Hunter's Moon

by Garry Kilworth

  And what if he turned out to be a bad hunter, unable to catch rabbits or birds? What if all three of them were useless at living off the countryside?

  These questions turned around in his brain as he lay awake. He decided that, once he had set up some caches around the place, he would leave the vixens and visit his parents, one last time. They would be able to advise him further.

  A-cam made the journey, following the railway track, undergoing several hardships on the way, but coping with them the way an adult fox would. He was grown now, with responsibilities, and he had begun to take himself seriously. He learned about the trains and when they were likely to come along, leaving the track at those times and hiding in the grasses of the embankment. He met other foxes, but treated their territories with respect and received nothing but respect in return. One or two dogs were encountered, but he was now one of the wiliest creatures in the animal world and used his skills to advantage. He was no coward but did not court danger unnecessarily. Only fools stayed and fought when there was a chance to run. Only idiots did not use artful cunning when it was one of their greatest talents. He was the fox: crafty, subtle, furtive, stealthy, secretive. He slid in and out of danger as lean and unobtrusive as a shade and his enemies caught only a glimpse of him out of the corners of their eyes, if they saw him at all. He avoided the conspicuous, open places and sought the corners, the hidey-holes, the thickets of blackthorn jagged with shadow, the deep ditches and depressions. He learned how to travel without causing a fuss amongst the birds and he rested lightly, ready to spring to his feet and leave one landscape for another, so that a pursuer would remain wondering about the flash of red seen only for a split second, before it was gone.

  A-cam arrived in the town to find a strangeness in the atmosphere. There was danger around and he did not wait to discover its meaning. He had come to see his parents and that he would do.

  He reached the scrap yard without mishap and entered one of the tunnels. However, the mountain of junk had changed shape since he had last been there, the men adding to or subtracting from the pile. He had a little difficulty in locating the main highway, but once he had found it, he went straight to the earth. His heart was beating fast with the anticipation of seeing his family again. On the journey he had not stopped to think about the meeting, but now that it was imminent, he was beside himself. If was difficult to contain such joy and he covered the last few yards at a rush, so that he almost bowled Camio over.

  Camio had been waiting at the entrance and they fell on one another with a storm of happiness.

  ‘I’m home! I’m home!’ cried A-cam, and his mother and sister leapt on him and covered him in nips and licks, so that when they were eventually persuaded to back off, his coat was quite damp. He shook himself, still bursting with pride and joy.

  O-ha groaned at the stump where his tail used to be, but A-cam shrugged it off.

  Then he asked, ‘Where’s A-sac?’

  Camio replied, ‘Still – still out somewhere, looking for his earth.’

  ‘Oh,’ said A-cam and, catching the undercurrent of concern in Camio’s voice and not wishing to spoil his homecoming, said no more for the time being.

  ‘Mitz!’ he said, noticing her collar.

  She knew what he was going to ask and said, ‘Later, let’s hear your story first.’

  He proceeded to tell them about his adventures, beginning by telling them they should call him A-salla now, since he was mated to a vixen of rare beauty, called O-sollo.

  PART SEVEN

  The Palace of the Winds

  Chapter Thirty One

  ‘A vixen of rare beauty?’ repeated O-ha, as A-cam neared the end of his tale. She regarded her son with questioning eyes. He seemed to have landed on his feet, albeit without a tail. She was very pleased for him.

  ‘Well, no more beautiful than yourself … or Mitz …’ stumbled A-cam in an attempt at diplomacy.

  ‘Now you’re spoiling it,’ said Mitz. ‘You shouldn’t be so eager to please us all. I have this vision of a vixen with a soft, velvety coat that shines in the sun – a light frame and a high, pert head, with deep brown eyes … a fox to put a hunter’s moon to shame.’

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s her exactly,’ said A-cam, excitedly.

  ‘Well, then, don’t try to ruin my pictures. I shall always think of you as this dashing creature rescuing a vixen of rare beauty from the clutches of certain death.’

  Camio interrupted.

