oddities

Wilma and Judd Renkins lived in the US State of Washington; their closest town was a tiny place called Cougar. They were considered to be ‘odd-balls’ by the locals, and those that could remember, reckoned their parents had been much the same. They were siblings, and still lived in the old shack they had been raised in, which was some sixteen miles out of Cougar and deep in amongst the Douglas firs along a rough track.

Like their parents, they appeared quite content with their insular self-sufficient way of life, therefore, they were rarely seen in town and then only for the few things they couldn’t create themselves. The Renkins did not blend in with (what most people would refer to as) ‘normality’. They had an old battered flat-back truck that (according to some of the locals) had once been the property of their parents. Although, that hardly seemed feasible, considering Wilma and Judd must have been somewhere in their mid-eighties.

Perhaps it was the way they looked, and a lifestyle that had earned them the title (behind their backs of course), The Hillbilly Clampets – borrowed from a television series. Someone had even sent a picture of them to a newspaper, which was subsequently published, and even though its accompanying story was very sympathetic, it nevertheless did not go down well with the Renkins.

It was probably because Wilma and Judd were such inadvertent creators of surprises that the townspeople always looked forward to seeing them. After all, nobody else had such a beaten up old truck with two ‘guard’ dogs always sitting at the back, or more to the point, one large Rottweiler and an equally large Coyote. Not forgetting Wilma of course, who always liked to keep the dogs company in the back of the truck.

Their arrival at the general store attracted the usual bystanders, and who still continued to get the fright of their lives each time the old, frail looking Wilma, leapt like a two year old off the back of the truck to collect more items from the store. They were further amazed as the pair hoisted bags of seed potatoes onto their shoulders, as though they were full of feathers.

“You’ll do yourselves an injury one of these days,” chided Bill Widmore, the store owner.

“You’ve been saying that every time for the last forty years Bill,” said Judd with a laugh, “and it hasn’t happened yet, so don’t get your hopes up.” This sent a ripple of laughter around the bystanders.

“I see you’ve still got that old Coyote,” said Bill, trying to change the subject.

“They are inseparable,” retorted Wilma, “they don’t have silly, I’m better than you thoughts towards one another like some PEOPLE do. Come on Judd, otherwise it will be too late for fishing at Spirit lake.”

“Which reminds me,” Bill shouted after them, “I’ll buy some more of your surplus catch. Get someone at Spirit lake to send them down to me. I need salmon, steelhead and a few trout.”

It appeared that this was very much Wilma and Judd’s way of life, and their scant social endeavours never seemed to extend beyond those with Bill at the store.

Many years passed by and great and dramatic happenings came and went, much as they do across the world, as Bill constantly reminded people. Then almost as if to prove him right, an eight year old boy called Jimmy went missing.

Jimmy was the son of a doctor, who had arrived that very day in Cougar to occupy a new position at the surgery. The boy had disregarded his parent’s advice (as boys often do) and gone for a walk alone through the forest. Worse still, he was not dressed appropriately for the mid-winter temperature.

It was because the weather was so bitterly cold that an intensive search began within the hour. By nightfall the child had not been found, and two days of further search proved equally hopeless. Although unsaid, it was already feared that a scantily dressed child would have perished within the first few hours.

In the late afternoon of the second day, the driver of a speeding, logging vehicle got the shock of his life. He saw the body of the missing boy laid out on the frost-whitened track ahead of him.

“It was a terrible shock finding the dead child,” the driver told the sheriff.

“It must have been. Take your time. Sit down and tell me slowly,” he replied.

“When I walked over to his body, I was amazed to discover he was only unconscious and, he was as warm as I was. He was very lucky I turned up when I did, because there was a large Coyote and a dog nearby.”

Perhaps the mysterious events concerning the boy, would soon have faded from people’s minds had it not been for the story that Jimmy told them after his recovery. When asked about his remarkable survival, he was very clear and equally adamant about every detail, and would not be brushed off by unhelpful visitors telling him that it could be his imagination.

“I slipped on some ice and tumbled down off the track into the undergrowth, which knocked me unconscious,” he began. “I remember waking briefly and feeling very hot. As I opened my eyes, I could see in the moonlight, that I was sandwiched between a large Coyote and a big Rottweiler, that were both staring at me with their tongues lolling out.”

He looked up at his mother and she smiled reassuringly.

“Well that scared me, and I must have fallen back to sleep, although several times, I was woken up sometimes by a tongue licking my face, or the Coyote’s cold nose touching my ear. Anyway, something must have spooked them because they jumped up and ran off. I remember waking for a moment, and saw a strange old couple looking down at me. Then I felt myself being lifted up, and I passed out again.”

Jimmy’s amazing survival attracted a lot of media attention, and more so, when an inquisitive reporter who had believed Jimmy, placed an old newspaper cutting in front of him. It showed a picture of Wilma and Judd with their Rottweiler and Coyote.

“That’s them! All of them!” exploded Jimmy with excitement. “They saved my life! I must thank them.”

“If only that were possible,” the reporter replied, as he placed his hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. “You see, they all died ten years ago; they were swept away in the 1980 Mount St. Helens main eruption.

Undying Gratitude

In 1912, Captain William Roberts of the 18th Hussars arrived with his regiment, far from the summer heat of Jaipur. The new barracks were close to the shore of Northern India’s refreshing Dal lakes. Many of the regiment’s families had followed the annual summer heat migration to the cool houseboats on the lakes.

Extensive military operations over the last two years had wearied the regiment, therefore the limited campaigns around the foothills would be perfect for recuperation, and perhaps provide time for enjoyment.

The grand dinner and dance which took place in the Officer’s Mess with wives in attendance, proved to be better than all that had gone before. As the evening jollities moved on into the early hours, William and several of his fellow officers retired to the smoking room where they could relax and talk. After several malt whiskies, the conversations moved away from more serious matters to those of personal adventure and bravery.

“I have a true story,” said William. “It began sixty six years ago when a sergeant of the Light Infantry, found a tiger cub with its leg caught in a steel trap. It was brought to barracks where a kindly surgeon – using chloroform – operated on it, removing its mangled front left leg from the shoulder. The sergeant doted on the cub and gradually brought it back to health and strength, but after three months it had grown quite considerably, and he was ordered to return it to the wild.

“That was the end of the matter, or so it would seem. Then three years later, the same sergeant was injured in a forest skirmish. As he sat against a tree awaiting rescue, he