“I heard the humans say the Wildlife Department has released wolves down in southwestern Virginia. Don’t know if it’s true, but they’re worried. Sooner or later those wolves will reach us.”
“Won’t be a ground nester left, or a rabbit,” the bird said and sighed. The sunlight caught her feathers, so she glowed almost a neon yellow. “Why’d the humans do that? Release vicious wolves into their habitat?”
“Because wolves were once native to Virginia. Elk, too. Hey, once upon a time dinosaurs were native to Virginia. Are they next?” The cat’s wind was restored, and she was back to speechifying.
The two shared a laugh before spotting a gray fox, low to the ground, speeding across the high pasture.
“Hey, come up here,” the Yellow Warbler called.
The beautiful animal hurried to the walnut tree, saw the cat but came on up anyway, as grays can climb.
The gray fox settled on a lower, wide branch below Sneaky. “Smelled the coyotes,” he said. “They will kill and eat anything. I believe if times get hard enough they would surround and kill a human.”
“Pray for rain, because if we don’t get some, times will be hard,” the Yellow Warbler replied.
“We’ve had low-pressure systems, some sprinkles, but just not enough moisture,” the fox said, nodding. “It’s May, though, and rains will come. I don’t worry about drought until July.”
“U-m-m” was all the cat replied.
The Yellow Warbler flew away, then flew back. “The coyotes are heading south. Right toward all that corn partway up out of the ground.”
“They’ll eat some, and so will I when it’s ready.” The gray fox smiled. “The only thing I love more than corn, grapes. Oh, my.” He smiled broadly. “And with all these wineries around here, I can’t wait for those tiny bits of heaven to appear on the vine.”
“I thought you liked mice and rabbits best,” Sneaky said.
“Meat’s always good, but I have to work for it. Unlike you.” He chuckled. “If I can pull a ripe ear off the stalk or grab a bunch of grapes, easy peasy. So sweet. When I eat lots of corn, my coat shines. I’m only stating a fact. I’m rather a handsome fellow, if I do say so myself.”
The Yellow Warbler twittered, “You are. What’s your name?”
“Cyril. Mother gave us names starting with a C, since her name is Christina.”
“Like foxhounds.” Sneaky mentioned the practice among hound breeders.
“Exactly.”
“How many coyotes have moved into the area?” Sneaky wondered.
“Those five,” said Cyril, “and there’s another pack up on Ennis Mountain and, of course, the Blue Ridge is full of them.”
Ennis Mountain was a mass pushed up by a glacier, standing alone in front of the Blue Ridge. Ridges and ravines fanned off the lone hunk of rock and trees. Once east of Ennis Mountain, no mountains cropped up. If one drove northeast, in thirty-five to forty miles, the Southwest Range loomed. Once east of that, the land rolled, then flattened, finally meeting the Atlantic Ocean.
“Ennis Mountain,” said Sneaky. “I rarely go there, but sometimes Tally chases a deer up there.” Sneaky thought about the Jack Russell’s determination after picking up a deer’s scent.
“You’d best warn her about the coyotes,” Cyril advised.
“I will. Don’t know what good it will do, but I will.” Sneaky looked up to the Yellow Warbler. “I didn’t smell the coyote until I reached Jim and Joan Klemic’s bridge. When did you first see them?” Sneaky asked the fox, mentioning the neighbors’ bridge, so well built that one could drive tanks over it.
“The coyotes smelled you before you smelled them,” replied the gray. “But I think the cowbirds might have told them, too. They’ve been shadowing you.”
The tiger cat considered this. “Once they’re against you they’re really against you, aren’t they?”
“They never forget a slight.” The Yellow Warbler held out her wings to catch the sun. “They won’t try to kill me, but I can guarantee for as long as I live there will be a cowbird egg in my nest.”
“Push it out. I like eggs.” Cyril smiled.
“Believe me, I will,” said the bird. “What do you think of the coyotes?”
