Masked Prowler: The Story of a Raccoon

by Jean Craighead George

  “She’s gonna be a hard one to drop. Can’t let her go the way she’s leaning, she’ll knock down that young stuff.”

  “No,” said Gib, “I think we’ll have to notch her to the northwest, drive in wedges and jump her. Guess I’ll get old Jim on the job, he’ll know how to handle her.”

  Russ, Ray and Jim went home about five-thirty leaving Gib and Joe to boil down the last of the syrup. Joe cleaned the felt strainer, scraping the black sugar sand on the old stump, while Gib tested the syrup and skimmed the foam from the big pans. Joe was ready to dip the strainer into a bucket of hot sap to wash it, when the report of a shotgun rang through the darkened woods. He stood up. The sound had come from the north.

  “Didja hear that, Gib?” he shouted.

  “Yes, I did,” the farmer said as he came to the door, the floating syrup hydrometer dripping in his hands.

  “Poaching! Probably after coons,” he said in consternation. “I’d give a lot to know who’s doing it.”

  “Just wait, just wait,” Joe said, “Fellows like that can’t keep it to themselves long. One of these days someone is gonna tell on himself.”

  “Then what do you do?” Gib asked. “The land’s posted, but they still come in. The sheriff has got to catch them at it before you can run them in.”

  “They’ll come back, and we’ll get them.”

  Gib and Joe had the patience that comes to men who work the land.

  All winter the dead maple protected Procyon against the cold and wind. He slept through the storms and barrenness of December, January and February. He was unaware that Bubo, the great horned owl, had moved back from Conklin’s farm. He did not know of the desperation of the red fox, the mink and the opossum during these bleak months when food was scarce.

  Toward the end of February the grip of this hard terrible winter relaxed. The snow melted and vanished into the soil, and the prevailing winds from the southwest at last brought warmth to the vast stretches of farmlands in southern Michigan. This was not the end of the snows and storms, but it was the end of the almost glacial frigidity of December, January and February.

  Procyon came out of his den one night, stretched and took up his life where it had left off last December. He made this first trip to the ground an eventful one. Sitting about sixty feet above the ground on the crooked limb, he groomed himself thoroughly and combed his fur with his teeth and tongue. He was thin, no fat insulated him from the cold now, only his dense fur. His face and feet looked parched and dry from thirst.

  He touched the limbs of his tree gently, recalling each turn and bend as he started coward the earth. Down the long trunk he came, turning his head from time to time to pick up the sounds of the woods. He heard Bubo boom to the north. The presence of this tiger of the birds did not worry him. He tasted the scent of Mephitis the skunk as he neared the earth.

  When he reached the ground, Procyon began the free life of the yearling male. He had gone to sleep a youngster. Upon awakening all need for his mother was gone. He still had not grown to his full stature; he still was not a mature raccoon. But his future depended upon himself alone, his skill, his wit and his ability to make use of the things his mother had taught him.

  Procyon drank long at a flooded rivulet and then started straight for the cornfield. He was hungry and memory of the autumn told him that the field held one of the best foods and one of the most plentiful. He wound through the fence row of prickly ash and walked into the field. The field had been a winter feeding ground for many animals, the squirrels, the mice, the opossums, the pheasants. The squirrels had carried bushels of ears into the woods. Piles of kernels stripped only of their tiny embryos marked the places where the wasteful squirrels fed. What they left the woodland mice crunched on at night. By day the birds picked up the crumbs and still there was more than enough.

  On his way back to the den Procyon noticed the sap buckets hung around the maple trees. He stopped in his tracks as the wind rattled the cover on a bucket above his head. The clanging lid startled him. It clanged again and he retreated into a pile of slash. He did not take his eyes from the tree. The lid lay silent and he stole carefully toward it to discover what it could be. He climbed the tree and reached out to feel the cold roundness of the metal. It swung under his probe. He turned to a second bucket on the other side of the tree.

