Frost Dancers: A Story of Hares

by Garry Kilworth

  Instead, later that day another man came to inspect Skelter the way he had been examined at the beginning of the winter season by the rest of the household. Skelter recognised this new human: it was the man from the cottage in the field next to Whinsled Lea, Eyebright’s field. His black bushy beard and dark eyes had not been so closely observed before, but Skelter recognised his shape and scent and knew him to be the man so highly regarded by Stigand the otter. To confirm his suspicions, a hound appeared shortly afterwards by the man’s side, and it was the St Bernard, Bess.

  Amazingly the dog spoke to him.

  ‘Hello hare, you look a little frightened, but I wouldn’t worry. My master has come to buy you from the other man.’

  ‘You speak my language?’

  ‘I speak many languages because my master collects animals from time to time, so there is ample opportunity to learn.’

  Skelter considered this, but of course wondered why the man should want to collect other creatures.

  ‘Am I going to be eaten?’ he asked.

  ‘No, we’re saving you from that. You’re very lucky that you’re not a brown hare, or my master would not be so interested in you, but since you’re obviously a blue hare …’

  ‘From the highlands.’

  ‘ …from the highlands, yes, then you interest him. He must have heard about you from one of his contacts, and now he wants to take you away to study you.’

  ‘And when he’s done that, what happens to me then?’

  ‘You’ll probably be sent to a zoo or something.’

  Skelter blinked. ‘What’s a zoo?’

  ‘It’s a place where they keep wild animals so that they can be studied. It’ll be a nice zoo, if you go at all, because my master doesn’t believe in keeping animals caged. If you were a brown hare he would have let you go, but it’s doubtful he will travel all the way up to the highlands.’

  ‘But I have made my home down here on the flatlands now. You can ask Stigand the otter – he says he knows you well.’

  Bess looked down on him with soulful eyes. ‘Oh, I remember, I’ve heard of you. You’re Skelter, aren’t you? I don’t know what I can do to help though. I can’t speak to humans, even the intelligent ones, because they only bark and growl, as you know. I can get some things across with sign language, but the fact that you’re a blue hare come to settle in the south is too complicated.’

  ‘Please try. I don’t want to go to one of those zoo places. They sound just as bad as what I’ve got now.’

  Skelter had heard vaguely of places like zoos. He was appalled at the thought of spending the rest of his life in captivity. While he was under the hare run they had made for him there was always the chance of escape. The humans would eventually do something careless, or leave the run until it rotted enough for Skelter to gnaw his way out.

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Bubba was angry that the hare had escaped but he soothed himself with the knowledge that it had been close to death and must have died on its journey back to its colony. A creature as starved as that hare had been would have needed a miracle to survive and recover and Bubba knew that miracles were so scarce as to be virtually non-existent. Nevertheless, he brooded on it because he had not planned it to end this way. In his dreams he had satisfied his revenge by finally tossing the carcass out of the doorway himself, as unfit for his consumption. The act of deliberately not devouring his enemy was one which he felt was symbolic of his utter contempt for magical hares. He called to the tower for sympathy.

  —It escaped from me, tower.

  —Perhaps that was your intention, Bubba, to let the creature escape? So that it suffered the more. So that hope died gradually in its breast as it crawled away from here believing it would live?

  —Yes, yes, tower, you are always so comforting.

  —I merely speak the truth from the depths of my stone heart, as my brother did before me.

  So Bubba was mollified, the tower having come to his rescue once again. Stone was something he could rely on to confirm his opinion and set his mind at ease. He and the stones were so close in spirit as to be almost one.

  Winter came upon the land, cruel as the claws of a mythical beast, sharp as the beak of a legendary bird. It left frost on the hair of the marshes, the reeds and grasses, turning it white and hoary as if with age. Creatures that lived on and around this land grew scarce, some finding holes in which to sleep, others migrating to warmer climates.

