Vulpes, the Red Fox

by Jean Craighead George

  Toward morning the rain and sleet stopped. The rocks around Vulpes’ den were glazed with ice. The footprints he had left in the snow as he took refuge the night before were silver pockets. As the early light hit the trees, their limbs burst into a cascade of shimmering lights. The whole woodland looked like a gigantic glass exhibit. Every blade of grass, every treetrunk was spun with ice. The streams in the valleys were Lucite ribbons. The hills sparkled and glistened.

  Vulpes awoke and looked out of the dark den. He stepped out onto the ice gingerly. He had hardly gone three steps before his feet skidded on the slippery surface. He braced himself to keep from sliding. Then he made his way down the hazardous hill as fast as he could. When he reached the bottom he took the trail up the valley to the field where the land would not be so difficult.

  As he came to the old rail fence Vulpes stood for a long time watching the sunlight strike over the glass hills. The white-throated sparrows called plaintively as they flitted over the weeds in the field. The seeds they needed for food were locked away from them by the ice. They flew from one field to another picking up food where they could. Sometimes they would find a bit in a corn stack under the bent leaves where it was protected from the sleet and ice. Haystacks offered occasional food. And in the shrubby fence rows, the thick, tangled bushes had sheltered a few scarce seeds from the weather.

  Food was scarce. All the animals were moving over wide areas, hunting. The rabbits searched the ground. They found little to feed on. The quail were trying to scratch through the crust to reach the berries on the honeysuckle. Their small feet made little impression on the hard surface. Some of them had slept through the storm and were imprisoned beneath the ice.

  As Vulpes watched the winter scene, he suddenly caught the musky scent of the lure old Will Stacks had put out. It came from the trail that wound through the fence near him. He went over to investigate. Stacks had used his winter lure, and in spite of the crust of ice a little of the strong odor came through.

  Vulpes thought that some fox might have hidden a food supply. He scratched at the ice. As his claws finally broke through he caught the whiff of the bait that Will had planted. There was a sharp snap as the trap sprang!

  Stacks was out of bed by this time. He was moving around in the cold morning, grumbling at the weather and trying to get the fire started.

  About an hour later Stacks picked up his trapping basket and went out into the ice. He started his regular morning run of his trap line. The old trapper visited each set at least once a day.

  He went over to the set he had made for Vulpes the day before. As he neared the trap he saw it had been sprung. But there was nothing in it.

  A few black hairs from Vulpes’ foot were caught in the closed jaws. With the spring of the trap Vulpes had jerked back. He felt the jaws slam shut as they grazed his forepaw. His backward leap sent him sprawling across the ice. Quickly, he regained his footing and vanished into the woods.

  Thoroughly frightened, the fox sped dangerously fast across the treacherous ice to the wilderness of Muddy Branch.

  Will Stacks looked at the sprung trap and knew what had happened. He also knew that he had made Vulpes a trap-wise fox.

  “It’ll be a long time before I fool that old fox again,” he said, shaking his head. “Guess I’ll bring my traps in for the season, except those few on the hill that are still all right.”

  Down in Muddy Branch Vulpes spent the next few days in the sanctuary of the isolated wilderness. Still unnerved by his experience with the trap, he did not even return to the hills above the Queen farm for many days.

  In this weather, however, Vulpes was out almost any hour of the day or night. The ice had made it as difficult for him to find food as it had for the rabbits and quail. Some of the birds had even starved to death. To keep himself fed required all of Vulpes’ time. He caught his prey when he could. He ate withered fruits. Some nights he went hungry.

  Then one day the ice broke. A warm wind came in from the Southwest and the ice popped and peeled off the trees. The crust on the hill turned to slush and rolled down the valleys. Where the warm sun hit the sides of the hill, the snow melted and the leaves lay bare and soggy on the ground.

  One evening as Vulpes lay curled on a stump in a little patch that lay free from the snow, he could hear the leaves moving steadily a few feet away from him. He lifted his head and watched. He thought it might be a mouse, but his nose immediately caught the strong musky scent of Blarina, the short-tailed shrew.

