Pax herded Runt back into the den. Pacing the entrance, he watched Bristle head toward the rustling, stiff-legged and wary, and then stop. She pricked her ears, her rump high.
And then in front of her, at the precise place where the junipers were still compressed from dragging Runt in, a dark brindle coyote emerged, his head to the ground.
Bristle barked. The coyote’s head snapped up. Bristle barked again and jumped into the clearing.
The coyote cocked his head and took a step toward her. Then he lowered his nose to Runt’s trail again.
Deep instinct urged Pax to run away. The coyote was a tall, heavily muscled male. A fox was no match for an animal that large and aggressive. But a deeper instinct reminded him that Runt was defenseless in the burrow.
Bristle ignored the instinct to flee as well. Instead, she tore straight toward the coyote, lunging at his flank.
The coyote spun and snapped, just clipping Bristle’s back foot. She limped into the clearing, whining as if she’d been injured. The coyote studied her but then he shook himself, recognizing the ploy, and dropped to the scent again.
Bristle flew back. She jumped in front of the coyote’s path and faced him, her spine arched. From her throat came a hoarse howl Pax had never heard before.
For an instant, the coyote pulled back, seeming surprised that the small fox was engaging him. Then he bunched his shoulders into attack position and bared his teeth.
Pax’s body stiffened. A growl rattled in his throat. Runt whimpered in the den.
The coyote sprang at Bristle and knocked her to the ground. For a moment, Pax saw nothing but fur and teeth flashing in the grass and heard only yips and growls. But then Bristle scrambled out of the coyote’s hold. She leaped again toward the center of the clearing. A single leap only.
Pax understood that she was luring him away from Runt. Staying just out of his reach, she baited the coyote until she reached the sweet-gum tree.
Then, just as Pax had done, she leaped up onto the slant of the trunk. She padded out onto the low first branch carefully, never taking her eyes off the growling coyote who followed on the ground. When she reached the spot where the branch split, she was well over his head. She hissed a taunt.
The coyote jumped. He clawed only bark and leaves. He circled in the hollow under the branch, looking for higher ground, and then jumped again. This time his forepaws caught the branch and held for an instant before he fell back. He gathered himself and leaped again.
Pax saw that Bristle was as far out on the limb as she could go. The coyote would tear her from the tree soon, or grow impatient with her distractions and return to the trail she’d diverted him from. She would follow and fight until he ripped her apart.
Stay! Pax ordered Runt. And he tore across the clearing.
Peter stared.
There’d been a birch tree by the upper walls of the mill. He and his friends had named it the Pirate Tree because in the fall, bright yellow leaves made it look covered in gold coins. He’d tied Pax to its trunk once when the kit hadn’t liked their war play. The Pirate Tree was still standing, but now only blackened wisps tattered its branches. Nothing else, except the mill itself, was recognizable.
All the trees in the lower field were gone, uprooted and blasted to splintered logs. Great patches of grasses around them were scorched to ash. The bank was littered with the crow-picked remains of perch and crayfish and turtles and frogs.
What hurt most to look at was the water. The last time he’d been here, he’d dived into the pool at the base of the gorge. The water had been so sparkling and clear that he’d been able to see the pale green shafts of the reeds, the iridescent scales on the trout, and even, when he looked up, the sheer blue nets of dragonfly wings skimming the surface. He might have been swimming through liquid diamonds.
Now muddy boulders clogged the river, and the pool was a dull brown ring. The broad flat of the river was half its usual breadth. Mud flats near the banks, caking to dry clay, smelled of death.
The water was what the whole war was about. Peter remembered Vola asking him which side his father was fighting on.
Peter had answered her, stunned that she would even have to ask. “The right side,” he’d added, indignantly.
“Boy,” Vola had said, and then “Boy!” again, to make sure she had his attention. “Do you think anyone in the history of this world ever set out to fight for the wrong side?”
The wind picked up and howled across the field, stirring eddies of ash. Peter tried to imagine playing here again. It would be a long time before anyone would ever want to play here.
