Masked Prowler: The Story of a Raccoon

by Jean Craighead George

  Sim Luke was beaten. All that was left to him was growling and denial.

  “That ain’t true. That ain’t true!”

  “I hope not,” continued Gib, “because if I ever catch you at it, the sheriff will hear about it. Believe me!”

  Sim turned to his dog, and backed away.

  “Everyone is against me. I’m getting out of here.”

  The three friends watched him leave. When Sim had reached his car, his brother Potter came over to him. They talked low, casting angry glances at their neighbors. Then they got in their automobile and drove down the lane in a cloud of dust. Gib turned to Walt.

  “I’ve been waiting a long time to hear that confession,” he said.

  “Let’s collect our awards,” Joe said. They stopped by the truck and settled with the purser. Gib took the money and then handed half of it to Joe.

  “I don’t want it,” the hired man said. “I need hot water as much as you and your mother.” Gib did not insist, he knew Joe meant exactly what he said.

  Car by car, the crowd dispersed. The woods became quiet and by dusk, all that was left of the afternoon’s excitement was the hamburger trailer. Mr. and Mrs. Kelt were spending one more night in Gib’s woods. They would drive on in the morning to spend the week on the grounds of the next coon trial.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE SUNDAY before the opening of the hunting season, Gib posted his land with “no hunting” signs. He had told a few friends that they could come into his woods the first day, but this year he had decided to put a stop to the many strangers that wandered over his forest and fields without permission during October and November. He felt that his wild crop of squirrels, rabbits, pheasants and raccoons was disappearing.

  Gib remembered some of his happiest days as a boy, chasing foxes through the woods, or trapping muskrats along the creek. He did not want his land to be depleted of these wild creatures. He had little time to hunt or trap now, but he still took great pleasure in finding the den of a mink or the hollow-tree where a raccoon slept. When he came to the woods he liked to see the rabbits dash out before him, and to hear the scolding cluck of a squirrel in a beech tree above him.

  Gib nailed the last sign in the far corner of the woods and turned back toward the farm house. The beeches had turned as gold as a ripe wheat field and the maples were apple red. Each wind that stirred the trees sent a shower of colored leaves that swept around the farmer and settled at his feet. He came to the sugar road and followed it out of the forest to see a man approaching him down the lane.

  Gib waited for him at the edge of the cornfield, contemplating with consternation, the eroded ditch through the middle of the field. The bare stones and gravel disturbed him. These scars in the earth wore deeper and broader each year. He must check them, for already the soil on the top of the hills above the gully was wearing thin, and there the corn did not grow as high. He looked back at his wonderful forest, gold, scarlet and glorious in the sunlight. His father and grandfather had watched over this land in their day. They had left him a fortune in pleasure and beauty. Abruptly Gib stopped his musing. He recognized Potter Luke as the man coming toward him. He waited.

  “Good morning, Mr. Strang,” the man said cheerfully.

  “Hello, Potter?” Gib answered with a question in his voice, wondering what had put the man in such an unusually friendly mood.

  “I was wondering,” Potter began, “if me and my brother could hunt your woods this season.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” Gib said kindly but firmly.

  “Just a few hours, the first day?”

  “No, I’d rather you didn’t, Potter. You’ve spoiled it for yourself.”

  “We’ll not bother you anymore. Just the first day.”

  Gib did not want the Luke brothers hunting his game. They were not sportsmen. They were meat hunters who shot first and then looked. But he was embarrassed by the man’s persistence. He disliked being rude. He paused and shifted his weight to his left foot.

  “I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna let you on the first day but that’s all.”

  Wednesday afternoon at twelve the hunting season opened. It was a sun-filled day. Gib and Joe spent the morning in the cornfield near the woods, bringing in the shocks. They flushed two cock pheasants that pumped their short wings in a quick rattling take-off and then glided on bowed wings to the cover of the nearby hay field.