  Procyon found the spile and ran one sensitive forefoot along it. Gripping the tree with the other three feet he sniffed down into the bucket. This bucket was uncovered and he could smell the faint aroma of maple sap. He dipped his paw in and licked it. It was excellent. He dipped his paw in farther and scooped up what it could hold. This he licked eagerly. Now he tried to reach in with his nose and obtain a lap. He could not quite get his tongue to the sap. He hung by his hind feet and pumped his hands up and down in the sap like a Dutch laundress. In about two swishes he found a drowned moth that had been attracted by the sap, and rolled it over and over in his hands. He swung his head down into the pail and ate it. He drank long, pausing at times to crunch the thin circle of ice that had formed during the night.

  Procyon brought all four feet into the bucket and circled around and around in the sap, probing the bottom. He hopped out and clambered back to the first bucket. He spent some minutes trying to pull off the lid, which he finally managed to do. He probed this bucket, ate two moths and climbed down the tree and up the next. Procyon made the rounds of the sap buckets.

  Some of the buckets were well filled with sap and when he finished his tour no cat pulled from the bottom of the well looked more forlorn than Procyon, the raccoon. The fluffy fur was pasted to his face and body outlining the jaws and ribs now protruding after the long fast. The black mask was pinned around his nose changing his appearance from that of a stuffed clown to that of a highway bandit.

  As he climbed to his den, the wind raced from tree to tree like a finger along the keys of a piano. It began at the west end of the woods, striking limb after limb until it reached the east end. Then another gust began at the west and repeated the run across the woods.

  Procyon climbed to a horizontal limb just above his den entrance and listened to the wind. As he sat there his ever active fingers peeled off a long slab of bark. It would not be long before the loose bark would make the dead maple too dangerous for him to climb. He went back to his small entrance in the limb and down into the den where he spent the few hours before daylight cleaning his sticky fur.

  About a week later a sharp vibration went through the old maple tree. Procyon awoke with a start. His feet stung and his ears were still ringing from the loud crack that accompanied the vibration.

  He did not run or move. Not being able to understand the source of the trouble, he waited, motionless. Again the tree trembled and the sharp sound stung his ears. There was a long pause. Then through the walls of the tree Procyon heard the gruff barks of men drifting up from the ground.

  “Hey, Jim, let’s use the saw!”

  Procyon pushed down into his den as far as he could. For a few minutes there was relative silence. Then far below he could hear a sleepy buzz-zum, zum, zum, zum. The sound seemed to surround him, for it traveled up the body of the tree and through the walls of his cavity. It was regular and a little like that of branches rubbing together. Procyon began to feel more secure and tried to go back to sleep.

  Far down below him, Jim and Joe each had an end of the cross-cut saw and were chewing away at Procyon’s den tree. The saw blade slid back and forth, cutting deeper and deeper. Jim and Joe were anxious now, for they were almost to the notch on the other side. They had picked carefully the spot in which the tree was to fall, and because the old leaning maple was a tricky tree to handle, they were worried lest it should take its own way down.

  Suddenly there was a splintering crack! The maple swayed, balancing itself on the few threads of wood that remained uncut, and then twisted toward the chosen spot. It fell slowly at first, hardly seeming to move, then gained momentum.

  Procyon snapped out of his slee
p as the tree started to fall. He knew he was moving toward the ground yet his forefeet were planted firmly on the inside of the tree. He ran a few paces and stopped.

  “Here she comes!” cried Gib.

  The old giant of the forest crashed earthward. The roar of its descent was as terrible as thunder and the ground shook as it fell. Limbs and twigs flew off spinning into the air like lights from a grindstone.

  “Timber!” Joe bellowed late but effectively. The men laughed at his call, releasing the tension that had built up within them while maneuvering the old tree down to the marked spot.

  The ride to the earth had been a nightmare for Procyon. He was frozen with fear, clinging desperately to the falling walls. Unprepared for the final crash, he was wrenched from his footing and jolted against the den wall. The impact left him stunned and he lay in his tree, dazed.

  The men sat down to rest before sawing and chopping the tree. They talked of other great trees they had mastered and of some they had not.

  Jim looked at the silent maple stretched out across the ground.

