Skelter took the garden wall in one leap, worthy of a deer in flight, and found to his disappointment that the garden itself was empty. He dashed to the following side, to reach the potting shed, and this is where his energy gave out. Several lengths from the protection of the raised shed, he flopped onto his side and lay panting and helpless.
The flogre came in low and fast, missing the top of the wall by the thickness of a slate. Its talons were outstretched and there was a cry in its throat, which could be nothing but triumph. Skelter lay on his side, panting rapidly, watching the dark shape hurtle down, swift and merciless, and waited for the sharp sting of its claws piercing his skin, the rush of air as he was snatched aloft.
Suddenly the monster was transformed into a ball and hit the ground, rolling across the lawn to within a length of where Skelter lay.
The highlander watched amazed as the flogre struggled, screeching fiercely, as it tried to escape the fine film that wrapped around its form. Then Skelter realised that the conscientious owner of Bess, the trapper of small birds, had put his invisible nets back up immediately the high wind was over. The flogre had flown straight into one of these nets, draped between poles across the garden, having a gap beneath their curtain-like folds under which grounded creatures could run.
There would be many species of bird carried out of their usual territory during the hurricane, blown in from an ocean flight on their way from one distant land to another, but the naturalist had caught a creature which would astound him, so far out of its normal habitat as to be nothing short of remarkable. A wide ocean separated the flogre from its true hunting grounds, where the hardwood forests were thick and the rivers flowed long and wide through half a continent.
However, the danger was not yet over for Skelter, as the flogre ripped a hole in the fine netting for its beak to emerge, and began shuffling towards the exhausted hare. The wicked claws, though tangled in the mesh, were able to pierce it and grip the turf, pulling Bubba closer to his prey. His hook clacked and snapped, so close to the highlander’s nose he could smell the old meat on the breath of the monstrous bird.
Skelter struggled to get to his feet, but his run had made him uselessly weak, for a hare will race to the point of exhaustion, when every ounce of his energy has been drained and he has nothing left.
The flogre shrieked, almost deafening the mountain hare, whose ears sprang up at the startling sound. At last the flogre’s beak snapped on flesh, gripping a dark-tipped ear. Bubba began to pull, dragging the hare towards him, in order to get it close enough to administer a few swift jabs at Skelter’s eyes. Thus he could pierce the hare’s brain, and immobilise it permanently.
Skelter was vaguely aware of a distant shouting, as if from behind some barrier or wall.
The mountain hare dug in his paws, resisting the flogre’s attempts to get him within striking distance, but was unable to get a grip on the slippery grass. His claws left tracks on the top of the lawn, as he slid gradually towards the monster. The death strokes were an instant away, when the sharp beak finally severed the eartip and released him.
Skelter rolled away, and at that moment a greater shape flung itself on the flogre, and held it fast. It was the bearded man from the cottage, and he quickly taped up the flogre’s beak, and its claws, rendering it helpless, as it struggled inside the netting, its eyes blazing with indignation and naked fury.
The huge bird was taken from the lawn, to the cottage, and the man disappeared inside with his prize.
Bess came out to join Skelter on the lawn.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
Skelter looked up at the great hound. ‘I think so. Lost a bit of an ear, but under the circumstances …’
Bess said, ‘What on earth is it? I saw it from the window when I heard the commotion, and yelled for my master. He was doing something in the kitchen, but when he saw that monster he went berserk. I’ve never seen him so excited.’
‘He was excited – I was terrified.’
‘I’m not surprised. Do you know what it is?’
Skelter replied, ‘The wild creatures call it the flogre, but what it really is, or where it comes from, no one knows. Apparently it just appeared in the flatlands some time last year, and it’s been terrorising the countryside ever since. It needs a lot of meat to sustain it: another season or so and it would have wiped us out. Will – will your master let it go, once he’s ringed its foot?’
Bess snorted.
‘I very much doubt it. I should think the only place that creature is going is to the zoo. It’s out of its habitat, and there’s all sorts of things to consider, like the balance of nature and such. I’m sure he won’t let it go. He only releases creatures that live around here. You were an exception.’
‘Well, thank goodness you were around Bess, to raise the alarm. You saved my life. I’m so weary I can hardly move a paw. How can I thank you?’
‘Pooh, think nothing of it. I’d do the same if you were a St Bernard.’
It was a little while after Bess had left him that Skelter realised she had made a joke.
It took several minutes to recover, but then he was able to stand and totter down to the stream, where Stigand and Sona were waiting patiently to hear his story.
PART SEVEN
The Greater Birds
Chapter Forty Six
Skelter was limp with relief at having escaped what should have been his death. Crossing the garden his legs would hardly hold him up, having been weakened not only by tremendous physical punishment, but as a result of his mental state too. Many wild creatures would have keeled over and given up on life – had he been a mouse, or a sparrow, his heart would have stopped long before now. But he was a hare, a highland hare, and he would not surrender his life without good reason. Such an experience, however, left him fatigued in brain as well as body, and it was going to take some time to recover fully.
