‘Did she open your cage and point the way to freedom?’
‘No, but I’ve heard there are those that do.’
A-konkon sighed, deeply, and stared into Camio’s eyes until the American Red Fox felt himself going dizzy.
‘I’m afraid you are lost to me, Camio,’ said A-konkon. ‘You’ve been tarnished by your experiences in the world of men. I can do nothing to save you …’ a glazed look came over A-konkon’s features ‘… just as you can do nothing to save the vixen, O-ha.’
Camio jerked upright.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Eh?’ A-konkon’s voice was far away, as if he were somewhere in the back of his own mind, unable to come forward to speak consciously to the other fox.
‘What do you mean?’ shouted Camio. ‘Where is she?’
‘She is walking into the jaws of death,’ cried A-konkon. ‘The slavering jaws of death.’ His eyes seemed to focus once more. ‘I saw her just before you came to visit me. She was heading towards the manor house, and she exuded an odour of fear and apprehension. I think she has gone … gone …’
Camio jumped to his feet.
‘Damn your red hair, why didn’t you tell me before.’
He left the mystic to his mutterings, running at full speed towards the place where she had gone.
Chapter Fourteen
There was a strong scent of humans at the manor house, and O-ha skirted the lawn, using the shrubbery directly in front of the building. She entered an area of low, squared hedges not much higher than herself, planted in rectangles. There were stone figures of humans here and there: the guardians of the property. These were surrounded by rose bushes and other cultivated plants. Set back from the house was a lily pond with concrete stepping stones. Some of the individual bushes had been cut into the shapes of animals: there was a cockerel, a peacock and a dolphin. None of the hedges was shaped like a fox.
Several pieces of white furniture had been set out on the lawn between this garden area and two big glass-panelled doors, which now stood open. The growling of humans could be heard coming from within the house. Sabre was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Camio, and O-ha began to wonder whether A-lon had been right about the dog fox’s intention to settle her score for her with the ridgeback. She was just about to sneak away, when there was movement at the doors and humans spilled out on to the lawn. There was a strong smell of burning in the air, and smoke wafted from several of the humans’ faces. O-ha wrinkled her nose as the stink of human sweat, mingled with the frightening odour of fire, reached her sensitive nostrils. She flattened herself against the ground.
They sat on the furniture, barking at one another, and the clinking of glass added further sounds to the confusion. They all appeared to be trying to communicate at once, seemingly none of them listening to anyone else, and that strange noise they made when they appeared to be happy, when their bodies rocked and jumped, floated over the shrubs to where O-ha lay. She sneaked a quick look at the scene, but no one was moving and her poor eyesight gave her only an impression of colours, predominantly white. Then another odour came to her, which made her heart patter faster in her breast.
Sabre was in amongst them, somewhere. His scent was one she would never forget, and she judged that he was not more than a short run away from her. A head jerked up from the lawn, its ears erect and its nose high, as if sniffing the wind. Yes, he was there, lying full length on the short grass, near to one of the humans. From the signals he was putting out, both in smell and movement, she knew he was aware that something was not right in his world. He was now a domestic animal, but he had once been a hunter, she remembered, and his sense of smell would be good, for a dog. This was no pampered pet she was dealing with, but a killer with a nose for blood. He had caught a whiff of fox and if he did not yet understand why, he would shortly begin investigating to either confirm or disprove his suspicions.
Inside, her initial panic subsided and gave way to the cool reasoning of the fox in danger. She quickly assessed the situation and her chances of escape. She could run, now, before he really knew what was happening in his own back yard, or she could stay, creeping backwards very, very slowly, hoping that the wind would not carry her scent to the suspicious animal. If she ran, it would be mayhem, because the humans would surely catch sight of her and might give chase too. Was it possible that one of them had a gun? Unlikely. Their clothing had a different smell when they were out hunting and though farm-hands occasionally carried guns when they were not specifically out hunting – when they were driving the tractor, for instance – the kind of people who lived or came to the manor house always wore special clothes when shooting things. Their voices were different at those times too: they were not as loose, the barks coming out in a taut staccato rhythm.