  ‘You were telling us, A-cam, about your inability to put into practise your mother’s teaching.’

  A-cam looked at his father with a hurt expression.

  ‘No, Camio. I was saying that I thought we might not manage. As it turned out, we got along very well. Of course, there’s Ransheen to content with yet – the time of scarcity – but I know now that we’ll manage. We’ve learned an awful lot in just a short time. And though I’m not as good at hunting as the other two – O-fall is the best – I can catch most things. O-fall will probably not be with us for long, anyway. There’s a dog fox in the area interested in her.’

  ‘I was wondering about that,’ said Camio. ‘I mean, two mates. It doesn’t work you know. No reason why foxes can’t live together as a small group, but you need to decide who is with whom.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be boring Camio,’ said Mitz. ‘A-cam knows what he’s doing. He’s your cub, after all.’

  A-cam said, ‘I never intended to have two mates. That’s not how we manage things at all. O-fall’s staying because she has nowhere else to go at the moment. We’ll survive, don’t you worry.’

  ‘I’m sure you will,’ said O-ha. ‘I’m very proud of you.’

  A-cam nodded and looked down. Then he cried, ‘Sister! What about this collar you’re wearing? Were you caught? What’s it for? You look like a dog.’

  ‘I don’t need to be told that, thank you. I had an adventure too, just like you – well, quite different, actually. I was captured by a human and taken to a house, met a friendly bitch called Betsy, had a conversation with an otter and then this collar was put on my neck. The man who captured me uses it to track me, wherever I go.’

  ‘Don’t you mind that?’ said the wide-eyed dog fox.

  ‘Not really. The human doesn’t intend me any harm, and it’s a good thing to be tracked at the moment, with that killer dog loose. We’ve been rescued once already!’

  ‘Yes, I heard rumours about Sabre as I came across the face. I must admit it put a bit of zip in my feet. Having lost my tail to that beast, I have no wish to offer him the other end. Can’t something be done?’

  Camio replied, ‘He’ll be caught soon. He can’t survive without raiding dustbins and he’s no slinking fox, to do such things silently. I expect he makes a terrible racket and he’s not exactly invisible. They’ll get him soon.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said A-cam. ‘I have to get back to my mate. I need to reach the railway track, so that I can follow it along to my earth. You must come and visit me one day, all of you.’

  They all nodded, knowing that it would never happen. They had their own busy lives to lead. It was right that A-cam had returned to the breeding earth to inform his parents of his success in finding a mate and establishing his own home, but foxes are not humans, to make regular visits. It was possible that they might run across each other again, sometime – all things are possible – but it was doubtful that such a dangerous journey, outside their respective parishes, would be undertaken simply for reasons of filial relationships. A-cam had left the earth. He was now a fox with his own responsibilities. He would soon have his own young to feed.

  They continued to exchange news for some time, when suddenly there was a barking from beyond the yard. Some humans were getting upset about something. The noise of a chase came to their ears: the panting of an animal, the sound of running feet.

  The men from the scrapyard began barking then.

  O-ha was the first to catch the scent.

  ‘Sabre! He’s in the yard!’ she whispered.<
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  The two cubs crouched instinctively and began backing into the rear of the earth. Camio bristled, baring his teeth.

  Next came the sounds of a creature forcing its way along the tunnel to their earth. The tunnel was wider at its opening and became narrower towards the centre of the heap of scrap, where the car body was situated.

  ‘I can smell you in there!’ called the dog. ‘One, two, three, four – I can smell you. This time! This time!’

  O-ha’s blood went cold at the sound of the voice. Her stomach was in her mouth. She was sick, sick of running from this deviant hound that would never let them rest. Fear was there, but also a bitter hatred for one who would never let her or her family alone, never let them live their lives. If only she were larger, more powerful! She would give anything just for a chance to win.

  Scrap metal moved around the car’s shell. The dog seemed determined to reach the foxes before the men caught him, and as he shouldered his way through the piles shifted, some pieces clattering down the hill of junk. They could hear his exertions as he squirmed and pushed his way onwards, towards them.

