Masked Prowler: The Story of a Raccoon

by Jean Craighead George

  There were no suitable trees along this field in which to den so the sister wandered north and just before daybreak denned in an oak at the edge of a peach orchard. The following night she dined on the fruits that had not been gathered before the frost. She sped across the farmer’s yard and came to Ford Road. It was two o’clock in the morning. The sister crossed the road stopping to sniff the body of a dead opossum killed by a car. She raced away, slipped under the fence and followed a drainage ditch through a field of winter wheat. Kenneth Conklin’s big forest of sugar maple trees loomed before her to the north. The sister headed straight for the woods and before the moon had waned, she had selected a den tree for herself.

  The other sister remained in the red oak with her mother. The two traveled together at night, hunting the stream and the fields for foods. Procyon met them from time to time and even joined them occasionally on their nightly excursions to the hills for beechnuts.

  One night Procyon was peeling open acorns and stuffing on them. Sticks snapping in the woods, branches falling made him jump, for there was something in the wind warning him to be cautious. He had picked up a worm-eaten acorn and dropped it when a branch clattered into the leaves near him. He leaped to the base of a dead maple. Suddenly the howl of a hound sounded. Procyon was up the maple before he realized he was running. He stopped and looked around. The lugubrious voice of a coon hound thundered at the edge of the woods. Procyon picked up the rhythm of the dog’s racing stride as it sped over the leaves and up the hill. It circled the foot of the knoll w here Procyon had been feeding, crossed a rivulet and dashed headlong toward him. The coon clung quietly to the tree.

  A shaft of light shot through the woods! Drowning all sounds of the forest was the steady roar of an engine. The noise suddenly stopped and the light vanished. Procyon looked up into the tree. Far above him he could see the jutting silhouette of a broad limb. Perhaps there was a den in this old skeleton tree that he could use as a retreat from the barking hound and the roaring noises.

  Gib and Walt Weber, the coon hunter, stepped out of the car they had driven down the lane to the woods. Gib flicked on the flashlight and spoke to his friend.

  “I think he went down into the nutcracker. He’s in the woods. I heard him pass the house not two minutes before you arrived.”

  “Well, we’ll find him down there; he’ll have something up a tree.”

  “How did he get loose?” Gib asked as the two men passed the sugar house.

  “His chain was worn and he finally broke it while I was in town today,” the hunter answered. Then he cupped his hands to his face and shouted:

  “Here, Blackie! Here, Blackie! Here!” He put his fingers against his tongue and gave out a whistle that sent Procyon several yards higher up the maple.

  Bounding vigorously and loosely, Mr. Black trailed Procyon to his tree. He bellowed at the coon.

  “Here, Blackie, here!” Walt called as he heard his dog. Mr. Black rushed the tree again.

  “How about a little hunting when the season opens?” Walt asked. “Mr. Black is in good condition. He’ll find a coon if he’s around.”

  “Sure,” Gib answered, “And I’ll bring Fanny.” By this time Walt and Gib had found Mr. Black at the base of the dead maple. Walt snapped a leash on his hound and he led them toward the car.

  With a roar of the automobile engine the car, men and the dog were gone. Procyon waited for a long time—until the woods were quiet and he could hear the murmur of the creek. Cautiously he turned around and headed down the tree.

  The hunting season opened. Procyon was awakened one day by the barking report of a gun shot not far from the tree where he was sleeping in the cold wintery sun. The leaves had all shifted from the trees to the ground and even though his eyesight was poor, Procyon could see much farther through empty limbs.

  From this day on the woodland was changed. All the game became more wary. The pheasants did not venture into the open. They fed in the protection of the standing corn where they could run from the hunters unseen. Even far off movements sent squirrels up the opposite side of a tree where they clung motionless, undiscovered. The rabbits stayed in their forms until the last possible instant. Then they would burst away with tremendous speed. Because the game sat tight and flushed close during this season, Procyon got his first rabbit. The woods generally quieted down at night. The men disappeared, and the protection of darkness brought some of the wildlife out to feed.

