Frost Dancers: A Story of Hares

by Garry Kilworth

  Suddenly he hit an impassable elastic barrier. He went into a ball as the barrier whipped round him, jerking him to a painful halt. It held him tightly enmeshed. He kicked and struggled with his bonds, but only succeeded in becoming more entangled. Finally, when he stopped thrashing, he found himself wrapped in a net. There were other hares with him. He could hear Rushie nearby, grinding her teeth, and whistling. Every so often the net would jerk as some other unfortunate victim was brought to an elasticated halt.

  After a few moments, rough fingers grasped Skelter firmly by the ears. The indignation which might have been felt over such handling was swamped by the fear in his breast. Never in his life before had he been held captive, not even by another hare. It was a horrifying experience, and every vestige of confidence left his body. He knew he was going to die.

  The net was peeled away and fine string was retrieved from between his toes, from the angles created by his hind legs. Finally he was held aloft, his body like a plumb bob above the earth, his back legs kicking futilely down at air. He could smell burnt foliage on the man’s breath, and fermented food. There were other odours, from his clothes, and unpleasant, though sweeter, scents from his skin. Skelter was held up at eye level and was stared into, as if he were a vessel, his inmost thoughts exposed to the bright eyes of his captor.

  The man let out a roar, his teeth rattling in his mouth, his face creased. It was a ghastly sight, a terrible sound, which had Skelter squealing for mercy. The man was surely going to eat him alive. The horrible mouth was open, slavering, and the stinking breath was foul in Skelter’s nostrils. Yes, his head would be bitten clean off, swallowed, his body left to kick out the last of his miserable life. The terror was at its highest pitch.

  Then Skelter was swung through the air, released, and he landed on something hard. He was in an enclosed wooden space, and he scrabbled to get out immediately. Something stopped him, even though the front of the container seemed open to the air. Every time he threw himself against it, he rebounded back into the wooden interior. Then, when his terror would let him see straight, he realised that the front of the cage was covered with a stiff net of metal. He was still trapped.

  He found a corner of the cage, and hunched there, defecating in his fright. There was some hay on the bottom of his prison and he tried to hide his head beneath it, to escape the glare of his captor. Soon the man left him, presumably to deal with other captive hares.

  The cage was eventually lifted up and carried down the hillside, to the roadway at the bottom, where large vehicles waited. Into these the hares were stacked, then the back of the vehicle was closed, and suddenly it was night. There was no evening, no fading of the light: darkness fell, deeper than any night known before. Shortly after this a growling noise filled the blackness, there were vibrations shaking the world, and then the feeling of motion. Skelter gripped the wooden floor of his cage with his claws, thinking he was going to slide into some great pit without a bottom, and fall forever downwards.

  Skelter could not see any of his clan in the darkness of course, but he could smell and hear them.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he whispered. ‘This is Skelter.’

  ‘Bucker.’

  ‘Swifter.’

  ‘Rushie!’

  There were other names.

  ‘What’s happening to us?’ asked Skelter. ‘Bucker, you know things. What’s happening?’

  Bucker said, ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know,’ and Skelter could hear the suppressed panic in his voice.

  If the great Bucker was afraid, what chance did the rest of them stand. However, a jill by the name of Sprintie, came in straight afterwards with some ideas. She did not sound as terrified as Bucker seemed to be.

  ‘I expect we’re being taken away to be killed and eaten,’ she said. ‘If they had killed us on the mountain, our carcasses would not last long before rotting. I think they want to keep us fresh.’

  ‘What’s wrong with rotten meat?’ asked Skelter. ‘Hawks eat it all the time.’

  ‘Some carnivores get sick when they eat tainted food,’ came the reply.

  Rushie asked Sprintie, ‘Aren’t you afraid, if they’re going to kill us?’

  ‘It won’t be now, and when it does come, it’ll be quick. We’ll never see our mountain again, that’s for sure. I’d rather die anyway than live the rest of my life in a cage. Yes, I’m a little scared, but what can the worst be? A knock on the head, and you wake up as a flower.’

  ‘You think so?’ said Skelter.

  ‘I’m certain of it,’ replied Sprintie.

  So the hares settled down despondently, ready for the worst, it being only death after all. Skelter wished the motion would end, as he was feeling giddy and ill, with the smell of oil, the fumes and the rocking.

  Finally, the motion ceased, but outside the vehicle were sounds which could only have been created by men. There were mechanical things all around, and the barking of humans, and other unidentifiable noises. The night into which they had suddenly been plunged remained with them. None of the hares went to sleep for a long long time, and then when they did drop off, it was a light sleep, interrupted by many awakenings.

  Daylight came as suddenly as night had fallen, and they were given food and water. The food was not fresh, but it was edible. The water smelled and tasted foul, as if it had been treated with some hillside minerals. Bucker said he thought it was poisoned, and though they all drank it because they were desperately thirsty, they lay there afterwards expecting to keel over and die with stomach cramps.

