Vison, the Mink (American Woodland Tales)

by Jean Craighead George

  The muskrats had come in soon after the cattails and bullrushes, for these plants made up their food and their homes. And when they had become well settled in their swamp, the mink had come to prey upon them. So it was that Vison came to the brim of the swamp.

  He immediately skirted the bullrushes and cattails for a hideout that he could use while he visited this area of abundance. He selected a muskrat burrow that led off into the dry bank at the edge of the pond. A few surveys told him that this was a used den, for the passages were worn and clean. Vison raced through it, hoping to catch a sleeping muskrat, but the burrow was empty.

  After exploring his stolen home, he curled up in a hollow and went to sleep. Meanwhile, Ondatra, the muskrat, was out in the middle of the pond, chewing complacently on an arrowhead bulb. He was busy taking this food to his conical lodge in the middle of pond. He worked steadily for many hours dragging succulent water plants through the underwater passageway of his lodge and up into the roomy den. His work brought him nearer and nearer to the den where Vison was sleeping.

  Presently he started toward the bank. He was entering his burrow when he scented the trail of Vison along the passageway. He turned quickly to depart, but Vison, alert to all unusual sounds, awakened and smelled him. With a snort he sprang for the muskrat. Ondatra was off through the cattails and water lilies. Vison closed in behind him. The muskrat, however, had the advantage of knowing the many devious alleys through the floating plants and soon lost Vison in the underwater garden. Surfacing, the outlaw listened for the breaking ripples that would tell him the muskrat had come up for air. The terrified animal, however, had held on until he reached his underwater passage and with lungs bursting, emerged in his reed lodge.

  Vison glided to the shore and hunted frogs and fish in the bullrushes. When he had satisfied his hunger and was ready to go back to his burrow, he heard a swirl in the water and turned to see a mink, larger and older than himself, swimming through the bullrushes. Vison watched the big mink glide toward a muskrat nest, barely breaking the water as he went. To the left of him was another wake where a second big male mink slid through the green surface film of wolfia—tiniest of all the flowering plants.

  Vison was at the extreme fringe of his hunting grounds, and other mink sometimes came to this neutral range to hunt and fish. Food was plentiful and the three shared the marsh without fighting. He watched the two mink swim off into the darkness, then turned and went back toward his sleeping quarters.

  As he approached the burrow, he noticed Ondatra coming through the bullrushes, his head just above the surface. He was carrying a length of cattail. Ondatra went to the shore and pulled himself slowly up on a water-soaked log. Squatting on his big hind feet he gnawed at the reed, turning it over and over in his paws. Silently, Vison bounded toward him. When he was only several feet away, the muskrat sensed danger and lunged for the water. The momentum of Vison’s bounds closed the distance between the two animals, and the outlaw’s teeth shut on the right side of Ondatra’s neck. The two went under the water together. Vison’s grip was loose, and the fighting muskrat lashed and turned as they sank among the roots of the reeds. Suddenly Vison felt the animal’s chisel teeth sink into his own shoulder. Ondatra had twisted painfully to the right and taken a firm hold on the mink.

  Infuriated and pained, Vison tore loose from his combatant and with a mad twist clutched the big animal’s neck just behind the head. Thrashing to the surface, Ondatra made a desperate attempt to escape. But now his muscles could not answer his will, and he slipped slowly down among the reeds.

  Blood flowed from his wounded shoulder, as Vison took his prey to the shore. The other two mink, aroused by the fight, closed in. Smelling the blood that oozed from Vison’s shoulder, they leapt upon him. Vison dropped his food and plunged into the narrow den of a water rat. One male plunged for his hard-won quarry, and the other plummeted after him. The rat den was too narrow for the big male, and Vison was safe from his attacker. Sensing his disadvantage in the binding burrow, the large mink backed away and returned to join his partner.

  In the security of the tight den, Vison fell asleep. At dawn, he was feverish, his nose hot and dry. Holding his stiffened leg to his body, the outlaw stole down to the water and drank long and deep of the murky swamp. He returned to his small burrow and licked his yellow wound until it was clean and red. He fell back to sleep for many hours.