  Procyon crossed the woodland meadow. At the far edge he took even the least of food eagerly—he pulled down the tall stalks of ragweed and thrashed the seeds from their pods with his teeth. He hurried on over the withering sedges and grasses toward Rook’s Creek. The grasses were dry and rattled when his footsteps shook their bases.

  A young cottontail was crouched in its form at the edge of the woods. He was huddled against a stump. Broken twigs leaned as a shelter from the ground to the top. Over these the wind and rain had nailed leaves. The cottontail was well concealed. It had heard Procyon coming toward it, but relying on its protective color, it sat tight in the shelter.

  It was a natural cavity for Procyon to hunt and he headed directly for the shelter against the stump. At the very last moment the rabbit thumped its feet to the ground, but that was too late. Procyon was blocking the only exit.

  There were no coon hunts in the ancient forest until late November. The snow had come to Michigan. It blew into the woodland on Gib’s farm during the night. Procyon was hunting when he became aware of the white cold snowdrops weaving through the tree limbs to the earth. His bare hands and feet became cold as the whiteness covered the woodland floor.

  Nights of frost and freezing had prepared the ground for this frozen vapor and it lay quietly on the roots, dried grasses and leaves. Procyon found it almost impossible to dig into the earth. It was barricaded against his claws by an endless fortification of ice crystals. He went down to the stream where the open water still made it possible for him to hunt. But even here food was scarce. The cold snow was becoming deeper and Procyon turned away to find a den.

  He had given up hunting when a distant howl sounded at the edge of the forest. It warned him to be gone. He left the stream and started back toward the glade where the big red oak stood. The hound was still far away, so Procyon did not race. He made use of every step to hunt mice and frozen beechnuts. Near the sugar house he crossed the tracks of his mother and sister.

  At this point the wind shifted and it seemed to Procyon that the hunt was suddenly upon him. Voices of men pierced the silence, and the syncopated lope of the dogs drummed the ground just beyond the sugar house. With a leap Procyon took to the nearest tree. It was the same dead maple that he had climbed not many nights ago under the same circumstances. He climbed right up the vertical avenue to the ceiling of the woods, and hoped that he might find a shelter. The tree was tremendous. Procyon climbed for a long distance before he reached that first dead limb, that jutted against the sky. When he finally crawled onto the limb, his feet saw that it was round and firm, there were no cavities into which he might crawl.

  He knew he must find cover, and climbed higher into the tree. The men, the hounds and the light were now directly below him. Procyon was exposed to their devices. A flashlight beam wandered over the limbs. It shone in his eyes, and as they glowed a commotion arose from the ground.

  “There he is! There he is! Get him!” Someone shouted.

  Procyon raced out of the light, spiraling around the tree. As the light crept along the tree trying to locate him again, his hand slipped over a limb stump and into a large hollow. He wedged himself into this. It opened into a wide cavern that plunged down the trunk of the big tree. Feeling and scenting his way into the darkness, Procyon followed the tunnel. Where the limb entered the tree, he stopped. He reached out with his foot and found the old tree was hollow.

  The voices of the men were muffled by the wooden cylinder that surrounded him, but a voice sounded above the rest.

  “He’s gone.” Sudde
nly one of the hounds that had been working around the sugar house, bellowed out and the hunting party abandoned the dead maple. Procyon eased himself down into the heart of the dead tree as the hunters moved hurriedly toward the sugar house.

  He climbed down into the tree eight feet before he reached a block in the cavity. Here he tucked his head under his chest, drew his feet up into his warm fur until only his back was exposed.

  The hunters and hounds were on the trail of Procyon’s mother and sister. The excitement of the distant voices was scarcely audible to the young male coon.

  Two shots rang out! Procyon lifted his head, shivered and pushed his feet farther into his fur. The layer of fat on his back warded off the cold.

  During the next two weeks Procyon did not awaken. The temperature had dropped below zero and snow and wind tore across the land. Snow drifted and piled up against the great trees of the woodland. The stream froze tight and the old trails of summer were buried and forgotten.