“As long as there’s enough to eat, I’m okay,” said the gray. “So’s the red fox. If the food gets tight, they will either kill us or run us out of the territory. They’ll kill house dogs, cats, you name it. Of course, if you all travel in packs you have a better chance of fighting them off. Basically cowards, they’ll avoid a fight unless they’re sure they can win. They are clever and omnivorous, but then so am I, and I think we foxes are smarter than they are.”
“Really?” Sneaky liked this fellow.
“I can turn scent on and off; they can’t,” Cyril bragged a bit.
“My human says that about foxes, and people who don’t live in the country don’t believe her.”
“Your human puts out salt licks for the horses and cattle; I should thank her.” Cyril stretched out on the broad limb. “How come she doesn’t have a mate? I don’t, but I’m only a year old. I will have one next year. I’ll be big enough and strong enough so I can fight off my rivals. Life is better with a vixen at one’s side.”
“Well, I agree,” Sneaky replied. “I don’t have a mate, but I’ve been spayed. I do have three best friends, although there are days when I could kill Pewter.”
“The fat gray cat?” Cyril asked.
“Yes.”
“See her a lot when I’m down at the barn. She rummages in the empty feed bags before they’re gathered and tied up. She’ll eat anything, won’t she?”
Sneaky laughed. “She likes sweet feed as much as the horses or you, I guess.” She paused then said, “Humans don’t always go in twos. Maybe it isn’t natural for them, or maybe it once was and now it isn’t.”
“That’s impossible,” squeaked the bird. The Yellow Warbler folded her wings. “Who can you snuggle up to in the nest when it snows? A girl’s got to lay eggs, and it takes two to feed them. Now, I’m not saying my mate is perfect, but he works hard and he’s good at repairing our nest.”
“You just wait, next year I will win the prettiest vixen in this country,” Cyril dreamed.
“What about Charlie?” Sneaky asked the fox. “I assume the gray male I see is your brother. Mother calls him Charlie.”
“M-m-m.” Cyril frowned. “I will just have to compete for my vixen against my brother. He’s cocky, but I’ll outfox him. He’s going to paint himself in a corner.”
“He taunts the hounds, I’ve seen him,” the little bird filled in the cat. “His brother does, he goes down to the kennels. Walks all around and taunts the foxhounds.”
“They won’t get him,” Cyril declared. “He can evade them easily. Plus, he knows when his scent is strong and when it isn’t. Charlie gets the whole hunting game. We worry more that someday Charlie will sass one of those coyotes or do something similarly reckless. If he gets killed, it’s going to be the coyote or a car—I hope neither, but sometimes Charlie has no sense.”
“Ah.” Sneaky did understand. “Well, my money’s on you finding a beautiful girl.”
Cyril beamed. “We’ll sing together.”
Foxes bark, answering one another back and forth. This is what Cyril liked to think of as singing.
“My human sings.” Sneaky pondered this. “Back to this mate stuff. Humans can’t find each other as easily as we do. They make it entirely too complicated. My human doesn’t even look.”
“Sad.” The Yellow Warbler couldn’t imagine life without her fellow.
“I agree. I see her sitting at the desk, doing her sums, trying to figure things out, and I think it would be easier if there were two of them doing sums, chores, planning. But who knows?”
“They drink. Your human gets a mate who drinks and it’s all over.” Cyril spoke with authority. “I visit most of the farms around here. I check the garbage first, of course, and some cans are so full of bottles they c
an’t hardly put the lid on. I hear those folks fighting.”
“Cyril, you are an observant fellow. Is there anything you would like humans to do differently?”
“Yes. Not drive so fast. Leave us alone. Fortunately, they’re easy to fool. I can be walking behind one and they never know, even if there’s a group of them. Now, if dogs are with them, that’s different. Humans are so wrapped up in whatever they’re talking about they miss everything around them. I suspect it’s a sad life.”
“Me, too,” the Yellow Warbler pronounced.
“For some of them, ’tis,” said Sneaky. “For others, they only need other humans. They’re dead to the world around them.” Sneaky reached down her paw just above Cyril’s lush coat. “I want to run for president. I want all of us—humans, animals—to cooperate and live in harmony.”
“Ah,” Cyril simply responded.
