Pax

by Sara Pennypacker

  My brother was born in my mother’s second litter. They came early in the season. Last year, spring came late. Snow fell and did not melt; the earth stayed frozen beneath it. I lived nearby; I helped hunt. All day long our parents and I searched for food, because the kits were always hungry. But there was never enough.

  Two of his littermates died on the same day. The farm, our mother urged. At the humans’ farm, there were always fat mice in the warm barn. At the humans’ farm, there were eggs in the chicken coop.

  Our father would not risk it.

  When her third kit grew too weak to stand, our mother defied him.

  Runt raised his head and gave Bristle a pleading look.

  Bristle ignored it. She led the strongest of her new kits—my sister—and me to the humans’ farm.

  Runt edged closer and pressed his nose into Pax’s shoulder. Instantly the vixen lashed at his cheek, although Pax noted she did not use her claws. Runt dropped to the ground.

  The ground around the barn was cleared of snow by many footprints, animal as well as human. The air was rich with the smell of rodents. Our mother headed for a gap in the wooden boards near the base, with us a few tail-lengths behind. Just before she reached it, steel jaws sprang out of the earth with such speed that the air snapped. Our mother screamed. The clamp held her front leg. The more she thrashed, the deeper the metal cut. She began biting at her leg to free it. Every time we tried to come near, she ordered us away.

  Our father appeared. He had followed our tracks. He chased my sister and me back into the brush and ordered us to stay there. Then he set to helping our mother.

  The scene she conveyed was of two foxes, bonded by both an old love and a new fear, the fear so terrible that their eyes rolled back in their sockets, so vivid that Pax could smell its sharp scent.

  Runt began to whimper, a piteous sound that made Pax want to comfort him, but Bristle warned him to keep away.

  A human came then, with a stick. Both our parents screamed at us to run home. We stayed. We saw. The human raised the stick, and in front of our eyes our mother and our father burst into blood and fur and shattered bones spattered over the snow.

  Runt whined and backed away toward the den again, and again Bristle stopped him.

  My sister and I could not leave our parents’ bodies. Darkness fell and the next day came, and still we hid in a pile of wood beside the barn. Finally we set out, but that night it began to snow. The snow blotted out all sound and scent. Lost, we crawled under a sweep of pine boughs, and I curled myself around my sister, who was so much smaller. In the morning, she died. When the snow stopped, I saw that we had sheltered beneath the great pine at the top of our ridge. We had been within sight of home.

  The image she shared then—her sister’s frozen corpse at the base of the mighty pine—seemed to exhaust her. Why do we have no family, Brother?

  Runt turned to Pax. Because of the humans, we have no family.

  Bristle turned her golden eyes on Pax, inviting a challenge.

  If he could have, he would have made her know every kindness of every day with his boy. But the hatred she had for humans was deep and fair. Instead, he offered his cheek in sympathy. Bristle turned away and ordered her brother into the den.

  “You coming in, or am I just holding the door open for the flies?”

  Peter dropped his pack. He rebalanced himself on the crutches and stared at the log cabin. “These trees grew here.”

  It hadn’t been a question, but Vola nodded and pointed uphill. “Spruce. From the top of Mason’s Ridge. Lincoln Logs—is that what you’re thinking?”

  “Sort of.” But it wasn’t. Peter reached out to touch one of the logs. What would it feel like to make something so . . . so consequential? To cut timbers and watch them fall out of a clear blue sky and roll them down to a clearing, your hands sticky with sharp-scented pitch, and then to lift them into place, notched and stacked one over another—yes, just like the toys that had been his favorite in kindergarten, the old set in the tall cardboard canister—and end up with a home. “You built this?”

  “No. Before my time. Now, come in. I don’t have all day.”

  Peter still didn’t move. “What are the conditions? You said you’d tell me when we got here.”

  Vola sighed and stepped back down onto the slab of granite that formed the front step, letting the screen door clap shut. She picked up a jar of seeds, and a cloud of birds fluttered down from the trees to surround her. She filled a feeder that hung from a corner rafter before turning to answer him. “Number one: I don’t want anyone coming around here. I live by myself for a reason. You write to your grandfather and tell him whatever it takes to make sure nobody comes around here. Besides, it’s only fair you let your family know you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere.”