  Winter was relentless. Procyon lived through the cold, using the fat of his body as food. The titmice and chickadees flitted through the barren highways and life on the woodland floor belonged to the foxes, the mink, the male skunk and the squirrels.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  GIB JUMPED off the wagon, walked to the sugar house and fitted the key into the rusty lock. He turned it and pulled on the oaken door. It groaned and scraped the ground as it opened. Dust flew up in his face and leaves blown onto the floor through cracks in the wall, shifted in the draft and raced around the dark room.

  “Another spring,” he said to Joe who had unhitched the team of horses and was backing them up to the goose. A smile crossed Joe’s face, lifting his cheeks into knots like red apples that all but closed his eyes.

  The men worked hard in the sugar bush each spring, but they liked it. The weather was brisk and invigorating and the work rewarding. However, it was their isolation and release from all but the chores at the barn that they enjoyed most. The sugar house was as clubby and personal during the syrup making as a hunting camp in the north woods.

  Joe and Gib busied themselves all day with the buckets. They took them in long stacks from the house and loaded them on the goose, drove a short distance and began to unload. At the foot of the largest trees they dropped three buckets, at some two and at the smaller trees only one. By the end of the day, several hundred scattered buckets circled the sugar house. They were ready for the helpers who would come the next day to bark the trees, drill and tap in the spiles.

  Gib and Joe planned to spend the next day putting out more buckets, placing the boiling pans over the arch and setting up the smoke stack.

  They were tired when they drove the team out of the woods that night. Joe was sitting on the rear of the wagon looking back into the forest.

  “Gib,” he whispered, “who’s that back there to the west of the sugar house?” Gib pulled on the reins. The horses stopped and he looked around. A bulky figure was moving in the shadows. When the bells on the horses suddenly stopped jingling, the figure slipped away between the trees.

  “Hello! Who’s there?” called Gib. There was no answer. The figure was gone. Gib turned back to the horses, shouted a command and started them on their way to the barn. Finally he turned to Joe.

  “There’s something mighty strange going on around here,” he said. “Did you see all those footsteps around the old red oak? And you know, I noticed that the old sugar house back there by the swamp has been repaired. Somebody is using it and not for making syrup either.”

  “Someone’s up to no good. Maybe we ought to go over and have a look first chance we get,” said Joe. The horses plodded up to the gate. Joe jumped down into the snow, opened it and the team and wagon went jangling into the barnyard.

  However it was several days before Gib and Joe found time to go over to the old sugar house above the swamp. Every hour of the day was taken up with the varied tasks of syruping.

  The fourth day of syruping the temperature stayed below freezing. The sap wasn’t running and the men were huddled around the hearth in the sugar house. They were boiling the sap collected during the past two days and stored in the big vats in the house. Russ was taking off the syrup. The sap in the pans was rolling in amber bubbles and there was a sense of well being and companionship in the warm enclosure. The five men, Joe, Gib and three farmer neighbors—Russ, Ray and Jim—who came every year to help, were staring into the red coals not talking very much. Finally Russ’s voice arose through the steam. He did not lift his head for no one could see clearly through the dense vapor. He tested the sap while speaking quietly.

  “Has anyone met the new neighbors that moved into the Shelly farm on Prospect Road?”

  “I met Sim Luke, that’s one of them—two brothers they are—down at the Cherry Hill store,” Joe answered as he spat tobacco juice out through a crack in the door. “He sure don’t know much about farming. Talks a good job though.”

  “He asked for a job in the sugar bush, for some reason,” Gib put in, “but I told him I had all the help I needed.”

  Joe went on: “Seems the two brothers have moved around a lot. He’s been out to Oregon, and worked a lot of small farms all around Michigan and came down here to start dairy farming.

  I don’t know what he bought that farm for if he wants to raise cows. The land’s gone to gravel and weeds.”

  Joe shook his head and pushed his hat around a few times then snapped the visor down over his eyes. He had to throw his head way back to look toward the other men as he finished his tale.