So, no guns. The humans, then, could be discounted. Were there any other dogs? She could not smell any and certainly Sabre was not paying attention to anyone but himself. Good, only Sabre to deal with.
Only Sabre? She had got away from the ridgeback once, but could she hope to do it a second time? The wall at the bottom of the garden was a good, long run. He would overtake her before she even covered a quarter of the distance. Even if she took him by surprise it was extremely doubtful she would get half-way there without getting her back broken.
So, she had to stay where she was and hope the breeze remained constantly in her direction, so that she was downwind of her adversary. In order to keep herself calm, to contain any odour of fear, she began running through the names of all the grasses in her head – cocksfoot, fescue, timothy, rye, wild oat, black, couch, tor, quaking, tufted hair, false-brome, wood millet, marram, cord … There were more. When she had finished those she began on the wild flowers, then the trees, and all the while she kept her nose keen and her ears sharp, for any signs that Sabre was coming in her direction.
For some time the human sounds continued unabated: especially the rattle of stoneware, the tinkle of metal on glass. Then something began, further out on the lawn. Some sticks were pushed into the ground and the humans began throwing a leather ball and hitting it with a flat piece of willow. O-ha had seen this kind of activity before, and knew how engrossed humans became in such things. Sabre, too, would have his attention taken up by this game. Dogs had lived with humans so long they enjoyed the same sort of games and would race after sticks or balls thrown into the air. Foxes played too, of course, but their activities were centred around developing their hunting skills.
Sure enough, Sabre went out to try to join the game, running after the ball, but one of the humans barked orders at him and he had to return to the same spot as before. During this time O-ha managed to back away, putting several more shrubs between her and the hound. Once more she was amazed at the size and speed of the ridgeback. He was a giant among dogs.
The sound of the ball being struck, and the excited barks of the humans, continued for a while. Then something alarming happened. A cat came creeping around the corner of the house, her eye on a thrush which was passing the time of day hollering at the clouds from a window-sill. At first she was intent on the thrush, but it saw her and flew away, leaving her to lick her paw as if she had no thought of birds in her mind anyway. Then she saw O-ha, crouched behind a bush. Her fur went up and the usual hissing, spitting, face was presented to the vixen.
‘Get lost,’ said O-ha, as softly as she could. ‘I’m not interested in you.’
‘Cambrioleur!’ cried the cat. ‘Allez vite!’
The two of them sat and regarded each other with mutual hostility, before the cat finally found its legs and marched off towards Sabre. For a moment O-ha’s heart was in her mouth, but when the cat reached the dog, she pranced past him, not forgetting to spit in his face and show her claws. Sabre took no notice of her. They obviously shared the same household, tolerating each other’s presence, but there seemed to be no love lost between the two of them. O-ha had seen cats smaller than this one scratch the noses of large dogs and get away clean, and she had
a healthy respect for the feline members of the animal world, whether they were domesticated or not. Cats had never fully capitulated anyway, and used humans rather than the other way around.
The wind began to make tentative changes in direction, and once again the dog got a whiff of the fox and puzzled over this. His head went up, first one way, then it jerked the other. O-ha wondered what was happening. Sabre was on his feet, his head whipping backwards and forwards as if he were not sure in which direction his quarry lay. The master barked at him, but the dog refused to obey. It came trotting towards the shrubbery, its eyes narrowed, then stopped and went the other way, towards a flower bed.
Then O-ha realised what was happening. She had now caught a scent of fox herself, and knew that Camio was in the flower bed, on the far side of the lawn. Sabre was confused. It was time to flee.
She came out of the shrubs running, and headed straight for the game in progress on the middle of the lawn. Camio had seen her break and went at the same time, running parallel to her.
‘Go, vixen, go!’ he yelled. ‘Head for the humans. Confound the dog.’
