Hunter's Moon

by Garry Kilworth

  ‘Listen, don’t put me in the same category as that creature. I know him. The manor dog. He’s despised by everyone that knows him. Arrogant slob. Thinks he’s king of the neighbourhood, but I could give him a walloping.’

  Mitz doubted that, but she was relieved that she would have some company. Then the man barked at Betsy and the bitch told Mitz that she had been ordered to keep quiet.

  ‘I suggest we do as he says,’ she added.

  Mitz was then released and she immediately began walking along the street. She glanced back once, to see the man and his dog following at a distance. At each corner she paused and studied the dark shadows thrown by the street lamps. Out of any one of these a giant beast might hurtle and fall upon her with terrible jaws.

  She took the shortest route back to the scrapyard, her heart pattering all the time, and finally reached it without being attacked. She slipped through the hole in the fence, looking back one last time, to see that the man and his dog were some distance behind. They had stopped: two dark figures in the night. She gave a farewell call to Betsy, and then traversed the tunnels through the jagged metal to the earth.

  After the rituals, she entered, to find O-ha and Camio.

  They had obviously smelled her scent before she confronted them, and she was surprised to see the relief and joy in her mother’s features. O-ha leapt forward and licked her daughter’s face with such enthusiasm that Mitz felt she wouldn’t need a wash for another season.

  ‘You missed me then?’ she said.

  ‘Missed you?’ cried Camio. ‘Of course we missed you. What in the world did you think?’

  Mitz shrugged.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I thought … well, you were both kind to me as a cub, but …’

  ‘But nothing,’ said O-ha. ‘You’re our daughter. Where have you been? Tell us all about it.’

  She told them her story, and they listened, fascinated.

  ‘They let you go again?’ said Camio. ‘That’s amazing. I’ve never heard of that before in my life.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, simply.

  O-ha said, ‘And you have to wear that slave ring around your neck? Shall we try to gnaw it off for you?’

  ‘Earlier on today, I would have jumped at the chance of getting rid of it,’ said Mitz, ‘but I think I owe it to Betsy to keep it on for a while. I’m certain no harm will come to us because of it. She’s quite a creature, Betsy. She told me she would defend me against Sabre, if he tried anything.’

  ‘Well, that is a little far-fetched,’ said Camio. ‘I wonder if it’s true?’

  ‘I think it is. I’m sure it is.’

  Her parents looked at each other, and Mitz could see that they were dubious, but she knew and that was all that mattered. Now that the welcome was over, Mitz studied the ambience of the earth and came up with the conclusion that fear was still in the air.

  She asked, ‘Is Sabre still at large?’

  Camio nodded. ‘We think so. It’s best to remain here for a while. There are a few caches of food in the yard, so we don’t need to worry about eating. Water might be a problem, but I can smell rain coming. We’re more worried about your brother, A-sac. He hasn’t been seen since the night you disappeared. It would be too much to hope for that he had been picked up by kindly humans. If he doesn’t return soon, I suppose we shall have to suspect the worst.’

  So the foxes settled down for another night of waiting. During the small hours, there came the sound of raindrops hitting the metal above their heads, which grew to a thunderous drumming as the skies opened up and let fall a heavy load. Water swilled around underneath the earth, which was raised slightly on the scrap metal. Camio went out in the downpour and returned with some food, which the three of them ate in silence.

  Towards dawn, the rain stopped, and the ground smelled musty and dank. Camio and O-ha talked of various matters. They spoke again of abandoning their earth. Foxes know their territories intimately and very rarely (except in the case of rangfars) would consider leaving it, but the home was a different matter. The home could be abandoned on the slightest provocation, provided a new one presented no difficulty. It was unimportant because there was nothing there. Foxes collect nothing except rubbish in and around their earths, not even bedding, so the home was literally a hidey-hole from the world.

  They discussed various places where they might search for a new earth and made some suggestions to Mitz, as to where she might also look. Camio was still in favour of the new railway embankment.