  The backwaters of the brackish rivers froze over, leaving sticks like signposts jutting from the ice. There were many geese to eat, but men also came to hunt these fat foreign birds and Bubba had to be careful not to be seen. The rabbits were still there of course, and the now difficult to get at hares. With both of these creatures Bubba had to be patient and wait for mistakes, for he could not be assured of sweeping down and taking one when he felt like it. They had quickly learned ways to avoid him.

  Bubba hated the winter with its cold hard nights and its wet frozen-fog days. Winds came across the flatlands, over the sea from the continent, with savage intent. Days were dark however, allowing Bubba a much wider hunting circle, so that he was able again to reach the hare colony on the island. In the murk of the winter light he was able to hide his flights from the people below and extend the distance. In any case, humans were not attentive during the winter. They moved between their houses quickly, wrapped to the eyes, and seldom stared around or above them, as they might do in the other seasons.

  Bubba hated the winter though, because the cold seeped through his feathers, and chilled him. In his nest in the tower, he would dream himself back to being a chick, to a place where there were no winters, only hot sultry summer, never ending. In that place, green-dark and overgrown, he had never been cold. But mother had brought him here, where there were few trees and where the land froze over white for almost half the year.

  Bubba cruised over this blinding landscape, looking for food in the gloom and found the white backdrop helpful in spotting quarry which still wore summer camouflage. He had taught himself a trick too, on the hard ground. He could land near a hare’s form, and even if it had dug a short tunnel and was hiding in the U-bend, Bubba would peck its rump savagely, forcing it out head first. Then Bubba would snatch it up and carry it away, to feast on its entrails and gorge on its liver.

  One day he landed near a wire gibbet in a field and found the carcass of a hare pinned to it. On inspecting its pelage, Bubba was certain that this was the hare he had incarcerated in his tower and was triumphant. Not only had the creature died in great distress, its starved figure had been humiliatingly displayed for all to see, a sort of testimony to Bubba’s ruthlessness when dealing with his enemies. Even the magical hare had succumbed to his power.

  Bubba cruised above the winding rivers and streams, watching for creatures crossing the ice, for he could snatch them more easily from the flat surface and when they tried to run they skidded and fell in their desperation. Once, over a bridge, Bubba almost stooped on a human baby in a carriage, but checked himself, knowing that once he had killed mother’s kind he would be hunted down and destroyed. On that day he was unhappy, because it reminded him that he was not like mother, who had had no feathers, no claws, no beak.

  —Tower, what am I?

  —You are Bubba.

  —Yes, Bubba is my name, given me by mother, but what am I? Bird, beast or man?

  —You are the dark lord of the flatlands, bird, beast and man in one. You are all that is strong in a beast, you have the power of flight, you have man’s strength of will and ruthlessness. You are your mother’s son.

  —But I look like nothing on this earth nothing on this landscape.

  —What are features, outward appearances? Does the mountain question its shape? Does the torrent ask why it is raging? You have been given gifts of talons and hook, of a sharp brain, of a completely cold heart. Are these not enough? It is what you can do that’s important, not what you look like.

  —Yes, what I can do. A
nd I have no match here, no peer, no rival. I am the ruler of all, the red slayer that has no equal, the assassin of the skies. They see my shape and tremble. They watch for my shadow on the pale earth, and they die of fright when they see it. I am what I am.

  —Precisely.

  Bubba never stopped asking the tower these kind of questions, for there was always that weak spot within himself which questioned his uniqueness. Bubba wanted a history, like all creatures. He wanted a lineage, a past, a time to look back on and dream of. He wanted ancestors to revere, to call his own, to ponder with pride.

  He had mother of course, but was mother enough?

  It seemed not, for the questions were always there, nagging at him, pricking him like the little hooks of teasels when they got under his feathers. They were parasites, these questions, feeding on his uncertainty, his insecurity, his misery. He wanted to be happy. He desperately needed to feel complete, and he could never do that while he had no history beyond his own awakening in the world.