As Skelter scrambled under the garden gate and made his way down to the stream where Sona and Stigand were standing and wondering, a shadow passed over the land. Skelter instinctively cringed and looked for shelter, for the shadow was of a great bird, high in the heavens. For one moment the mountain hare thought that the flogre had escaped the clutches of the man, was looking for its final revenge, but as he crouched there looking up at the shape in the sky, Skelter could see this was not so.
The bird which flew overhead, casting a stiff shadow on the ground, was too inflexible to be the flogre. It did not wheel, or circle, or do anything except fly in a straight line across the sky. Its wings stuck out rigidly from its body, and the longer Skelter stared at it, the less like a bird it actually seemed. It appeared to be a stupid creature, with little will of its own and from its throat came a growling sound that never varied in pitch or tone.
The great bird then began to descend, still in that fixed flight pattern, towards the fields beyond the island. Skelter wondered whether they were going to be plagued by another predator so soon after getting rid of the one that had been menacing them for so long.
He continued down the slope, until he reached Stigand and Sona.
‘Did you see that?’ he asked them.
Stigand asked, ‘Are you all together all right, youngish hare? Sona and I were in great trepidation.’
Skelter realised the otters had not looked up when the great bird went overhead: they were still concerned about the flogre, not having witnessed its capture. He decided to forget about the new menace for a while and set their mind at rest on the old one.
‘Yes, I think so. I’m feeling a bit washed out at the moment, but I’ll be fine later. The man’s got it now, you know. He captured the flogre before it could bite off my head. It was close enough for that, I can tell you.’
Sona, staring at Skelter’s head, asked a question of Stigand in their own language. Stigand acted as interpreter.
‘My mate of the female sex asks if you were wounded in body, and what must happen to the monster?’
‘No, no wounds of any kin
d, except for this little clip out of my ear, which will soon heal. The blood’s already started to clot. As for the flogre, Bess says the man will send it to a zoo. We shan’t be seeing that one again. But there is …’
Stigand rattled away to Sona, and then turned to Skelter with a look of relief. ‘This is good happenings. Everyone can breathe with less difficulty nowadays, with the flogre being incarcerated by mankind. I must remark that when we viewed the creature in its ascension, we were replete with apprehension, wondering if it would kill us all and every one. Then you, the bravish hare, led the creature to the hands of the man. This is legends in the making! This is heroes for breakfast stories!’
Skelter said, ‘Now don’t you go making me out to be some kind of selfless champion. All I was doing was running away from that thing, and mighty glad I was to get rid of it. I didn’t save anyone, I was just trying to save myself.’
‘Still, you decoyed yourself and Sona and I are brimmed with gratitude. We have our most obliged feelings to place at your feet. Please accept our thanksgivings.’
‘Now, Stigand …’
‘No, no more explanatories. You must get back to your female mate, and tell her of your great conquer.’
Skelter was going to do nothing of the sort, but he took his leave of the two otters and told them he would be returning with Eyebright to Whinsled Lea in the summer, probably with a few leverets in tow.
He travelled over the fields, reaching the colony about dusk. The twilight shadows had begun to creep across the land, transforming it into that nightmarish time of grey shapes which caused inanimate objects to move as if they were live creatures. Headinthemist was chanting one of her ritual songs, about wych elm twigs, totems, and other protective items.
Skelter sat out in the open, scratching at his wounded ear.
Moonhare cried from her hidey-hole in some stones.
‘Skelter, if you stay out there any longer, you will die. The flogre …’
He decided to be a little flippant.
‘Let the flogre come! I’ll scratch its eyes out.’
There was a gasp from the rest of the hares, and everyone started muttering at once. Eyebright crawled out from beneath their log.
‘Have you gone mad? You’ll be killed.’
Skelter did a somersault, stood up on his hind legs, and shadow boxed the air.
‘I’m ready for the monster. Bring it on!’
Another series of gasps and groans from the other hares.
Eyebright started to panic, rushing backwards and forwards, crying that he had gone mad and someone must help her get him under cover. Skelter realised he had gone too far at that point. His mate was in a delicate condition and he could harm the leverets by his silly play acting.
‘It’s all right,’ he told her, ‘I’m only joking. The flogre has gone. It’s been captured by the man in the cottage and it’s on its way to a zoo, somewhere far away from here. If not today, then tomorrow.’
He then told them all the story of his experiences, and how he had escaped death by the merest fraction, offering his clipped ear as proof of his claim. They were all suitably impressed, though Eyebright was upset, because she said the black tip had gone from his ear completely and she had admired it so much when it was there.
Few of the hares would emerge from their protective places however, and it would be many days, weeks, before they would feel safe in the open – especially since a number of them had seen the same stiff birdform in the sky that Skelter had witnessed, and they too wondered if they were in for a fresh bout of persecutions.
Creekcrosser came out though, and so did Bittersweetinspring, and with Eyebright the four of them remained exposed until the darkness came, hoping to try to get back to a normal existence once again, now that their deadly enemy had gone. The new rigid creature had not proved aggressive, and until it did, Creekcrosser maintained he was not going to cower in a hole any more, but use the world as it was meant to be used, as a flat open space for hares to run in.
