Vulpes, the Red Fox

by Jean Craighead George

  Pup by pup, she moved her family to the new site. The men had found their home. She did not know when they might return. If they did, they would not find a trace of a fox.

  Late that night Fulva had all nine of her cubs in the dry leaves of the rock cave. Here they were not protected as well as they had been in the deep den. She knew her job to protect the unschooled and helpless youngsters against the wild dangers of the woods would be much more difficult now.

  Vulpes sensed Fulva’s problems and stayed near the rock cave, hunting the valleys near-by for food. One night while out scouting, he caught the scent of Vison, the mink. He was coming down to the edge of the small streamlet that ran below the cave. Vulpes heard his pups romping in the moonlight. They were big enough now to come down the hill to the valley below to play and explore.

  The fox sensed the danger of the situation and decided to head off Vison. He stole down to the stream several yards away from the mink and splashed lightly in the water. Vison heard the water break. He looked up. It sounded as if a frog had jumped into a pool. Sliding along the edge of the stream, he moved stealthily toward the disturbance. Vulpes moved silently toward him. He growled softly. Vison lifted his head and listened. He slipped into the creek and swam to the other side. The mink disappeared in the night. Vulpes watched him go. He knew there was no fear in this powerful animal who moved like a flash of light and could easily slash to pieces enemies larger than himself.

  But Vison was in no mood to take on the swift Vulpes and he left the stream for the deep woods.

  That night Vulpes brought home a mouse and hid it in the leaves and twigs by the cave. The pups were exposed to dangers in their new home and must learn to hunt as early as possible. When they smelt the buried mouse they stalked it carefully. Then they would arch into the air and drop upon it in one swift motion. As their paws came down, their teeth struck through the leaves to the buried mouse.

  Fulva took care of most of the training, but Vulpes often went out into the woods with the audacious pup who was learning more rapidly than the others. He taught him where to find grasshoppers and fruits, and showed him the trails that the rabbits took to the fields. The audacious pup was full of spirit and eager to follow his father on all his travels.

  One evening while they were walking along the road side, the audacious pup carefully placing his paws in his father’s footsteps, Vulpes stopped and sniffed the air. The pup stopped and lifted his nose, too. Buck Queen was returning home with two dogs. Vulpes shoved the cub into a hollow log and brushed him down with his tail. The little fellow felt the fear of the impending crisis and crouched quietly in the shelter.

  His father went off to a hill and watched the old hunter come down the road. He kept a line of trees between himself and the man. Buck was not hunting, and one of the dogs was on a leash. The other was heeling. Buck had taken the two setters out to a near-by field to train them in the art of hunting quail. Freckles, the pup, was on the leash. He was exhausted by the afternoon of training and walked homeward obediently. Dash, the older dog, was thoroughly trained and had fallen behind Buck on the order, “Heel.” Here he pranced eagerly as though restrained by an invisible chain, hoping for a word from his master that would send him flying through the thickets searching for game. But Buck was on his way home and the order did not come.

  Vulpes relaxed as they passed, but did not take his eyes away from the trio. When they had rounded the bend, he turned to bring out his pup again, but the little fox was already standing beside him.

  His forehead was wrinkled and he was watching these new animals with tremendous interest. Vulpes knew it would not be long before he must take the little fellow to the hill above the Queen farm and teach him about man.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE HEAT OF SUMMER rode in with June. The river trickled over the dam and the great gneiss and sandstone boulders that obstructed its course lay dry and bare in the water. In the cave, Vulpes and Fulva and the nine cubs were buried from sight by a heavy growth of summer grasses and leaves. Occasionally in the depths of night when the dew was on the grass, Fulva would take a cub out to the fields to hunt mice.

  Late one night when she was out with the audacious pup she jumped high over the grasses to show him how to leap clear of the long blades and scan the field for movement. The cub liked these excursions and would leap in the air proudly. Then he saw his Mother rise on her hind feet and stand there as she looked over the grasses. This delighted the youngster and he tried to imitate her. But no sooner would he push himself up than he came tumbling down again. He worked at this trick until dawn lighted the eastern sky and it was time to go home.