  “She fell just right,” he said, “didn’t even splinter. Now I remember an oak, right over here, Gib,” he gestured toward the nutcracker. “It had a fork in it well up and when she dropped she fell on one of the limbs and split right up the middle. Cracked right open like a ripe mellon.”

  Gib and Joe picked up the cross cut saw and began to divide the maple into sections. It was warm work and even though the temperature was below freezing, they took off their jackets and worked in their shirts. They swung back and forth in unison.

  Procyon slowly regained his senses. He looked around him and felt the walls of his den. He realized he was still safely hidden. However, he was no longer in the top of the forest, his den was stretched along the ground. He could smell the men around him and hear their footsteps as they ran along the limbs and trunk. He could also hear the swish of the saw blade again as it ate away at the tree. He pushed himself up on his feet and moved along the hollow toward the entrance.

  The limb had been severed by the fall. The entrance now opened onto the floor of the forest. He made a rush forward and then drew back. The shouting men frightened him.

  Bubo’s mate, incubating about two hundred yards away in a tall beech, had been frightened by the felling of the old landmark also, and had flown from her nest. During the syruping she had braved the presence of the men all around her emptying buckets, driving horses and gathering wood, to remain with her two rounded eggs. But the crash of the tree had been too much. Even though the eggs had now hatched and the owlets needed her warmth, she left them in fear and climbed through the air to the tall branches of a distant beech. Scarcely had she left her nest, than Corvus and his band saw her. The call went out. Crows from near and far, crows in numbers unknown to the woodland before came crowding to the scene. They dived and screamed at this hated enemy whose mere presence kept them from nesting in the Strang woods. They cawed and raved. The dissonance of their cries grew to a frenzied pitch as the owl shifted her perch.

  Corvus, meanwhile, had flown over to the owl’s stick nest in the top of the beech. Cautiously he hopped from branch to branch toward it. From just above the nest he looked down on the two young owlets. They were only a few days old and were wriggling helplessly in the cold. Only a white fuzz protected them. Corvus knew this nest for it was the one he and his mate had built and used last year. He dropped to the rim and stabbed one nestling with his strong pointed beak. Then he grasped it by the tiny wing to throw it to the ground. He stopped abruptly, however, when he heard the screaming of the crows swell in volume as they swung toward him. He looked up to see the speeding form of the mother owl closing on him. Her large lemon-yellow eyes were focused on Corvus. He saw her powerful feathered feet swing from behind and spread. Corvus jumped into the air. With frantic wing beats he swooped down toward the ground, twisted through the young saplings and thumped his way off. The owl returned to her young.

  The crows were beginning to disperse when Gib and Joe cut through the maple and the old tree rolled apart.

  “She’s got a big hollow in her,” Joe observed. He stooped down to examine it, and looked Procyon straight in the face.

  “Dang, if it ain’t a coon tree,” he said, “and the coon is right here.”

  Gib looked over the log but drew back as he saw Procyon snarling and huffing in rage.

  He was a vicious sight, with his teeth bared and his eyes glowing. Gib picked up a stick and poked it in the hole. Procyon bit and the stick snapped in two.

  “Wow!” said Gib. “He’s a mean one.”

  “You would be, too, if you were in there,” said Joe.

  The other men came running to join them. They gathered in curiosity and interest. Without deliberate thought most of them had picked up sticks as they came, probably obeying some subconscious wish for a weapon. They tried to tease him out, but Procyon would not come. Slashing and biting at their weapons, he held his position against the five men, waiting for an opportunity to escape.

  “Grab him,” encouraged Russ.

  “You grab him,” answered Joe. “I want to use my arms tomorrow.”

  For a moment the excitement subsided as the men discussed how to get the raccoon out of the tree. Procyon sensed the pause in their attack and made a break. Snarling, hissing and fuming like a boiler, the raccoon darted from his hollow, slipped right past the feet of the men and dashed for the nearest tree.

  Too late they swung their sticks like boys. They watched their prize swing up the tree to the first limb. None of them went after him, for they did not want Procyon, they only wanted to stir him up and get a better view of the coon they had felled with the old maple. He sat above their heads and looked down at them.