  During that day, they were allowed to remain in the light. They were disconsolate and morose, lying on the bottom of their cages, only occasionally communicating. Once, one of them began thumping on the drum-like wood of her cage and the others followed suit until a heavy banging on the side of the metal box, accompanied by a loud human roar, stopped even that harmless pastime. Towards evening the whole place began to smell badly, of urine and faeces, and damp wood and hay where water had been spilled. The atmosphere became unpleasant and it was difficult to sleep. Cabbage stalks were left, and the odour from these was an additional irritant to the hares, who longed for the scent of growing heather. Bucker tried to kick his way out of the back of his cage, but it was a hopeless attempt at the impossible.

  There came another night, and a day, with more of the same, then they were handled again. The cages were taken out of the back of the metal box and put in another one: part of a long line of trucks standing on metal rails. Doors were closed, the darkness came, but not as deep as before. Motion. Motion. Motion. A rhythmic rattling sound accompanied their passage into the unknown which hypnotised them into drowsiness.

  Then the cages began to disappear as they stopped at places on their journey. First one, then another, then two or three at once, until only Rushie and Skelter remained to wonder what was going to happen to them.

  For all they knew, the others had been killed and eaten by the time they were eventually lifted out of the truck, and placed on the concrete ready for collection by some human with a fierce hunger. When the vehicle in which they had been brought began moving again and disappeared into the distance, they could see the shining rails in either direction, going on forever. The landscape around the tracks was flat and dismal-looking, with not even a knoll, let alone a mountain, to break the monotony. There were buildings everywhere: not just a house here, a house there, like in the highlands, but masses and masses of them, stretching out in ugly array on all sides. Oil and smoke and fumes choked the air, and they found it difficult to breathe without feeling sick. There was a tremendous amount of noise too, of metal against metal, rubber against rock.

  Human legs went by them, at a fast pace, their feet encased in polished hide. Once or twice a face came down to peer inside the cage, and teeth were bared on both sides of the wire. Skelter could not sense or smell any anger when these humans revealed their fangs, only a kind of amusement, as if the hares were things to be dallied with, as a twig or a root is played wit
h by a leveret.

  The cages were eventually placed on a trolley and rolled the length of the platform. Both hares were by this time resigned to their fate, and hardly even spoke to one another. They simply waited for death.

  They were taken in yet another vehicle, out to a place which smelled not of oil and other man odours, but of rotting vegetation and confined animals. It was, they realised, a farm – similar to those in the highlands. There were the smells and sounds of domestic beasts: of cattle and horses, chickens, rabbits, ducks … and horror, of dogs. There was mud there, though, which was preferable to concrete, and grass and other familiar scents. Skelter told Rushie that if he was going to die, it was better here, than in some place of concrete and metal.

  The cages were carried and put inside a large shed, where other animals were in captivity. A dog prowled around the floor, glanced up at them, yawned, but seemed totally uninterested in the hares. In fact chickens ran by the dog without fear. Unlike the dogs that accompanied walkers in the highlands which went berserk at the sight of any creature of the wild, especially hares and rabbits, this hound was so used to chickens, rabbits, ducks and other small livestock, it paid no attention to them whatsoever.

  There was a kind of lethargy about all the animals and birds on the farm, each of whom knew that their next meal was coming at an appropriate time, that they would not have to hunt or forage for their sustenance, so they had lost much of their instinctive edge. They were timid domestic creatures, who had been de-wilded over generations, until they were pale shadows of their former savage ancestors.

  When the hares had been there a short while, they realised they were in the same shed as a white rabbit. The tame animal had not taken the initiative, but now Skelter spoke to it.

  ‘Hey, you. How long have you been here?’

  The rabbit looked up from munching a carrot and stared at Skelter with soft brown eyes.

  ‘Are you talking to me?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ replied Skelter, surprised.

  ‘In that case, you address me as Snowy, and treat me with a little more respect. I’ve been here two years, which means I have seniority over you in all things.’

  Rushie chipped in.

  ‘Seniority for what? We’re all locked in cages.’

  ‘You might be, but I’m let out occasionally, to run around the yard. I’m trusted not to run away, which they will never do with you wild creatures.’

  Skelter said, ‘Doesn’t the dog bother you? Or the cat?’

  Snowy twitched his nose.

  ‘The cats – there are two of them, a big ginger torn by the name of Skeets, and Blackie, a spayed female – they can be a bit of a nuisance sometimes, but I just need to butt them, and they soon disappear. The dog, Rascal, he’s no trouble. He’s a border collie, a bit soft in the head.’

  Skelter was astonished.

  ‘You know the names of these carnivores?’

  The rabbit explained, in bored tones, that there was a common language amongst domestic livestock, called Farmyardese, through which they all communicated. Certain creatures, like himself, retained the old family language out of a sense of pride, but others, like the cows, had been in captivity for so long they knew only Farmyardese.

  ‘They are no longer what they were, but a separate species altogether now. The domestic cow – I mean, is there any other kind?’

  Rushie wanted to know what would happen to them, the hares.

  ‘Will we be kept as pets, like you?’

  ‘No. They’ll eventually come to take you away.’

  Skelter asked, ‘Where to?’ but the rabbit would not answer.

  ‘It’s not up to me to tell you that. I know, of course, because the dog who goes everywhere with the master, has told me – but I don’t think you want to know. It would scare you too much and I hate to see frightened hares.’

