Run with the Wind (6 page)

‘Of course, if you are afraid …' replied Old Sage Brush.

‘Afraid?' said Lepus. ‘I am afraid of no fox, and certainly not one with three legs. Let the contest begin.'

Silence descended on the hillside, and Hop-along's heart sank. The old fox, he realised, was offering him no words of wisdom, no thoughts of cunning, and he'd have to think his way out of this one himself. It was plain they couldn't out-run the hares, and anyway, they were surrounded. And being out-numbered, they couldn't fight. He also knew he couldn't jump half as high as Lepus. So he lay down and put his head on his paw and thought about it.

Maybe, he thought, his hind legs had become stronger than any other fox's because of his handicap. But then, what was it that Old Sage Brush had said back at Beech Paw? He had said it wasn't a question of strength; that if it was, a bull could catch a hare. If that was so, there must be some other way to deal with this hare. But what was it?

As Hop-along lay there and thought about what he was going to do, he glanced up and saw that something seemed to have taken a small bite out of the wide eye of gloomglow. He had no way of knowing that he was now seeing what man calls a partial eclipse. All he knew was that the eye of
gloomglow wasn't as round and full as it had been when it had crept into the sky. Then he looked at the big staring eyes of Lepus, and he had an idea. He had noticed that, unlike foxes, hares had their eyes in the sides of their heads, instead of in front. The reason for that, he thought, was probably to enable them to see danger coming from either side, and it occurred to him that if that was so, they might not be able to see forward or upward as well as foxes.

Hoping he was right, Hop-along waited until the moon had gone behind the clouds. Then he got up and hobbled over to Lepus. ‘I accept your challenge,' he told the leader of the hares. ‘You jump first so that I may see what I have to beat.'

‘Ha!' laughed Lepus. ‘And so you shall see.' With that, he gave a mighty leap into the night sky and landed about fifteen feet away. ‘Now,' he said proudly, ‘beat that.' The watching hares grinned widely and rubbed their forefeet together again.

Hop-along's friends had been listening and watching in silence. They knew well he could not possibly jump as high. At the same time, they realised he must have something in mind, so they stayed silent.

‘Well?' taunted Lepus. ‘Why don't you jump?'

‘In a moment,' said Hop-along, keeping a sly eye on the moon. ‘I'm just collecting my strength.' He could see the moon was still behind the clouds. ‘True,' he went on, playing
for time, ‘you have made a great leap, almost as high as the wide eye of gloomglow. But I will do better. I will jump so high that I will take a bite out of the very eye of gloomglow.'

The hares laughed and cocked their heads to one side to try and see the moon. It was just beginning to edge its way from behind the clouds, the shadow of the eclipse still hidden from their view. Hop-along crouched low into a ball, launched himself into the sky with all the strength he could muster, and snapped his teeth with an almighty bark. The moon had now come out from behind the clouds, and even the hares could see that a bite had been taken out of it. Frightened, they cowered back and screamed as if in agony. Hop-along's friends, on the other hand, jumped forward and barked in sheer delight at his success.

True to his word, Lepus silenced the gathering of hares, and said: ‘Hop-along, truly you are a great fox. Never before have I seen any living creature do such a thing. You are all free to go now, and in honour of your great achievement, if there is any favour we can bestow upon you, you need only ask.'

Hop-along thanked him, but explained that the greatest gift they could have was their freedom, and now that they had it, they were anxious to move on. Lepus wished them luck, and the gathering of hares sent them on their way with a great cheer.

When they had left the hares and the high country well
behind them, the foxes stopped to regain their composure and to rest.

‘You have done well, Hop-along,' said Old Sage Brush. ‘That was truly a trick worthy of Vulpes himself.'

The others congratulated him too and wanted to know how he did it. What magic had he wrought to take a bite out of the eye of gloomglow? they asked.

‘No magic,' replied Hop-along. ‘It's thanks to our leader, Old Sage Brush, that I was able to do it. Hasn't he taught us to use our cunning instead of our strength? I realised he knew I could not win by strength. So I did what he told Black Tip and Skulking Dog to do back on the hill. I lay down to see all that I could see, and I knew that I could see more than the hares. Knowing that we had faith in our own survival, the great god Vulpes did the rest …' There the dream faded from Hop-along's mind.