Vultures, wheeling silently above him, were the only living things as far as he could see. With this much devastation, they must have been feasting for days. He watched them, paralyzed by the sadness of the scene. The closest two were circling a hemlock bough near the bank, probably judging the safety of returning to the meal he had interrupted.
A meal that might be . . . Peter couldn’t form the thought, but he couldn’t erase it either. If Pax had been here, he could be dead now. And if he was, the vultures would lead him to the proof.
They hovered over three distinct spots—the one beside him and two across the river—slow and lazy. In no hurry. Their meals weren’t going anywhere.
He dropped his pack. Freed of the weight, he swung down to the hemlock bough in only a few steps. Trailing from beneath it was the sight he was dreading. A fox tail, its white-tipped brush unmistakable. He lifted the limb.
The fox carcass had been scavenged, but its pelt remained. And it wasn’t red. It wasn’t red.
Not Pax.
He took a ragged breath. Dizzy with relief, he pegged down to the river and waded in. When he was waist high, the crutches skidded out on the mud-slimed stones, so he speared them over to the far bank and dived in. For the first time in almost two weeks, Peter didn’t feel hampered by his broken foot. He swam strongly.
He pulled himself onto the bank. Out of water, the soaked cast felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, the muddy plaster already crumbling. He took his knife out of his pocket and hacked at it until he freed his foot. It hung pale and limp, but the swelling was down and the bruise was almost gone.
Peter crawled to his crutches and hitched them under his arms. Upright, he saw what the larger group of vultures was circling: the corpse of a deer. He thought of the doe he’d seen in Vola’s field—You humans. You ruin everything—and turned away from the sight.
Twenty yards up the field, a single vulture hovered over the third spot he’d sighted. Peter climbed, choosing a path where the grasses had been burned—easier going.
At first there seemed to be nothing on the charred ground. But when he was almost upon it, he saw. A hind leg. Fleshless and singed, but still he knew it was a hind leg. A slim, black-furred hind leg with a small white paw. A ragged drift of fur at the top was bright cinnamon.
Fox.
Peter swayed on his crutches. Maybe it wasn’t Pax’s. Wasn’t it too small to be Pax’s? He wished he could know, and then he took back the wish. What did it matter, anyway? A fox had been going about its life here, and some humans had obliterated that life—wasn’t that enough of an outrage?
He would scrape the earth with his bare hands and bury the remains.
Peter dropped to the ground. He swept a circle bare of rubble. And his hand brushed something that turned the breath in his lungs to ash.
A toy soldier, sighting down the barrel of a rifle pressed tight to its hard green cheek, aiming at whatever happened to be in the way.
Peter keeled over. “PAX!”
Pax reached the tree just as the coyote sprang again, this time finding enough purchase to hang from the branch. Pax flew at him and bit a mouthful of brindled fur and hung on.
The coyote dropped and sank his teeth into Pax’s shoulder, all in one motion. Pax jerked free and then backed toward the south edge of the clearing, hoping to lead the coyote away from the tree, away from the den, away from the foxes he loved.
The coyote didn’t follow. He threw back his head and barked. Then he turned to eye Bristle again.
Pax lowered himself and began to creep back toward the tree. But then he stopped. He swung his head toward a sound from the encampment.
His boy’s voice?
Ahead, the tall coyote barked again, and this time the call was answered. Three sets of ears cocked at the same spot in the juniper ring. A second coyote trotted out. Another male, this one pale and stocky. He surveyed the scene and broke into a gallop for the tree.
Bristle issued another threat yowl and spiked her fur, but Pax saw her eyes roll in terror.
The second coyote pawed at the trunk.
And then Pax heard it again. His boy, calling his name.
He bolted out of the clearing and through the stand of trees. At the ridgeline above the mill, he stopped.
War-sick men streamed from the walls, sticks raised, converging on a figure down on the field.
