Run with the Wind (2 page)

‘Yes,' replied Black Tip, flicking his tongue around his swollen lip, ‘that's what my father always said. He told me I was the only fox in the country who hadn't a white tip on his tail.'

‘I think he must have been right,' said Vickey. ‘I never saw a fox with a black tip before.'

‘It wasn't all fun having a black tip, you know,' he told her. ‘My brothers — there were four of us — they used to tease me about it. Father would nip them severely for it and tell me he thought it was very handsome, very distinguished. Still I felt a bit of a freak. For a long time I was very shy about it and played on my own. In a way, that turned out to be a good thing. I grew strong and independent. It paid off in the end. I was the only one of the litter who survived the choking hedge-traps.'

‘You should feel very proud of your black tip then,' said Vickey.' And your father was right. It does look very handsome.' She reflected for a moment. ‘And if it hadn't made you into a strong fighter, that might be you lying down there in the hollow.'

As they thought about the fight in the hollow, Vickey suddenly felt very unhappy.

‘Why do you look so sad?' asked Black Tip. ‘Are you sorry I won?'

Vickey shook her head. ‘No, of course I'm not sorry you won, silly, but I'm sorry the other dog fox had to lose.'

Black Tip was puzzled. ‘One of us had to lose.'

‘I know, but I can't help feeling that what we did was wrong.'

‘In what way? It was him or me.'

‘I know, but we're living in a time when everyone has turned against us. You yourself have just said you lost your three brothers in the choking hedge-traps. I lost two of my last litter before they were even old enough to leave me.'

‘What happened?' asked Black Tip softly.

‘They strayed too far from the earth. They were caught and clubbed to death.'

Black Tip felt very sorry for her, yet he still didn't see what that had to do with what he had done.

‘Don't you see?' said Vickey. ‘It's bad enough that we're being killed by man. To do it ourselves, especially at a time when there are so few of us left, that seems a dreadful waste.'

Black Tip licked his swollen lip and thought about what she had said.

‘I hope you're not offended,' she went on. ‘I mean, I appreciate how bravely you fought for me, and I'm glad you won, but if we continue to die at the rate man has been killing us, there'll soon be none of us left.'

In his heart Black Tip knew his mate was right. She was a compassionate creature, just as her eyes had indicated. Maybe even a bit soft, but she was right, and now he began to feel regret for the fact that he had killed a fellow fox. A fine fox he was too.

‘I wonder …' Vickey began.

Black Tip raised his head expectantly.

‘I wonder if he was dead when we left him?'

‘The life had gone out of him when I let him go,' said Black Tip. ‘It was him or me.'

‘I know,' Vickey consoled him. ‘You did what you had to do. But I also know you could have torn the throat out of him if you had wanted to … and maybe, just maybe, the life will flow back into him. You've seen it happen with rabbits.'

Black Tip nodded. He recalled seizing a rabbit once and carrying it back to his earth, only to see it come back to life again and frighten the wits out of him. ‘Maybe you're right, Vickey,' he replied, ‘but it was a tough fight. Anyway, if I didn't kill him, the frost will surely take him.'

‘Then we've no time to waste,' she told him. ‘Let's go and see.'

Black Tip led her out of the quarry by a different route in case a dog had picked up their scent or the smell of blood. They paused to sniff the wind. It carried no sign of danger, and slowly they made their way back down the hillside.

There was a deathly stillness as they peered over into the hollow. Nothing had changed — the cracked and crumpled hogweed where they had tumbled down the slope, the fresh brown mud among the reeds, the white belly of the other dog fox. It was plain to see he hadn't moved. Only a very thin film of ice had formed over the stream where they had washed, so the afternoon frost hadn't yet taken a firm hold.

Cautiously they approached the body. The mouth was tightly closed and they could see the teeth still gripped some
of Black Tip's fur. Vickey sank to the grass and edged forward until her head was resting on the white upturned belly.

‘Quickly, Black Tip,' she cried. ‘Quickly! There's movement. He's still alive. Help me turn him over.'

Together they nudged the other fox over on his side. His legs and jaws seemed to have stiffened in readiness for death.

Vickey poked him with her nose to try and stir whatever life was left in him. He didn't move and she wondered if it was too late.

‘What will we do?' asked Black Tip.

‘We found the water very healing,' said Vickey. ‘Perhaps if we clean him up it'll help.'

They climbed back up to the shallow stream and broke the new layer of ice that was spreading across the spot where they themselves had washed. The water seemed even colder now, but they wet their tongues and set about trying to lick some life into the still body.