  The tower never became impatient with these repeated requests for a past, and always treated such enquiries with seriousness. The martello tower (like his brother church tower) was Bubba’s guardian, his surrogate parent, who had his welfare at heart and would protect him from his own fears, as well as from intruders and enemies.

  Bubba was grateful to the tower, and if he had never been capable of affection, he at least thought of the tower with respect. They were like each other, wrought from the landscape, unique in their small world.

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Skelter left the yard the same day the new dog arrived. Perhaps the man of the house had planned it that way so that attention was taken away from Skelter, who had become a favourite of the little human which could make so much noise when it was displeased. A new arrival was always more interesting than an old pet and the youngster got caught up in the excitement of his siblings, capering around the yard, causing the new dog to become overexcited and yell foolish nonsensical things.

  Anyway, the new dog was a mongrel, similar to the previous one, though of different colouring. She had a sort of dirty sandy coat. She was certainly very frisky and Skelter hoped they would not keep her chained up like the last one, to break her spirit. Her big brown liquid eyes might be her saving grace, however, and keep her from permanent shackles.

  And when he came to think of the old guard dog it seemed to Skelter that his spirit must have been quite strong still for him to have planned his escape so well. Where was he now? In some kinder human household, or roaming free? Skelter would prefer the latter, but then he was not a dog. Dogs, he knew, liked a roof over their heads and a hand to feed them. They related much more to humans than to wild creatures, and those that were roaming free, were pretty weird creatures, it had to be said.

  Immediately the new dog arrived the youngsters took her out for a walk.

  The bearded human came on a bicycle, without his giant dog, to collect Skelter, whose cage was placed on the back of the machine, on a small rack. This was better than being in a vehicle, which Skelter had been dreading, and the man obviously had an idea that animals did not like being enclosed.

  When they set off, at a gentle pace, Skelter was able to observe the countryside slipping by. Trees went running past them, going in the opposite direction, and the roadway flowed like a black river beneath. Everything was on the move, rushing back to where Skelter had come from, as if some great event was taking place precisely on the spot where he had been for the past few weeks.

  He stared out over the leisurely moving fields. It was a cold world out there. The snow had gone but conditions were still icy and the hoar frost clung to the stark hedgerows as if it owned them. Everything crackled with frozen stiffness, even old leaves which the man rode over on his bicycle. It was a clear crystal day though and very fragile: a touch might shatter it into a million shards of light. Skelter could see for miles across the flatlands since he was higher than the hedgerow and he enjoyed the sensation.

  At one point, he noticed a great deal of activity going on in a huge area a short distance away. A tall chainlink fence had been erected and there were diggers and tractors and all sorts of machinery at work laying a large concrete strip the size of several fields. There were buildings going up too, one taller than the rest: a sort of stubby tower with a glassed-around second storey. By the concrete strip were meadows of trimmed grass and Skelter could see one or two hares on this, eating mushrooms and seemingly oblivious of the workmen and the building. They obviously felt quite safe there.

  The bearded man stopped his pedalling and stood for a while, scowling at the activity. It seemed he did not approve of what was going on, though it was difficult to tell how angry he was behind that black facial hair.

  Eventually, the man climbed on his bicycle again and set off, glancing and muttering, until the building activity was out of sight.

  Finally, they arrived at the cottage and Skelter got very excited, because he could see Whinsled Lea from his position on the back of the bicycle and knew that somewhere in that frosty field was a hare called Eyebright. It was almost too much to bear, being so close yet so far away. Freedom! He could smell it in the air.

  Bess was there to greet her master with as much fuss as if he had been gone for several winters, and then she gave some attention to Skelter.

  ‘He’s got a run for you, out on the back lawn. The ground is like concrete though, so you won’t be able to dig yourself out.’

  ‘Thanks for telling me,’ said Skelter, sourly.

  ‘Oh, you’ll be all right. I shan’t be able to help you to escape – that would be more than my life’s worth – but I’m sure he’ll let you go in the end.’