It was a black-haired youth, curled on the burned ground. His boy? The wind, blowing from the north, told him nothing.
The soldiers stopped, their sticks still menacing. The boy rose. He was tall, but Pax saw that his body didn’t look like Peter’s—this boy’s shoulders were thrown wide, and braced under one was a narrow pole. Stranger still, this boy held his head high, not canted downward. He faced the men in defiance, something Pax had never seen Peter do, and raised his fist and shook it at them.
A single soldier ran down to the field. This one moved like his boy’s father. He shouted, and the voice was familiar. But then the man walked to the boy and embraced him, something Pax had never seen the father do.
Were these his humans? Pax tried to scent, but the gusting breeze carried only the musk of enraged coyotes. He turned back for the clearing.
Peter let his father hug him. For so many years he had wanted to be in that circle of protective love. He felt his father quake with sobs, and he wanted to reassure him that everything was all right. But it wasn’t. His hands stayed clenched—one on the crutch grip, one on the toy soldier.
He pulled away. “What are you doing here? You told me you would only be laying wire. . . .”
And then he understood everything at once. Why the men hadn’t advanced. How the grasses had been burned and the trees uprooted and the river strangled with rocks. How there could be nothing left of a fox but a single leg.
“You knew.” He shoved the toy soldier into his pocket and picked up the fox leg. “You knew! And you did this! Pax!”
Again Pax thought he heard his boy’s voice. He pricked his ears back to the camp.
Just then, the wind shifted. Pax smelled the war-sick’s sweat, their cordite, their motor fuel, their charred fields.
And his two humans.
He ran back to the ridge.
He saw his boy lift something from the ground. A stick, but not a stick. Something furred and broken.
The grief-yearning scent rolled up the hill. Fresh and keen, from his boy. But also old and strained, from his boy’s father. So this scent was not Peter’s alone. It was the scent of humans.
His boy held the broken thing above his head and cried something angry. And then, “Pax!”
And Pax barked.
Peter held what was left of the fox high above his head and called his name again. “Pax!”
And from above the mill, an answering bark. Hope rose in his throat. But no, he must have just wished for that bark.
He scanned the ridgeline anyway. A flash of red. A white-tipped brush. A fox appeared in an open spot and rose on his back legs—on two back legs?—and looked straight at him.
Peter pressed the fox leg into his father’s hand. “Bury this.” Then he grabbed his other crutch and turned for the hill.
“Wait, Peter! You have to understand. It’s my duty.”
Peter pointed to the fox on the ridge. He thumped his chest so hard, it hurt. “That’s mine.”
His father shouted to him about wires; he shouted at him to stop. Peter saw the wires; he poled over them. But he did not stop. Because there was only his fox, waiting on the spine of the hill, and the distance between them. Over and over, he planted his crutches and swung through, closing that distance.
When he was almost there, his shirt dried from the wind and then soaked again in sweat, he stopped and called. Pax tossed his head and then bounded away toward the trees.
On four legs! Peter was sure of it: Pax was unharmed.
Peter followed. But again, just as he neared him, Pax broke away, galloping into the trees.
Peter followed again. He didn’t begrudge Pax this testing game. He had broken his pet’s trust—why wouldn’t he be skittish? Why wouldn’t he need to assure himself of Peter’s loyalty now? For as long as Pax wanted, Peter would obey—it was fair punishment. Through the trees, a hundred long yards and a hundred more, Peter followed.
And then they broke into a clearing, and the fox stood and waited. Peter reached him. He offered his hand. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. . . .”
Pax locked Peter’s gaze and then took his wrist in his jaws. Peter’s pulse jumped against the bracelet of teeth, pressed just tight enough to claim him. Just tight enough to call to Peter’s own wildness. Two but not two.
Pax released Peter’s wrist and tore across the clearing toward a crooked tree. Circling the tree was a pair of coyotes. Pax lunged at the taller one.
“No, Pax! Come back!” The tree was so far away—fifty yards at least. Peter dug his crutches into the turf and piked hard.
