Run with the Wind (8 page)

As they made their way into the undergrowth, however, they got the distinct feeling that all was not well in the valley. There were no badgers, no rabbits and no foxes. In fact, all the holes they came to were blocked with stones.

‘This place smells of death,' said Old Sage Brush. ‘Tell me what you see, Black Tip.'

‘There are no fresh droppings, no scent.'

‘So I've noticed. What else?'

‘Stones block the entrances, and weeds grow on the pathways.'

‘Man,' said the old fox.

‘But the weeds tell us the danger has gone now,' said Vickey. ‘Should we open up an earth and use it?'

‘I don't like it,' said the old fox. ‘What else do you see, Black Tip?'

‘That's all. But you're right, it is man's work. He's left some of his rubbish behind.'

‘Take me to it,' said Old Sage Brush.

Black Tip led him over to several empty cans lying around the entrance to a blocked-up earth. The old fox nudged them with his nose and sniffed them.

‘What is it?' asked Vickey.

‘I think it is something man uses to choke animals he doesn't like.'

‘You mean, like choking hedge-traps?' asked Sinnéad.

‘No, it comes from these things,' said Old Sage Brush, nosing one of the cans. ‘When animals breathe it in, it chokes them. That's why man blocks up the holes — to keep them from getting out into the fresh air.'

The others stepped back quickly,

‘It's all right,' the old fox assured them. ‘The danger has long since passed, but I'm afraid we cannot open up the earths again. The foxes who dug these earths still lie inside.'

‘What will we do then?' asked Vickey.

‘If man thinks foxes no longer live in this valley, then maybe it's the safest place we've found yet.'

‘Sage Brush is right,' said Fang. ‘The cover is good, so we've no need for an earth.'

‘And there are pheasants down by the river,' Skulking Dog reminded them.

‘No pheasants until we find out what the situation is,' warned Old Sage Brush. ‘And certainly not before we're strong enough to run if we have to.'

Leaving the blocked-up earth, and the tell-tale cyanide cans that had been used to gas the occupants, they found a dry bed of withered grass beneath a protective umbrella of prickly brambles. By this time Old Sage Brush and Hop-along, with the encouragement of the others, were happy to rest, each pretending to believe it was for the benefit of the other.

Vickey and Black Tip lay on either side of the old fox to give him warmth, and soon he dozed off. As they watched his frail old body heave in deep sleep, they wondered how he had managed to keep going and how he would be able to continue. She-la was wondering the same about Hop-along as she licked his swollen foreleg in an effort to soothe the pain. In spite of the many miles they had travelled, the others were in good shape, and after a while, when gloomglow had cast a comforting half-light across the valley, Black Tip got up to organise some food. Hop-along was asleep now too. All the better, he thought. No need to disturb him, or Old Sage Brush.

‘Fang,' he whispered, ‘you stay here. Keep an eye on Old Sage Brush and Hop-along. Skulking Dog, Sinnéad and She-la, you scout around and see if you can find any food. Don't go far, and remember what Old Sage Brush said, keep away from the pheasants. We're in no position to cope with any trouble. Vickey and I will circle the valley and see if we can find out what's been happening here.'

Quietly they stole away through the undergrowth in different directions. Skulking Dog and the two vixens found there was plenty of small food, including snails, frogs and rats, and having eaten their fill, they took some back to the others. Black Tip and Vickey also ate what food they could find, and went on to explore the valley. They crossed the river far above the pheasant farm, where the water was shallow, circled through the bushes on the far side, and came back to the river again. There was no sign of any other foxes, or even badgers, and feeling somewhat disappointed, they edged their way down through a slippery gap in the bank to recross the river. As they did so, they suddenly found themselves looking into the small bright eyes of an otter. Startled, they stopped and stared.

Getting over his surprise, the otter twitched his short-whiskered face and whistled softly. ‘Forgive me,' he said, ‘but I didn't expect to see any foxes here.'

‘We've just arrived,' Black Tip told him.

‘Where are you staying?' asked the otter.

‘Across on the far side of the valley,' said Vickey. ‘The others are waiting for us there.'

‘You mean there are more?'

When they nodded, the otter whistled softly again, and warned: ‘You must be careful. This valley holds great danger for foxes.'

‘You mean the pheasant farm?' asked Black Tip.

‘There are men there,' said the otter. ‘And animals that will chase you,'

‘Fun dogs,' said Vickey.

‘But why do they hate us so?' asked Black Tip.

‘We can't talk here,' said the otter. ‘I too am in danger. Return to your friends, and I will come to you when it is safe.'