  Half-way along, there was a pause in the activity, and then the ridgeback’s voice came to them again.

  ‘I can smell you, vixen. This time I’ve got you – all of you. No St Bernard bitches to protect you now. No do-gooder-humans in here. Just us. My teeth ache to sink into your skull. I’ll crush it like a rotten apple. I’ll spread your brains from here to Trinity.’

  The foxes said nothing to each other. There was no other way out of the place. The two adults positioned themselves at the entrance to the earth.

  O-ha’s whole body was tense with apprehension. She could sense the wild terror in her cubs and tried to remain outwardly calm. Camio was scratching himself. His eyes were vacant, expressionless. Thank A-O for a dog fox that did not panic! Oh O-A, she thought, why? Why are we plagued by this beast? Will we all die, one by one, in this dog’s bloody jaws? Already the face was stained in many parts with his kills.

  There were further sounds coming from Sabre now, grunting and swearing, as he continued to heave his bulk into the narrow passage through the scrap. The whole heap moved as if an earthquake were in progress, cooking stoves grinding against rusty bedframes, empty oil drums rolling across the mountain of scrap, freezers grating and sliding. Sabre’s immense strength might have been a source of wonder to the foxes, were they not the dog’s target. Even the hulk in which they were waiting shifted a few inches as the hound pressed his way closer.

  ‘My head,’ gasped the hound, the exertion evident in his voice, ‘my head swims with the sweet taste of blood. I am near – I am so near. I can smell the blood in my nostrils – sweet, sweeter than the sweetest blood of a baby deer. Fox blood. Drinking fox blood. Sucking out the brains from a crushed skull: I’ll have you twitching, this way, that way. I’ll have you …’ At one point, when he was in sight of the foxes, Sabre got so excited that in his frenzy to reach them he caught his thick leather collar on a jagged piece of metal sheeting. Notwithstanding, he pulled against this, half dragging the heavy piece of scrap with him. Finally, it sawed through the collar, releasing him and tearing a gash along the edge of his throat. Blood began to run down his right foreleg. He did not stop his efforts for a moment.

  They could see his eyes now, blazing in triumph. Demented eyes. The jaws were opened wide, revealing the red, cavernous throat. There was foam around the lips of his mouth. The veins on his neck stood out like thick cords as he forced himself, inch by inch, closer to the little foxes.

  ‘Heady – smell – of – death –’ he grunted, his nostrils dilating, his red-veined eyes narrowing.

  The crazed beast was only a few feet away from the entrance. At the rear of the earth the two terrified juveniles were trying to squeeze through a hole in the back hardly big enough for a kitten.

  Men were on top of the scrapheap now, burrowing to get at the hound, probably unaware that the dog’s interest was in a family of foxes.

  Sabre gave one last heave and brought himself within a nose of Camio and O-ha.

  This last jerk had loosened a bale of barbed wire which had been balanced on top of the scrap. It fell on the dog who was stretching his whole frame to get at the foxes. His continued efforts to cross that last few inches between him and his hated enemies only served to entangle him in the wire. His forelegs were caught in the mesh and were being ripped open by the barbs. His head and throat were scissored by two strands which closed every time he tried to move forward.

  A bellow of frustration came from his mouth.

  ‘I – will – get …’

  With a supreme effort he launched himself forward, only to bring the roof of scrap metal crashing on him. Junk metal fell all around. The whole heap of scrap heaved and swayed, began rolling like a rockslide, a landslip of jagged, battered objects that shifted, rolled, knitted. A hole opened above the earth through which the blue sky was visible. An enamel bowl rolled away over the springs of rusted bedframes. A bucket bounced from the head of the dog. Everything was moving, twisting, turning. Nothing had stability. The world was made of loosely fitting scrap metal that shifted and collapsed.

  ‘Once – more –’

  The hole in the scrap widened. The four foxes left by this exit, one by one, avoiding the men balanced precariously on top of heaving scrap, trying to keep their footing.

