by Brian Carter
‘Get up through the trees and I’ll follow you,’ Wulfgar said. ‘Take the badger path as far as the stream and wait for me by the fallen pine.’
The otter was ungainly but fast. Wulfgar kept on his tail, dragging his own brush. Back in the valley the hounds were belling again.
‘Run,’ Wulfgar cried. ‘Run.’
He sat down and grinned at the fleeing otter. Bullrush had marked Romany’s double and had returned to the water where the scent lay strong. Several foxhounds splashed past him and hunted Wulfgar’s line up the badger path, but Mariner and Bullrush were reluctant to join them. The master and whipper-in jogged after the babblers who were running slowly on a confusing scent. Bargeman and Diver saw the fox high on the slope and mouthed their challenge. The master roared at them and they half turned, whimpering but still rebellious. The whipper-in brought the rest of the pack under control.
‘It’s that black fox,’ the young man cried.
‘Yes,’ said the master, making a fuss of Bargeman and Diver. ‘A beautiful animal but not much use to us.’
Wulfgar swung away unhurriedly into the trees.
Yabsley and Scoble were waiting below. The rest of the field had not braved the water.
‘It was Old Blackie,’ said the whipper-in.
‘What happened to the otter?’ said Yabsley.
The whipper-in shrugged.
‘The old black boy’s done you,’ Scoble whispered. ‘Christ! – if he idn the slyest thing on four legs!’
He pressed a forefinger into his wart like someone ringing a doorbell.
‘Did un give the otter a piggy back, Leonard?’ Yabsley said and got a laugh from the crowd.
The hot blood rose in Scoble’s cheeks. He dug his staff savagely into the grass and climbed the badger path. A little beyond the spot where Bargeman and Diver had faltered the stones and grass gave way to mud. Amongst the fox’s spoor were the broader, deeper tracks of an otter.
Richard Williams looked up and saw the fair head rising above the ferns. Stray came and stood in his path. The Becca Brook brawled over stones and fell noisily into the pool by the fallen pine. The wind swept through the oaks and birches shaking the brightness and the shadows.
‘Old Blackie was here,’ the boy crowed. ‘When I left the big river I saw un watchin’ us. He was up in the scrub. But he didn see me. Then he come up here and now he’s gone. But he was there – by the fallen tree.’
He sucked in his breath with excitement and the American gazed at him solemnly.
‘If us bide quiet,’ the boy continued, ‘he may come back. Animals do that. You don’t like hunting do ’ee?’
‘No. Do you?’
Stray shook his head and mumbled, ‘Once I saw ’em take a dead otter that the dogs had killed and draw on the faces of some boys and girls with the blood. It wadn proper.’
‘Why do you go out with the hounds?’
‘To see things. Folk don’t shout at ’ee if you’re with the dogs. You can go all sorts of private places. But I idn looby, mister.’
‘Looby?’
‘Mazed, mad. Scoble say I am. But I bliddy well idn.’
‘Hadn’t we better get out of sight?’ Richard said.
They sat in the bracken under the oaks. Stray’s nostrils opened and closed. He’s like an animal himself, Richard thought, then out of the undergrowth the otter emerged and the boy placed a finger to his lips.
Romany crouched by the pine tree and sniffed the wind that held the scent of green, living things. He was agitated and uncertain. Every so often he rose onto his hindlegs and peered back into the wood. All at once he detected something and remained upright watching it. Wulfgar slunk out of the shadows and joined him. The animals hesitated a moment then ran on, side by side, up the Becca Brook.
‘That Old Blackie is a magic animal,’ Stray said passionately.
‘He sure is,’ said Richard.
‘They killed his vixen and cubs.’
‘They would. It’s a lousy world. People are lousy.’
‘My mum’s OK.’
‘So’s mine.’
‘You sure you haven’t got no gum?’
‘Positive. Would half a crown buy a stick or two?’
‘Bloody hell yes!’
Wulfgar and Romany continued along the stream on its climb to the Leighon Ponds. The fox travelled at hunting speed so the otter had no trouble following him. Within the woodland of the Leighon Estate their pace slackened and soon they were ambling.
‘The hounds will go back and draw the deeper water below the town bridge,’ Romany said. ‘If Moonsleek stays put she won’t be troubled. I’ll join her tonight.’
