There was a wind blowing up from the area beyond the marshes outside the town – from the sea – and the tangy smell reminded Camio of the months he and O-ha had spent in the old wreck. They had never encountered the hound, Breaker, since that time and he wondered whether the dog was now dead.
Suddenly, as the thought of ‘dog’ entered his mind, he stopped, and sniffed. There was something else caught up in Melloon, besides the scent of salt, the smell of ripe fruit from the trees in the gardens – something sinister. It triggered the alarms which made up his nervous system. Had this happened before? What was so familiar yet at the same time strange and disturbing? His mind did a scan of all the scents and sounds which meant danger and came up with – nothing. Nothing? Well, nothing definite.
He shrugged. Perhaps he was being overcautious? It was best to keep his wits about him, fully, but it was also sensible not to get worked up about something which would probably turn out to be nothing in particular. There was a smell of dog, certainly, but in the face it was difficult to get away from such scents. There were many pet dogs around, leaving their marks on posts, in the corners of alleys, and, of course, in the gutter. It would have taken a hundred days of rain to wash away such odours.
He looked up, but it was not possible to see the night sky which was obscured by corners of buildings and the lights of the town. If he hoped to find a sign there, he thought to himself, he would wait all night. All he could see was a haze of half-light above him.
His instincts were probably tuned too sharply. It happened sometimes.
Just then, there was a cry from several streets away, followed by a chirruping sound. Two foxes were calling to one another. Was there anything sinister in that? Silence. He waited for a while, to see if anything further was said. Then came the word, full of fox-fear, which made his fur stand on end.
‘Dog!’
‘Dog – but why such a call? There were several strays in the town – more than one hound was left out for the night. Town dogs were seldom dangerous. They hadn’t the wit, nor the will, to catch a fox. So, why the …
The call came again, to be taken up by others.
‘The dog is abroad.’
‘The dog?’
A long, chilling cry went out, over the roof-tops, through the streets. It was the call of a hound: a hound in the full of the hunt. But there would be no horsemen – not in the face – so the dog would be hunting alone. What kind of dog would do that?
The call went out again, and then the shout of a fox.
‘Look out! Sabre is loose …’
Sabre! The ridgeback was in the streets! It must have found a way out of the walled garden, and now it was hunting its favourite prey in the streets of the town.
O-ha, thought Camio. I must go back to her. The beast was abroad. Camio realised that he and his family were in great danger. Sabre was familiar with his and O-ha’s scents. The dog would just have to catch a whiff of one of them, to be on their trail. All foxes were Sabre’s prey, but those who had outwitted the beast would surely be top of the death list. And the most positive recognition signal amongst canids was the scent. The smell of an animal imprinted itself on the brain. Camio might forget the physical appearance of the first dog he had ever scented, but he would recognise its odour in an instant. Once smelled, never forgotten. Sabre would be searching the highways and byways for a whiff of the two foxes that had made him look a fool in front of his master. He would question those animals he caught and terrorised until he gained some information on their whereabouts. There was no question that O-ha especially was in terrible danger.
Camio began to retrace his steps, and all the while the fearful cries rose around him, filling the night air. Dogs in their houses began to take up the call too, some of them yelling, ‘Give it to them, Sabre,’ but others, perhaps confused by the general clamour, or possibly less partisan than most, shouting, ‘Keep it quiet!’ or ‘Go back home, where you belong.’
Lights began to go on in the houses and in the flats above the new shops, and humans started barking at their dogs, and then each other. Then suddenly there was a terrible scream from not far away and the whole town went quiet, listened. The sound of cracking bone followed, after which a voice full of triumph, in the rich timbre of the ridgeback, crooned out the words, ‘A fox is dead!’
Pandemonium in the houses.
Camio hurried on. Soon the main area of noise was behind him and he could concentrate on finding the shortest route back to the scrapyard. He did not consider using the main highway. He followed his own instincts and cut a path over garages, sheds and gardens, careless of any other known dogs in the area. He was moving too swiftly to be caught.
When he arrived back at the yard he went straight through the tunnels in the metal junk, to the earth, where he found to his relief that O-ha was waiting.
‘What’s happened?’ she said. ‘What’s the matter? Is it the Unremembered Fear?’
Camio paused to get his breath.
‘Nothing so pleasant,’ he said, once he was able. ‘Sabre’s out. He’s loose in the streets.’
O-ha sank to her knees.
‘Oh, my poor cubs!’ she whispered.
A tingling sensation went down Camio’s spine. Of course, A-sac and Mitz were out looking for earths! Camio remembered the horrible scream – the death scream of a fox having its neck broken – and tried to convince himself that the voice had not belonged to one of his own cubs. I know my own. That was the voice of an adult. I would recognise my own cubs. But the doubt remained. Voices change when under the influence of fear. He said nothing to O-ha, however, about this incident. She would have been too far away to hear it, having only caught the general clamour rather than anything more specific.
‘I must go back,’ he said to her, ‘and look for them.’