  The audacious pup was disappointed that his adventures were over and followed her reluctantly to the end of the field. At the woods he tried once more to rise to his hind feet. Suddenly, he found himself balanced comfortably and surveying the area with his dark paws dangling in front of him. He looked over the field and sniffed the air. Then he caught a jerky movement at the far end of the lot. His ears shot forward in anticipation. As he watched he realized that the movement was strange to him although not unfamiliar. Somewhere in his memory he connected it with Buck Queen. Hot pangs of fear shot through him. It was a man—Will Stacks, who was out to fish the river for catfish. It was early in the year, but he was already beginning to gather the ingredients for his fox lure that he would mix in the fall for another year of trapping. Will was now after fish oil. He crossed the field at the river end and went out to untie his rowboat and pole to the deep holes.

  The audacious pup had seen enough. Forgetting his accomplishment he darted past his mother and hurried over the hills to the cave.

  That night Vulpes was standing in the midst of his nine large pups, trying to hold his own against flying paws and whisking tails when he heard the call of Bubo, the great horned owl.

  The fox did not move. Perhaps this was the chance he had waited for for so long: for Bubo to dive at his cubs. If he did, Vulpes would reward himself with a mouthful of feathers or the old owl himself. He waited like a set trap.

  Above, in a hickory tree, Bubo was looking the situation over carefully. He saw the sly red fox and thought better of whatever he had in mind. He was not hungry anyhow, and the cubs were rather large to trifle with. Furthermore, his own family of this new spring, had flown from the nest and were hunting on their own. As he saw no chance for a successful attack, he decided he preferred mice and flew silently off through the trees. Vulpes licked his jaws as he watched the owl float like a shadow over the hills. He looked down at his family.

  Fulva had returned from the stream where she was schooling a young vixen. They had caught several frogs in the boggy leaves and were bouncing up the hill, well fed, to join the family. Several pups frolicked off to meet them and all came back to the cave, yapping in chorus. Fulva sensed the alarm in Vulpes. She knew it was either Bubo or Vison, for she was aware of her mate’s particular distaste for the old owl and the strong mink. Their communications were limited and she could only guess the reason for his tenseness.

  As the summer wore on, Vulpes became less attentive to his cubs. They were hunting for themselves now and doing well in the valley of Muddy Branch. Occasionally he would go off with one of them on a rabbit chase, but that had almost stopped now. He spent a large part of his time on the hill above the Queen farm. Several times he raced with Brownie and Joe through the hills and fields. Buck was getting them in trim for the coming hunting season and it was not unusual for Vulpes to waken in the morning with the sound of Brownie’s voice ringing through the leafy woods. Off the two would go, recapturing the spirit of the autumn when both hound and fox thrilled to the chase.

  In early September it began to rain. It rained steadily and long. A tropical hurricane was moving up the coast and all along its margins the rains were falling heavily. The skies were leaden for many days. The pups, now ruddy and handsome, sought shelter in the cave and confined their explorations to the hills near-by.

  One night when
the rain was pelting the hills and digging little holes in the road that circled Buck Queen’s place, Vulpes went down to the river. The bare rocks were covered and the dam was buried under a sheet of water. The lacy rush of the falls had changed. It was dull and heavy-sounding. The whole river groaned and moved swiftly along its bed. While Vulpes was watching the great muddy body moving over the land, the water reached up and lapped around his feet. The gnarled willows along the bottom were standing in the swirling river. There was no sharp cut to mark the line where the river ended and the land began. These trees spent much of the early months of the year with their roots in the water, and clusters of dried leaves and boards high in their limbs marked the water level of previous floods. They hung like old birds’ nests from almost every limb.

  Vulpes was not alarmed by the rising water and returned home along the canal, leisurely hunting berries. When he reached the mouth of Muddy Branch, he noticed that these placid waters were swollen and swift. The land was different and the stream smelled strongly of decayed leaves and fish. The fox hurried up the hill to the cave. A few cubs were near-by, but many of them were out hunting in the rain. Fulva was not around. He curled up in a laurel thicket to shield himself from the weather.