The otter slid down the mud into the river and swam ahead of them to the far bank. Having seen them safely across, he turned around and disappeared beneath the water.

Old Sage Brush and Hop-along were awake and enjoying food the others had brought them, when Black Tip and Vickey returned. A short time later, there was a soft whistle from the undergrowth, and a short-whiskered face peeped in at them.

‘It's Whiskers,' exclaimed Vickey, putting a name on yet another of her fellow-creatures.

There wasn't much room under the brambles, so they all came out into the clearing to hear what the otter had to say.

‘Black Tip tells us you know what happened to the foxes who were here before us,' said Old Sage Brush.

Whiskers sat up on his hind legs, with his tail straight out behind him for balance. He twitched his whiskered snout and told them: ‘Yes, it was the mink.'

‘Mink?' asked the others.

‘That's right,' said Whiskers. ‘It escaped from a mink farm
not far from here.'

‘But how did that affect the foxes?' asked Black Tip.

Whiskers twitched his nose again. ‘Greed. Just greed.'

Old Sage Brush eased himself down. ‘Tell us about it, otter. What happened?'

Whiskers dropped to the ground and his short forelegs brought his head low, giving him the manner of one who was about to confide in them.

‘I used to have this valley to myself,' he told them. ‘Well, myself and the foxes. Then the mink came. Before that we used to make an occasional raid on the pheasant farm. But we didn't over-do it. Just when we felt like a change of food, and the men and their — what did you call them? — fun dogs, they didn't bother us too much. But when the mink came, it was different. The mink was too greedy. It raided the farm every night, stealing eggs and young pheasants. It got so bad that I couldn't go back there, and the foxes had to stay away too. If that wasn't bad enough, the men and their fun dogs came after us. They thought we were raiding the farm. I escaped up-river, but the foxes weren't so lucky — or the badgers, or anything else that lived around here. The men came and blocked up the holes and killed them.'

There was silence in the clearing, as the foxes felt the injustice of what had happened.

‘Of course the mink escaped,' said Whiskers. ‘But that's what I've come to warn you about. It's back!'

Nine

The Otter and the Mink

D
aylight broke to reveal a valley that to all outward appearances was calm and peaceful. Rooks and wood-pigeons flew around the trees on the slopes above the pheasant farm, and down at the farm itself a hooded crow sat on the wire fence waiting his chance to go in and snatch some food. The chaffinches and sparrows felt no need to wait, and flitted in and out of the pens whenever they liked. Occasionally the harsh shriek of a cock pheasant shattered the stillness.

In the alder trees along the river, the small birds rested between their raids among drooping catkins and empty cones. Under the willows, which were now sprouting soft silvery buds, a tiny blue-tit hung upside down, showing his
yellow underparts to the sky. He was unconcerned with what was happening in the pheasant farm, and unaware of the drama that was soon to take place there.

In the woods above, the foxes pondered on what Whiskers the otter had told them. The fact that the mink was back in the valley was serious news. It meant that he would soon be raiding the pheasant farm again, and once he started that, the men and the fun dogs would be scouring the undergrowth looking for foxes. If that happened, they would be in trouble.

‘Maybe we should move on,’ said Fang, knowing that the inability of Old Sage Brush and Hop-along to run fast endangered them all.

Vickey, however, felt that the two weren’t ready to move yet, and she wondered if the danger was so imminent as to require their departure immediately. ‘Can’t we wait just a little longer?’ she asked.

‘It would be a pity to move on without even one supper of pheasant,’ said Skulking Dog.

‘Even so,’ said Black Tip. ‘I agree with Fang. The moment the mink strikes again, we’re in great danger.’

She-la thought it would be better for her mate, Hop-along to move on, however slowly, rather than risk a hopeless flight from the fun dogs. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘we should go and make the most of it while we can.’

‘Sinnéad?’ asked Old Sage Brush.

Sinnéad tried to put a brave face on it. ‘We’ve outrun fun
dogs before.’

‘Hop-along?’

‘Maybe the others can — not me.’

‘Nor me,’ said Old Sage Brush.

‘What do you want to do then?’ asked Black Tip.

The old fox thought for a moment. ‘It’s not what we want to do. It’s what we have to do. As long as the mink is allowed to do as it pleases, no fox is safe in this valley’

‘Let me go after it,’ urged Fang.

‘And me,’ said Skulking Dog. ‘We’ll soon drive it out.’

‘That is not the way of survival,’ Old Sage Brush told them. ‘I admire your courage, Fang. And yours too, Skulking Dog. But what use will it be to us if one of you gets injured? The mink is small, but he is a savage fighter. We need all the strength and courage we have for the journey ahead.’