  Vulpes did not pounce upon him because he did not especially care for the shrew as food. Sometimes he was sorry for this for the woods were full of them. They tunneled and dug everywhere and were more numerous than mice.

  Vulpes sat still and watched the long-snouted animal pry his way under the leaves in search of insects. Blarina was not pretty. He had small eyes almost hidden in his slick soft fur. He was lead brown in color and matched the decaying leaves of the floor of the woods where he crawled. He was short and dumpy. He was only about five inches long with a very short tail.

  Blarina was so busy and so near-sighted that he didn’t see Vulpes. But the fox could not be bothered with him. He had just finished his evening meal and pieces of it lay on the ground not three feet away from where he was resting.

  Blarina caught the scent of the food. He ran over to it in a furious waddle, his nose twitching and turning. He leapt upon it savagely and tore it apart with a ferocity that surprised the fox. Hardly had he gulped down one piece before he darted to another and set upon it with the same rage. Vulpes thought Blarina had never eaten before, he ate so viciously. Then, the shrew caught the scent of Vulpes. As fast as his short legs would carry him he headed the other way and buried himself in the leaves.

  A rising tunnel of loam marked his retreating trail as clearly as if he had been on top of the ground. Vulpes thought it was funny that Blarina would hide in this manner. For a long time he watched him burrow under the leaves and through the ground. But Blarina thought he was safe in the dark earth.

  Presently the shrew hit one of the threads of an old run-way that he had made around the base of a hickory tree. It branched and turned, twisted and wove all over the woodland floor.

  Now Vulpes could not tell where Blarina was. He could be in any one of the many complicated passages. He put his head down and went back to sleep.

  December passed and January came. Vulpes was the handsomest fox in all of Maryland. His shrewdness had gained him respect and admiration in Muddy Branch.

  One cold night when a light fresh snow lay pale blue in the moonlight, Vulpes wandered down to a partly frozen stream. Here he stopped and sniffed the air. He caught the musky smell of Vison, the mink, who was out hunting. He listened and heard Procyon, the raccoon, fishing down the creek. The tinkle of forming ice rang out through the quiet valley. Overhead he heard the soft muffled flight of Bubo, the great horned owl.

  Vulpes was restless tonight. He trotted along the stream that threaded through the valley. He followed a trail over the hill above the Queen farm. As he passed he turned to look down on Brownie, the old Red Bone, and for a moment he thought he would call to him. But Vulpes did not want a chase. There was something new awakening within him that kept him racing over the Potomac River side.

  Even Muddy Branch did not satisfy the fox. The fields where he loved to hunt mice seemed barren and ordinary. Vulpes ran far and free over the farmlands and woods in search of a mate.

  CHAPTER SIX

  AS JANUARY PASSED and the hours of daylight grew longer, Vulpes left Muddy Branch for days at a time to wander toward the Blue Ridge Mountains. One evening when the air was nippy and cold, Vulpes was drinking at a spring on the side of a mountain. The bubbling water spilled over the rocks and twisted through the woods. The fox crouched low to watch it as it came out of the side of the hill. It burst free from the earth with force and sang softly as it fell over the roots of a tree and ran through the glade.

  While he listened to these new sounds near t
he spring, Vulpes heard footsteps behind him. They were the light footsteps of a fox. He looked up to see a lovely vixen coming toward him, carefully stepping on the rocks to keep her feet dry. The wind turned back the fur on Vulpes’ back as he stood and watched her gliding toward him. She was young and strong. He twitched his tail and ran toward her leaping high over the spilling water.

  The vixen checked her advance, turned, ran off into the woods several yards and looked back to see if Vulpes were following. He had circled her and was standing in the trail below, one foot resting on a log. Vulpes watched her closely.

  They sprinted off through the woods, taking the trails she knew so well. As they traveled along the mountain paths, her flirtations began to annoy Vulpes. She darted and dashed around his feet and scampered playfully into the leaves beside him.

