The Fox Cub Bold (9 page)

As luck would have it, after making a brief circuit of the garden, the vixen came straight towards Bold. Instinctively he flattened himself against the ground. She leapt the fence effortlessly and landed about three metres from him. Some slight involuntary movement on Bold’s part betrayed his presence. She turned and looked at him calmly. No trace of surprise or curiosity was shown by her. For a few moments they stared into each others’ eyes, then she swung round and trotted coolly away as if he had been of no more interest than a piece of wood.

Bold felt humiliated by her disregard. Although there was no reason for her to pay him any attention, her nonchalance only made him all the more conscious of his poor appearance. He felt that her reaction might have been quite different had she seen him as he had once been in those first glorious weeks after he had left the Nature Reserve. Now he was indeed quite another animal. His physical deficiencies assumed a new proportion in his mind and his confidence fell to a low ebb. What a cringing, struggling scrap of a creature he had become! He crawled away from the fence, his brush hanging lifelessly between his legs. Why continue the fight? He would be better off out of it all.

But life had to go on and Bold had to go on. He pulled a meaty-looking bone from the next container he upset and began his slow, sad, homeward journey. At least Robber would have no cause for complaint this time.

The crow was delighted with Bold’s offering and spent a long time pulling and pecking at the fragments of meat that still clung around the bone. Bold slept deeply, utterly dispirited and tired out by his feelings. Robber came back during the day and dropped a share of his kill for the fox to enjoy, for he did not live entirely off carrion. But Bold made no attempt to fetch it. Flying overhead later Robber noticed the untasted morsel and down he came to reclaim it.

‘Shame to waste it if it’s not to your taste,’ he remarked.

‘Have it by all means,’ said Bold disinterestedly.

Something in his tone made the bird pause. ‘Is there anything wrong?’ he inquired.

‘Of course – everything’s wrong,’ Bold growled bitterly.

‘Everything?’

‘Everything with
me
.’

‘Aha!’ said Robber. ‘So that’s it. Feeling sorry for yourself. Doesn’t do any good, you know.’

Bold held his tongue.

‘You’re still alive, Bold, my friend,’ the bird went on. ‘You would have died out there if you hadn’t followed my advice.’

‘Might have been the best thing,’ Bold muttered. ‘After all, what am I doing? Just prolonging the agony!’

‘Your leg may not always be so bad,’ said Robber encouragingly.

‘Yes, it will,’ said Bold. ‘I shall never run or jump again as I used to do. If anything, it’s worse than before.’

‘You’re not very easy to comfort,’ said Robber shortly. ‘I don’t know why I’m bothering.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Bold. ‘I ought to be grateful for a comrade, I know. But I think I’m beginning to miss my own kind.’

‘That’s easily solved,’ Robber told him. ‘There are plenty more foxes around here.’

‘I know, I saw one,’ said Bold morosely.

Robber looked at him, his head on one side. ‘Couldn’t have been a vixen, I suppose?’ he chuckled.

‘Yes, yes – a vixen,’ Bold answered.

‘Well, that’s hopeful, then?’

‘Quite the reverse,’ the fox said. ‘I’m not the most impressive of beasts, Robber.’

‘Oh dear. Now, now,’ Robber said awkwardly. ‘Humph! Well, you’ll soon put some meat back on your bones,
I’m
sure.’ He eyed the morsel of food with an air of irresolution, for he badly wanted to eat it. Then he seemed to make a decision. He stepped away from it and turned his back. ‘Of course, you won’t if you let good food go begging,’ he said. ‘If you don’t hurry and eat what I brought you while my back’s turned
I
shall eat it.’

Bold saw the sense in the remark and knew the bird was making a real sacrifice, something almost unknown in the crow family except at nesting time. He came out of hiding and gulped down the food, before Robber could change his mind.

‘That’s better,’ said the crow, as he turned back, but Bold thought he detected a note of disappointment in the familiar croak.

‘Thank you, Robber,’ he said humbly. ‘I’m glad you’re my friend.’

