Fox Mate (Madison Wolves)

by Robin Roseau

  It would have been so much easier with a mate, but of course, I had none.

  The kits arrived on time, two lovely daughters, each more beautiful than the other. I named them Flora and Fauna, which was probably not a very kind set of names, but I had been alone for a long time, and I'm not sure how sane I really was by then.

  Shut up, Elisabeth. It's not funny.

  Caring for the kits was hard. I had prepared as best I could, but it was hard. It was difficult to keep myself fed enough to provide a hearty meal for them from my body, but I did it. I learned methods of hunting that expended less energy and were more dependable, and that helped, but it kept me away from the den more than I was comfortable.

  Of course, unlike a natural fox, I knew how to make a hole in the ground warm and comfortable. The kits made it a challenge to keep it that way, though. They didn't exactly come born with sterile bathroom habits.

  Yes, Scarlett. Eww indeed.

  Spring arrived, late of course, and Flora and Fauna were starting to venture further and further from the den, under close supervision of their mother. We all spent more time as foxes than humans, although I made sure they knew how to shift. I don't know how it is with wolf pups, but fox kits can be made to shift with a parent. I could hold my babies, and start my shift, and if I did it slowly, I could draw them with me, and they would shift with me.

  With spring came fishing season. My den was near a lake, just forty yards from the shore. At the other end of the lake was a small fishing shack, but I had not worried about it. It looked very run down, as if perhaps it had not been occupied in a long time, and besides: a few humans in the area from time to time was no threat.

  Unfortunately, it was probably the greatest miscalculation I had ever made. The shack indeed hadn't been used in a while, but it was owned by an ugly, evil wolf. Judging by his accent, he was out of Quebec City. And that year he chose to fly in to his fishing shack with his equally ugly, evil fishing buddies.

  They arrived late one evening, their plane splashing down and scaring Flora, Fauna and me deep into our den. If I had watched, I may have known they were wolves, and maybe I could have carried my babies to safety, but I don't know. I was tired and slow, and perhaps they would have found us anyway.

  No, Angel, please don't cry. It was a long time ago.

  It was the next morning I realized my mistake. I sat on the hill outside my den, looking out over the lake, and watching the smoke rise from the chimney when the first one stepped outside. He was joined by three others, and if I wasn't sure about the first, I was sure by the time there were four. Four wolves. Four wolves shifting into fur.

  I sent Flora and Fauna deep underground, down into the deepest portion of the den. And then I led a fresh trail away from my den, far away, hoping the wolves would believe the den was empty and they should follow my trail. I listened intently, and when they turned north, away from my den, I thought maybe they wouldn't come this way at all.

  But what they did was a big survey, a run all the way around the lake, and they found my trail. But rather than follow it to me, they tracked it backwards, straight to my den.

  They knew what they had found, of course they did. It wasn't about game; there was plenty of game. It was about the hunt. They wanted the werefoxes for their entertainment.

  They tried digging into the den, but I had dug it long and deep, and I had buried silver in the walls. They burned themselves trying to dig their way to my pups, but it only slowed them down. Two stayed to guard the den and two returned to their cabin.

  By now I knew they hadn't followed my trail. I had taken the trail around another lake, and had been well out of range to know they were at my den. I couldn't hear the frightened cries of Flora and Fauna.

  But I arrived back in time to see two wolves carrying shovels and pick axes from their cabin, and I knew what they intended.

  I tried to lure them away. I tried. I yipped. I called. I taunted them with my own presence. And they knew what I was, they knew I was a mother fox, trying to lure them away, but they ignored me.

  They dug up my den.

  They captured Flora and Fauna.

  They stuffed my babies into a sack, and they carried them to their cabin. I could hear their cries of fear, their cries for their mother.

  Oh god, Lara.

  My babies, my beautiful, beautiful babies.

  They hurt them. They hurt them so much, and they were crying for me, and crying, and I couldn't stop myself.