  Peter reared back so fast that he almost toppled over. The pain that movement caused was searing, but he bit his lip. “No. He’d come and get me. No.”

  “Condition number one. Nonnegotiable.”

  She scooped a few seeds from the jar and held out her palm. A chickadee left the feeder and settled on her fingertips. He pecked at the seeds, and when they were gone, she tossed him back into the air. She turned back to Peter. “Number two: you’re going to tell me why you’re carrying that bracelet.”

  Peter glanced down at his pack and felt his heart clench to protect what was so private. “Why?”

  “Because I’m curious about you. And you can tell a lot about a soldier by what he carries into battle.”

  “But I’m not a soldier. I’m just going home.”

  “Is that so? Because it sounds to me like you’re headed off to fight for something in a place where there’s a war. But have it your way—you’re not a soldier. Condition two is still this: when I ask, you’re going to tell me why you’ve brought that bracelet with you. Why that particular thing. The truth—that’s the rule here. Agreed?”

  Peter nodded. His right foot throbbed, his left leg ached from the extra burden, and his shirt was sweat soaked from the exertion of hobbling the hundred yards from the barn, but he stood his ground. “And number three?”

  “You’re going to help me with something. I see that look. Don’t worry—it’s just a project needs a second person, that’s all. But I’m not ready to tell you what it is yet.” She picked up his backpack. “Inside. It’s time to get you off that foot. And I suspect you’re hungry, Mr. Not-exactly-running-away-from-home, No-bat Peter.”

  Suddenly Peter was starving. Still, he hesitated. He pivoted to look at the hills, which the sun was lightening to smoky blue. Pax was out there. He was still so far away.

  Vola came up behind him. Peter sensed her raising a hand toward his shoulder and then letting it fall back.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “But you are not fit to go yet.”

  Inside, the cabin was bright and smelled faintly of smoke. Vola tapped a pine table, and Peter sat. She draped a blanket over his shoulders, then left and came back with a plastic bag full of ice cubes. She propped his foot on a chair and wedged the ice bag against it. With a washcloth, she cleaned the blood from his hand. Finally, she passed him a cutting board with a loaf of bread and a knife on it.

  Peter put it down. “How long will it take?”

  “Depends on you.” The woman pointed to the bread. “What, you can’t use your hands either? Slice that up.”

  “How long?”

  “You can go when you can hike over rough terrain on those crutches for eight hours a day. Two weeks, I’d guess. Six slices.”

  “You don’t understand. He won’t survive!”

  Vola lowered her head to glare at Peter. She yanked her thumb to the wall behind him. “Number eleven.”

  Peter twisted around. A jumble of index cards was thumbtacked to the wall. “The Gulf Stream will flow through a straw, provided the straw is aligned to the Gulf Stream and not at crosscurrents,” he read aloud from the one with an 11 scrawled over it. “What’s that supposed to mean?�
��

  “It means align yourself, boy.”

  “Align myself?”

  “Figure out how things are, and accept it. You’ve got a broken foot. Broken. The deal is you stay until I say you’re ready. I told you, my conscience is stretched to its limit. So that’s your choice: stay here until I say, or go back to your grandfather’s now. You change your mind about that?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then accept it, eh? Now slice the dyableman bread.”

  Peter started to argue but then closed his mouth. He wasn’t staying for any two weeks, but obedient and helpful was the safest play for now.

  He ducked his head and set to work cutting six thick, even slices of bread while Vola slapped a chunk of butter into an iron skillet and snapped on a flame beneath it. Without turning around, she motioned to a shelf above the counter. “Pick yourself something.”

  Canning jars, stacked three deep, gleamed like a rainbow of liquid jewels along the length of the shelf. Peter read the plain block letters on the labels: CHERRIES, PLUMS, TOMATOES, BLUEBERRIES, APPLES. PUMPKIN, PEARS, GREEN BEANS, BEETS, PEACHES. Braids of dried garlic and chili peppers hung beside the shelf.