‘Exactly what I was doing,’ she snapped through clenched teeth. She ran right through the middle of the players that barked and howled at her, some of these mesmerised, others looking for objects to throw.
A club was swung by one of the humans in white, missing her head by a fraction and she ran between him and the three sticks. She felt the wind of it. Then a boot struck her side, but not hard enough to put her off course. A quick glance told her the dog was almost on her. His teeth were bared to the gums and the eyes were demonic. His determination was evident in the way he remained silent, intent only on running down his prey.
Camio came rushing in at the ridgeback from the side, distracting him, and he turned his head for an instant. There was indecision in the way he weaved between the foxes, trying to make up his mind which one to go for.
At that moment, the sky overhead suddenly went black as if it were an eclipse of the sun, except that the air was full of sound. The clamour was appalling and even the foxes, in danger of being caught, looked up for an instant. A noisy, dark sheet was moving over the sky. The dog, unused to such a strange phenomenon, looked for too long, and stumbled. The two foxes were quick to take advantage of the situation, increased their speed and reached the wall almost together. The dog recovered, but was still unsure about which one to attack. Finally, he decided on Camio, who was closer. The American Red was at the foot of an oak, however, and within a moment was up in its branches and jumping for the wall. He ran along the top in the opposite direction from O-ha with the dog following him. Now the hound was screaming threats, but it knew it was beaten. O-ha took two leaps at the wall before she finally scrambled over the top and down to the other side. She ran out and on until she reached the building sites. There she waited for Camio.
When he arrived he began to remonstrate with her.
‘What on earth made you go to the manor?’ he said. ‘You were almost caught.’
‘I might ask you the same thing.’
‘I came to rescue you.’
‘Well, it wasn’t necessary. I’m quite capable of looking after myself thank you.’ She faltered. ‘I – I was told you had gone to the manor first.’
‘Now you know that’s not true. I was with A-konkon when he informed me that he had seen you heading in that direction. I guessed you were going down to try to even the score with Sabre. It was a silly thing to do. You have to forget that hound. There’s not a fox on earth that could kill such a creature. It’s too big and fierce and he’s not worth it.’
She sniffed.
‘Well, I couldn’t expect you to fight my battles for me, that’s obvious. It’s a good job the geese arrived when they did.’
‘Me? Have a go at that beast? You must be mad. Next time you get such a crazy idea into your head, I suggest you go down to the pond at the farm and stick your head into the water – wash it clean of such thoughts. I’ve never heard of such an idiotic obsession …’ He continued in like vein, until she could stand no more, and walked away towards the wood.
Overhead the geese, some two hundred thousand of them, were honking away to each other in their own particular tongue, their wings creaking and filling the air with sound. They came down from the north every winter to spend the cold months on the mud flats of the estuary. They were, thankfully, unusually early. In fact they often did not arrive until well after the autumn. They darkened the sky with their numbers, as they realised the journey to the southern lands was over and began to break formation.
O-ha went to the top of the ridge and watched the large birds landing on the fields adjacent to the river. They were all talking to each other, milling around in their multitudes, the occasional head winding up above the crowd looking for a friend or relative missing since the flight began. ‘Has so-and-so made it?’ they would be saying. ‘I saw her start out, but lost her when I took the lead. Oh, yes, there she is, with whatsisname!’
Tired wings, aching muscles, relieved hearts: they were all down there on the mud. Some of them would not have made it, of course – the sick and the lame, the elderly, those who had become dispirited and had dropped into the ocean. Then the stragglers followed on, in twos and threes. They would be flying in for the next few hours, days perhaps, in large formations, or small clutches, encouraging one another, ‘Come on, only another few wingbeats. Don’t give up now – we’re nearly there.’
‘You’ve – been – saying – that – since godknowswhen …’
‘And I’ll keep saying it. We’re nearly there. I mean it. I can see the coast. Look, look. Not down there – only water –’
‘Endless – water – waves – white – foam – death … I’m so tired – so tired. I can’t – not another wingbeat … so – desperately tired.’