‘NO.’
He was shocked by the violence in her voice.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to lose you too. We can have more cubs …’
‘You don’t mean that, I know,’ he replied gently. ‘I realise you’re afraid for me, but you needn’t be. I’ve faced worse dangers than Sabre – I outwitted two Alsatians to escape from the zoo.’
‘Sabre eats Alsatians.’
‘It’s not the size – it’s experience and intelligence that counts. He won’t get me, I can assure you of that. And I have to go out there, O-ha – they’re my cubs too. With any luck A-sac will have gone to look for his mound on the hav just beyond the marshes. He’ll be out of harm’s way. It’s Mitz I’m worried about.’
‘I’m coming too.’
He did not reply for a few moments, while he stilled those thoughts which would have him argue her out of it. It was not that he considered himself more able than O-ha, but that Sabre would only have to catch a whiff of her scent and she would be in terrible danger. However, he realised that she was entitled to search for her cub as much as he, and the big dog had not got her yet, despite two attempts. Had the situation been reversed and he, Camio, were the one in mortal danger, he knew he would not have allowed O-ha to talk him out of the quest to find Mitz.
‘Fair enough. But we have to keep together unless we come up against him, in which case we immediately split up, the way we did in the manor garden. That way it confuses him. All right?’
‘You don’t have to tell me.’
‘No, I don’t. Just wanted to have things clear between us.’
If Sabre was going to get one of them, Camio was going to make very sure it was him. However, he tried to think positively. There was no reason why the ridgeback should get either of them. They were two bright, fit foxes and they both knew tricks that would have most hounds chasing their own tails.
‘Let’s go then,’ said Camio.
‘We’ll try the area near the centre of the face first. Keep your nose to the wind and your ears tuned, vixen …’
With that, the pair of them left the earth. For once, O-ha forgot to observe the rituals.
They travelled to th
e middle of the town swiftly, but cautiously. There was still an uproar in progress, but the barking humans were gradually winning their battle for silence. They came to a street which stank of Sabre residue. The body of a fox lay under the light from the lamps. It was twisted into an unnatural position and they could smell the deadness about it, as they approached. It was a juvenile, but from a distance they knew it was not A-sac, since it had a normal red coat, and when they got closer they were equally relieved to smell that it was not Mitz. They looked about them, nervously, wondering whether the hound from the Unplace was lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce.
But then, thought Camio, that’s not his way. He’ll charge through the streets, looking for quarry, rather than sneak around like a fox.
‘It’s just a youngster,’ said O-ha, sadly, still sniffing the corpse.
‘Let’s get on,’ replied Camio.
They began a systematic search of the town – systematic by fox standards of course, which meant a weaving, meandering course through streets and gardens, alleys and yards – but found no trace of either of their cubs. Always, somewhere around them, they sensed the presence of that great hound.
At one point, O-ha stopped suddenly, stiff in her tracks.
‘What’s the matter?’ whispered Camio, but even before the final word was out, he had caught the scent too.
‘Quick, up on that roof!’
O-ha obviously needed no second warning. She leaped up on to the roof of a car parked outside a garage, then on to the roof of the garage itself. Camio was close behind her. The pair of them found the shadow where the garage roof joined the wall of the house, and lay there. Camio could feel O-ha’s heart pounding as they pressed against each other.
Down at the far end of the street, in the light of a lamp, Sabre was standing. They could see him lifting his nose to the breeze, but they were upwind of him. His scent came to them quite strongly, but theirs would hopefully not reach him.
The great hound stood for seasons out of time, staring down the street. Then he began to walk along it, sniffing at the fence posts and the bases of the garden walls. Camio held his breath. If Sabre reached the point where they had left the street, he would locate them for sure. Then it would be just a matter of time. The little fox was not so sure that the dog could not follow them, using the car as a launching platform.
Camio thought, if he gets this far, I’ll have a go. I’ll have the advantage. The dog won’t be able to keep his footing on the roof. Perhaps I’ll be able to get to his throat, before he can get to mine? The American fox was calm by this time. He knew that there was no other way out. He had to stand and fight. Once that decision had been made, the terror went out of him, to be replaced by that heightened feeling of controlled fear that was necessary to any animal about to fight. That was necessary, in order to keep him honed to a sharp edge, to quicken his actions, to clear his brain.
The ridgeback got closer. Under the light of the street lamps Camio could see the ridged muscles on the great hound’s back, the skin rippling like water over boulders in a stream. Closer. Closer. Until the foxes were sure he must have caught their scent.
The dog stopped. It looked up, turned its head.
They crouched closer to the wall in the black shadow. The wind was a friend to foxes that night, remaining constant in direction.
Suddenly, something streaked across the end of the street, running for its life. Camio caught the strong scent of cat. It must have been hiding in the aromatic screen of a herb garden, because it trailed thyme and basil in its wake.
Sabre was off, in pursuit, a thin growl in the back of his monstrous throat.