  As they chased each other about the forest, Vulpes would catch the scent of prey. The vixen, to show her talents, stalked in the direction that he had pointed. But she was nervous and excited and usually gave the game fair warning that she was approaching. A quail flew up before her, and a rabbit darted off when she rustled the dry leaves. Vulpes was dismayed by her carelessness.

  By dawn, he knew this was not his mate. She would not follow him beyond the farms at the foot of Sugar Loaf Mountain, and hesitated when he dashed brazenly across an open field within view of a house. Her spirit of play and adventure left her. She became cowed and fearful when she wandered away from her native mountain trails. Vulpes could not help wondering how she would fare before Brownie and Joe in Muddy Branch. He felt she would not love the chase and the hunt. Then, he knew he wanted to return to Muddy Branch where every day was a new adventure and the hills resounded with the voice of Brownie and the call of Buck Queen. He was unhappy in the quiet woods of the mountain. The trails were unfamiliar and he missed the roar of the river. There was fine hunting here, but this was not his land.

  At dawn Vulpes led the vixen to the foot of the hill and started out across the fields. She ran with him as far as a dirt road and then circled, barking and calling to him to run back with her to the mountains. Vulpes slid through the wire fence and stopped on the other side. She did not follow. He turned and started down the road. The vixen trotted along the inside of the fence, but Vulpes did not look back. She halted and watched him glide down the road. He disappeared into a small woodlot. She could not follow. His route lay through farms and fields and she needed the protective shadow of the old mountain. The vixen turned slowly and went back into the forest. In the distance she could hear the caw of crows as they followed Vulpes along the fence rows, through woodlots and down the lonely wagon roads.

  Late that evening Vulpes came back to the River at Seneca, about five miles above Muddy Branch, after sleeping away the day in a farmland woods. He followed the small, deep stream to the canal locks at the river. As he came to the summer cottages along the creek, he left the water’s edge and moved back to an old road. It ran along the bottom of a small knoll and was covered with leaves. Bushes hung over it, and thick mats of honeysuckle almost squeezed it out of sight. The road led to an old red sandstone sawmill that stood like a giant shell among the trees. Great tulip poplars grew up through its roof that had long since fallen in and rotted away. Years ago it had been a mill where quarried sandstones were sawed into building blocks. Rusty pieces of machinery lay on its sandy floor and the old mill race still passed the shaft where the waterwheel had been. Old worn automobile tires were scattered in the race and vines wound over the building. The mill looked desolate and dead in the grove of tall trees.

  As Vulpes approached the mill, he saw a fox coming up the road. It was a vixen. The land was familiar to her and she passed the fallen walls of the old mill as easily as Vulpes passed the kennels of the Queen farm. He dashed toward her, barking in a low squall. Here was a vixen that knew the river bottoms and his homeland.

  When she saw Vulpes she snarled in an acid voice. The fox stopped. He felt the challenge of the fierce female. Her daring spirit encouraged him and he came nearer. From the hillside of brush and tangled vines a dog-fox appeared. He slunk past the abandoned building and stood beside the female. His teeth were bared and his great brush twitched excitedly from side to side.

  Vulpes understood that these two were mates, but he stood his ground. He was pleased by the big vixen’s strength and boldness even though her warning growls were now long and deep.

  Her dog-fox circled him. Vulpes kept his big brushy tail between himself and his opponent. Both foxes bared their fangs and watched each other over their shoulders as they stood side by side. The fur rose on their backs. Occasionally Vulpes jumped back as the tail of his opponent licked before his eyes. He felt no fear, for he knew he was larger and faster than his rival, but he was not sure he wanted to fight it out. This pair were mates, and his desire for the vixen was not strong enough to warrant a kill. However, he did flash his tail and leap toward the rival fox with enough ferocity to let him know he was master of the fight. Then Vulpes withdrew. The female did not snarl now as he passed her and moved down the road. She watched him walk slowly away. She turned to her mate and raced with him up the hillside and into the night woods. In a clearing, she looked back once more at the handsome fox, who was now standing in the road looking toward the frozen river.