  That morning, Will Stacks came to the pond to census the muskrat. He counted their lodges and picked up their trails through the alder bushes. Rounding the east end of the pond, he was aware of the scent of the mink. He pushed aside the bullrushes and found the broken reeds, and splotches of blood. He knelt down and tried to picture the action. In the muddy silt of the pond he found the tracks of the other two mink and realized that the story was complex. Making a mental note of the presence of mink in this area, the trapper moved on around the swamp for further clues to the wild animals.

  While the man was gathering this woodland information, Vison awoke from his fitful sleep and went down to the pond for more water. His shoulder felt better, and his fever was not as rampant. A few more days of seclusion and he would be ready to meet his challenging life again. At the water’s edge, Vison found the scent of Stacks. He limped back to his retreat and waited for the man to leave or pass nearby. He could hear him crashing through the reeds as he pushed slowly along the shore. His steps led him farther and farther away, until at last, there was silence.

  With the scent of man still strong on the earth and hushes, the feverish Vison made his getaway. The two mink of the midnight foray were sleeping in the retreats of the swampland. Vison limped out of his den and along the pond edge. Some distance beyond the marsh, he returned to Muddy Branch. He followed the stream on the damp rocks at the brim of the creek until he was too tired and weak to go farther. He denned in the first available burrow where he immediately dropped into a restless sleep and did not awaken until dawn when his fever sent him out for water. When he had satisfied his thirst, he set about cleaning his wound and then turned to thoughts of food. Fish were plentiful, but they required a wet dip in the stream; so Vison dined on insects. He returned to his den to nap.

  During the next few days Vison hid in the wilderness while nursing his shoulder back to health. It was many weeks before he felt no pain while bounding along his trails hunting the fish and mice of his territory.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BY NOVEMBER VISON WAS robust and healthy again. The arrival of the cold weather had changed the color and texture of his fur. He was now a golden umber. His furry tail had filled out with the black hairs of maturity. His long neck and back glistened with fine guard hairs under which lay a coat of dense under-fur. His low, wide ears were darkened with a mantle of chestnut-brown hair. A white patch covered his throat and chin. Vison was a beautiful mink.

  He was sitting on a log one cold November evening, cleaning his coat and removing the mud from his broad toes. He took time with his ritual. He rubbed his head and neck back and forth against the log. Then he combed his winter guard hairs with his teeth and proceeded to rub clean his chest and stomach. Finally he ran his tail through his teeth in a quick motion that left it neat and glistening. Groomed for the evening, Vison set out upon a long trip to the uplands.

  Across the field, Will Stacks was entering his shack after a day of hunting. A couple of squirrels were stuffed in the pocket of his hunting coat and his gun swung under his armpit. Stomping the mud from his feet, the old trapper opened the door to his lonely room. At the threshold he stopped and looked back at the green sky of the November twilight. Light from a heatless sun brought out the reds and browns in the feathery tips of the forest. Below this lambent line of color, the shadows filled the valleys and fields right up to his gnarled pear tree. The pear tree stood out clearly against the evening sky, shining with its own pearl light. Stacks received the mood of the season and slowly walked into his home. He lit a kerosene lamp, put his gun on its wall hooks, and hung the squirrels
on a nail outside the door. He would later skin and dress them for a squirrel pot-pie. Sitting down in his chair by the stove, Stacks thought of the trapping season. The walnuts had fallen, the leaves had spiraled to the ground, the sombre sunsets of winter descended over the Potomac hills earlier and earlier. Soon it would be time to run the trapping line. The old, sandy-haired man was glad. He loved these long nights when the animals were in their prime. He pictured them leaving their dens and writing their travels across the mud and snow. He thought of Vison and Vulpes and of Ondatra and the others. He heard the cold wind start up the valley of the river and swing through the trees to his hilltop.

  Vison was leaving the waterways where much of the aquatic life had become inactive with the cold, and was moving toward the fields where the mice wintered. He denned more frequently in the uplands but came down to the swamp for muskrats.