  ‘We’ll be among the first there,’ he said. ‘We can mark any posts in the area, to warn off others.’ It was the same sort of discussion that would be going on in many fox homes at that time, where the parents were preparing to leave the breeding earth.

  ‘So,’ said Camio to Mitz, ‘you’ll be setting up your own home at last. I remember when you were a little fluffy brown thing with a short pointy tail …’

  ‘Oh, Camio,’ she said, ‘not “I remember when” again.’

  Camio took no notice of this.

  ‘… you used to play with an old bone, outside in the scrap – you and A-cam. A-sac was never one much for play. I used to sit and watch you all, and wonder, was I ever like that.’

  ‘Of course you were,’ said O-ha. ‘We all were.’

  Camio continued. ‘I would watch you chasing beetles, or even bits of paper floating by in the wind. You would sneak up on one another – and on me – using every little bump in the ground as an advantage point. Clever little cubs, you were. I was so proud of you. Still am, of course, only you’re not cubs any longer.’

  ‘Were you?’ said Mitz. ‘Were you proud of us? You didn’t seem to be. You were forever telling us off.’

  ‘Oh, I know I was a bit hard on you, when it came to discipline, but your mother let you get away with murder. I remember when her teats were sore and bleeding because you cubs wouldn’t leave her alone, and she would indulge you. You were always hungry. I don’t remember a moment when you weren’t hungry. Still, those days are gone – the stalking and pouncing is for real now. You have to feed yourselves, thank goodness.’

  O-ha said, ‘You sound really old. I’m glad I’m not as old as you think you are.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m old – I’m just a family fox reminiscing. What’s the point of having all these memories if you can’t talk about them once in a while?’

  ‘Those aren’t memories, Camio,’ said Mitz. ‘They’re pictures you make in your head. I know there’s some truth there, but you embellish everything. When you told us about your fight with A-magyr, you said it was over O-ha – that it was a battle to the death, the winner take all, the prize being the favours of our mother. When mother told us about it, it sounded very different.’

  Camio shifted his position, seemingly uncomfortable under O-ha’s intense gaze.

  ‘Quite right too. What’s the point of having a memory if you can’t make a decent story out of it? Anyone can remember things. It takes a special talent to make that memory interesting to others. Why, I recall the time your mother and I …’

  In this way, they passed the night, each one of them waiting and hoping that the dark hours would not be interrupted by some terrible event. Each of them knew the danger they were in with the ridgeback still abroad. The hound was specifically out to get O-ha and her family. Every small noise outside made them start with fear. Sabre only had to get within a short distance of the scrapyard to scent O-ha, and unless he was caught he would reach that point eventually by the process of elimination.

  When the sun was well up, O-ha went out for a look around just outside the yard, but within short reach of the hole in the fence. She sniffed the air for scent of Sabre, but could not make a decision as to whether it was clean or not. The strong scent of iron and steel was in her nostrils from having spent so long in the scrapyard, and it was difficult to get rid of that within a few moments. There was no scent either of her albino cub.

  Sadly, she returned to the earth.

  ‘We�
��ll wait one more day,’ she said to Camio. ‘They must have caught Sabre by then. He can’t roam the streets forever. Then we have to look for A-sac. He might be miles away, but we can’t be sure of that. Once I know he’s safe, I shan’t worry any more.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ replied her mate. ‘That sounds a sensible course of action to me.’

  It turned out that the decision was a timely one. The men in the scrapyard had brought in a machine and were now busy crushing down the metal objects into small cubes. They were working themselves slowly through the scrap and would reach the foxes’ breeding earth in two or three days’ time.

  The noise made by the machine was at first a little frightening to the foxes, but after a while – as with all things – they got used to it, when they realised it was not going to eat its way towards them in a hurry and that they still had a little time left.