  Skelter thought that perhaps the rabbit was just showing off, and trying to worry them for some amusement of its own. After all, the creature must have been bored out of its mind, sitting in a cage for the whole of its life. So it got out once in a while, to roam the farmyard? There was about as much excitement in that, as there was in being confined to a cage.

  That night, the highland hare thought about his adventures, and the fact that he was still alive. He was missing his mountains and glens, the scent of the bee-humming heather, the smell of rain on the grasses, the deer gathering on the slopes – their antlers tangled with the mist, the wild peaks and crags battling with the clouds, the rushy burns and placid lochs full of sweet clear water, the salmon silver-leaping falls, even the wildcats and eagles – he missed even these old enemies – at least they were not like this lot around him, stuffed creatures with lack-lustre eyes and slack mouths, waiting out their whole lives for the excitement of death.

  ‘I miss the highlands,’ he said softly to Rushie, who was in the cage below him. ‘I miss them badly.’

  ‘So do I,’ came the mournful reply.

  There was nothing the pair of them could do about it but commiserate with one another. It seemed Sprintie was right, they would never see their old home again. How would they find their way back there, even if they escaped? There were stories of cats and dogs who found their old homes, after being taken away from them and dumped in a strange place, but they were creatures who wandered over the landscape anyway. They were not like hares, who did not venture too far from home, once home was established.

  Night on the farm was a quiet time, with just the shuffling of the cows and the occasional snorting of the pigs to break the silence. The dog got up and wandered around occasionally, his chain clinking, but nothing spectacular happened. With the dawn – actually quite a long time before it – the cock began crowing and the pigs started squealing and becoming restive. When grey light appeared at the shed window, they could hear humans tramping over the yard, and the sound of buckets.

  Then the pigs really began to let loose, as if they were having a battle over the slops they were being fed, shrieking at each other in the most obscene way. It alarmed both Rushie and Skelter for a while, until they got used to it, and Snowy told them it happened at every meal.

  ‘Pigs are such pigs,’ he told them. ‘They always want what the other one is eating …’

  The cows were led out to pasture, the tractor was started and went off into the morning, the dog barked at visitors, the cats went looking for rats in the barn, the hens were continually harassed by the rooster, and there were enough noises to keep any hare primed and ready for flight. These sounds later became merely interesting, and finally, as their time at the farm wore on, actually quite boring.

  Chapter Five

  The days on the farm were well spent, for Skelter learned more during that period, about humans and all those connected with them, than he would in a thousand years on the mountains. He sometimes wondered, at the end of two weeks, whether he might not know more than the ghost-hares who rode with a warrior queen in those far-off days of legend, when hares were deities and worshipped by men. He mentioned this to Rushie, who rebuked him sharply for his blasphemy.

  In the evenings, a man came with food and water and grumbled at all the animals in turn. There was no coherence in this primitive attempt at speech, and like most wild animals, Skelter was convinced that humans communicated by gesticulation and motion, because the moans and coughs they produced could surely have no meaning in themselves. On the other side, they waved their arms continually, showed the palms of their hands, blinked their eyes and blew their noses, shrugged their shoulders, bared their teeth, furrowed their brows, and performed all manner of bodily movements. These gestures and physical demonstrations simply had to be the signs that carried the information, and the grunts and groans were just superficial accompaniment. Skelter was of the belief that most of the time the humans remained unaware of the noises they were making: that it was a subconscious act.

  In the early morning, just after the light, the men would be around in the yard. Sometimes the shed doo
r was left open and the hares could see the ungainly humans blowing steam from their mouths, clapping their chapped hands together and stamping their feet. It was a ritual, carried out every day, before the men did things with all sorts of metal containers and machines. They played all day with these contraptions, making noises, churning up things, providing fodder for the animals.

  In the dawn too, the milk was stolen from the cows, none of whom were pregnant anyway, and the eggs taken from the chickens, none of which were fertilised either. It was a strange business. The humans did not drink the milk, nor eat the eggs: there was too much, too many, of both. They put them in containers which were collected by other men.

  One thing was certain, everyone was well fed, well looked after, and not an animal was forgotten. Snowy had been there two years, without being eaten, though he told them that chickens, piglets and other creatures disappeared from time to time. There were sheep too, said Snowy, out in the fields. Skelter knew about sheep, from the mountains, where some of them roamed free. Free that is, until the shepherd came to round them up, and they went stupidly with him to lose their coats or their heads.

  For most of the time though, the hares were bored. They felt that some kind of threat hung over their heads (which Snowy refused to go into), but terror loses its edge when it is ever present, especially as an unknown quantity.

  ‘Have you ever tried to escape?’ Rushie asked Snowy.

  The fat white rabbit said that he had, and what was more, had been successful.

  ‘I run away for a while every spring,’ he said, ‘when I can smell the sweet scent of something, I don’t know, enticing, in the air. It never gets me anywhere, perhaps because I don’t really know what I’m looking for, but at least there’s a sense of freedom for a while. Not that I want to be free permanently, of course – I’d have to feed myself, and all that sort of thing.’