  This night he was out in the hills working the runways of the white-footed mice. Crossing the needle-strewn roots of a pine, he came across the castings of Bubo, the great horned owl. Above him, perched on one leg, his enemy sleepily awoke. Through his half-closed eyes the big bird began to notice the life around him. In a dense thicket below his protected roost, the chickadees were settling down for the night. They gathered quietly, a few at a time, puffed out their feathers and put their heads under their wings. A cluster of kinglets still moved restlessly in the upper branches of the maples and oaks. A cardinal shifted to another twig in the fading light. It called to another cardinal which softly answered back. At the sight of the birds, Bubo opened his eyes wider and was conscious of being very hungry. Slowly he stretched, enjoying the pull on the muscles of his wings and feathered legs.

  He snapped his bill and sank his head deep into his muff of shoulder feathers. Presently he leaned down and straightened the feathers on his pantaloons. Once more he bobbed his head and then energetically preened his big primary wing feathers. Taking each one gently in his bill, he ran his beak down them. They snapped quietly back into place. Closing his wings against his body, he shook a few loose feathers free, then earnestly studied the woodland for prey.

  Bubo could see far through the woods. The white patch under his chin fluttered as he spotted a motion in the leaves. His yellow eyes came into sharp focus on a dried oak leaf that was twitching. Closing his eyes slowly and deliberately, the old owl bobbed his head and looked away. There was nothing there. He was about to soar off to the elm tree at the edge of the field when he saw Vison dart beneath him. His feathers closed tightly against his body and the owl looked thinner and mean. He watched the outlaw flash over the pine needles and pause at the base of the tree. Bubo dropped toward the mink. He made no sound as he plummeted to kill. But Vison had read the signs of the bird, the gray castings and fallen feathers. He vanished into the blackberry and honeysuckle vines.

  Bubo broke his fall before he was half way to the earth. Vison was no longer beneath him. Spreading his wings, he swerved over the bushes to look for the elusive outlaw. Not a moving leaf, not a snapping twig betrayed the mink. Bubo rose to the tree tops and flew silently across the forest crown to the edge of the woods.

  It was midnight when Vison crossed the feeder road that ran before the darkened homes of Buck Queen and Al Starcher. He went directly for Al’s yard and the scent of sleeping chickens. Rounding the corner of the tar-paper shack, he bounded to the henhouse. His appetite was keen, and he circled the rickety coop several times in an effort to find an entrance.

  The chickens were kept in a house propped off the ground on termite-bored blocks. Vison went from one block to the next, standing up from time to time to scratch the weather-beaten floor boards. The coop had been constructed to keep out predators. However, with no repairs, with the beating of the snow and rain and sun, it had become somewhat vulnerable. Vison leapt against the wire, clinging to it with all four feet as he tried to wedge his head through the small mesh. It could not be done. He dropped to the ground and circled the henhouse once more. Then he climbed to the baseboard of the coop. On this narrow ledge he inched his way along, scratching at the boards as he went. One was hanging loose. Vison thrust his head through the opening, the rest of his body followed easily, and the outlaw was standing under a roost of sleeping chickens. He darted to a low perch where a fat hen slept with her head under her wing. The hen lifted her head and froze as she looked into the beady eyes of the mink. Vison killed her silently. The other chickens did not awake. When he had fed, Vison slipped back through the broken board and leapt quietly to the ground.

  Bounding over the grass and weeds, he looked for a nearby retreat as he intended to visit the henhouse again. He skirted the yard, taking note of the gullies and niches before picking a den.

  At daybreak he was asleep in an old tile pipe in Al’s side yard. He had selected this dry den in preference to available rain barrels, tin cans, and old boots. Into it he had carried leaves and grasses that he might be comfortable in his temporary home.

  Al began to stir several hours after Vison had put his nose on his fine tail and gone to sleep. Ice on the enamel washbasin slowed down Al’s seven o’clock grooming, but he was not slow when he dashed cold water over his eyes and cheeks. Al ate a hasty breakfast. A piece of pie and a cup of coffee were enough to get him started on his morning chores. He put on his wool shirt and went out to feed the chickens.