  The first car to arrive belonged to the Luke brothers. Gib watched the two men crawl out of their automobile and walk into the forest.

  They looked like dwarfs beneath the towering grandeur of the maples and beech trees. Gib sighed and went back to loading corn.

  It was exactly twelve o’clock, the opening hour, when Sim and Potter entered the woods. Sim went down the sugar road, and Potter went west toward the five bucket maple. Hardly had Sim turned the first bend in the road than he heard a rustle in the bushes that surrounded an old stump. He stopped and drew his gun. Among the gold leaves he saw a big tan object. He sensed that it was not a rabbit, but hoped that it might be.

  He trained the barrel on the hunched creature and touched the trigger.

  The first blast of the hunting season sounded through the woods. The leaves on the bushes splattered slowly to the ground and partly covered young Bubo as he crumpled to the earth.

  Young Bubo was still fluttering when Sim Luke parted the bushes and looked down on him. The bird turned its head and looked at the man, then slowly the feathered lids closed over the yellow eyes and he stretched out beside his stump. Sim was frightened by what he had done in view of Gib’s attitude. He recalled the farmer mentioning the owls in his woods, and how he listened to their calls during the lonely nights of sugaring. He looked around to see if anyone had witnessed his act, then kicked the leaves over the owl’s body and hurried deep into the forest.

  This was young Bubo’s destiny. It was inevitable that he die before the winter. Soon the frogs and insects that he was feeding upon would go into their winter sleep, and the crippled bird would be almost entirely without food. He could not catch enough mice to nourish his big body.

  All day the forest and fields rang with the thunder of guns. By night those animals and birds that had survived were not venturing far from cover. The pheasants would not flush as readily as they had at noon. They ran ahead of the hunters, staying low in the grasses. The squirrels did not spring along the limbs, but quietly climbed the trunks of trees circling and twisting to keep the tree between themselves and the men. Rabbits stayed in their forms while hunters passed within two or three feet of them.

  Procyon did not come down from his tree that night. He was sleeping in a basswood growing in the northwest corner of Gib’s woods, and had lain awake most of the day listening to the shots around him. In the peace of night he slumbered undisturbed not awakening even for food.

  After the first week of the season, the hunting dropped off and for many days no one came to the forest. The big raccoon fed undisturbed storing food in layers of fat on his round back.

  Then, he was suddenly faced with an enemy more treacherous than the men, the guns and the dogs—hunger.

  Winter came early. About the middle of November when Procyon’s appetite was at its height a blizzard swept across southern Michigan and buried the corn, the beechnuts, the acorns and seeds. The temperature dropped and the land was frigid.

  For one entire week Procyon could not venture from his basswood den. Each evening he would awake cold and hungry and climb to the entrance. The wind would plaster icy flakes of snow on his head and nose and sting the bare pads of his feet. He would crawl back down into the protected hollow and sleep fitfully.

  One midnight of the following week the winds blew themselves out, and the snow stopped falling. Procyon was awakened by the old basswood groaning and snapping in the cold. He sensed the lull in the weather and climbed from his den. Around him the stars glittered like icicles, crisp and brilliant in the thin, cold air. The belt of Orion hung abov
e him like a string of pearls pointing to Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. A little higher than Sirius shone the star, Procyon, whose ancient name means preceder or announcer of the dog. Together with Sirius and Betelguese it formed the scintillating triangle through which the Milky Way poured.

  The raccoon inched down the basswood and stepped into the snow. The snow smelt cold and tasteless, through the frozen cover came no odor of beechnuts. Procyon dug down, trusting to chance that he might come upon some food. The digging, however, was difficult for the first snow had been wet, but now was frozen and almost impenetrable. He worked for nearly an hour before he was rewarded with a half eaten ear of corn. He moved on toward the cornfield, but it too was piled and drifted with snow. The ears that might have been left by the farmer were almost impossible to find. Procyon did eat that night, but scarcely enough to make up for the great amount of energy he had put out in hunting and staying warm. Several hours before dawn, he came back across the cold forest floor to his basswood tree. He did not like the inclement weather and was glad to circle in his dry hollow, tuck his nose under his chest and sleep.