  He woke often during the night to hear the powerful groaning of the river as it moved over the land. The sound of its fury came closer and closer. Vulpes got up several times and anxiously looked for his family. Once or twice he trotted down to Muddy Branch and was now alarmed to find the stream had burst its banks and was running wild across the valley.

  Procyon, the raccoon, climbed a sycamore tree to his den far above the water. Moles that lived along the water’s edge were fleeing before the growing wrath of the river. They were frightened and uncomfortable without a nest or burrow to dive in when the prowlers of the night threatened them.

  A squirrel raced from limb to limb, uncertain and confused in the dark. He had gone to sleep in a tree along the edge of the river at dusk and was frightened from his rest when the waters, digging the earth from beneath the roots of the yellow poplar in which he slept, had tipped it into the current.

  Vulpes went back to the cave and waited for his cubs to return. The rain was still pouring out of the sky. Toward morning five of the pups returned and wandered restlessly around the rocky hill. The fox thought he should lead them to higher ground, but his concern for Fulva and the other youngsters kept him close to the cave.

  By dawn the water was creeping over the bottomlands and in many cases had linked the canal and the river.

  Old Buck Queen got up early. He walked down through the woods to see how high the river had come during the night. He was uneasy about his kennels and chicken coops, but was more concerned about the little old lady who lived in a house by herself on the edge of the canal. She had opened and closed the locks years ago when barges of coal and grain moved along the inland waterway. Several times before she had had to move before the rising river, and though she knew it would happen again and again, she always returned to her old home. Buck thought he would have to help her. The rain had not let up and the water was still rising. Hardly had he left his farm when he met the river. It lapped gently at the fence posts that marked off Mrs. Violet’s yard. Buck rolled his boots up to his hips and waded through the water that was now nearly a foot deep on the old lady’s lawn.

  Mrs. Violet, however, had listened to the river all night and knew that she must leave again. She had packed her most cherished belongings, carried a few chairs and dishes to the second floor and was standing on her front porch shaking her fist at the water, telling it to go back.

  “It’s a mean river,” she called to Buck when she felt his footsteps on the porch. The little old lady was almost eighty-six and her eyesight had gone back on her.

  “It’s going to be a bad one this time,” Buck said as he picked up her bag. “Can I take some more things upstairs for you?”

  “No, one of the boys is coming down from the farm on the hill,” she said, clutching her cane and feeling for the edge of the porch. “Just get me out of here. I’m good and mad at that river.”

  Will Stacks was up early also. He was out in his shed gathering together his traps and trapping equipment and storing them in his car. He had taken the covers off his iron bed and had thrown the mattress across the beams of the shed. The water was to his door, and he had brought his rowboat up from the river and chained it to the back porch, where it bobbed around in the muddy water. Will knew the vengeance of the river. No one need tell him, or any of the people who lived along its banks, that it was time to leave. They left quietly when it threatened.

  By noon the rain had stopped and the sun broke through the clouds that were blowing swiftly to the East. Vulpes had taken the five pups up to the woodlot on the hill above the river bottom, and had trotted back to search for the others.

  Meanwhile, Procyon awoke to find the river surging just below his hole in the sycamore. He put his head out and was frightened to see the water boiling beneath his door. Carefully he eased his way forward and climbed farther up the big tree. High in the slim branches he clutched eagerly to the swaying tree. Everywhere he looked he saw water. He was wet and uncomfortable and searched frantically for some route that would lead him to safety.