A short time later, on the banks of a slow-moving stream, Hop-along and his fellow-foxes woke up and looked around them. Pieces of plastic fertiliser bag flapped in the hedge nearby, and a discarded green bottle littered the stream.

‘What had happened?' he asked himself. Had they really been away in the Land of the Hares? Had he really out-jumped Lepus the Great? Or had it all been a dream? He looked up at the moon, but it only smiled back and told him nothing. Then he looked down at the place where his paw should be, and he knew it had to be a dream. However, he
also knew now that he was learning from Old Sage Brush.

Rising quickly, they crossed the stream and slipped away into the fields beyond.

Seven

Prey of the Howling Dogs

T
he running fox in the sky was now beginning to lean over backwards on its brush. The nights were still frosty, but there was a slight suggestion of warmth in the sun. The farmers had done much of their ploughing, and that was a good thing. It attracted more wildlife into the fields in search of food, and that in turn gave the foxes greater opportunities to hunt. They might well have wondered where all the new birdlife came from as the weather improved, but they didn’t. They were just glad to see it.

It was also lambing time on some farms. Stray dogs were savaging ewes, and hooded grey crows were gathering to see if they could pick off any new-born lambs. Whatever
temptations Old Sage Brush’s group had in that respect, they knew they had to be extremely careful not to bring the wrath of the sheep farmers down on their heads, and so they continued to avoid the farmers as much as possible.

Everywhere rooks were nesting high in the trees while some perched precariously on wires at the sides of the roads. The purpose of their roadside vigil seemed to be the worms that were knocked up to the surface of the grass verges by passing vehicles. Next autumn it would be barley and wheat falling from passing lorries. In the meantime, enough of the rooks were killed on the roads to provide occasional pickings for the foxes. Much more worthwhile were the rats and field mice, occasionally a hedgehog to vary the diet, and of course, beetles for dessert!

Skulking Dog lay on his belly and watched a big dung beetle at work in a cake of cow dung. They were resting in the corner of a field, and on the dead branch that lay across a gap in the hedge, Fang could see the squiggly scars he knew to be the work of a bark beetle. Clawing off a piece of bark on top, he was rewarded by the discovery of a squirming patch of larvae, and the vixens gathered round to share it.

Old Sage Brush was worried about Skulking Dog, and he told Black Tip and Vickey about it.

‘He’s brooding all right,’ agreed Black Tip. ‘Probably misses his old way of life — and the chicken farms.’

‘What do you think, Vickey?’ asked the old fox.

‘I think what he needs is a nice vixen to look after him.’

‘So do I,’ said Old Sage Brush. ‘Well, we’ll see what happens. Maybe we’ll find a nice mate for him this time. Meanwhile, Black Tip, keep an eye on him for me in case he gets himself into any more trouble.’

Black Tip undertook to do this, although he soon found it easier said than done. There was much work to do. Fox paths, for example, had to be checked out, especially where they went through road-side hedges. Trappers knew well that foxes were in the habit of using the same places to cross roads, and it had become a favourite trick of theirs to put choking hedge-traps at these particular points. Hunting took up a lot of time too, and they all had to take their turns at it, including Skulking Dog. Even when Black Tip and Skulking Dog went out together, it wasn’t always possible to stay together. Old Sage Brush readily accepted this when Skulking Dog got into trouble again. He realised he had been asking Black Tip to do the impossible.

It was a dark night when it happened. Clouds once again obscured gloomglow, and they couldn’t follow the brush, but it was a good night for hunting. Scents were strong and it was the turn of Black Tip and Skulking Dog to forage for food. Everything went well until they arrived at an area of scrub-land that clearly held the scent of pheasant. This was a welcome break, because after the shooters had stopped coming to the fields, they had found pheasants very scarce.
There was no point in going into the undergrowth together, so they split up and approached it from different directions.

