The Preposterous Adventures of Swimmer Read Free

release the lock, and the door would swing open.
    â€œNo!” Clarence cried, lurching to his feet. “No! You can’t do that! Swimmer, listen to me. You’re not wild anymore. You’ll die out there. Honest—”
    Swimmer had already grasped the handle. He threw his weight against it. There was a click, and the door swung open a few inches into the wind. Instantly he sprang for the ground several feet away.
    But a devil rode the wind that night. Halfway through the opening Swimmer felt the sudden shift and tried to twist away. He did not quite make it. The door slammed against a leg and held him dangling a moment as pain shot through the leg. When he dropped to the ground the leg was numb.
    For uncertain seconds he crouched beside the van, shocked and trembling. Then he became aware of the sound and scent of the stream somewhere beyond the guardrail. Slowly, almost fearfully, he began limping through the blackness toward it.

2
    He Follows a Trail
    T he creek was far down a rocky slope, and it was high and roaring from the spring rains. In the mountain dark, with one leg useless, Swimmer reached it only with the greatest difficulty.
    Before his capture he would have plunged happily into the wildest water and found it great sport to battle the current. But now, even though he couldn’t see the stream, its very thunder terrified him. He sank down in the brush near the water, shaken and uncertain. This was home country, but he had never expected to feel so lost in it.
    Once, as he was trying to decide what to do, he thought he heard Clarence calling. The sound was so very faint against the water’s roar that he wasn’t sure, but it brought a terrible longing just to see Clarence again and feel his comforting presence. He turned, almost ready to try the long climb back. But pain shot through his leg as he started to move, and he sank down again, shivering in the rain.
    He had never been cold like this. Never in his life. Not even that time in his pup days when he had played tag under the ice with his family and some of the neighboring otter folk. What was wrong?
    At last he realized that Clarence had spoken the truth about being civilized. He had been cooped up too long in that dratted steam-heated lab. Now he was so soft he couldn’t even take a little spring rain. It was disgusting.
    And to make it really rough, he probably had a broken leg.
    With the thought that his injured leg might actually be broken, Swimmer’s already sodden spirits began to sink still lower. How was he going to swim and catch food? How was he going to travel to different feeding grounds? And with dogs and wildcats to worry about, how could he protect himself?
    As he considered these awful realities, he began to feel very sorry for himself. No matter how he looked at it, he was surely doomed. If he didn’t die speedily of double pneumonia, he would have a lingering death from starvation, with his broken leg paining like fury to the last horrid minute.
    â€œOh, poor me,” he whimpered. “Why did I ever leave Clarence?”
    He was at rock bottom now and could sink no deeper. So, having enjoyed for a moment the very depths of despair, he wanted no more of it. It was time to climb out.
    â€œAw, fiffle,” he muttered. “I’ve swallowed too much education, but I’ve still got a little frog sense. Anybody with half a grain of it ought to be able to beat the odds against him. Now, let’s see …”
    He still had one good swimming foot. It wouldn’t push him fast enough to catch trout, but he could limp around and find crawfish and frogs. As for his bad leg, it had been injured on the lower part, so at least he could hold it off the ground when he walked and not have to drag it. If he was careful for a couple weeks, maybe it would mend.
    What should he do in the meantime?
    It struck him all at once that he had sort of upset Doc Hoffman’s applecart by running away. Old