The crow rustled his wings and started to preen himself as a diversion. He was just a little embarrassed. ‘Well,’ he said eventually, ‘I wish you good hunting tonight.’

Bold wasn’t thinking of his hunting. His thoughts were of a certain lithe young vixen and his one hope was that he might encounter her again.

For the next week Bold visited the same large garden where he had seen the vixen. He couldn’t get inside it since he was unable to jump the fence. So, each night, he gazed through the palings in a forlorn way, longing for a glimpse of her. Yet she was never there – at any rate, not at the time he was. Bold became more and more disconsolate. He never mentioned her again to Robber, but the wily crow knew how the wind blew in that quarter. Of course he refrained from saying anything.

Then one evening Bold thought he spotted her. There was certainly an animal moving around at the far end of the garden, shadow-like in the gloom. Bold stared into the darkness until his weak eye ached. He sniffed the air for a clue, but the creature was downwind and he could not catch the scent. If only he could jump! Bold actually snarled in his aggravation. Then he remembered he could still dig.

He began to scrape at the soil in which the fence was sunk. It was quite soft and so he dug in earnest. Every now and again he paused to see if the animal had come any closer. Deeper and deeper went Bold’s tunnel, but still he could not seem to reach the bottom of the palings. Then he stopped digging, for the animal in the garden had come out into the open. It was the vixen, and she was approaching the bird-table to repeat her former trick. Bold resumed his digging.

So determined was he to get under the fence that he would have failed to notice the vixen leaping over it, if he had not aroused her curiosity.

‘Can you not jump?’

Bold started and looked up. The vixen was poised on the other side of the palings, ready to spring. Bold saw the tightened muscles in her powerful limbs. He felt ashamed of his damaged leg and tried to hide it by tucking it under his body. The vixen leapt the fence.

‘Er – no,’ Bold muttered. ‘No, I can’t jump.’

‘Are you hurt?’

Bold looked down, unable to meet her penetrating glance. ‘I – I was injured – er – a long time ago,’ he said, scarcely audibly.

‘Unfortunate,’ she commented. ‘I should save yourself the trouble, anyway. There’s very little worth foraging for, in there. Why are you so desperate to get in?’

Bold was taken aback. ‘I – er – well, I wanted to – er – I was really trying to dig,’ he spluttered.

‘Yes, I can see that,’ said the vixen, looking at him curiously. ‘But what’s so important about
that
garden?’

‘Nothing, now,’ Bold said in a not-at-all bold voice.

The vixen sat down. ‘I think you were trying to get to
me
,’ she said quietly.

Bold remained silent.

‘I haven’t seen you before,’ she went on. ‘Are you new in the area?’

Bold didn’t remind her that she
had
seen him before. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I moved in from the country when food became scarce.’

‘Very wise,’ she replied. ‘I come around here quite often in the winter to supplement what would otherwise be a rather frugal diet. But for you, things must be doubly difficult.’

‘What do you mean?’ Bold asked defensively.

‘Why, if you can’t jump – you can’t run, I suppose?’ said the vixen.

‘No, I can’t,’ he snapped. ‘And nor could you, if you’d been shot in the leg.’

‘My, my, aren’t you touchy?’ she said. ‘Accidents will happen. Why are you so sensitive about it?’

Bold said nothing.

‘If I were you, I’d be glad I’d survived,’ the vixen went on. ‘How did it happen?’

Bold explained the circumstances. The vixen listened with evident sympathy. ‘Bad luck indeed,’ she said seriously. ‘Maybe those humans were avenging themselves on you for stealing the pheasants
they
wanted to kill.’

Bold thought this a shrewd observation. He thought for a moment. ‘I’ve escaped death twice at their hands,’ he said. ‘Now it would be ironic indeed if I survived to an old age by living on their leavings.’

‘But a sort of justice,’ commented the vixen.