‘It's hopeless,' said Black Tip at last. His mouth was hurting and their efforts hadn't been rewarded with the slightest flicker of movement. Once more he went up to the hole in the ice and bathed his throbbing lip, and when he returned he sat down beside Vickey. She gave the body another nudge just in case. When there was still no response, she sighed and lowered herself to the grass in despair.

Then a strange thing happened. The cold water dribbled from Black Tip's injured mouth and splashed into the
teeth that still gripped bits of his fur. Immediately the body twitched and twitched again. Black Tip jumped back and Vickey cried, ‘He's alive. Help him up.'

Black Tip knew better than to go near the other dog fox. The instinct of self preservation was still very strong in him, and he knew how savage a badly wounded fox could be. Realising this, Vickey nosed the now shivering fox over on to his belly and whispered gently in his ear: ‘It's all right. Take it easy. We've come to help you.'

Black Tip continued to keep a discreet distance.

‘What's your name?' whispered Vickey.

The strange fox snarled. He was groggy and stiff, and as he stirred slowly back to life he felt in no mood to be friendly.

‘All right, all right,' said Vickey as soothingly as she could. ‘We'll call you Fang because you fought so bravely. Now, Fang, listen to me. We came back to help you. You're badly injured, but I think you're going to be all right. Now try and get back on your feet. We've found a place where you can rest a while.'

Fang got up, fell, got up again, staggered and followed Vickey as she hobbled up across the slope to the hole in the ice. However, Black Tip felt it best to stay back for the moment.

As with them, the water seemed to revive Fang considerably. By now he realised that on his own, and without cover, he wouldn't make it through the night, so as soon as he felt
he could move, he followed the others slowly up the hillside towards the quarry. There, with luck, they could all rest unmolested until they healed.

Three

Old Sage Brush

A
heavy frost set in during the night, and although it would have been a good night for hunting, the three foxes didn’t stir. Black Tip’s mouth was too sore to catch anything. Vickey’s leg had stiffened, and Fang was too weak. At the same time they kept each other warm, and that in itself helped the strength to flow back into their bodies.

Next morning, Vickey reminded Black Tip that they must eat. Not that he needed reminding. He was hungry too. Vickey, however, realised that Black Tip must do the hunting for all of them. Black Tip didn’t like the idea very much. While he would forage for her if and when they had cubs, somehow it didn’t seem natural that he should do it now, and certainly not for another dog fox.

‘It’s not natural,’ Vickey agreed, ‘but it is natural to survive.
If you don’t bring us food, we’ll die. It’s up to you now, Black Tip.’

Fang lay with his eyes closed. He would fend for himself when he was well. Anyway, his throat was still too sore even if he did feel like eating. So it was of no interest to him whether Black Tip brought food or not.

Black Tip would have preferred to hunt at night, as he always did, but he knew by the pangs of hunger that he must go now. He stole out of the quarry and sniffed the wind on the high ground. A variety of attractive scents came to his upturned nose and he felt a great temptation to head for the farmyard beyond the meadows. Caution dictated otherwise. He must be careful not to bring any dogs on to his trail, as Vickey and Fang wouldn’t be able to out-run them. The shooters hadn’t arrived in the meadows yet, so he’d go down there and see what he could find.

The rooks were swirling around the line of tall beech trees away to his right. Their incessant cawing came to him clearly in the cold morning air as he made his way down the frosted fields. The rushes were short and sparse in the meadows and didn’t offer much cover. He moved swiftly, yet not even the crumpled brown leaves of the spiky sorrel plants rustled to betray his presence. Here and there he rooted out a few slugs and worms, and by a stream he found two frogs hibernating under a fallen tree. This soft food, he found, didn’t hurt his mouth. Beneath a hedge he discovered a rabbit burrow and
knew by the scent and the droppings that it was occupied.

This surprised him. As a cub, he had been weaned on rabbit food, and later his father had shown him how to hunt rabbits. Then the sleeping sickness had come and the rabbits had disappeared from the hedgerows. Now they were back in this hedgerow at least, and as he waited for them to come out to feed, he relished the thought of something that was almost as tasty as a chicken.

A short wait provided Black Tip with two young rabbits — one he pounced on, and one that ran away from the burrow by mistake. The second one he carried back to the quarry, using a roundabout way to make detection by dogs as difficult as possible. Vickey was delighted and enjoyed it immensely. Fang refused to eat. Not only had his throat been hurt; his pride had been deeply wounded too. Vickey limped a short distance out for a quiet word with Black Tip.

‘Fang’s feeling very sorry for himself,’ she whispered. ‘He said nothing at all when you were away. Why don’t you get something soft he can eat, maybe a frog or two, and I’ll try and talk to him.’