Bittersweetinspring was showing a marked preference for Creekcrosser at this time, but then it was usually her way to turn from the mate who had won her at the frost dancing, and to indulge in illicit activity with another jack. It was something to do with her dislike of being attached – ‘snared’ she called it – to one jack. She liked to be ‘free’ and though she got into all sorts of trouble for it, for the colony was pretty conservative and conventional in its general outlook, she cocked a snook at the gossips and did as she pleased. Skelter admired her courage and though he could see she was to be avoided if at all possible by hotblooded jacks – for once she had them on the hook, she discarded them with disdain – she was an individual in a world of mad conformists and you could not help but view that with some admiration. Creekcrosser seemed to have got her measure, however, and somehow managed to retain her interest even when he had clearly committed himself. It was something to do with his own individualistic personality: his unkempt appearance, his contempt for society, his devil-may-care attitude. They made a good, if unconforming, pair. They were either at odds with one another, yelling or not speaking, or they were off somewhere together sneaking furtively under the curtains of willow down by the river. Racer, poor jack, left out in the cold, was the only one (apart from the morally inflexible moonhare) who did not view the relationship with a certain amount of amusement.
The other hares, jacks and jills, were engaged in producing families and had little time for anyone else but each other. Spring was on its way: there was promise in the air and so the buds opened and the blossoms swelled and became overblown. The lean belly of winter was now behind them, and the fullness of summer stretched ahead. More of the stiff birds appeared in the skies overhead, growling steadily, coming and going from the mainland. None of them ever deviated from their steady courses and soon the hares became used to them. Few even bothered to look up any more. The flogre was gone for good and they could all relax and spend their time usefully worrying about foxes.
Creekcrosser and Bittersweetinspring left Booker’s Field to found a new marsh hare colony and one or two other misfits went with them. It seemed an exciting venture to some, and there was still enough of the leveret in Skelter to arouse his enthusiasm for new schemes. Skelter talked to Eyebright but she reminded him that they had been allocated prime bottom land down by the river. They would be foolish to give up Whinsled Lea and the accompanying agricultural land, for unknown ground bordering marshes. Then there were neighbours to consider, for they got on well with the otters and might find an earth of foxes in the new area.
Skelter, who fancied a new adventure, reluctantly agreed that they would be silly to leave the lea.
The Brent geese flew northwards in their tight formations, wave on wave of the dark creatures clouding the sunset, rippling over the treetops, disappearing over the sea towards an horizon the hares could not even contemplate.
One evening when a vermilion sunset was creeping through the clouds and the tractor-man was opening the five-barred gate to drive the tractor through and park it in the big red barn, two men in blue were seen coming from the direction of the village, crossing the fields.
The tractor-man stared at these figures and when he saw them coming towards him the hares smelled the fear-sweat on him. The two men in blue began running, but the tractor-man ignored their shouts and went back to the chugging symbol for hare happiness, and took his shotgun from behind the seat.
The hares all froze, thinking he was going to shoot something for his supper, and it might be one of them.
Instead, he turned the weapon around the wrong way, to look down the barrels, and then the gun went off.
The sound shocked the hares, many of whom jumped and ran for the hedgerow. By the time the two men in blue arrived, puffing and panting, to switch off the tractor’s engine, the tractor-man was dead. They took his body away that very evening and the tractor stayed out in the fields all night, allowing the hares to jump on the bits closest to the ground and tho
roughly enjoy a familiarity with their favourite machine.
There was much speculation amongst the hares as to what the tractor-man had really intended to do with the gun. Longrunner maintained he had intended to shoot the two men in blue, but had made a mistake with the weapon, turning it the wrong way around. Reacher said that was ridiculous, because the tractor-man had used a shotgun all his life, and certainly knew one end from another. Headinthemist was convinced he was either mad or possessed by some evil spirit, which had made him believe the gun was the right way round, when of course it was not. Moonhare thought he was checking that no mud was in the barrels, and had pulled the trigger by accident.
It was indeed a great mystery, and one which would be the subject of many debates for generations to come.
The new-tractor-man was a young fellow, with a ready smile, and he never carried a shotgun. He had an intelligent face, and barked at the hares and other creatures good-naturedly, sometimes pretending to chase them across the field. Often he went off into a dream, for there was a faraway look in his eyes, as he ploughed the fields. A young female human used to come sometimes at mid-day, to bring him something to eat, and they would laugh and yap together, sharing the food and drink. When they parted they would touch lips, like the couple who were shot by the old-tractor-man used to do. But unlike the earlier pair, this couple did it with a sparkle in their eyes, and they waved and yelped to one another as they parted, she going over the fields to the village, and he humming along with the chugging of the hare symbol for happiness.
One or two hares remarked that their great-grandfathers had told them stories of when the old-tractor-man had laughed and been fed and watered by a young female under the noonday sun, just as the new one was doing, but this was merely hearsay, and not taken seriously by anyone but the leverets.
Frost Dancers: A Story of Hares Page 35