  The foxes skipped around obstacles and made their escape, with the hound’s muffled words in their ears:

  ‘I’ll – get …!’

  As they raced for the street, a man with fur on his face and a box on his back waved them on and gave out encouraging barks. When one of the humans from the manor gave chase, Betsy’s master barred the way, allowing the foxes time to escape.

  They gathered on the edge of town.

  ‘Well,’ O-ha said, ‘that’s that – until he gets out the next time. I’m sick of him. Surely we’ll get rid of him one day?’

  She said this in the knowledge that her dreams of confrontation with the beast were becoming more frequent and more intense. It was a dark, yet startling dream, confused chases and combats, which was nothing like the incident they had already gone through. What her dream seemed to be telling her, was keep running and don’t look back. And always, the black bars worried her.

  ‘Well,’ said A-cam to his parents, ‘I’ll be on my way then.’

  They said their goodbyes in the way that foxes do, very formally, with little outward show of emotion. Inside, however, O-ha was awash with sentiment. She knew she would not see her cub again and it saddened her. She felt as though a piece of herself and had come adrift and was floating away from her. Camio too, despite that serious expression, would be feeling something.

  A-cam left, and Camio suggested that they find a temporary earth until they set up their permanent one on the embankment.

  Mitz said to her mother, ‘If it’s all right with you two, I shan’t look for an earth yet. I’ll stay with you for a while. It’s not that I’m not ready to leave home, but I want a year without cubs. If I set up an earth with a dog fox, I know I shan’t be able to resist having cubs, in spite of my feelings now. Although it’s never happened to me, I can imagine when the time comes to mate, that whatever promises you’ve made yourself beforehand, something inside takes over, and you find yourself saying, who cares …’

  ‘Something like that,’ replied O-ha. ‘It’s one of those times when the body rules the mind.’

  ‘Just as I thought,’ said Mitz. ‘Well I’m not going to give mine the chance. If I deny myself a mate, I remove the temptation to succumb to his charms and feelings. I can wait. There’ll be other seasons. What’s it like, O-ha?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mating with Camio. Or that first one, what was he called, A-ho?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about Camio, that wouldn’t be right, but I don’t mind telling you about A-ho. He was a fine fox, physically different from your father – not so dark and smaller – but in character, ve
ry similar: presumptuous, good humoured and a little dreamy. He was not much more than cub when I met him, so we entered adulthood together, learning things side by side, the way A-cam – sorry A-salla – is with O-sollo …’

  ‘You still haven’t told me what it’s like – mating.’

  ‘I am telling you about it, only you have preconceived ideas about what it actually is. Mating isn’t just the physical union of two foxes – there’s much more to it. You have to like each other for a start, and then there’s the meeting of spirits … no, I was wrong. I can’t explain it. You’ll have to wait and find out for yourself.’

  Mitz nodded.

  ‘From what you’ve told me, it isn’t just finding a dog fox and that’s it.’

  ‘No, there are other considerations.’

  ‘But A-cam just found O-sollo.’

  ‘He was lucky.’

  Mitz said, ‘But mostly foxes just find a mate and move in together. They don’t spend a lifetime choosing, do they?

  O-ha had to acknowledge that this was true, but she wanted her daughter to stop and think before rushing down the nearest hole and having cubs. Of course, Mitz had no intention of doing that: in fact she had stated that she was going to remain with O-ha and Camio for a few seasons at least. So what was worrying her?

  Nothing. Nothing’s worrying me, she thought.

  Melloon began to blow herself out, and Ransheen sharpened her teeth, ready to savage the landscape. Those animals that wished to sleep the winter away, like the hedgehog, went into hibernation. It is a dangerous state. The creature is physically vulnerable and its body mechanisms fall to such a slow tick-over that they sometimes come to a stop altogether. Animals in hibernation are so close to death, they can look over the edge and see what it’s like on the other side. Camio always said, it you want to know about death, ask a hedgehog.