  Vulpes went down to the shore and listened with great satisfaction to the water breaking through the ice at the dam. Its dull roar soothed his restless spirit and he followed the great broad body of water toward Muddy Branch. He was glad to be again in the land where Brownie hunted and old Buck Queen admired his cunning.

  At the dam he changed his direction and walked out along the jutting wall. In the misty distance below the waterfall he could see the islands that filled the river with their dark scattered shapes. Vulpes had never been to these islands, and now that the ice had bridged them with the main land he was tempted to visit these rich acres that smelt of grapes and fruit in the fall and of flowers and birds in the summer.

  Cautiously, he stepped onto the rough ice that had jammed in great chunks below the dam and between the islands. Vulpes ran swiftly so that his weight would not break the thinner patches of ice and drop him into the cold swirling water. He darted for a big boulder that was jutting just above the frozen surface. Here he rested and judged what course he would take over the wide perilous stretch that lay before him. He calculated a circuitous route that led from one small island to the next. Below these small bodies of land, the water flowed in slow eddies, and had frozen solid in the zero weather.

  Vulpes moved swiftly to the first island. He skirted the grasses and weeds for food, then leapt to the next. The dark outline of Grape Vine Island lured him on. The scent of sleeping quail and of rabbits came to him from the island as the wind drifted his way.

  The last narrow stretch from a large boulder to Grape Vine Island was dangerous. Between the two a deep current rushed. The ice had formed thinly over the swift water and was barely strong enough for Vulpes’ weight. He gathered his feet under him and made a swift dart. As he streaked across the barrier his feet touched the ice lightly, sending out white stars wherever they pressed. The stars moaned as they formed, shooting out to reach the shore just before Vulpes. The fox leapt to the sandy bank and glided up to a knoll to look across the island. It was rimmed with ancient elms that were bound together with drooping grape vines. The center of the island was cleared of all trees. It had once been a field where a farmer had planted crops and grazed cattle. Now it was overgrown with bushes and a few young saplings. Driftwood hung in the branches of the trees that surrounded it, marking the highwater level of a bygone flood. The fox stepped out into the field and sniffed the air. The scent of rabbits and mice smelt warm and heavy on the cold wind. Here was a rich hunting ground locked off from prowlers by the rough body of water.

  Vulpes immediately hunted food and then settled down on the dry leaves under the elms to sleep away the rest of the night. Just before sunrise, when the sky was pale with light, he
was awakened by the snap of a twig among the trees at the lower end of the island. He lifted his head.

  In the shadows of the thin morning light he saw Fulva, the vixen red fox who lived alone on the island. She was the most beautiful fox Vulpes had ever seen. He rose slowly and looked at her intently. She did not move a muscle, but stood with her head raised, at the foot of a tremendous elm whose roots were scooped bare by the flood waters. Her red-orange fur gleamed in the cool light.

  Vulpes walked toward her, his tail stretched proudly behind him. When he was only a few feet from her he stopped. Fulva took one step toward him—and by that gracious movement Vulpes knew he had found his mate. There was no flirtatiousness in her like the vixen of Mount Sugar Loaf, nor did she have the fierceness of the Seneca vixen. Vulpes felt content before this gentle fox. His restless urge to roam the hills and fields subsided.

  Vulpes went to her side and the two foxes walked quietly off through the spreading elms.

  For several days they played and romped in the abandoned field. Vulpes found his mate a close match for him when he hunted mice and rabbits. She was not as swift, but she planned her attacks more carefully and she never missed. Fulva took him all over the big island. Sometimes at dusk they would cross to isles just beyond their own to hunt while the misty winter sun disappeared over the Virginia hills.

  Fulva had been born on this island two years ago. During the summer her brothers and sisters had swum to the mainland, and with the great freeze of the next winter, her parents had followed. Fulva had remained behind. She liked the lonely island surrounded by water, the hunting, and the summers when the elms were green and singing with birds. The island belonged to her and she would awake in the evening, stretch and look quietly across her dark domain.