Once he was round the corner, the foxes leapt down from their hiding place and took the opposite direction. They carried on the search but they had had a bad fright and their attention was not completely on the task they had set themselves.
Eventually, they felt that they had covered all the ground they could, and with one area of the face still noisy with the yelling of dogs, they made their way back to their earth, hoping that the cubs would be there waiting for them.
They were not.
As the heron-grey dawn drifted into the yard, O-ha sat at the entrance to the earth, waiting. O-ha was good at waiting. She was the patient vixen with her nose to the wind and her ear tuned to the world. Around her the inane chatter of sparrows filled the hollows in the ironwork, the frames of cars, the old metal boilers, the cookers and stoves: sparrows, like fleas, got everywhere. Unlike fleas, they could not be scratched, and she suffered their irritating banalities in silence. In the earth, an exhausted Camio slept, his breathing sacred to her.
How long would that hound be loose? When such a dog got out it was often two or three days before they caught him, given that he was indisposed towards going home himself. He might get hungry, and return to the manor, but she doubted this. A dog such as that could forage for his own food. There was the fact that he was an unusually large breed and if seen by people, they would be curious as to why he was out on his own. But would they dare approach him?
She waited, patiently, listening for the sounds of her cubs returning.
Later, the men came to the yard, growling softly to one another in the way that they always did. A vehicle arrived and dropped its load and there was a lot of noise when the scrap was sorted. Twilight drifted away. Shadows began to harden.
At noon, Camio rose, and joined her, settling down beside her beneath their metal roof.
‘No sign yet?’ he asked, without hope in his voice.
‘No – nothing.’
‘We mustn’t lose hope. Remember, I told them both to take two or three days in searching for a new home, and A-sac said he might not come back at all.’
‘I haven’t lost hope.’
‘Good.’
A crow landed on the scrap, well out of their reach, and cried, ‘Fuchs! Was fehlt Ihnen?’ but they ignored it. Crows always seemed to know when something was wrong, even when it was not clearly evident. Any response was usually met with mocking tones. Crows seemed to enjoy the misery of their fellow creatures. When it was not chased away it began to get a little bolder, muttering to itself as it hopped from one piece of metal to another, almost within reach of their jaws. Finally, it made a sound of disgust, and flew away.
That night, O-ha had the dream, the recurring nightmare. She dreamed she was in a bright place and struggling to walk. Suddenly, black bars fell across the ground. They were like the iron rods of a cage at the zoo, once described to her by Camio. Then she was being chased, and she sank to her shoulders in the soil, which hampered her escape. Finally, the shadow of her pursuer fell across her path and she looked up to see …
The morning after he had killed the juvenile fox in a sidestreet, Sabre found a resting place. It was one of the newly built houses whose occupants had not yet arrived. He was feeling disappointed. Having got that fox, he had been hoping it was one of the vixen’s young, but her scent was nowhere on the creature. That was a shame. There were two reasons why it would have been a great victory to have snapped the spine of one of her cubs. One, Sabre would have considered the killing as part repayment for his humiliation, and two, she might have come looking for the youngster.
Consequently, since her mark was not on the dead creature, he had gone off, deeper into the town to see if he could pick up her scent. He had indeed caught a smell of her, once or twice, but the odour had been too faint to give him direction. It was just a matter of time.
Having escaped through the hole he had been digging for such a long time, he was determined to stay out until he caught the vixen. She would not escape him now. He knew he would get a beating, once he was recaptured, but that did not bother him at all. Sabre had been in worse predicaments. When he was a puppy he had frequently been kicked and bullied by the owner’s children, when the master was not around to prevent it. The children used the household pets to get rid of their own frustration, when their father went off hunting in the bush for weeks at a time.
Tomorrow he would take up the search again, and let the vixen beware.
Chapter Twenty Three
Unlike her father, Mitz was having a great deal of trouble staying out of other foxes’ areas. Because she did not know the face as well as Camio, she found she was continually transgressing territorial rights in her search for an earth. She had been snarled, spat and shouted at in the course of the night and was quickly learning that she should take serious note of ‘marked’ areas and use her nose as a guide. The trouble was the streets were full of stale scents, especially those of dogs, and the under and over layers of odours became confusing. It was a little disconcerting, to say the least, when you poked your nose into a hole in a fence, to be confronted by a head with flattened ears and bared teeth telling you to go and chase your tail elsewhere. She counted herself lucky that she had not been bitten on the occasions when she had quite innocently wandered into a likely looking but inhabited hideaway. Even though much of the town was still under construction, there were foxes in almost every part of it, and though cats did not bother her a great deal they too seemed to resent her presence. Being still a juvenile she was wary of some of the big tomcats, with bellies that brushed the ground and faces like battered tin cans. They seldom ran from her, once they saw she was not an adult, and their eyes would glint, their faces would contort into devilish features and their fur would rise, making them look twice their actual size.
‘Peau-Rouge!’ they would hiss. ‘Sauvage!’
Hunter's Moon Page 24