  But of course, all they wanted was to capture me, too. And they did. They set my babies out in a pen, and they made it look like they weren't watching, but when I tried to free them, they rushed out of the cabin, and I was slow and heavy from nursing, and then full of milk and slow from not nursing, and they caught me easily.

  They put me in a cage. They put my babies in another cage.

  They had cages. Why did they have cages? I never understood why they had cages. Maybe they sometimes brought normal dogs with them, although I've never heard of wolves keeping pets. Maybe they had done this before. I don't know.

  They talked to me in French. I didn't speak any. Then one of them spoke in English. Poor English. And that I understood.

  They were going to hunt me, he said. If I gave them a bad chase, they would hurt my babies. If I didn't run at all, they would kill my babies, but they would do it very, very slowly.

  Then to demonstrate, they hurt Flora.

  They were evil. Evil. Can you understand why I hated wolves? Can you understand my torment?

  They told me if I could stay free for two hours, they wouldn't hurt me, they wouldn't hurt my babies. They told me to come back at dusk, or they would kill one of my babies. And if I wasn't back by the following morning, they would kill the other. They promised me it would take a long time, and I would hear their cries.

  But they let me nurse my babies. They wouldn't let me share a cage, but they would let one baby in with me at a time, and when that baby was done, if I didn't give it back, they would hurt the other one. They let me feed Flora first, and then I had to give her back, and she cried so badly, but I had to or they would hurt Fauna. And then I fed Fauna and they took her away, too.

  In the morning, they let me go. They gave me a ten minute head start. Lara, you know, with a ten minute head start, you will never find me. But I was younger, I wasn't as clever as I am now, and I was slow, not recovered from the birth.

  I gave them a poor chase, a very poor chase. It only took them ten minutes to surround me. They played with me for an hour, pretending to let me go, then catching me and hurting me, cats playing with a mouse. Then they dragged me back to their shack, threw me in my cage, and pulled out little Fauna from her cage.

  The cage was too small to shift, but I did anyway, and I begged and begged them not to hurt her. I begged. They laughed at me, and they spent hours hurting Fauna while she cried for me to save her.

  They eventually grew bored, but they told me I had better give a better chase tomorrow. And they didn't let me nurse my scared, hungry babies. I grew thick with milk, but I'm sure it was curdled from my own fear.

  In the morning, I begged them again to let us go, I told them the babies would die without me; they would be worthless. And I was slow and hurt from a difficult winter and couldn't give them a proper chase. Just let us go. They laughed and told me to run. They were going to hurt Flora if I didn't run.

  I ran, but it was a bad chase, and when they caught me, they broke both my front legs.

  You've seen how I can heal. I can heal broken legs almost as fast as you can break them, if I've had food. I hadn't had any, but I could have healed. Except I had a plan. Maybe I could buy time.

  They dragged me back to their cabin, dragged me by my broken legs, and tossed me to the ground. "Shift and heal," they ordered.

  I shifted to human and said, "I don't heal like wolves do. I am just a worthless fox, I don't heal when I shift."

  Of course I did, but I thought if it took several days for my le
gs to heal, maybe they would give me several days with my babies, and maybe I could escape if they thought I couldn't run.

  They ordered me to shift; they said they would hurt Fauna. I shifted, but I shifted slow, all my shifts in front of them were slow, as slow as I can, which is much harder for me than fast. And while shifting, I thought very, very hard, I don't heal when I shift. I don't heal when I shift. I don't heal when I shift.

  They made me shift back and forth, and still I didn't heal. Then I couldn't shift anymore, and I lay there trembling. I told them I needed food, and I could shift once more, then I needed to nurse my babies and heal, it would take me days to heal my legs, and they couldn't hope for me to give even a bad run with two broken legs.

  They gave me food, and they ordered me to shift, then they let me in the cage with my babies. But each day they took me out and made me shift, and I said to myself, I don't heal when I shift. I don't heal when I shift. But of course, slowly, I did. I couldn't stop it entirely.

