Masked Prowler: The Story of a Raccoon

by Jean Craighead George

  Here he faced another problem, that of hanging on to the precarious limb he had chosen to climb. The mink became secondary as he wound his feet around the slender branch, twisted upside down and lost his grip with his hind paws. There he hung by his hands until he could wrap his hind legs around the limb. Taking a good grip with all four feet, he now used his chin as a lever and pried himself onto the top of the limb. One hind foot dangled as he swung around. Several low whistles sounded from the foot of the tree. He stopped and looked down. His mother called again. Obediently Procyon ran down the narrow pathway of the limb and followed the trunk of the tree to the ground.

  “Oo-oo,” he whistled to his mother in two mellow notes that sounded almost as one. He was reassured by her warm scent. With a feeling of security the little coon sniffed the cricket holes in the grass, chased a spider into its ground nest and leisurely walked over to his mother’s side. She seemed anxious and strained. No sooner had he nuzzled her than she hurried off by a devious route through the underbrush. Again the young coon was alone. A wind from the stream circled across the roots of the basswood. Procyon tasted it. The strong scent of the mink he had forgotten put his heels into motion, and the young raccoon was off on the trail of his mother.

  He passed his brother and sisters and came up to her heels. She stopped to wait for the slower cubs to catch up and Procyon was so close that he stumbled into her haunches. In single file, as fast as they were able, the family went back to the red oak.

  For several nights the raccoon family traveled east through the forest to Rook’s Creek. They hunted tadpoles, crayfish and insect foods that lay beneath the surface of the water. The growing cubs hungrily devoured these solid foods. Even with the milk from their mother it was hardly enough. They seemed always hungry.

  One evening, the mother coon turned south and led her family past the sugar house to the hedge of prickly ash. Picking his way through this barrier, Procyon drew back as his feet touched the plowed earth of the cornfield. The upturned loam reminded him of the diggings of the moles and the crayfish, but his mother was not interested in this discovery; she was moving swiftly up the edge of the field. Procyon dropped his clump of plowed earth and ran after her. His sisters and brother now safely through the prickly ash, also joined the canter up the hill. When the five reached the top, the mother disappeared between the corn stalks, now over four feet high. They followed her to a low, moist pocket. Here were grasshoppers and crickets. The cubs were amused by these insects, for they would stalk them in the dusk only to have them snap their hind feet and jump away. Just when they were sure of one, another cub would frighten it with a movement and the hunt would begin again. It was some time before they were able to catch one.

  Procyon became tired of chasing crickets and wanted to play. He looked at his brother, whom he had outgrown in the last few months, diligently digging away in the ground. His buff trimmed ears sat up from his dark head like two half moons. Procyon hopped up and down and swinging his haunches from side to side charged his brother with his shoulder and side.

  The brother’s ears were his target. The ears went back and the head went down as the brother saw Procyon dance toward him. He took Procyon’s blow and bit him on the leg. His hind toes came up and raked Procyon’s chin. Procyon whined and shifted his attack to the brother’s cheek. The brother turned as Procyon tugged and snapped him at the side of the neck. He pulled on his hide until Procyon let go of his cheek.

  Gruff snorts filled the night and the corn stalks vibrated smartly as the brothers crashed into them. The mother coon was suddenly between them. With a strong swing of her paw she silenced the cubs. They were too noisy for the open fields and there was hunting to be done.

  Procyon understood. He followed her into the woods, keeping her big ringed tail before him. The sisters, sensing the danger the fight might have aroused, pressed their hind feet to the earth and raced toward the dark wall of trees.

  The brother turned back to his digging, not realizing his family was hiding in the fence row. He heard the sound of rustling leaves and pattering feet in the corn. Thinking it was Procyon, he ran forward for another tussle.

  A short distance up the corn row he stopped. He realized he was not meeting his brother but another animal. He drew back into the corn, hoping his silence would protect him. Crouched low, completely motionless, the small brother waited fearfully.