He was plainly fretting for his mate despite the show of coolness. A strange little cry would escape from him at unguarded moments – a sort of low, nasal sobbing.
‘Moonsleek won’t be harmed,’ Wulfgar said. ‘The hounds could have taken her and the cubs, but the men called them off. I saw it.’
Standing erect Romany peered back into the coomb and let loose a long, soft whistle. Then he tilted his head on one side and listened. The tears trickled down his face.
‘How can she answer?’ Wulfgar said kindly.
‘True,’Romany sniffed.
With amazing dexterity the otter brought up a hind-foot to scratch behind the ear. His fur, which had been grey and spiky from the swimming, was drying to a reddish brown. When he galloped on he did so noisily, thumping his hindfeet down together on the track.
No wonder you’re always in the water, thought Wulfgar. The wind brought him the comforting, rotten smell of the ponds. A long way behind, woodpigeons were clattering out of the treetops that rocked above the junction of two lanes.
The boy and the American parted company on the Bovey Tracey road. Stray ran off to catch the bus to Newton Abbot and Richard marched cheerfully back towards Manaton. The kid was the closest thing he’d seen to a reservation Indian this side of Montana. What would the world do to him? But he couldn’t be gloomy. The otter had escaped and he’d seen Old Blackie again. Sure, the kid would change but childhood was a separate lifetime anyway. It wasn’t just the stifling of the pastoral instinct that dulled the vision. You couldn’t endure that intensity day after day. You’d see everything too clearly, and all the mediocrity and stupidity would drive you nuts.
Woodpigeons rattled out of the ashes as he turned into the lane that led to Leighon and Beckaford. A coffee-coloured van was parked on the grass beside the brook. Scoble sat on the bonnet with his hands on his knees.
‘Old Blackie did it, didn he, Yank?’ he said.
‘Did what?’ said Richard. He stopped in the middle of the lane feeling curiously tired and helpless.
‘Got the otter away from they hounds.’
‘So?’
‘Don’t get the idea he’s beat me.’
‘Is he trying to?’
‘They all are but that black bugger is the maister.’
Richard cleared his throat. ‘Have you seen my dog?’ he said.
Scoble slid off the bonnet and winked.
‘Why, boy – idn her round no more?’
‘I guess you know you’re an evil bastard.’
‘Old Blackie had the spaniel, Yank.’
‘Like he had Jacko?’
‘With your help. If you hadn’t stuck your nose in he’d still be alive.’
‘You’d better watch out, fella. The old black fox is after your guts.’
Scoble stood like a man in a trance. His fists were balled, his shoulders were rounded and his chin was thrust forward.
‘No fox’ll ever best me,’ he breathed. ‘Never.’
‘But Old Blackie has bested you. Everyone says so. And they’re saying he isn’t an animal at all but a thing come up from hell to grab you and carry you off to the fires and eternal damnation.’
The trapper wrenched open the rear doors of the van and reached inside.
‘He’s just a fox, boy,’ he grunted. ‘Vermin – like this.’
He swung the stiff carcass high by the tail and drew his bloodless lips back in a grin.
‘I shot un this morning when he came sniffin’ round the hen coops.’
Richard lifted his eyes to the tree tops. Green and silver leaves twinkled and flashed against the blue. Scoble shook the lifeless body that had once been the dog fox Wendel.
‘I gets ’em all in the end,’ he crooned. ‘They’m crafty buggers but I’m sharp as a knife.’
A calm evening brought Richard to the table in the window. Birds dashed across the sky. He opened his notebook and the pen nib scratched the silence. The cottage was like a clock that had stopping ticking.
‘The war was the height of human frailty and viciousness,’ he wrote. ‘Yet I have seen the immortal psychopath in the shaving mirror. There is some awful, inherent, self-destructive, race-destructive flaw in man. We pretend we live in a state of history but we don’t. We don’t even live in a state of nature like the animals. We are outsiders – the prowling aliens against whom all the wolf fires have been lit.’
The stock doves were spinning their love song in the beech tree at the bottom of the lawn. They flew off when he stepped from the door to enjoy the sunset. Circling the house the birds climbed into a sky of softening indigo, and turning to plane down to the wood once more, they saw the dark fox leave Beckaford Farm and run across the field with a rat in his mouth.