  The storms eased for about three weeks, but the snow did not quite leave the forest. Procyon was out almost every night hunting long hours for food. He was not a fat raccoon when in the middle of December he was once again locked in his tree by sub-freezing weather and whining blizzards.

  For seven days the wind blew from the north bringing deep snow. What fat he had stored was being used to keep him warm. The other animals of the forest were also holed up for the duration of the storm. Not even Vison, the mink, left his den to patrol the stream.

  Procyon grew thinner and his hunger now often awakened him. He lay in his den shivering and restless. If only he could sleep his relaxed body would not require as much food; but hunger and cold were working against his normal winter pattern.

  In desperation he left his den in mid-January again to go abroad and hunt. The temperature was around fourteen degrees—cold enough to nip his bare padded feet.

  Procyon was not the only raccoon in a tragic condition. Almost every other raccoon in the forest had been trapped by winter before laying down enough fat. However, the adult coons like Procyon would survive better than the yearlings. They had laid down practically no food. They were still growing in the autumn and the food that they might have stored had been used up in growth. Many of them would not live until spring.

  Procyon went abroad this night among a community of hungry animals. He crossed through the woods to the fence, all his senses turned upon securing food. His hands probed every fault in the snow, his nose was alert to the scents while his eyes watched the night woods for movement. At the drifted fence he ran his cold paws into a tunnel beneath a prickly ash limb. He moved on then turned and went back. The cold, almost paralyzed nerves on his feet had slowly registered a sensation. There was something at the base of that prickly ash. Procyon reached in again and scratched back the snow. With almost numb paws he dragged the hard body of a young pheasant from its cold grave. The raccoon set upon it with greed, each bite bringing new energy to his body.

  On the air was the scent of another animal. Procyon growled as he ate protecting his meal from this hungry thief. The animal came nearer staring hopefully at the feeding raccoon. It was an opossum, and he ventured near enough to the savage Procyon to be completely vulnerable to attack. Procyon could see that the opossum’s ears were stubbed and gnarled. The freeze had bitten them back almost to his head. His tail, not more than four inches long was purple at the end and bleeding. He turned away from the formidable raccoon, climbed a tree and ate bark that night.

  Procyon left the pheasant just before dawn and returned to his tree. He slept peacefully through the day while the birds and other diurnal animals fought over the remains of the raccoon’s feast. At daylight a skunk dragged it beyond the fence and chewed at the feathers and flesh. In the morning a downy woodpecker drilled at the frozen bones. Later a party of titmice and chickadees scattered the gleaned carcass.

  The snows and winds blew on through January. Procyon did not venture from his basswood, but passed the cold days and nights protected only by his fur. The last of his food fat was gone. He was ravenously hungry, cold and tired.

  Suddenly about the middle of February, the freeze relaxed and warm rains fell for several days. In torrents the snow poured off the hills and flooded the marshland. On the third night a constant wind blew up from the west and swept away the clouds. It left in the sky a great white moon riding westward through the stars.

  Procyon’s ears twitched. Water was circling around the base of his tree and gurgling down the hillside. He lifted his head from his paws and smelt the warm air. In the nutcracker he heard Bubo, the great horned owl, calling to his mate. The raccoon climbed slowly up the hollow of the basswood to the entrance of his den. He moved out into the moonlight and scanned the dark wet forest. Laboriously he walked out on a big limb and shook the chips of wood from his fur. Several feet beyond him was a knot hole. It was filled with water, and Procyon thrust his nose into the skyland drinking vessel and gulped. When he had finished his drink he slipped his forefeet into the hole and probed its edges and bottom. He plunged his feet up and down as he looked over the moonlit branches of the tree. Then he turned away and descended to the earth.