  The mother had taken the rest of the family up the old willow in the fence row. There they had climbed several feet, and clinging to the bark, peered into the cornfield. They heard the steps of the strange prowler. The mother tasted the night air with her nose, but found no clue to the disturbance, for the wind was not her way.

  The young brother watched the prowler pass within three feet of him. It was a big opossum, with weather-bitten ears and tail. The opossum did not scent the young raccoon but knew of his presence. She walked down the corn row, unperturbed by the coon, to the east fence and disappeared in the tall chicory. When the opossum had gone, the little brother found the scent of his family and followed them to the willow-tree. He drew back into the brush, as a shattering of bark flew down from above. Though he thought the commotion was made by his family, he did not move until he saw them at the foot of the willow. Then, with a bound he joined them. His mother came to meet him, licked him and felt his ears and nose with her pattering hands.

  By the end of July, Procyon had a fair conception of his homeland. It was a coon’s idea of farm and forest in southern Michigan. In the center of the land was the red oak. From that branched skyway avenues that led in many directions toward the sun and moon. These were dead-end trails that occasionally yielded insects and buds. Below this lay the earth, connected to his aerial home by a shaft of rough bark. The earth was exciting. It led to Rook’s Creek, to the cornfield, to the woodland swamp. The earth was also more dangerous than the tree. Below there were prowling hounds and farmers. The young coons were not skilled enough to cope with these dangers of the woodland floor, and their mother kept them high in the tree except for short trips to the ground at night. She gave them only time to find some small gleanings of food to supplement their diet of milk.

  The cubs slept on the tree limbs in the day. It was during these naps that Procyon developed a distinct dislike for Corvus, the crow. The band of crows had broken up in the spring as each took a mate and selected a nest tree. They were noisy still, but their activities were confined to feeding and rearing young. When the young crows were large enough to fly, they traveled in family groups. Often they would sweep through the forest and pester the coon family when it came out to sun.

  One morning Procyon was exploring the branching trails of the tree limbs. Below him he could see his sleeping kinsmen. They were sunning themselves along the broad limb that twisted out and up from the den. Procyon had come upon a caterpillar and was busy rolling it over and over in his paws, when Corvus saw him. Beating his heavy wings, clattering noisily, the crow flew to a limb just above the young coon’s head. Procyon continued eating, peering out of the corner of his eye at the black bird now sitting to the other side of him.

  “Caw, caw, cawwwww!” Again the crow flew at Procyon, but Procyon was prepared. Throwing his weight to his haunches he reached up with both forepaws, and slashed the wind-filled feathers. Corvus veered quickly. The youngster turned and ran down the limb toward the den. Before he reached it, Corvus had struck again. In the hollow he turned around and poked his head out to see Corvus land on a maple and glare at him. He annoyed Procyon and the little coon erraked at him, then yawned and rubbed his cheek on the tree. His eyes blinked and he slid out of sight, as he dropped to sleep.

  CHAPTER THREE

  WHEN THE HAY was baled and stored in the mow, the harvesting of the oat crop began. All day the whisk of the binder sounded across the field. At ten minutes to five Joe looked at his big gold pocket watch.

  “What time do you have, Gib?” he called.

  “Five to five,” the farmer answered. Joe’s watch wa
s always clogged with chaff and grit from the fields, and at least once a day it stopped. He shook it, set the hands and mumbled, “About chore time.”

  He turned away from the fields and walked toward the barn. The cows were in the barnyard waiting to be fed and milked. Joe opened the east door and the filed into the barn and each walked to her own stall. He took down the electric milking machines and was well along with the chores when Gib came into the barnyard with the team. He unhitched the horses from the binder and gave them a spank on their broad haunches to let them know they were free. The galloped ponderously to the water tank and from there to their stalls. Gib joined Joe in the barn.

  “The white cow didn’t come up from the woods,” Joe said as he poured a bucket of foam milk through the strainer.