  It took four days to heal. They kept me in the cage when they weren't tormenting me, and I never found a chance to free Flora and Fauna. That morning, they pulled me from the cage and told me to run. I ran, but still, I was slow, and still they caught me too easily.

  They were so disgusted, they took turns pissing on me, and then they left me there, trembling on the ground, and ran back to their cabin.

  I followed, and when they took Flora from her cage, I shifted, quicker than I had before, and I begged them to let us go.

  They ignored me. They didn't even look at me. They hurt Flora, they hurt her, and she cried and cried. I threw myself at them, but they knocked me to the ground, and they hurt Flora until she grew still. Then they threw her aside.

  By then, they were bored. Fauna died with one snap of her tiny neck.

  I'll never forget that sound, the sound of my baby's neck snapping.

  Then they turned to me and said, "Run. You might be more fun to hurt. Your babies weren't worth our time."

  I ran. I was still human, but I ran, tearing my feet to pieces. They didn't even bother chasing me. I was just a worthless fox, I wasn't worth their time.

  But I wasn't just any worthless fox. I was a wolf hunter. And they had killed my babies.

  I waited until it was very late that night, well after midnight, and I sabotaged their airplane. I found a tool kit in the plane, and in the dark I opened the little panels, and I cut some of the wires almost all the way through, the wires that run the controls. I loosened screws, not all the way out, but enough they would work loose, maybe, under vibration.

  I put dirt in the gas tank, and then I plugged the vents with mud, shoving it in so you couldn't see it.

  I opened the engine compartment and poured more dirt into the oil, washing it down with lake water.

  No, Lara, I had no idea what any of this would accomplish but I thought if I did enough things, things they might not notice, one of them would make them crash.

  Finally I covered my evidence. I closed all the little hatches and I put the tool box where I had found it. Then I turned my attention to the cabin.

  They had made a bonfire that night, and the fools hadn't put it out before going to bed. I crept close to the cabin, and I could hear all their heartbeats and hear their breaths, and I knew they were sleeping. I worked as quietly as I could, but I stacked all the dry wood I could find against one side of the shack, and then I used burning embers from their fire, and I set the wood next to their cabin on fire, flaming it into life.

  Then I shifted to fox and ran. I led false trails away, and then I led a trail to the lake, letting them think it was also a false trail, but instead I jumped into the lake and swam to a small beaver hut.

  The water was cold, so very, very cold, but I shifted to human and swam down to where the beavers hide the entrance to their house, and then I shifted to fox and crept into the beaver hut. Luckily, the beaver was long gone. He had made a fine meal for me one day.

  There were chinks in the walls, and I dug at them to make more. I shivered there in the beaver home, chilled to the bone, and it took a long time to warm up and even longer to dry out, but I watched.

  They woke up, of course, and fled from the burning shack. But I had burned everything they had, they didn't get any of it out, and they were very mad.

  I knew this was a setback for them, that's all. They could stay in fur, like I had, and live there indefinitely. They hunted for me, they hunted for a long time, but not once did they ever swim, so not once did they notice the beaver hut.

  They left the next day, climbing into the airplane I had spent an hour trying to break. I watched it travel across the water. I watched it lift into the air. And then it disappeared, so I didn't see what happened, but I heard it crash.

  They were numbers 26, 27, 28 and 29.

  No More Healing

  I sobbed. Lara held me while I sobbed. And Angel and Scarlett sobbed with me, and maybe the others, I didn't look.

  I calmed down eventually.

  "Since then, until today, I forgot how to heal when I shift. I had convinced myself so well that I couldn't, and after the plane crashed, I didn't remember anything for a long time. Whatever happened for the next six months is a blur. But I couldn't heal when I shifted, not until today, when I remembered."

  "But today, I remembered everything, well, almost everything, including that I could heal. Healing fast is like shifting fast. Lara, could you always shift so fast?"

  "No," she said. "It always used to take me several minutes, no faster than Elisabeth."

  "When did that change?"

  "After I saw you shift. I saw you shift so fast, and-"

  "You got stubborn. If the fox could do it, so could you?" I asked.