‘Never mind all that. Look at that dark smudge on the horizon. That’s land I tell you.’
‘Cloud –’
‘No, land. Look how it sweeps around in a curve. And there’s a landbird – see, see. Come on. We’re there. We’re there.’
‘Land? You’re sure?’
‘See how it grows out of the mist! Forget those damn waves. Forget everything but getting to that black strip of mud. Everyone will be there. Think about that. Everyone. We’ve made it,’ cries the optimist. ‘I told you we would.’
‘Probably get there now – yes – only to be eaten by a fox,’ says his pessimist friend.
O-ha watched the birds for a long time, wondering what it must be like to set out on such an arduous journey: what fortitude was required in such an enterprise. Yet it all seemed so silly to her. Why not stay where they were? Or, since the winters were obviously too harsh up there, why not stay down here, in the south, once the journey had been made. But geese obviously had their own ideas about such things. Their own motivations. The urge to use their wings in some desperate adventure was obviously necessary to them. Geese. Who could fathom them?
Then she thought about Camio. He had saved her life and she could not bring herself to thank him. It was a problem. He was a problem to her.
Dog foxes, who could fathom them?
She went back to the sett, her earth, not forgetting the rituals of entering before going down. That night, under the moon, she stole a chicken from the farm. Breaker was fast asleep during the whole operation and she could not help hoping that he would get into trouble for allowing the theft to take place. She stripped the carcass in her chamber, scattering feathers everywhere. There were already small bones and other debris on the floor, and when Gar came down to see her he said, ‘Is a mess! How you live in such chaos?’
She looked around her, seeing the rubbish for the first time.
‘Foxes are not very tidy creatures, I’m afraid.’
Gar grunted. ‘You tell me? What is this? One new goose, fly in today?’
‘No,’ she said, more sharply than she had intended. ‘No, it’s not a goose, Gar. I wouldn’t touch the ge
ese.’
He shrugged his back, asking for no explanations, but she could see he was puzzled by the reply. No doubt he was saying to himself, ‘Vixens – who could fathom them?’
Humiliation! If Sabre could have wept tears of frustration, the way humans frequently did, he would have done so at that moment. To have been outwitted by that vixen once was bad enough, but a second time … unthinkable. Yet, she had done it. It was almost as if she were deliberately mocking him. Why had she come to the manor? Why? To make him look ridiculous, of course. The walls that contained him were barriers that would have to be breached. He would get out one day – one day soon – and go looking for that vixen and her mate. They had been responsible for a beating, when Sabre had returned to the manor without so much as one of their pelts in his mouth.
The male guests at the house had taunted his master (he knew the whining note of such barks!) and Sabre, in turn, had received a thrashing for coming back without a kill. He knew he deserved the stick his master had administered. He shared the feelings of shame with the head of the household, at his ineptitude.
He would scour the countryside, the streets of the town, until he found her. His spies had been out, the dogs that visited the house and had more freedom of the town, had given him her name. O-ha, that was the vixen’s name, wrested from a weasel near to death.
Sabre paced the wall around the estate, looking for a place to get over or under. He found a place where the mortar was crumbling and scratched at it with his claws. It fell away as dust.
There was a bark from the house. His master. He would have to go. But he would come back here, to this spot in the wall, and work on those bricks until there was a gap large enough to let him escape. Then he would go looking for this O-ha, this blight on his honour, and crush her skull in his jaws. It might take a season, perhaps more, but he would, eventually, taste her blood. Domesticated canines had suffered the jibes and jeers of wild creatures for too long, simply because of the relationship dogs had with humans. Most domesticated hounds were unfit for tracking down and killing wild animals, but Sabre was different. He felt the wounds caused by fox words, deeply, just as he had those of the jackals, and hyenas, and other such creatures in the old land. It was time for dogs to reassert themselves and show their cousins that they had not been tamed beyond redemption: that there were hounds whose honour was unbesmirched.
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