  Suddenly, he felt the tree groan under the terrific force of the water. The ground had washed out from under it and it clung to the bank by a few tenacious roots. The giant sycamore danced like a toothpick in the vicious current. Procyon looked about fearfully. There was no escape. The tree was entirely surrounded by water, and the nearest limb of the next tree was just out of reach. He clung hopefully to his slim perch. Then, a roaring swell hit the tree and lifted it like a leaf from its mooring. The current twisted it gently and carried it out into the swift water. Procyon crawled to the higher branches that still jutted out of the river. The coon and the tree rode the rapid current like a swift ship. Then they hit a whirlpool and the great sycamore went down like a twig. The frightened Procyon was swallowed in the muddy flood. He was a strong and powerful swimmer and as he was carried away he made a bold attempt to save his life. However, the groundhogs that had sought refuge in the high limbs of the leaning trees were unable to cope with the current when their havens were swept away. They went down with the flood.

  Vulpes raced back along the high ridges of the hills above Muddy Branch. They were small islands jutting above the water. The fox saw no trace of his mate or youngsters. For several hours he wandered the deserted hills. Even the birds had left and flown inland where they could get more food. Trees, marking the bank of the old river bed were snapped one by one from their moorings as though they were twigs. Vulpes recognized nothing. All his trails were under water, and the familiar landmarks were gone. He took the ridge to the Queen farm, running swiftly, zig-zagging around the land to be sure he had not overlooked a spot where Fulva might be. The water was over the road now, and the scene around him was ugly in the light of the sun that burst the clouds.

  Fulva was not on the hilltop. Vulpes searched vainly, glancing down on the farm scene below as he continued his anxious hunt. The Queen household was still busy. The water had come up to the pigpen and was lapping the fence around it. Through the trees Vulpes could see men rowing in boats as they picked chairs and chickens out of the flood. They looked strange and comic floating in the high branches of the oaks and poplars.

  Vulpes ran down the hillside and into the valley once more. The brook below was a giant stream, boiling and carving itself a new bed in the soft black loam. He heard a whimpering. Looking to the right Vulpes saw one of his pups preparing to leap the broad stream. He would crouch to spring, lose his nerve and then whine and wander back up the hill. Gathering up nerve again he would come back to the stream to jump. Vulpes ran over to him eagerly as the pup rushed toward him. The fox looked around for Fulva. The hill they were on was now an island, and he knew that if any of his family were stranded on it, they would soon die from lack of food. He skirted the land but foun
d nothing. Vulpes came back to his cub and, without hesitating, ran for the stream, leapt and cleared the bank by several feet. The pup, inspired by his father’s confidence, jumped after him. He made it safely and glided up the hill to the woodlot where his brothers and sisters were gathered.

  As Vulpes brought his son to the woods, he stopped and sniffed the air. Fulva was coming downwind. Then he saw her with the other three cubs crossing the top of the hill. He barked and she stopped in her travels. Joyfully she ran to her mate. Fulva had led the other cubs out of the area by a circuitous route. The reunion was happy and the family capered in the drying leaves for several hours. Food was abundant. The mice and rabbits driven from their burrows and nests in the bottomlands were now homeless strangers in the hills and easy prey for the woodland hunters.

  The water reached its crest about sunset. Houses whipped downstream with the current like cracker boxes. All night long the river surged and strained. Then it started back to its bed. It dropped rapidly and by dawn the next day the roof tops of the houses along the canal had come back into view. They dripped with foul-smelling slimy mud.

  Will Stack’s house had been completely submerged but now he could see his chimney jutting above the water. He had moved in with Cy Cummings whose fields were covered with water but whose house stood high and dry on a hill above the flood. All the next day Will waited for the water to recede. That night the little shack stood ankle deep in calm muddy flood water, but his shed was gone. The current had torn it loose and tossed it down the river.

  It took several more days for the river to drain to its normal bed. When it did, the stranded families along the waterfront trekked back like refugees to their sodden homes. They worked all week scooping the mud from their floors and washing the walls and furniture.

  Mrs. Violet’s home had suffered the most. The porch was caught in the trees that surrounded her place, and the front of the house had sagged and caved in. Her friends told her of the damage and advised her to move farther up the canal to an old lock house at Seneca Creek that had withstood the flood. The little old lady left her land, shaking her fist at the river and denouncing it loudly. Her brown, peaked hat bobbed with each accusation.