  She nodded, laughing lightly. "Yes."

  "I bet you can learn to heal like I do, too. I bet all of you can. I bet all of you can shift like I can, too, now that you know it's possible."

  "I don't know," Elisabeth said. "I am just as stubborn as Lara, and I haven't made any headway."

  "It was just all of a sudden," Lara said. "Something clicked. It wasn't gradual. Suddenly I just knew how."

  I got up from the sofa and walked to the window, staring out. Elisabeth rose behind me, stepping up to me and putting her arm around me. I leaned against her. Neither of us spoke.

  I turned around. "I'll have that beer now. Have you all heard enough?"

  "Is there more?" Vivian asked.

  "Yes, but maybe only one more story that needs telling." I looked down. "I am very ashamed of this story, but Lara needs to hear it, she needs to know what kind of person I really am."

  "I know what kind of person you are!" she said in her alpha voice.

  Angel returned from the kitchen, handing out cold beers, keeping one for herself and another for Scarlett.

  I opened my beer, drinking some of it. It was cold. That's all I could say about it. I wandered around the room aimlessly. I stared at a bookcase and started crying quietly, not wanting them to hear. I had cried enough in front of them.

  Vivian came over eventually. She stood next to me and let me cry, then handed me the tissues she always seemed to have ready for me. I cleaned up, then wandered into the bathroom to clean up further. No one followed me, so maybe I wasn't on suicide watch anymore.

  Then I stepped back out of the bathroom, and Lara was right there. All right, maybe I still was.

  "Are you all right?"

  "It was a long time ago," I said.

  "But you only just remembered."

  I nodded. I pushed my head into her chest, leaning against her, then returned to my place on the sofa, nursing my beer.

  "Have you had enough?" I asked quietly.

  "We're not going anywhere," Scarlett said.

  "Vivian? Questions?"

  She shook her head. "No. But Michaela, you know, you are going to be visiting me for a very long time."

  "I know." I stared into my beer, then thrust it into Lara's hands. She set it on the coffee t
able.

  "Do you want something else?" Angel asked quietly.

  "Coke."

  She got it for me, setting extras on the table for anyone who wanted one. I fumbled to open it, and Lara took it from me and opened it. I took a big swig.

  "I became a hunter," I said quietly.

  "You're a fox," Angel said. "Weren't you always a hunter."

  I didn't answer her. Elisabeth did for me. "She became a wolf hunter, Angel."

  "Oh." She thought about it. "I don't blame you."

  "I hunted only the ones who tried to hunt me. I became very, very good at killing them. I would set myself up, carefully, showing myself to only one or two wolves, and if they chased me, I led them deep into my territory, and I found ways to kill them."

  I drank more of my Coke, not looking at any of them.

  "At first, it was in Quebec and Ontario. But then I moved southwest, and I crossed back into the United States. I worked my way home. There were wolves where I used to live; the entire region was overrun. I set a new base, planted my weapons near at hand, made my traps, and I lured wolves to me."

  "How many?" Elisabeth asked.

  "I don't know. A lot."

  "Hundreds?"

  "No, I don't think so. Seventy? Or so, I guess. I didn't count."

  "I roamed through northern New England," I said. "I couldn't get home. I couldn't go that deep into their territory. I picked at the edges, luring the hunters out, and killing them. I couldn't kill everyone who hunted me; many escaped. Many times there were too many, and I was forced to escape. Not every wolf is a sadistic asshole. Not every wolf wanted to hunt me. If they didn't hunt me, I moved past them, but I couldn't leave them at my back, either."

  "What happened, Michaela?" Vivian asked.

  "There was an isolated cabin."

  I stared into space, remembering. Then I lowered my eyes, and all the silvered knives were still where we had left them on the tabletop. I stared at them.

  Lara saw where I was staring. "Elisabeth, get those out of here. Now."

  "Angel," she said. "Call Rory."

  I stared at the knives as Elisabeth picked them up, collecting them all together, sticking them into their sheaths, not washing the blades. I didn't care. I had more.