‘All right, if you say so.’ Black Tip almost felt like saying, ‘You wouldn’t like me to eat it for him as well?’ but felt that would be unkind, so he slipped quietly away.

‘Fang,’ said Vickey when she returned to the den. There was no response.

‘Fang, you really must snap out of it you know.’ There was
still no reply, and she went on: ‘What happened, happened. You must forget it.’

Fang shifted slightly as if to say he didn’t want to talk about it.

‘I know your feelings must be hurt,’ she continued. ‘I’d feel the same if I was in your position. But Black Tip’s younger than you are. You can’t go on winning forever, you know.’

Fang lifted his head and croaked indignantly: ‘What do you mean, younger? I’m only three, you know. Anyway he only won because I slipped. Next time will be different, you’ll see.’

Vickey could see that Fang was sensitive about his age. If he said he was three, that meant he was four, and she knew that nowadays few foxes survived to live beyond the age of four.

‘There isn’t going to be a next time,’ she told him firmly. ‘I told Black Tip and I’m telling you. If we don’t stick together, we’ll all die. It’s bad enough that man should be killing so many of us, without us killing each other. That’s why we went back for you.’

Just then Black Tip returned with two large frogs and dropped them in front of Fang.

‘Go on, eat them,’ urged Vickey. ‘You need to get your strength back as quickly as you can.’

Fang chewed part of a frog and swallowed it with difficulty. The others could see it was painful, and Black Tip felt sorry for him, if not wholly responsible. ‘How’s your throat?’
he asked, trying not to show too much concern.

‘It’ll be all right,’ said Fang hoarsely.

‘I only won, you know, because you slipped,’ said Black Tip.

‘I know,’ replied Fang.

Vickey looked at Black Tip as if seeing him in a new light. She was pleased that he had been so generous to Fang. However, she just said: ‘It doesn’t matter who won. The important thing is that you’re both alive.’

‘Why?’ grunted Fang.

‘Because man is getting the better of us,’ replied Vickey.

‘We know that,’ said Black Tip, ‘but what can we do about it?’

‘We can learn how to survive,’ said Vickey.

‘There’s only one way foxes can survive,’ croaked Fang, ‘and that’s to fight.’

‘But not each other,’ argued Vickey. ‘Man is our enemy, and we’re losing that fight. We just can’t win against him any more — we’ve forgotten how, even here.’

‘What do you mean, even here?’ asked Black Tip.

‘Because this is the Land of Sinna,’ Vickey replied.

Fang grunted in a way that showed quite clearly he didn’t know what she was talking about, and whatever it was, it was nonsense.

Black Tip, however, asked her to tell them more.

‘Well, legend has it,’ said Vickey, ‘that when the fox has
been driven from the rest of the country, this is where we’ll survive.’

Fang gave another disbelieving grunt, while Black Tip asked: ‘Who told you that?’

‘A wise old fox.’

‘Who was he?’

‘An old friend of mine, called Sage Brush. His name means Wise Fox.’

‘I know what it means,’ said Black Tip a little irritably. He didn’t like anyone talking down to him, especially a vixen.

Sensing the reason for his tetchiness, Vickey continued: ‘Why do you want to know?’

Black Tip shrugged.

‘It must be nice all the same,’ Vickey went on.

‘What must?’ asked Black Tip.

‘To know how to survive … to be able to live without fear of shooters and choking hedge-traps. Not to have to run from the howling dogs, or watch your cubs die before they’ve really lived …’

Even Fang found the prospect pleasing, adding in his own mind, ‘and not to have to fight for a mate!’

‘But what was Old Sage Brush trying to say?’ wondered Black Tip. ‘That this valley contains the secret of survival? That’s hard to believe.’

‘It sounds a bit far-fetched to me too,’ growled Fang.

Slight though it was, Vickey was glad to see the first note
of agreement between the two dog foxes.

‘There’s one way we can find out,’ she said.

‘How?’ asked Black Tip.

‘Talk to Old Sage Brush.’

‘What for?’ asked Fang. ‘It’s only a waste of time.’

‘Why not?’ said Black Tip. ‘What else have we got to do? You two will be laid up here for a while, and a story from someone like Old Sage Brush would give you something to think about at night when you can’t go out to hunt.’

‘Good idea,’ said Vickey, who had been hoping Black Tip would suggest this all along.

‘But is he in this area?’ wondered Black Tip.

‘It was near here that I met him not too long ago,’ said Vickey. ‘Anyway, if you circle around you should be able to make contact with him.’