Black Tip was getting the scent of the pheasant very strongly when the call of a strange fox halted him in his tracks. He recognised the love call of a vixen and it had come from away over on the other side of the scrub, somewhere in the direction Skulking Dog had gone. Normally, Black Tip wouldn’t have worried. It was the possibility that Skulking Dog might get into a fight with another dog fox that caused him some concern. If he got injured, like Fang, they might have to go on without him.

Skulking Dog had been about to enter the scrub from the far side when the love call of the vixen turned him back. He listened. There it was again. A surge of excitement swept through his body, and throwing caution to the wind, he responded to her call, and set off to pay his respects, the pheasant and all thoughts of food forgotten.

Beyond the scrub was a piece of commonage, and it was from there that the call of the vixen had come. Skulking Dog heard it again. It was nearer this time, and he hurried towards it. So occupied was he with the thought of finding a mate, that he failed to see the shadow of a car parked in off the road. Suddenly a powerful light cut through the night, catching him in its glare. Blinded for a moment, he turned to run. Several explosions shattered the stillness of the night, and a hail of shots ripped into the grass beside him.

As Skulking Dog streaked into the darkness beyond the circle of light, a man shouted: ‘Missed it. ‘They had no way of knowing that they hadn’t entirely missed. One of their shots had caught Skulking Dog on the rump, injuring him, not seriously, but enough to cause him severe pain. Moments later, Black Tip was beside him. There was no sign of pursuit, and with Black Tip helping him whenever he could, they returned to where the others were waiting.

Old Sage Brush was annoyed with himself. He had forgotten all about the love calls of death. Imitating the call of a vixen to attract a dog fox was a fairly new trick man had thought up. It struck at the very nature of the fox, preying upon his natural instinct to mate and survive. Obviously Skulking Dog hadn’t encountered this trick before, and the least the old fox felt he could have done was to warn him.

‘Don’t blame yourself,’ consoled Black Tip. ‘I’m the one to blame.’

‘You couldn’t help it,’ said the old fox. ‘What I asked you to do could not be done by any fox.’

‘I don’t mean that,’ said Black Tip. ‘You see, I knew of this trick. Not the love call, but something similar. Once I was almost caught the same way, only then man was imitating the squeal of a trapped rabbit. I thought I was going to get an easy meal. Instead, I almost ended up just like Skulking Dog.’

‘We’re all to blame for not being more careful — me, you, Skulking Dog, all of us. Man may not be a fox, but he has
a lot of cunning. We never know what he’ll think up next.’ The old fox paused. ‘Anyway, how is Skulking Dog now?’

Black Tip went over to where Skulking Dog was lying in the bracken. Vickey and She-la were attending to his wounds.

‘How is he?’ he asked.

‘I’m all right,’ growled Skulking Dog.

‘You’ll be all right when I get these pellets out of your back,’ said Vickey firmly.

Skulking Dog had taken some gun-shot along the top of the back, and Vickey knew well what he must be suffering. Now she did for Skulking Dog what Black Tip had done for her when she had been wounded in the hind leg back in the meadow near Beech Paw. One by one she located the pellets. They were as numerous, she thought, as seeds of goose grass in summer, and clung many times more tightly. Skulking Dog suffered in silence while Vickey patiently got her teeth behind each one and gently eased it out through his torn skin.

‘There you are, that’s the last of them,’ she announced finally. ‘A few days rest and you’ll be all right.’

Skulking Dog scrambled to his feet. ‘There’ll be no few days rest for me,’ he told her. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my legs, and the sooner we’re on the move again, the better.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ said Old Sage Brush. ‘But we still have to eat, and you can rest up until Black Tip and Fang go out and find us some food.’

‘Can I go too?’ asked She-la.

‘Another time,’ said the old fox. ‘I’d rather you helped Vickey make doubly sure there are no pellets left in Skulking Dog, and clean his wounds thoroughly. We don’t want to lose him.’

‘Mark my words,’ said Vickey. ‘What Skulking Dog needs is a nice vixen to look after him. It would make a new fox of him.