“But you will never live in harmony with cowbirds and coyotes,” the Yellow Warbler predicted.
“You’re right,” said Sneaky. “They can form their own party. But we can do something to help other animals. I can’t force anyone to join me.”
Cyril sat up. “Animals aren’t going to live in harmony, pussycat. We eat one another.”
“I know that,” replied the tiger cat. “But if we trust the natural balance, I think that will work out. It’s when things get out of kilter—for instance”—she looked up at the Yellow Warbler—“humans have made laws so that a farmer or a hunter can’t shoot a raptor. Now, I like raptors. I understand them. We’re both hunters. That’s why it’s easy for you and I to understand each other.” She now looked down at Cyril. “But the raptors have proliferated. They have just about wiped out the woodcocks, the grouse, so many ground nesters, including the rabbits. There’s nothing to stop them. At one time, things were in balance. Now humans have knocked it out of balance.”
“Yes, yes, that’s true,” the Yellow Warbler said.
“It will take years—decades, even—to restore order,” the cat thought out loud.
“Well, what about bringing wolves and elk back?” asked the fox.
“Cyril, before agriculture took over, yes, wolves, elk—who knows what else?—roamed this state. But while the mountains, the oceans, and the rivers remain, the surface of the land has changed. Once corn, wheat, barley, and then soybeans were put in, well, you can’t take that land and make it wild again. I mean, unless the humans just walk off and give up farming. Cattle, sheep, goats, all those animals came here once the big predators were driven off or killed.”
“True. True.” The little bird enjoyed the philosophical discussion. How far back to nature could you go?
“I believe the humans have forgotten how hard their ancestors struggled and, worse, how dangerous a big predator can be. I mean, I’m a cat, but I have no desire to sit down with my cousin the mountain lion, or even a bobcat.”
“The Wildlife Department says there aren’t really mountain lions in Virginia. The big cats that folks have spotted are descended from big cats people kept as pets that got away.” Cyril had heard the gossip. “Black panthers, swamp panthers, it’s so unrealistic I can’t believe anyone’s gullible enough to believe that the big cats they see are or were pets. There are mountain lions in Virginia,” said the fox. “Why deny it?”
“If they admit it, the government will think it has to do something about it. Don’t fret the humans with the truth.” When the Yellow Warbler laughed, it came out like a musical scale.
“Perhaps not,” said Sneaky, “but I can concentrate on human housing development. It doesn’t have to wreck the environment so much. I can focus on farming with regard to wildlife, reconsidering some of the chemicals that are used and balancing that against crop yields. Humans need money. Thankfully, we don’t. But we can help make them money, a point I intend to make clear to them.”
“I make humans money?” The Yellow Warbler was surprised.
“Yes, you do,” said Sneaky. “People pay to watch birds. They pay to learn how to watch birds, and they go on nature walks. They stay in motels and bed-and-breakfasts. Birdwatching is a big deal.” Sneaky smiled at the yellow bird, so elusive to the human eye. “That’s for starters. People pay to fox-hunt—or chase, I should say. Cyril, you boost the economy, too. Think of the horse sales, the feed, the shoeing, the trucks to pull trailers, the clothes, and I haven’t even gotten to the costs of the hounds. Animals make money wherever we go. If we can return to a partial natural balance—we might not get the whole way there—I believe we can make them even more money.”
Cyril was intrigued. “What a thought.”
“Speak to the foxes,” said Sneaky. “Help me spread my message. Join my cause.”
“I will. Right now, let’s help each other. How about if we go to your barn? I’ll duck out before the house dogs smell me. But if we travel together, that’s some protection.”
“Good plan,” Sneaky said, beginning to back down the walnut tree.
“I’ll fly reconnaissance,” said the warbler. “I have to fly that way anyway, as my nest’s down near the river, along with Debbie and Glynnis’s nest. They are both such chatterboxes.” The Yellow Warbler liked her neighbors but wondered what they said about her behind her back.
The three animals moseyed along until the weather vane of the barn hove into sight, the nose of the horse on the vane pointing north, which was a bit unusual. Winds usually came from the north or northwest, not up from the south.