  The sun came out and dried the rain, sending clouds of steam into the pockets of scrap and along the tunnels. The foxes spent their time cleaning each other, fastidious as ever about their personal hygiene, if not their home. The time passed slowly for them.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  A-sac had left the face long before Sabre began terrorising the streets, and was on his way north, towards the other side of the river. Deep in the marshes, there was an island. On this dry area stood a mound in which the vixen mystic, O-toltol lived. A-sac was told that she had not left this place for many seasons. She remained in this chamber-tomb of some long-dead human, but her words of wisdom travelled far and wide. He was informed that rangfars visited this elderly stoad and carried her words to ords who were afraid to leave their parishes, and until recently the vixen had had an assistant who visited the sick and lame, carrying her cures with him. Like A-konkon, O-toltol was supposed to be a herbalist and able to cure many injuries and illnesses by prescribing the use of various plants. However, according to the rangfar from whom A-sac had gathered all his information, the assistant had recently met with a fatal accident out on the wetlands. It was his intention to offer his services to A-toltol and thus become her new assistant.

  A-sac made his way to the river and then west, along the dyke, until he reached the first bridge upstream from the estuary. On the way he spied a partridge in the long grasses, tracked it and killed it with his scissor jaws. He ate most of the unlucky bird on the spot and then cached the rest under a large log, before proceeding.

  The bridge was busy with traffic, so he waited until nightfall before attempting the crossing. He hid in the deep grasses of the dyke, under the shadow of a huge disused river mill, the clinkered weatherboarding painted black, its gantry idle. Alongside the mill was moored a seagoing barge with rust-coloured sails and a webwork of rigging, masts and stays. The boat, too, was now out of use and firmly embedded in the mud, though it looked as if it might lift itself up at any moment and shake the sludge from its keel before setting sail once more.

  Mixed with the smell of ancient grain, pressed into the clay floors by a million leather soles, was the smell of fermented hops. During the evening, men came and went, some of them leaving the mill on boneless legs. A-sac waited hopefully for one of them to fall into the sludge at the edge of the river and join the barge in an endless sleep.

  When all was finally still and quiet, A-sac crossed the bridge by the stone parapet rather than use the actual roadway. By that time the tide had gone out and the river was a dribble in the centre of the mud.

  Now the young dog fox struck east, along the opposite dyke, passing a rubbish tip which was the home of two fox families and hundreds of seagulls. As he passed the groups of seagulls, the stench of the tip in his nostrils, they rose and began clamouring in the air around him. Most of the birds were juveniles, their markings indistinct, but they were still strong in flight.

  ‘I’m not interested in you,’ he shouted. ‘Go away.’

  But they refused to leave him alone. He tried to explain to them that he never attacked white creatures like themselves, because he himself was the same colour: that it would be like eating his own flesh. They did not understand, or chose not to listen, and dived low over him, screeching obscenities in their own language. It was not until he was well away from the rubbish site that the last of them left him to continue his journey in peace. He travelled along the dyke until morning, then struck out across the marsh, where it took some time to acclimatise himself to the effluvia.

  Out on the mud, there were many wading birds, mostly dunlin, but one or two avocets. A-sac stopped to study them for a while, but they glared at him and made it plain that he should be on his way. O-ha had told him a great deal about the creatures with whom he shared his world. Obviously, the idea behind mothers teaching their young about the habits of other animals and birds, was to enable their cubs to hunt more efficiently. Know your prey, was a byword amongst foxes. But A-sac found the actual knowledge stimulating, from a thinker’s point of view. He was interested in the creatures themselves and found the facts exciting. Each individual animal or bird had a lifestyle which was different enough from others to be worth investigating as a subject in itself. For instance, the wren, one of the smallest birds, ate mostly spiders and sometimes starved to death in the winter when there were few arachnids available. That was fascinating to A-sac. That such specialised feeders should exist was to him a remarkable thing. He also knew that the cock wren built several nests and showed his prospective hen all of them and let her choose her favourite, which she lined herself. In areas where there were more females than male birds, the wren would have several mates, setting them all up in their own nests and helping with the feeding of the young when they arrived.