When he was a dozen yards away, he saw the coyotes’ treed quarry—another fox, bright furred with a sharp and delicate face—a vixen. She was bleeding from a gash on her haunch, and instead of a thick brush, she thrashed the blackened whip of her tail.
The vixen swiped at one of the coyotes from above, taunting him, and Pax snapped at the other’s flank. Peter saw that the two foxes were a team.
And that they were no match for the coyotes.
Peter barreled for the tree, shouting, but the coyotes ignored him. The taller of the two spun around and sank his teeth into Pax’s neck. Pax shrieked.
And Peter roared in fury. He braced himself on one crutch and leaned back and side-armed the other, heavy with its white ash bat, as hard as he could, aiming in between the two coyotes.
Both of them wheeled around at the outrage. While the tree rang with the bat’s blow, the tall dark one sprinted away and disappeared into the brush. The other one bolted a dozen yards and then stopped and turned back.
He eyed Peter and bared his fangs.
Peter bared his teeth back. Pax growled at his side, hackles raised, ready to spring. Peter swept his second crutch over his head and roared again, and Pax snarled and the pale coyote reared back in surprise. He turned and crashed out of the clearing.
Peter clutched the tree. He slid to the ground, shaking.
Instantly Pax was on him, wriggling under his neck, licking his face, sniffing his broken foot, nuzzling his face again. Peter wrapped his arms around his fox and pressed his face to the piney-smelling fur. “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay!”
The vixen leaped over them to the ground and disappeared into the juniper scrub ringing the clearing. Pax sat up and barked to her from Peter’s lap.
After a moment, Peter saw a black muzzle point out from the brush.
Out came a skinny fox, about the size Pax had been at eight months, blinking in the sunlight. He stumbled into the clearing on three legs. The vixen reemerged. She paced and yipped at the runty little fox, shooting wary looks at Peter.
Pax squirmed out of Peter’s arms and barked again. The three-legged fox took a few steps closer. Its limp was so awkward, Peter realized he must have lost the leg only recently. And then he made the connection.
He offered his hand and called softly. Hesitatingly, his gaze darting between Peter and Pax, the little fox hobbled over. He tucked his head under Pax’s chin.
Peter extended a finger. The
injured fox allowed him to brush his neck for an instant, then hurried back to the safety of the vixen’s side.
Together, the two foxes looked expectantly at Pax, and then they melted into the underbrush.
And Peter understood. His fox belonged to them. And they belonged to Pax. Inseparable.
All this way he’d come. All this way.
Peter got to his knees. He placed his hand on Pax’s back and felt the muscles jump.
Peter looked around. The woods looked dangerous now, full of coyotes and bears and, soon, humans at war. He looked down at his fox, still straining to follow his new family. “Go. It’s okay.” It wasn’t, though. The pain scoured him hollow, left him without breath, like a kick to the heart. He pulled his hand away, because Pax would feel a pain that deep and he wouldn’t leave. “Go!”
Pax shot away toward the brush line. Then he turned back to look at his boy.
Peter felt tears roll down his face, but he didn’t wipe them away.
Pax sprang back. He whimpered, licking at the tears.
Peter pushed him down. He found the crutch and levered himself upright. “No. I don’t want you to stay. I’ll always leave the porch door open, but you have to go.”
Pax looked toward the brush and then back at his boy’s face.
Peter dug into his pocket and pulled out the toy. He lifted it.
Pax raised his head, his eyes trained on Peter’s hand.
And Peter hurled the plastic soldier over the brush and into the woods, as far away as he could.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Red foxes. The more I learned about them, the more I admired them and the more determined I became to portray them with respect. I am indebted to Matthew Walter, a New York State biologist and skilled wildlife tracker who has spent years researching red foxes in the field. Where the fox behavior is accurate, it’s because he generously shared his expertise. Where it’s not, I’ve made a choice to serve the needs of the story. I urge readers to do their own research about this splendid animal.
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