THE WHITE VISION
The blackberries were fat and juicy along the edges of Colehays Plantation. The heavy dew of the September morning had given them a gloss. Wulfgar snipped them off with his teeth, carefully, having learnt at an early age to respect the prickles. Down on the plain the mist was lifting from the river valleys and the wind smelt of the sea and farmland.
A large flock of starlings fanned out over Kiln Brake and mantled the sheep field. They were birds from the Continent. Wulfgar made scats and trotted onto Haytor Down. His belly was full and he wanted to go directly to Holwell Tor and kennel above the Leighon Valley. On the slopes the bracken was yellowing and the heather was wine-dark.
The foxes of the Hay Tor Clan were more alert than usual. Summer was over and men were out in the border woods and fields with guns, and the hounds had visited the in-country for the cubbing. The air had a crisp edge to it and the clap of twelve-bores carried for miles. Grass in the valleys was misted with spiders’ webs; martins and swallows congregated on the rooftops and telephone wires. Where the flocks of sheep drifted across the heath the rams fought, clashing heads and horns. At Moretonhampstead the last game of cricket had been played and the goal posts were up on the Kate Brook soccer pitch.
Like shining breath the money spiders’ webs veiled the ruts and hoofprints outside the midden. The day was warm and cloudless. Answering the call to migrate the tiny spiders released wisps of silk and sailed up into the sky to the high winds of chance that would blow them halfway round the world. Thousands would drift unnoticed across the Atlantic to spin new webs on American soil.
A little spider’s lace stuck to Stargrief’s nose as he loped through the deserted farm. He sneezed and ran a paw swiftly over his muzzle. The sleepy fade-out of summer had left him listless despite his age, but fresh mornings and cooler afternoons still excited him with their fragrance. There was a spring in his step. He bounded through the ancient trees of Leighon and drank from the Becca Brook. The river tinkled nut-brown under the footbridge.
‘How are you keeping?’ Thorgil said.
The one-eyed badger was dumping soiled bedding on the spoil heap outside his sett, and the sow was underground. Stargrief could hear the muffled bumping of her body going along a gallery.
‘I’m fine,’ the old fox said. ‘And I’ll stay this way if the hounds don’t surprise me on my hilltop.’
‘You’ll see a couple more winters, I’m sure,’ the badger said amiably.
‘That would indeed be something,’ Stargrief smiled. ‘No fox – not even Tod – has lived ten winters.’
‘Any news of Wendel?’ the badger asked.
‘None.’
‘You know what that means, of course.’
‘Yes – one chicken too many.’
‘It is a foolish animal who fights lightning.’
They grinned at each other and read the air, holding high their noses. Despite the warmth Stargrief shivered.
‘Can you feel it?’ he whispered.
Thorgil nodded and said, ‘Like ice in my blood and bones, like the feeling I got when I found the cub in the wire. What is it?’
‘I don’t know. Whispers from the future have troubled me a lot lately, but there are other signs. The wheatears have gone to the sun much earlier than they did last autumn, and the martins and swallows look ready to fly.’
‘Wulfgar told me he’s seen bramblings under the beeches where the rooks nest. What does this mean, Stargrief?’
‘If I’m to know, the stars will tell me. But use the autumn well, Thorgil. Eat many mice and conies. Eat roots and berries but leave those nearest your sett.’
Thorgil bowed his head.
‘I would be honoured if you’d share my home till the day is spent,’ he said.
‘Gratefully,’ said the fox. ‘Is Wulfgar back in his old haunts?’
‘He was at the ponds two sunsets ago, but he’s like the wind.’
‘And the trapper?’
‘He comes and goes, but he hasn’t a dog and every animal except the mindless coney knows his trap lines.’
In the long shadows of evening he came to the meadow beside Dead Dog Pond, under Greator Rocks. Wulfgar was bobbing up and down in the grass. Sometimes he was at full stretch on his hind feet, closing his jaws with a snap or clapping his front paws together.
The leather-jackets were hatching into crane-flies and Wulfgar was grabbing them as they took wing. Stargrief joined him and they feasted until dark. Soon the stars were twinkling from a sky of deep blue. Gently and silently Isca the roebuck stepped out of the alders to drink at the pond. His nervousness reached across the night to the foxes.