  “You grow all this?”

  Vola nodded, her back still to him.

  “The trees that run along your stone wall are in bloom. What are they?”

  “Nearest the wall? Peaches.”

  He pointed to a jar near the end. “Peaches,” he said. “Please. Ma’am.”

  Vola opened a jar and handed him a fork.

  “Uh . . . there’s a twig in it or something.”

  Vola reached into the jar, popped the stick into her mouth, sucked the syrup off, pitched the stick over her shoulder into the sink, and rolled her eyes. “Lord. Cinnamon. Eat.” She gathered the bread he’d cut with a curt nod of approval. “Cheddar or Swiss?”

  “Cheddar, I guess.”

  Vola straightened. “You guess, boy? You don’t know?”

  Peter shrugged and speared a peach chunk. It tasted as bright and golden as it looked.

  Vola seemed to be working up a whole lot more to say about the cheese issue, but then she pressed her lips together, spun around on the point of her wooden leg, and clumped out the back door. She came back in with a slab of cheese a moment later, then set to work wordlessly making sandwiches. Peter heard them sizzle as she pressed them into the hot skillet.

  He surveyed the cabin. It wasn’t big, but it didn’t feel cramped, either. Sunlight flooded in through clean windows, washing the log walls in a honey glow. Two blue-striped armchairs flanked a stone fireplace, and a trunk stacked with books served as a table between them. Small barrels held lanterns, and more hung from the beams.

  There were photos on the mantel, a few paintings on the walls, and a basket of yarn beside the armchair. Through an open door by the fireplace, Peter saw the corner of a bed, neatly made with a yellow-checked quilt. It was a surprisingly normal home for a crazy person, yet something was missing. Peter noticed then how quiet it was—silent, actually, except for birdcalls outside and the butter sputtering in the skillet—but that wasn’t it. Not exactly. “Hey,” he said as it dawned on him. “You don’t have electricity.”

  The woman flipped the sandwiches. “As far as I know, that’s not a crime in this country. Not yet, anyway.”

  Peter tried to think about what he would miss without electricity, but there were too many things to count. He chased out the last bit of peach, the fork rattling against the empty jar. Vola’s back was still turned to him, so he lifted the jar to drain the last drops of syrup. “But wait. How’d you get the ice?”

  “I’ve got a refrigerator out on the porch. It’s gas. So’s the stove and the water heater. I’ve got everything I need.” She set two blue plates down on the table. Peter’s mouth watered at the smell of the food, but he waited. Vola wasn’t finished, he sensed.

  “I have more than everything I need.” Vola sat. “I have peace here.”

  “Because it’s so quiet?”

  “No. Because I am exactly where I should be, doing exactly what I should be doing. That is peace. Eat.”

  Peter bit into his sandwich. The cheese was hot and runny all the way through, the bread fried crisp and brown.

  He broke off a corner out of force of habit and was about to reach down with it when he remembered—there was no fox under the table. He wondered if Pax was missing him as much as he missed his fox right now. “Don’t you get lonely out here?”

  “I see people. Bea Booker, librarian. Robert Johnson, bus driver. I have . . . I see people.” She got up, brought the frying pan over, and slid another sandwich onto his plate. “Eat.”

  Peter ate, thinking about what she’d said about peace. When he finished, he licked the buttery crumbs from his fingers. “What do you mean, you’re doing exactly what you should be doing? Do you work?”

  “Of course I work! The garden is half an acre and the orchard is twice that size. I’m planting beans and okra today. Maybe get to replacing the seal on the well pump. There’s always plenty to do here.”

  “But you don’t go to a job, make any money? How do you buy things? Like all those tools in the barn? Like”—he waved around the cabin—“all your stuff?”

  Vola hoisted herself onto the counter and then held out her wooden leg and rapped it with the spatula. “My country pays me a little blood money every month in exchange for my leg.”