They paused for a moment to view the vane.
“Verdigris,” Sneaky said. “That’s what the C.O. calls it. I think she should climb up there and shine it.”
“Copper has a distinct scent,” said Cyril. “So different from steel or iron. It’s so pretty, but it will turn green again,” the gray fox predicted. “Well, I’m glad we got to talk.”
“Me, too,” both Sneaky and the bird replied.
As the cat headed for the barn, she felt for the first time that she truly could make a difference. And in the distance they heard the peculiar bark Cyril called singing.
Horse Sense
At the barn, Sneaky Pie jumped up and sat on the outside bench. A soft breeze rolled up from the Blue Ridge Mountains; the paddocks and larger pastures shone emerald green; the sky, robin’s-egg blue, was filled with creamy cumulus clouds. Lifting her head, the tiger cat sniffed the first tang of rain on the way. The southern wind would bring moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, far away.
Apart from sprawling on the C.O.’s bed, the barn was Sneaky’s favorite place to hang out. The smell of horses, cleaned tack, sawdust, hay, bales of rich, rich alfalfa and sweet feed created an enticing stew of aromas. A twenty-five-pound bag of dry molasses rested in the feed room. Her human liked to soak up some molasses with beet pulp, which the horses loved. The human’s feeding potions for her animals occupied her more than her own food, to which her body bore testament.
The cat loved to stroll down to the barn in the morning while her human scooped out food and tossed out hay and alfalfa. When the C.O. plunged her hands into the beet pulp, which had soaked overnight, a rush of molasses scent would sweep through the air.
Now that the weather proved cooperative, the horses stayed outside in the pasture most of the time. Often a horse would plop down and fall asleep on its side, looking disturbingly dead, while the other horses continued munching on the pasture grass.
However, if anything disruptive or disturbing appeared, the alert horses nuzzled the sleeping one awake, and they’d investigate or run off.
A special paddock held Blue Sky, the blind Saddlebred; Shamus, the pony, also blind; and Jones, born in 1976, one good eye. Since their routine never varied, the blind animals could get around just fine, even walking into the barn from outside if need be without much help. Being a Thoroughbred, one-eyed Jones still considered himself superior to all the other types of horses on earth. As most horses on the farm were Thoroughbreds or Thoroughbred crosses, he would also fall back on his advanced age for superiority cla
ims.
With a sagging back and gray face, the rest of him was still a rich dark bay. He ate, lifted his head, observed the younger horses in adjoining large pastures.
“Ozzie, one of these days he’s going to nail you,” Jones warned sternly.
The ex-steeplechaser, Ozzie liked to taunt a young gelding, who had been sent from the racetrack. The very flashy youngster put up with it because Ozzie was his senior. But the steeplechaser’s taunts, and his racing around in circles, were most definitely wearing thin.
“Dixieland, ha, he could never catch me,” Ozzie boasted.
Dixie, as he was called, snorted, threw up his head. “You say, old man. You’re seventeen years old. I’m faster than you are.”
“Twerp, you were retired from the track because you were slow. I was retired from steeplechasing because I won a lot of money in a lot of special races. The man who raced me thought it was for the best. If I’m on the move, you can’t touch me.”
That did it. Dixie lunged for Ozzie, a 16.2H bay, whereas Dixie was nudging 15.3H and could twist and turn fast like a Porsche. Horses are measured in hands, a hand being four inches. So Ozzie is taller than Dixie. A surprised Ozzie barely got out of the young horse’s way. Twirling, turning, Ozzie thundered down to the pond, flying at about a thirty-degree decline, with Dixie tearing after him. Sneaky moved from his perch to Blue Sky’s special paddock. Next to Jones, mouths agape, the two animals watched what was turning into one hell of a horserace.
The blind Saddlebred, Blue Sky, chuckled. “Dixie’s not a wimp.”
The little pony, Shamus, listened to the hoofbeats. He could recognize horses by each one’s distinctive rhythm just as he could recognize vehicles by the sound of their tire treads. “Ozzie’s winning,” Shamus declared.
Jones watched. “Yeah, but he had a head start.”
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