They walked in the safety of their friendship, gathering the dew on their coats and whiskers. The bracken was limp and wet all up the hillside, and ponies stood or lay in it making velvety snuffling noises.
‘I saw the white vision at sunrise,‘ Wulfgar said. ‘There were no white birds or white hares or high mountains. It looked like the Great Tor over there. A beautiful vixen ran as always over the snow towards me. Where has my Teg gone, Stargrief? It is never her now.’
The sadness in his voice touched the old fox’s heart.
‘She is a Star Place vixen, Wulfgar. Loving the dead is hard. So Tod gradually takes away the pain.’
‘But I still think of her.’
‘Dutifully perhaps?’
‘Yes. Much has faded.’
‘You will never entirely forget her.’
Mid-Devon was strewn with hard, twinkling splashes of light. A sickle of orange flames flickered across the field by Whisselwell Farm where the stubble had been blazing all afternoon.
‘I too have seen the white vision,’ said Stargrief. ‘It was this place – glaring white, dazzling like the lights of the Man places – and it made me think of death.’
‘Often it is simply a feeling,’ said Wulfgar. ‘Or a strange darkness, like the look I saw in Runeheath’s eyes.’
‘Runeheath?’
‘A sick old fox who died under the hounds last winter.’
‘Today the last of the wheatears flew off to the sun,’ Stargrief said. ‘And while I slept in Thorgil’s sett the lurcher invaded my dream. He was huge and white. His fangs were icicles and three foxes sat on his back. Then he tore a chunk out of the darkness and ate it.’
‘Is it an omen?’
‘Obviously,’ said Stargrief. ‘But dreams aren’t always prophetic, as I’ve said before. Most of them are the images of our own fears and anxieties.’
He sighed and added, ‘I’ll consult the stars again from the Great Tor.’
‘You could run with me to Quarryman’s Cottage, old mouse.’
‘No – go on alone, Wulfgar. The stars bring me joy. I have no present. I look to the future and the past.’
ON HAY TOR
Only in sickness was Stargrief lonely. The world was his mother and when he curled into her the love strengthened his spirit, for she was grass and rock and bracken, water, earth and snow. Her breath was the wind, the rain her tears, the night her sleeping. Age no longer seemed a penance, and Stargrief trotted joyfully to the foot of Hay Tor and scampered up the rock face from south to east where the scrambling was easy.
On the bald summit he lay among the autumn stars. The Milky Way dusted his fur with soft light. Buried in the brilliance of the star stream were the constellations of the Swan and Aquila, and below Aquarius the hard jewel of Fomalhaut glittered. Then Mira Ceti in the constellation of Cetus, and the four perfect stars of Aries.
But they were not individual foxes, they were great legions of animals ranging the sky – telling the sagas, feasting, fighting, enjoying the vixens. In the morning they would all come together to form the sun, a sphere of golden foxes rising from the sea to breathe life into the world.
The beauty of the night made him cry. The stars twisted, swelled, blurred and burst from his tears. He looked down at his paws until the bitter-sweet feeling had passed. Life droned gently through his body and all around him the night gave up its scents and smells – bracken crushed by hooves, sodden grass, furze, sheep, ponies, dying leaves. The silence was ancient and inviolable, and it helped the spirit rise to Tod.
Life itself is worship, Stargrief thought. By living I am praying, I am a prayer. His imperfections screwed into focus. He was insomniac, irritable, conceited. But the visions were divine. He had experienced them as a yearling and he had never questioned the authenticity of the blazing rowan. Sacred tree, the top half in flames, the lower part autumn leaves. It’s the way the sun’s striking it, Wulfgar had said. O no. The flames had become the ears and the muzzle of Tod. Words of fire had issued from the fiery jaws – golden words that burnt away doubt.
Once it hadn’t been possible to live the pure, animal life. There had been too much ritual in Tod worship. Previous generations of foxes had suffocated under it. The Word, the bardic liturgy, the dances and saga-telling had eclipsed the simple vision: he had a dim folk-memory of foxes in unnatural, upright poses, strutting, as if Tod were not fox at all, only an object to bark at in self-pity. Then Tod’s messenger came and cleansed the world. Nameless, the star that flew across the sky, visited the moors and spoke as a hunting fox would speak.