  She dropped the spatula into the sink and shook her head. “A dyableman deal—turns out my leg wasn’t all that valuable to them. Wish they’d told me that before they sent me scouting in a minefield. Because I liked my leg. It was a good leg—not much to look at, maybe, but it worked fine. It ran me clear into the next town when Deirdre Callanan and I set fire to her father’s woodshed in sixth grade, and it kicked the smile off Henry Valentine’s face when he tried to grab my butt the next year. I could go on. A leg is a very big price to pay. Every day, every single day, I wish I had it back.”

  “How come you don’t get one that’s more . . . ?”

  The woman stuck her leg out again and tugged up her cuff to assess the wooden post. “Oh, they gave me a prosthetic—a complicated piece of work. Scared the devil out of me whenever I looked down. So I made my own. It’s heavy and it’s clumsy, but I did some terrible things in the war. I figure I deserve to drag something around.”

  “You threw it away? A prosthetic leg, you just threw it away?” Peter couldn’t help imagining the shocked look on some garbage collector’s face.

  “Of course not. I wear it. Sometimes. Right now, it’s in the garden, on the scarecrow. Scares the devil out of the crows, too, apparently.”

  She dropped off the counter and jammed a battered straw hat onto her head as if she’d suddenly remembered this garden of hers. “I’ll be back before dark. The outhouse is just beyond the two cedars, and there’s a tub in the kitchen. Clean up. The porch is yours. Actually, you’ll have to share it with François. Keep that leg elevated.”

  “Who’s François?”

  Again Vola’s short bark of a laugh startled Peter. She tipped her head toward the back door, which led out to a screened porch. “He’s probably out there napping right now, lazy old thief.” She crossed to the door, looked out, and then nodded. “Come see.”

  Peter levered himself off the chair and onto the crutches. Vola held the door open and waved toward a wood bin. Peter saw a pair of dark-ringed eyes peering out at him. He cocked his head to get a better view, and the raccoon cocked his head back.

  “François Villon, named after one of the most famous thieves in history. The original was a poet as well as a thief, and such a charmer that every time they arrested him, some admirer pardoned him.”

  Peter grinned. He crouched to get a better look. “Hey, chuck-chuck-chuck,” he called softly, the way he always greeted Pax in the morning. The raccoon eyed him lazily for another moment, then seemed to decide he wasn’t interesting and flopped over and closed his eyes.

  “Is he wi
ld or tame?”

  Vola waved the words off as if they were gnats. “I leave the porch door open. He visits when he wants to, and he’s fine company. I feed him, but I don’t have to—he stays fat enough on his own. We’ve come to a little agreement about the chicken coop—he leaves the girls alone, and I scramble him up an egg now and then. He’s a companion. That’s the best word.”

  She pointed to a beam spanning the ceiling. “Tomorrow you can do some pull-ups. But today, stay off the leg and keep it elevated—above your heart is best.” She nodded to the refrigerator. “Keep icing it on and off. I want the swelling down some so I can set that bone tonight. Mix a spoonful of willow bark in water every few hours for pain.”

  Peter nodded, then dropped into a hammock hanging from the beams, exhausted.

  Vola started to leave, but paused in the doorway and turned around to study him. She crossed her arms over her chest, an unreadable expression on her face.

  “What?”

  “Just wondering,” she said. “You staying out here on the porch. What do you suppose that makes you? Wild or tame?”

  When Pax awoke, it was late afternoon. The ache that had cramped his belly the past few days was worse, and when he tried to rise, he lost his balance for a second, his muscles trembling.

  He surveyed them for injury with a distanced curiosity. Once, when he’d been ill, his boy had forced a pill down his throat. Afterward, his senses had been dulled and his reactions slowed. He felt this same way now.

  He dropped to the cool dirt and watched as, below, Gray and his mate emerged from their rests to scent the air, relieve themselves, then set off for food. Bristle sprang out from a den beside him, stopped only to order her brother to stay behind, then trotted off to hunt also.

  On the day he’d gotten into the car with his boy, Pax had sensed the tension and refused his morning kibble, so it had now been three full days since he’d eaten. Although Pax had never seen death, he understood that it awaited him if he did not find food. This thought produced no sense of urgency and drifted away. A second thought, however—that he must find his boy and see him safe—stirred him to rise again, first bracing himself on his forelegs before straightening his haunches.