Bold pulled himself out of the hole and shook his coat energetically. It wasn’t until he took a few steps that the vixen realized just how serious his injury was. Something moved within her. ‘If you’d accept help, I’d be glad to give it,’ she told him. ‘
I
could be your legs,’

Bold winced internally. His pride took another blow. ‘I’m not quite helpless yet,’ he replied testily. ‘But I thank you for your offer,’ he added in a more gracious manner.

The vixen realized she had touched him on a raw spot. She thought she had better leave him to his own devices. ‘Farewell, then,’ she said quickly. ‘And good luck.’

Bold almost called her back. But again pride got in the way. He watched her supple young body slip away into the darkness and sighed. How he wished she could have seen him when he had been better favoured!

Quite mechanically he set about finding his supper, his thoughts still full of the meeting he had sought for days. He ate without appetite and took more care over choosing a titbit for Robber than he did for his own meal. He returned home early, full of a sense of regret.

Bold never saw the vixen in the garden again. But the two of them were destined to meet again in different surroundings. About a month after their last encounter, in the middle of winter, Bold was crossing the playing fields now covered by the first fall of snow. An intake of kitchen leavings combined with the exclusion of any fresh meat from his diet, had wrought its change in the fox’s appearance. He was thinner than ever and his coat mirrored the lack of really nutritious food. The severe cold heightened the stiffness of his old wound and in every way he looked like an animal who was struggling to hold the threads of its life together. Unknown to Bold, his faltering steps through the snow were witnessed by the vixen, who herself was finding the going more tough. But she had no thought for her own problems as she watched his progress.

The vixen’s heart melted at the sight of him and she was filled with compassion. A few seconds longer she watched; then she hastened after him and, with a few bounds, drew alongside.

Bold turned an astonished glance on her. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘how goes it with you?’

‘Rather better than with you, I would think,’ she said softly. ‘I – I – want to help – or – I want to
hunt
with you,’ she corrected herself.

Bold noticed the slip but he felt he couldn’t refuse her offer again – nor, indeed, did he want to. It seemed that, since his injury, he was fated to be helped by other creatures. His dreams of independence had turned sour. Yet, despite that, the prospect of the company of this young vixen caused a flicker of excitement inside him.

‘I should be glad of your company,’ he said diplomatically. ‘We might bring each other luck.’

They reached the cover of the first buildings and the vixen stopped. ‘Let’s not go sniffing for scraps,’ she suggested. ‘I’ve discovered a place by the side of some water where there’s a colony of rats. But we have to go farther into the town. What do you think?’

Bold began to drool at the idea of eating fresh meat again. ‘Lead the way,’ he said with bravado.

The vixen looked at him for a moment as if to make certain of his true feelings. Bold licked his lips. ‘Very well then,’ she said and led off.

Only now did Bold appreciate to the full her skill in hunting. She was so light-footed as to be noiseless; she followed unerringly the path of the thickest shadows, and when it was necessary to cross an open space she skimmed across it on her silken feet like a zephyr. Bold lumbered after her, feeling himself to be like a chain around her dainty legs, impeding her swiftness. She paused regularly to allow him to catch up. Neither spoke a word, but Bold’s eyes told her all. Eventually the gleam of water could be seen ahead, where it bathed itself in moonlight. The vixen seemed to melt into the darkness as she crept cautiously forward. Bold limped behind as quietly as he could, maintaining a discreet distance.

‘There!’ she hissed to him. ‘But wait – the water is higher now.’ She scanned its edge. ‘Yes, the colony is still there, but the water surrounds them now. They’ve become an island.’

Bold peered over her flank. He was looking at a canal and its still, night-black water. Close to the bank a mound of debris, mud and vegetation was situated, and the beasts who favoured this site as their home were scuttling around it, some squeaking aggressively at others – perhaps at rivals.

‘The water level has risen,’ said the vixen. ‘That makes it easier, because their retreat is cut off.’

‘But you’ll have to swim?’ Bold asked.

‘Of course. But that’s simple enough, if you don’t mind the cold.’

‘
I
can’t swim,’ said Bold hurriedly, ‘with only three useful legs.’