Foxes — male or female — were few and far between. They were now in an area of rich pastures, where cattle grazed and horses neighed and whinnied and galloped around the fields. There were several big houses in the district, and around each sprawled a profusion of undergrowth that promised both cover and food. Rooks were swarming around the tree-tops and wood pigeons flapped in and out of the bushes as they tried to settle on flimsy branches. Down below, leaves of wild arum were sprouting among the dead leaves and withered grass, but it would be a long time yet before their flowers — the lords and ladies of the undergrowth — would venture out.

‘Isn’t it lovely,’ smiled She-la. ‘There are beetles beneath the leaves and birds in the bushes.’

Vickey nodded and sniffed. ‘And a strong smell of pheasant in the wind. It
is
nice, isn’t it?’ Everything seemed to
be better here than ever she had seen before. The cover was thicker, and the food plentiful. Even the weeds were taller, she thought, gazing up at the towering stalks of giant hogweed, easily twice the size of those she had seen in the hollow the day Black Tip and Fang had fought for her back at Beech Paw.

‘You know we can’t stay here,’ said Old Sage Brush.

The vixens looked at him in surprise, and Skulking Dog who was with the old fox answered their unspoken question, saying: ‘Don’t you know? This is the Land of the Howling Dogs.’

All foxes had heard of the howling dogs. Even those who hadn’t been chased by them had nightmares about them.

‘Skulking Dog was reared not far from a place with howling dogs,’ said Old Sage Brush.

‘And many a good run I gave them,’ said Skulking Dog.

‘So did I,’ said the old fox. ‘But not any more. I’d be an easy catch for them now. So would Hop-along, and I doubt if all the cunning in the world could save us.’

‘Then we must move on quickly,’ said Vickey. ‘Let’s tell the others.’

When they joined the others in deeper cover, they found that they already knew about the howling dogs as they had a visitor. He was a local fox who had become aware of their presence and come to warm them of the danger.

‘But what is the secret of
your
survival?’ asked Vickey. It
was a question she had decided to ask every fox she met. ‘I mean,’ she added, ‘if the howling dogs are so dangerous, why have they not caught you?’

‘Because,’ said the stranger, ‘like the great running fox in the sky, I never stop running long enough to give them the chance.’

‘Tell me, Running Fox,’ said Vickey, who loved putting names on her fellow-creatures, ‘when are the howling dogs likely to come again?’

‘It’s difficult to say. There is a man many fields away. He sets choking hedge-traps, and I know he has a fox in a cage. Soon he will let it out for the howling dogs.’

‘Oh, how horrible!’ said She-la. ‘Will it get away?’

‘I doubt it,’ said Running Fox. ‘It’s a stranger in this area and doesn’t know the tricks I know. I doubt it.’

Needless to say, no reputable hunt will capture a fox and let it out in strange surroundings for the sake of a chase. In this case, however, one member of the hunt, wishing to impress a visitor, had paid a local trapper to get a fox and let it out in a certain piece of woodland where the hounds would almost certainly come across it.

Old Sage Brush sighed. He hated the thought of leaving another fox to the mercy of the howling dogs.

‘Let me have a look,’ said Skulking Dog. Old Sage Brush hesitated.

‘I’ll show him the way,’ offered Running Fox. ‘There’s an
empty badger set in these woods. If you lie low there and take care not to be caught in the open, you should be all right.’

Old Sage Brush agreed and Running Fox led them to a set that was well concealed by the glossy green leaves of a clump of rhododendron bushes. Soon the old fox, Hop-along, She-la and Vickey were curled up in the central chambers, with Black Tip and Fang in chambers that allowed them to guard the entrance and exit.

As darkness fell and gloomglow spread across the countryside, Running Fox led Skulking Dog into the silent fields, past groups of cattle lying in the grass chewing their cuds, over meadows and through woodland, until they came to a small house at the end of a long lane. From the safety of a high bank at the back, Running Fox showed him a shed and told him: ‘The fox is in there. The door is tied with wire, and there are fun dogs in the house. I don’t think it would be wise to go any nearer.’