‘Right,’ said Black Tip. ‘I’ll do it at gloomglow.’

The shooters were out again that day, although not in the same numbers as before. It was coming towards the end of the shooting season now, and the game had been severely thinned out. There were only a few old cock pheasants left, and they were too wily to be found. Snipe had moved elsewhere and woodcock were becoming rare. There was no let-up in the winter, and it was too cold to sit in an icy ditch and wait for ducks that might never come.

So it was that when Black Tip set out at dusk he found the meadows empty and no shooters crouching along the
thickets beside the streams. Old Sage Brush could wait. First he would eat. From his hiding place in the undergrowth below a holly tree, he scanned the darkening sky. All the clouds had gone and the blue seemed to have frozen into a darker purple. The rich green holly leaves would give him cover that the bare hawthorn hedges wouldn’t. He was in the rushiest part of the meadows, having reasoned that if ducks would come down anywhere, it wouldn’t be on a frozen stream, but here among the rushes where they could break the ice and poke around for slugs and worms.

Before long a flock of teal flashed overhead with a grace and speed Black Tip admired. They circled high and wide, and landed in the rushes some distance away. He lay still. They were a small duck and had as much meat on their bones as a snipe. With luck a big mallard might see them and think the way was clear to come down. The thought was still going through his mind when two mallard appeared overhead and came in to land about mid-way between himself and the teal. He waited patiently to see what they would do.

Fortunately, the mallard moved away from the teal and came towards the holly tree. They were searching for food beneath the rushes, and he could hear them slipping awkwardly on the ice as they moved closer to him. Now he could see the yellow beak and bottle-green head of the drake, and the brown head of the duck just beyond. A few steps more and the drake was within range. Black Tip sprang
and snapped, catching the drake just above the white ring on its neck. The duck took off with a loud flapping and quacking that also sent the teal shooting away into the sky, but Black Tip was too busy to notice. He carried the limp body of the drake back to the holly tree, dropped it into the undergrowth where he had been lying, and nudged wisps of withered grass across it. He had a long way to go, and he would collect it on the way back.

That night Black Tip moved in a wide circle. He covered many miles, and on stones and in certain secret places known only to foxes, he left a trail of scents for Old Sage Brush. At each stop he also raised his head and barked the names of Old Sage Brush and Vickey on the wind. He knew that if the old fox didn’t hear him, some other fox would pass the message on. One way or the other, he hoped Old Sage Brush would get to know that Vickey wanted to see him and that he would follow the scent to the quarry at Beech Paw.

Having completed his circle, Black Tip collected the dead mallard and taking care to lift it in such a way that it didn’t hurt his sore lip, he carried it back to the quarry. By this time the frost had settled as white as mistletoe on the darkened countryside and he himself looked distinctly white when he arrived at the den. He was glad he had done his hunting first, as he was now tired and cold, and like Vickey and Fang, very hungry.

When Old Sage Brush learned that Vickey wanted to
see him, it occurred to him that a younger dog might well have mistaken it for an invitation to a romantic meeting. He smiled at the thought. It flattered him. However, he knew he was too old for that and anyway he realised she already had company. He remembered Vickey well, as he had formed a father-like affection for her. ‘If ever I can help you,’ he had told her, ‘just let me know.’ Now she had and now he would.

It was about two nights later that a strange face peeped over the edge of the quarry, and when the way was clear, came down to the den beneath the overhanging rock. None of the three foxes curled up under the rocks knew a thing until the same face peered in at them. Black Tip whipped around with a snarl, but Vickey was at his side in an instant. ‘Wait,’ she cried, ‘it’s Old Sage Brush. Sage Brush, is that really you?’

‘Who else?’ said the stranger. ‘Am I not welcome here? I thought I had an invitation.’

‘Of course you have,’ said Vickey. ‘This is Black Tip and Fang. Fang and I are injured. Black Tip is looking after us.’

‘You gave us a fright creeping up on us like that,’ said Black Tip.

‘How else should I tread, but carefully,’ smiled Old Sage Brush. ‘If the great oak bends before the wind, who am I to raise my head?’

Resent as they might the way the old fox had been able to creep up on them, Black Tip and Fang knew full well
that in his own strange way he was telling them it was only because he took extreme care that he had lived so long. And it was only now as he stood at the entrance to their den that they noticed how old he was. His cheek ruffs and whiskers were grey and beard-like, and the scars on his face seemed to underline his years of experience. Snowflakes clinging to his coat cloaked him in a mantle of white in a way that somehow seemed appropriate to his age. It was as they thought of this and looked past him, that the others noticed skiffs of snow swirling around the quarry in the early dawn.