  He saw the story. A mink had somehow gained entrance to his weasel-, mink- and fox-proof pen and dined on one of his hens. There was no doubt as to who had done it. Al looked at the chicken and knew by the marks of the canine teeth on the neck that a mink had been the killer.

  Going back to his shack in red fury, Al awoke his old hound, Pooch, and scolded him for being a “no-account mutt” that didn’t even know when to prove himself man’s best friend. Taking down his shotgun, he ordered Pooch off his bunk and out into the yard to find the thief. Pooch began nervously at the henhouse trying to pick out the faint trail of the prowler. He was working around toward the side yard, having followed the scents of Vison from one end of the plot to the other, when the mink awoke and listened to the commotion. He twitched his whiskers as Pooch barked and circled nearer. The outlaw calculated his next move.

  At that moment, old Buck Queen, the hunter, was coming down the road with a bird dog on a leash. He was on his way to the fields to give the high-spirited dog a workout, when he saw Al sneaking around his yard with his gun in his hand, his finger resting on the trigger.

  “Who are you looking for?” Buck called. Pooch lifted his head at the man’s voice, and, glad for an excuse to leave the trail of a mink he didn’t care to meet, went bounding toward the hunter.

  “Pooch, come ’ere, Pooch, Pooch,” Al called in dismay. He walked out to meet Buck and get his hound.

  “This is the most worthless hound in three counties,” Al said partly to Buck and partly to Pooch. “A mink got in my henhouse last night, and this animal didn’t even roll over. He caused me to lose a perfectly good chicken. Go hunt ’im up, dog. Go git that mink.” Al waved Pooch back to his duty and walked with Buck to the chicken house.

  Straining on the leash to hold the bird dog in, Buck was pulled around to the scene of the crime.

  “Can’t figure out how he did it,” Al said, looking at the old henhouse.

  “Well now,” Buck began, “a mink is a mighty sly critter. If he can get his head in a place, he can get the rest of him in. Just might be, this old coop has some holes in it.”

  “Naw,” Al replied. “Naw, this thing is in fine condition.”

  “Well, he sure got in,” said Buck as he looked at the crumpled chicken. He noted the two holes in the base of the skull where the canine teeth had pierced, and the opened head where Vison had fed. Walking to the back of the house he called.

  “Looks like he might have climbed right through this break. Big enough for a hound dog to crawl through.”

  “Naw,” said Al when he saw the opening. “Mink couldn’t get in there.” Al knew perfectly well he had, and Buck knew
that Al knew. They went back to see what Pooch was doing.

  The sad-eyed hound was working around the grasses near the tile. Vison heard him come closer and closer and was judging the distance to the gully. About three feet from him was a ditch that had been eroded by the rains. It had filled with ragweed plants, thistles, and blackberries during the summer. Vison knew the gully led to a culvert under the road. Around the culvert grew a stand of osage orange trees. This would make an excellent escape route.

  The fugitive leapt for the covering of ragweeds and thistles. Pooch saw him go, gathered his courage, and rushed after him. Al lifted his shotgun and fired as the mink approached the hedge of osage orange trees.

  The trees shook, and the shot splattered through the vines into the embankment of the road. The thundering roar unleashed a fiery burst of speed in Vison. He was into the ditch beneath the road before the smoke had cleared. He threaded his way to the darkest cove of the interior of the drain and waited for the next move of the hound and the man.

  Vison’s short flight had given Pooch courage. The bravado of his bark rose to furious heights, and the hair stood up on his back.

  “I can tell you now,” Buck said as Al lowered the gun and ran toward the gully, “that you didn’t come anywhere near that critter.”

  “But I’ll bet I scared him to death,” Al answered with a slow grin.

  “I’d like to get that fellow,” Buck went on. “Be worth a good bit. But you can’t shoot him up with a shotgun.”

  “ ’Spect not,” Al said. “But I sure would like him to pay for that hen.”