  It was this kind of knowledge that captivated A-sac, and he found it hard to reconcile his urge to hunt with his interest in the quarry. The partridge he had killed had a lifestyle behind it which fascinated him, but this did not prevent his instincts from switching to his hunting mode when he scented or heard one and was hungry. This, too, was an aspect about himself which occupied his mind a great deal. He hoped that O-toltol would be able to discuss these matters with him in great depth, so that he understood better the world in which he lived and the creatures who were his neighbours. Even more important, he wanted to understand himself.

  The rangfar who had told him about O-toltol was an itinerant story-teller, who traded what he called The Baffles of A-sop (a long-dead but very wise fox) for food. There were supposedly hundreds of these baffles, or tales, but though A-sac had been thoroughly captivated he had had only enough spare food to purchase three. (Even so, he had had to steal from Camio’s caches and his father had been quite angry with him for ‘wasting’ the stores.) The stories that A-gork had told him were now firmly embedded in his mind. These are the tales, which presuppose that humans are able to talk:

  The Foxcub and the Manchild

  A foxcub often visited an orchard at the same time as a child and after eating windfalls they would wrestle with one another in the tall grasses. During these times the foxcub would say to his playmate, when we are grown you will come hunting for me, and kill me. Never, said the manchild, for you are my friend. Many seasons later they came across each other in a field and the grown fox remained at a safe distance. The man had a gun, which he immediately pointed at the fox. Don’t you recognise me? said the fox, your old playmate? I remember you used to steal my father’s apples, said the man. Ah, said the fox, if your aim is as true as your words then I am safe from harm, and sped away without being hit.

  ‘The moral of this story,’ A-gork had said, ‘which will cost you nothing extra, is: never trust a man, despite childhood friendships and promises.’

  The Vixen and the Hunter

  One hot, summer’s day, when Frashoon breathed down long, rocky valleys, a vixen went to drink in a beck. At that moment a hunter arrived and began drinking upstream from the fox. The vixen was too thirsty to leave, but suddenly the hunter looked up, demanding to know why the vixen was muddying the water. He began unslinging his rifle. She said
, how can that be, when I am drinking downstream from you? Be that as it may, said the hunter, I’m told you called me names five seasons ago, behind my back. All the while he spoke, the hunter was loading his rifle. That is impossible, said the vixen, since I am only three seasons old. In that case, it was your mother, said the hunter, and shot the poor vixen dead.

  ‘The moral of this story is that foxes should never stay to argue with hunters, no matter what the injustice or bodily needs.’

  The Fox and the Farmer

  A farmer with a gun had found a fox earth and was waiting for the owner to emerge or return to it. To while away the time the farmer began to sing and the fox, who was indeed at home, devised a clever scheme to snatch the farmer’s gun. The fox called from the earth, commenting on the beauty of the man’s voice. Really? said the farmer, who had found out what he wished to know concerning the fox’s whereabouts. No one ever told me that before. Perhaps foxes have a more musical ear than most? Undoubtedly, said the fox, but might I suggest that since you have a voice like a bird, you climb a tree and sing out over the evening hills, for the benefit of all? The man proceeded to shin up the tree, and since he had to use his hands, he left the gun on the ground. Once he had reached a suitably high branch, the fox dashed out of the earth only to catch his neck in a snare which had been set by the farmer.

  ‘The moral of this story is that man is too devious a creature to outwit by direct confrontation. A fox should remain silent and unseen, and rely on stealth.’

  These stories greatly impressed A-sac, and the albino foxcub wanted to go out and immediately tell them to others, but he had promised A-gork that he would keep them to himself because the rangfar’s livelihood depended upon being able to retell his tales.

  ‘Can’t you hunt for your food?’ asked A-sac.

  ‘Ah, well that’s where I’m vulnerable. I made a vow as a young fox that I would never kill another creature, so now I have either to tell my stories or starve.’