  “She’s about due to calf,” the farmer said. “If she’s got a calf we’d better go back and get her now, or she’ll hide it in the underbrush, and it will take us a couple of hours to find it.”

  They finished the milking and started to the woods. As they opened the gate in the lane, Fanny, the Blue Tick hound, trotted around the grainery to join them. She dashed ahead, searching for meadow mice, but waited for them at the end of the lane.

  The men separated in the forest. Joe walked to the woodland meadow, scouted the edges and started back to meet Gib at the sugar house.

  “Ka Bos, Ka Bos,” he would call from time to time to the cow.

  Gib was standing motionless at the corner of the shack. He was peering intently across the hill. Several howls from Fanny signaled the presence of some woodland creature.

  “Coon family,” Gib mumbled. “Four little ones and a big one.” Clinging to the dipping limbs of a sugar maple were Procyon, his brother, sisters and mother. They were staring silently at Fanny barking below them.

  “Here, Fanny, come on, come here!” Gib called. “Leave them alone, dog.”

  Fanny did not respond and he went to get her. She was jumping and clawing at the tree in an effort to climb to the limbs where the raccoons clung. Gib clutched her collar between bounds and looked steadily at the picture above him. Frightened by the man, the mother and two of the youngsters galloped higher into the tree. They disappeared in the dense foliage. The other two did not move, but with eyes and ears fixed curiously upon Fanny and then Gib, they stared down quietly.

  Suddenly the raccoons had an unexpected ally. The missing cow rushed from a nearby thicket, lowered her head and charged Fanny. Gib released the hound and she dashed for shelter behind the sugar house. Joe heard the noise and came running. As he passed a raspberry and prickly ash thicket, he found the calf. He prodded it to its feet. The cow, still alarmed, bellowed and rushed him but she stopped short beside her calf. Each of the men picked up a stout club and expertly herded the cow toward the lane. She moved reluctantly stopping frequently to call her calf.

  “Whey, Boss, Whey Boss. The calf will follow you, he’ll follow,” Joe told her. And the calf did follow although occasionally he found his untried legs too far apart to move. Joe would straighten him out with a lift from the rear and he would stumble after his mother.

  At the edge of the woods Fanny trotted up to the heels of the men. The cow turned and charged the dog. Gib pushed her off with a well-timed shove on her nose.

  “Go on home, Git!” He shouted at Fanny. The hound was only too happy to obey. She slipped under the fence and took the field route home.

  Once in the lane, the cow started homeward with more willingness. The calf trotted behind her. Joe and Gib discussed the coon family as they herded the cow and the little bull up the lane.

  “Weren’t they nice little coons?”

  “Sure were,” Joe laughed. “Wonder where they came from.”

  “Whey Boss!” shouted Joe as the cow hesitated.

  “Fanny brought them out of that old stream bed.”

  “Maybe there’ll be good hunting this fall. Must be a lot more around.”

  And so they whooped and chatted as they drove the cow and the newest addition to the herd back to the barn. In the barn the cow headed for her stanchion with her calf at her heels. Gib let the calf nurse, then slipped a collar around its neck and tied it to the wall just behind the cow. The cow turned her head and bawled to her calf, who had now dropped on a pile of sweet yellow straw that Gib had thrown down for him.

  Gib took the remaining milk from the cow by hand. It was a thick yellow fluid which she would give for several days. It was designed by nature to make the digestive track of the new born calf begin its work. In a day or so the white milk would come. Gib did not put this fresh milk in with the milk from the other cows, for he could not send it to the dairy. What the calf did not need he fed to the hogs. After the ninth milking he would put the milk in with that of the herd.

  Back in the woods the raccoon family relaxed as the men disappeared down the lane. Procyon had been one of the youngsters who had hidden in the leaves with his mother. His sister pushed close beside him, still hugging him and watching the dark tree so recently alive with a barking clawing hound. She shivered. As the forest quieted down, the mother raccoon whistled to her youngsters and descended to the forest floor. Procyon dug his foreclaws into the tree bark and pushed out from the limb. He swung like a pendulum a few times as he hung by his hands, then grabbed the tree with his hind feet, turned around head first and climbed to the earth. The family reassembled and trekked off to the great marsh that spread to the north of the forest.