‘What would you have us do then?’ asked Vickey.

‘Our brothers lie dead in the earth,’ said Old Sage Brush. ‘And we cannot hunt as we wish. Why? Because of the the greed of a mink.’ He rested his head between his forepaws. ‘You ask me what we should do. Hasn’t Vulpes shown us that the greedy fox who snaps off many heads when one will do, will lose his own? So also must the mink be shown that he — and he alone — must pay for his own greed.’

They all agreed that the mink should be made to pay. The question was how?

‘If the mink is greedy,’ said Old Sage Brush, ‘he is not cunning.
And if he is not cunning, then we must show him that we are.’ He curled up and they could see he was still tired. ‘I must sleep now. Black Tip, I’d like you to go and see the otter again at gloomglow. Talk to him. Find out all you can about the mink.’

Whatever their good intentions, the younger foxes should have known by this time that to run, even if they were able to do so, wasn’t the old fox’s way of doing things. Their concern was for each other, especially the weaker members of the group. His was a greater concern, a concern not only for themselves, but for any fox that might come to the valley when they had gone.

That night, as the others set out — Black Tip in search of the otter, the rest of them in search of food — Hop-along confided to Old Sage Brush that for the first time since they had left Beech Paw, he felt he might not be able to continue. His foreleg was still swollen and sore, and he realised he was slowing them down.

‘Maybe it would be best if She-la and I found a safe earth somewhere and stayed behind to rear our cubs,’ he said.

Old Sage Brush could sense that Hop-along was feeling sorry for himself. Searching for the secret of survival was a difficult undertaking for a fox so handicapped as he was.

‘Is this the Hop-along who joined us at Beech Paw?’ asked the old fox. ‘The Hop-along who out-jumped Lepus the Great and set us free in the Land of the Hares? The Hop-along
that She-la has chosen above all other foxes? Surely my ears deceive me.’

‘That first night at Beech Paw was a long time ago,’ sighed Hop-along. ‘I was stronger then.’

‘So was I,’ said Old Sage Brush. ‘But if we have lost in strength, have we not gained in cunning? Has the great god Vulpes not shown us how to fox the little brown hen and turn back the howling dogs? Has he not shown us that even the very eye of gloomglow is within our grasp, if we have the courage to reach out and take it? Surely we have not learned all of these things merely for a safe earth, but for all foxes, so that we can survive. How long would you and She-la survive here in a strange country, and what about your cubs? No, Hop-along my friend, better that you stay with us. Soon you will be stronger again, and we are in need of you — and your cubs.’

Hop-along was quiet. Old Sage Brush had poured strength back into his heart, but his leg was still weak. Soon the other dogs and the vixens returned with food, and they wondered how Black Tip was doing down by the river.

In fact, Black Tip had found the otter without too much difficulty. Or was it the otter who had found him? He wasn’t too sure. At any rate, they met on the river bank. Whiskers was delighted to hear that the foxes were planning to do something with the mink, and he confided that he was working on a plan of his own. Maybe, he suggested, they
could work together, as it was in both their interests to get the mink out of the way.

‘Tell me about the mink,’ said Black Tip. ‘And your plan.’

‘Well,’ said the otter, ‘there’s not much to tell really.’

Black Tip was sitting on the bank watching the soft light of gloomglow flickering on the fast-flowing water. Whiskers went on: ‘It came here round about your breeding time. The pheasants were starting to lay their eggs. I think it must have watched me. At first it couldn’t get in to the pheasant farm. Then it got in the way I did.’

‘How was that?’ asked Black Tip.

‘There’s a small pond at one end.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen it.’

‘Well, a small stream flows into it, but the wire doesn’t go right down to the bottom. I used to swim under it and get in that way’

Black Tip smiled. It was so simple.

‘The men at the farm never knew how I got in or out,’ continued Whiskers. ‘And as I told you before, I didn’t go in too often — just now and then when I felt like a change. The river is my hunting ground and there’s plenty of food for me there. But sometimes I feel like having something different to eat.’

‘I know how you feel,’ said Black Tip. ‘But go on.’

‘One night when I arrived at the farm, I found that the mink had got in the same way. The pheasants were going
mad, and I didn’t dare go in. That was the start of it. The mink went in night after night, until the men got so annoyed they went up to the side of the valley and killed the foxes, badgers and everything they could find. I wouldn’t mind, but the mink didn’t need half the food it brought out.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I often found it, buried here, there and everywhere. It took so much it couldn’t remember where it had hidden it.’

‘Greed,’ said Black Tip.