  Procyon saw they were no longer following him. He lost his fear and became interested in them. As he watched, he settled in a crotch, folded his feet in his fur and stared down.

  The men turned away and went back to their work. All day Procyon basked in the sun. Under the cover of darkness he climbed to the earth to search his old haunts for food and water.

  During these first days of spring, Procyon left his woodland on long excursions. One night he would turn up in the swamp, the next night he would follow Gib’s fence line to Cherry Hill Road. Beyond this was a woodland of young saplings. This he tramped in his roundabout fashion, catching a mouse here, digging up acorns there. Some nights he would wander to the north, other nights he would hunt at home. He wandered restlessly, yet he was never more than a mile from Gib’s grand forest which he considered his own.

  Late one afternoon he was down in the swamp feeling his way along the rim of dead grasses. It was twilight and the clouds of a storm hurried the descent of the sun. The gray arch of sky gradually turned dark. The winds blew across the flat marshland. The coon ignored the cold rain as he probed the mud for seeds and dormant insect life. However, as the night wore on and the storm became more intense, he left the swamp to look for an emergency den where he might be protected.

  Down the winter trail of the cock pheasants came a female raccoon. He knew by her scent and the frisky patter of her feet that she was a spirited creature. He watched her gallop past him. She caught his scent and shied into a covering of dried boneset.

  Procyon pranced toward her, chuttering and pivoting on his front feet.

  “Woo-oo?” he whispered. His high call was like a question passed intimately on the wind.

  And Lotor answered Procyon.

  “Woo-ooo.”

  Procyon stood up. He pulled down a stalk of the pigweed that he might see Lotor more clearly. There was nothing to see. She had gone. He followed her trail over the hill toward the meadow where the basswoods grew. The falling rain and blowing winds were erasing the invisible line of communication between the two young raccoons.

  Then he lost her trail completely, and as the storm blew on, a cold, tired Procyon finally crawled into the shelter of fallen basswood.

  Corvus, the crow, had take
n a mate. He had won her in a long pursuit across the tops of the trees, over the fields and around the marsh. They had settled down at the northern edge of the forest and built a nest. It was in the fork of a maple and fashioned from twigs and lined with baling twine. In mid-March she laid her eggs.

  But they never hatched. The feud between the crows and the great horned owls became so intent that the mother crow was too often away from her eggs, screaming and diving at this enemy.

  She was a good mother, but her fear of the giant owls conflicted with her instincts to incubate her eggs. Alone on her nest, she would hear to the east the cry of her mate, Corvus. He was calling in the tree tops in the direction of the big beech. Another male would join his chant, then another. One by one the females would desert their nests and come to the tree. Through the delicate limbs at the top of her maple, the mother crow could see the circling band and hear their cries of desperation.

  Bubo—they had found Bubo. A terrible vision came to her. She saw the big round head with the tufted ears set on the seemingly neckless body. She saw the fierce yellow eyes placed in rust and black feathers. Pulsating under the hooked beak was a beard of white.

  This picture upset the mother crow. Her feathers closed against her body. She no longer covered all the eggs and a few were exposed to the air. The screaming went on. She watched nervously, then tried to settle down to incubate again. The yelling mob veered and came toward her. She could see clearly the silhouette of Bubo! Behind him came the crows. At the sight of the owl, the mother jumped into the air and with hysterical screams, joined the maddened chase.

  While she was gone, her five drab green eggs splotched with brown once again lost the heat she had given them. The wind blew over them. Finally they were as cold as the air of that early spring day.

  Bubo’s two youngsters stood erect in their nest. They were still white and fuzzy, but now brown and tan feathers showed through the fuzz. Stubby tail feathers fanned out behind them. Their parents were gone and they stared around the top of the forest. The throbbing cries of the crow band had awakened them. As they stared they blinked away the sunlight. One owlet raised his wings to stretch. They rose jerkily over his head. He beat them against the wind, then fell awkwardly against the sticks of his nest. One wing was crooked and wretched. The long primary feathers that would have balanced him in flight were gnarled and stunted. They would never grow, and he would never be able to fly. This was the wing that Corvus had pecked when he had tried to throw the owlet to the ground.