  “Next thing you know, he’ll be around asking which spigot the cream comes out of. I’ll bet they think the brown cows give chocolate milk and the light ones white milk.” The sugar house murmured with the low laughter of men.

  Russ finished testing the sap. “Temperature’s down to thirty-two, Gib. Guess I’ll take off this batch.” The syrup was boiling but everyone knew what he meant. He hadn’t used a thermometer but a hydrometer, and the reading meant thirty- two gallons of sap had boiled away for each gallon of syrup in the end pan.

  Gib rose and walked to the door.

  “Jim,” he called to the old neighbor whose ability with the axe and saw was almost legendary, “will you give me a hand with the buzz saw? We might as well work up some of this wood as long as the sap is slow.”

  They went out into the cold, the old man buttoning the collar on his coat until only his red nose was exposed to the wind. His toothless jaw was buried in his collar and his hat was pulled over his white hair and his ears. The east end of the sugar house was a woodshed and a shelter for the horses on days such as this. Just outside the shed was a big pile of wood, some cut and some uncut. A buzz saw was hooked to the tractor. A pail of iron wedges sat nearby. A sledge hammer and axe leaned against the big wheel of the tractor. Gib and Jim worked steadily for about an hour, then Gib stepped back to relax.

  “Say, Jim,” he said, “did you ever hear the story of Seed Cramer—old Seed Cramer—and the buzz saw?”

  “No,” said Jim as he gingerly fed the zinging wheel a beech limb.

  “Well, he lost a finger on a buzz saw and when they asked him how he did it, he said; ‘Just like this!’ and lost another one.”

  “Naw,” said Jim, as he moved a few inches away from the saw.

  “Yes he did!” said Gib, “That actually happened.”

  Jim was still shaking his head, when Joe joined the woodcutters. Gib turned to him.

  “Joe, let’s go out and look at that dead maple. I think we’ll have to fell her for firewood.”

  Joe pulled on his gloves and followed his friend around the windy corner of the woodshed but they walked right past the dead maple. Joe glanced up at it casually. They crossed the rivulet. It was iced over today for the freezing temperature had stopped the thaw. Gib’s fence line was about a quarter of a mile from the sugar house. The men climbed over it and tramped on toward the marsh. They passed the den of a red fox. It was dug into the side of a hill, and scattere
d bones told them a fox was using it. Gib walked over to it. Without a word he pointed to the strange footsteps that circled it.

  “Same bootmark as the one around the red oak,” Joe observed.

  “Come on,” said Gib.

  They saw the deserted sugar house as they climbed to the top of the next hill. Even that far away they could see that the roof had been patched and the windows barricaded with pieces of tin taken from the old syruping equipment. They hurried over the crest of the hill and approached the building slowly.

  It stood in a cup on the side of the hill facing across the great marsh. Before it was a small clearing; around it grew the beech and sugar maples of this country. This land was idle now, for the aged man who owned it had a weak heart and could no longer carry on the strenuous tasks of syruping. Few men came here. Only in the autumn was it rediscovered by occasional hunters.

  Gib tried the door but it was locked. He circled the house. Props had been set up against the roof and a few casual repairs made. In spite of this the house still leaned precariously down hill and a good wind storm could collapse it. Joe was calling from the rear. He had pulled aside a rotting board and had stuck his head and shoulders into the old shed.

  “Whataya see?” Gib asked as he came around to the rear of the house.

  “Not much,” Joe answered. “There is a coffee pot here, a cup, ashes in the furnace and steel traps. Might be some poacher’s set-up.”

  He backed out and Gib looked in. His eyes roamed from wall to wall then he pulled his head out and looked at Joe.

  “Well, we’ll wait and see what happens,” he said. They turned away and walked back to Gib’s land of wooden giants. They climbed over the fence and hurried on to the dead maple. There was always much to do on the farm, and what didn’t concern Joe and Gib was put aside until it did.

  Joe looked long at the dead maple. Its black limbs stretched out against the winter sky. It was over one hundred feet tall and tilted toward a fine group of young maples.