‘That’s right,’ said Whiskers. ‘Greed. The mink took more than it needed, and spoiled everything for everyone else.’

‘Has it struck again yet?’

‘Not yet. I saw it up-river not long ago. It’s working its way down. It won’t be long before it’s here, and then you can look out. We can all look out. Nobody will be safe.’

‘How will it get in?’

‘The same way as before — under the wire. The men never discovered how it was getting in or out. They never even discovered it was the mink. They thought it was us.’

‘When do you think it’ll be here?’

The otter twitched his whiskered snout. ‘When gloomglow comes again. Maybe a little longer.’

‘Then we must move fast. What’s your plan?’

‘Follow me, and I’ll show you.’

Dawn was breaking as Black Tip and Whiskers found
a safe spot on the thickly wooded side of the valley from which they could look down on the pheasant farm. There were hundreds of buff-coloured hen pheasants, and a few brightly-coloured cocks. Black Tip couldn’t help noticing how fat and well fed they looked, compared with the ones he hunted in the hedgerows.

The farm was a narrow strip of land sandwiched between the side of the valley and the river. It was fenced in and partly covered over with chicken wire, and the bottom of the fence was edged all around with sheets of shiny tin to keep foxes and other predators from gnawing their way in. At one end were the gamekeeper’s house and a shed where he took the eggs for hatching. The other end narrowed to the small pond where Whiskers — and later the mink — had got in. The pond was probably meant for ducks, thought Black Tip, although there were none there now. A shallow stream trickled down through a deep gully in the side of the valley into the pond, and a small dam held the water back from the river. Most of the pheasants were in covered pens just inside the fence. A few more were in open pens in the centre, and Black Tip wondered why these didn’t fly away.

‘Sometimes they do,’ Whiskers told him. ‘But they always come back in for the food.’

‘And what are those things for?’ Black Tip was referring to four wooden poles that rose high above the pens at intervals outside the fence.

Whiskers explained that when raids started on the young pheasants, things on these poles lit up the whole area. ‘It becomes so bright,’ he said, ‘it’s not safe to hunt.’

‘Are there any shooters in the farm?’

‘Not that I’ve seen.’

‘How many fun dogs are there?’

‘One for each leg of your body.’

Black Tip didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Don’t they touch the pheasants?’

Whiskers shook his head. ‘They don’t seem to be interested in them. I often see them running around when the men are putting out food and water for the pheasants, and they don’t chase them or bother with them.’

‘What a strange way for fun dogs to act,’ mused Black Tip.

‘Don’t let that fool you,’ warned Whiskers. ‘They hunt everything else — rabbits, foxes, even me when they get the chance.’

As Black Tip looked down on the pheasant farm, he just couldn’t imagine how they were going to teach the mink a lesson. Maybe, he thought, Fang and Skulking Dog were right, and the only answer was to attack the mink and frighten it away. Yet, when they suggested simply going in and attacking something, Old Sage Brush always said there was another way. Indeed, with the old fox and Hop-along back up there in the undergrowth, they would have to think of another way. They couldn’t risk a noisy fight that would
frighten the pheasants and bring out the fun dogs. The dogs would soon pick up their scent, and there would be no question of survival, at least, not for some of them. No, there had to be some other way.

‘You said you had a plan,’ said Black Tip.

Whiskers nodded. ‘The fun dogs can’t find out where the mink is getting in and out because it goes under the water.’

‘So?’

‘So I’m going to let the water out.’

‘How?’ asked Black Tip.

‘I’m digging a hole through the dam from the river. I’ve been at it some time and I’m nearly finished. The thing is, I need your help.’

‘How can I help you?’

Whiskers thought for a moment. ‘If I let the water out of the pond after the mink goes into the farm, and if you then raise the alarm while it’s still in there, the fun dogs could follow it out, as there’d be no water to stop them.’

The plan appealed to Black Tip’s natural cunning. At the same time, his sense of self-preservation made him realise the dangers involved. ‘The problem is,’ he said, ‘how can we raise the alarm without drawing the fun dogs on to our own trail?’

Clearly Whiskers was relying on the foxes to provide the answer to that. Black Tip promised to contact him again when they had decided what they could do to help, and returned to the others. Knowing the danger the valley held
for them, Vickey was anxiously awaiting him, and hopped out into the clearing to greet him. They rubbed noses affectionately for a moment, and then she took him into where Old Sage Brush and Hop-along were still talking.

‘Well, what do you think we should do?’ asked Old Sage Brush when Black Tip had told them.

‘I’m not sure yet.’

‘Hop-along,’ said the old fox. ‘You fooled Lepus the Hare. What do you think we should do?’