  Procyon left the group at the edge of the cattail border. He crossed a garden of wild iris, pushed through a relentless mat of sedges and came to a fallen cottonwood, four feet through, that had tumbled from the shore into the marsh. He scrambled up this and walked along it. Beneath him he could hear open water, and ripples lapping around the old tree.

  Farther along the trunk he came to a massive limb that sloped downward into the grasses. In the fork of this limb, Procyon stopped. He had come upon the scat pile of a raccoon. He sniffed it, circled the pile with careful steps and followed the limb down to a basin of water. The smell of silt and mud filled his nose. Here he had the feel of pollywogs and frogs.

  Procyon lifted his head. To his right the grasses parted and a giant raccoon moved before him. Procyon could see his black mask and the bulging muscles of his forearms. The spread of that broad tapered face made Procyon back against the log.

  The old raccoon surveyed the young hunter solemnly. He moved a few steps closer, sniffed him and stepped into the water. The marsh basin muddied as his feet moved nimbly among the roots and down into the muck. The little coon watched in fascination. He had known no other raccoon of comparable stature other than his mother. Even she had not such tremendous jaws. Her haunches were not as high, nor her wrists as large and powerful. Should this giant decide that Procyon was intruding, there would be little scuffle, little battle. The power and force of those great legs gave him the right to anything in the marsh and woods.

  Procyon did not retreat, rather he pushed up on his toes and walked gingerly into the water. Surprised by the audacity of the youngster’s movements, the old coon stopped his fishing and looked up. He snarled gruffly and his white teeth made Procyon uneasy. The young coon knew it was useless to run. The old giant still paused as if wondering whether to permit this young one to remain. He seemed to be waiting for the scurry of the cub’s retreat. Procyon dug his toes into the mud. He shifted his feet automatically, his eyes on the big raccoon.

  There was a deep snarl—the great male had made a decision. He turned away and went back to his work. As he fished he waded off, paving no more attention to the young one. Procyon lost his fear, and once more admired the greatness of the hunter’s size. Still eyeing him, he moved deeper into the water and searched the stem of a bull rush. From it he picked off a water snail and brought it up to his mouth. The old coon heard the shell crunch and turned around. Ferocity seemed to have left his face. Procyon stopped to listen more keenly for he thought he detected the murmur of a purr deep in that round ches
t. The old one moved on through the shallows.

  Procyon watched him go, then turned to find his mother. He climbed back on the log and raced for the cattails and reeds where he had left her and his sisters and brother. He found them not far from the base of the log. They were whistling and calling as they rounded up for the trip home.

  Tonight they did not return to the red oak. The mother led her family into a grove of basswoods and willows. Here she selected a tilted tree and took the four youngsters to a dry hollow about twenty feet above the ground. The cavity was deeper than the familiar one in the red oak. In fact, it seemed to the young coons that they climbed right back to the earth on the inside of the tree.

  The bottom of the retreat was roomy and Procyon and his brother explored the cracks and crevices with their hands before settling down to sleep. When he had satisfied his curiosity about the interior of this marshland home, Procyon snuggled up to his mother for milk. There was none to be had. He pushed and shoved her, but he had had the last of his mother’s milk that morning. This was as it should be, for the litter which had weighed little more than half a pound at birth, now weighed well over twenty pounds. The young cubs were ready to go without milk. For a month their mother had taught them how to find and eat other foods.

  The family spent much of their time during late August at the basswood retreat in the marsh. Here Procyon often found the old male coon. He followed him, but the two were never intimate, for Procyon kept a respectful distance. The old coon taught the youngster many secrets of the marshes. Procyon tracked him to the elderberry bushes and the gooseberry bushes. Through the old one he became aware of a vast assortment of foods to be found in August.