  ‘To a zoo place.’

  Betsy shrugged and looked suitably sympathetic.

  Once Skelter had been installed in the new run and the female of the house had cooed over him like a dove for a few minutes he did feel more secure. Even if he were transported away to a zoo it was better than being stuck on that piece of concrete outside the farm worker’s house for the rest of his life. Even a zoo must be better than that. Furthermore, there might be a quick thaw before then: one or two hot days which would get rid of the top layer of frost in the soil. In which case Skelter could dig himself to freedom.

  Skelter spoke to Betsy about the building activity he had seen out on the road.

  ‘Yes, my master doesn’t like that place, or what they’re doing to it, but I have no idea why. Jittie the hedgehog has been inside …’

  ‘But there’s a tall chainlink fence all around the area,’ protested Skelter.

  ‘Oh, hedgehogs are good climbers. They’ll scale a chainlink fence or an ivy-covered wall quicker than a hare can dig a form. Didn’t you know that?’

  ‘Well, in the highlands I didn’t get much chance to talk to hedgehogs. I mean, I had my own family up there, anyway, so I didn’t bother a great deal with other creatures.’

  He looked at Betsy’s enquiring features, feeling a little shamefaced that he had been such an elitist in the old days. It was true though, that when you had your own kind around you, you didn’t bother too much with outsiders. In fact you treated them with contempt, only tolerating their presence, and sometimes even chasing them away. His cousins, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces had surrounded him, cushioned him against the outside world. It was almost fortunate, from his spiritual standpoint, that he had been captured and given a look at the wider world.

  ‘So no, I didn’t know hedgehogs could climb.’

  Betsy nodded. ‘They’ve got powerful little legs, each with a strong claw, and anything they can grip, like wire or ivy, they’ll use to climb an object in their path. They can’t climb trees of course, unless they’re covered in ivy, but then why should they? Anyway, Jittie has been inside the area you’re talking about, and she says she can’t see what all the fuss is about. They’re just putting up a few buildings and laying some flat roads.’

  ‘They didn’t
look like roads to me. They were far too wide. And they stopped at both ends and the fields started again.’

  ‘Well, I can only repeat what I’ve been told. I haven’t been inside myself, though my master has taken me for a run and walked around the outside of the fence. Some other men came and barked at him, pointing back the way we had come, and my master retraced his steps. He was in a foul mood though and kept looking back at the people that had chased him away as if he wanted to punch their noses. Humans do that sometimes you know – punch noses. It means something in their culture.’

  The run in the back garden of the cottage was infinitely more pleasant than the concrete slab which had been his previous home, but it was still not freedom. Skelter wondered whether Stigand would come to visit the garden as he said he often did so that Skelter could get word to Eyebright that he was alive and well and in need of assistance.

  The man with the beard came out to look at him quite a lot, and the woman too. It was disconcerting to be stared at for hours on end as if he were a freak. The other thing that happened was that the man kept pointing a black box at him and making clicking sounds. At first Skelter had been afraid of this box because it was used like a gun, but when there were no loud explosions, and no missiles came his way he realised it was a harmless piece of equipment.

  There were activities of interest in the garden. For instance, the man had many humane traps, in which he captured mammals and birds. These creatures were only retained for a short period of study before being released.

  One trap was near to Skelter’s cage. It was a net even flimsier than the one in which he had been captured himself during that hare-gathering in the highlands. This net, so fine that it was barely visible, was strung across the garden. In it the man caught small birds which he ringed around their legs, then let go again. The birds suffered no real physical injury in the net, and the man or the woman was almost always on hand to rescue them quickly from its folds. Skelter could not even imagine what reason the man had for putting silver rings around birds’ legs, and Betsy was no help either. If it made him happy, said the dog, where was the harm? Skelter was inclined to think that the harm was to the dignity of the creatures who suffered the humiliation and terror of being caught in a human spider’s web, but he didn’t argue with the dog, for she always came hotly to the defence of her master.