  Procyon’s thinness emphasized his heavy bone structure. His hind legs seemed longer and his pelvis higher for lack of fat. His body was rangy. He moved without his swaggering shuffle, rear feet toed in and body high from the ground. But his fur remained in good condition. It parted in folds at his shoulders and hips as he moved.

  Procyon was going toward the marsh, sure footed and swift. He slipped under the fence at the edge of Gib’s woods and plummeted down the hill as certain of his route as a guided missile. He crossed through the hawthorn thicket and circled back under the crumbling structure of the old abandoned sugar house. Here with a scoop of his big front hands he caught two white-footed mice in their nest and ate them without ceremony. He prowled the old house devouring a pile of acorns cached under the eaves by a red squirrel, then slipped out into the moonlight and in a restive pace approached the grove of basswood trees that stood at the edge of the marsh.

  He rose to his haunches and stood poised like a great wedge while he tasted the wind from the northwest. It bore only the scent of Bubo, the great horned owl, who was hunting somewhere in the dark wall of trees. Procyon swept on to prowl a tree felled by the winter storms. Swinging along the branches, he probed the knot holes nervously as he watched the pockets of darkness.

  All night he prowled. In addition to his hunger another powerful force drove him on. It was the breeding season for the raccoons. However at daybreak he picked a sleeping place high in the branches of a marshland basswood. In the field to the west the horned larks responded to the warm break in the weather and spiraled into the air in flight song. Cardinals sang through the day and a fox squirrel clucked as he tried to corner a female at the thin end of a small limb.

  It was not yet dark when Procyon awoke and came down his tree. He hunted as he roved that marsh area, taking food if he came upon it. He picked up a swollen maple seed, thrust it into his mouth and then swerved suddenly and galloped up the hill. He had picked up the scent of Lotor, the female raccoon of that area. The white cheek patches below his black mask puffed out. His fur looked as if it had been brushed. He continued through a mesh of blackberries and halted. Lotor was in the basswood grove. Procyon could hear the wet leaves squish under her frisking feet. He ran toward her, climbed the foot of a tree and looked down into the tall grasses where she was mousing.

  Lotor heard Procyon and drew back. She growled, warning the intruder who had come to her small territory to be gone. She lifted her lips to uncover her white teeth, smaller than the powerful ones of Procyon. She went back to her hunting stiffly, snarling at each move made by the visitor. Procyon kept his distance although he came down to the ground to hunt. For the most part he only chewed on wa
ter-soaked sticks, splintering these with one bite as he watched the round soft shadow that was Lotor.

  When the moon was directly overhead Procyon had worked his way up to the little raccoon. He sniffed her buff trimmed ears while she watched him tensely out of shifting eyes. Suddenly she lunged and with a chesty snarl clutched him behind the head. Procyon swerved down and away using his shoulder as a shield. Lotor sniffed audibly and frisked off to the base of a tall tree.

  “Hoo-hoo,” Lotor called.

  “Hoo?” Procyon answered.

  Now the big raccoon heard the rhythmical scratch of her nails as she galloped up the bole of the tree. His back arched high—he followed her on his toes. Lotor halted in the limbs and looked down. The big dog raccoon jumped against the trunk of the tree and scampered up the vertical trail.

  Sure footed, swinging her tail from side to side, Lotor led Procyon over the thin limbs and along a bending twig. The twig dipped under their weights, letting Lotor gently down to the ground. She dropped to this more secure footing, while Procyon rode up into the black sky on the now lightened twig. Before Procyon could turn, run back up his twig and down to where Lotor had left him, she had slipped away. He could no longer see her and had to track her through the broken grasses and over cold slicks of ice.

  He found her somewhat later lapping the flood waters of the marsh and digging in the mud for food. Again she growled as he approached. He moved out into the water beyond her and prodded the bottom alone.

  They hunted within several yards of each other all night. It was not until almost dawn that Procyon could once more approach his chosen mate. Just as the first cardinal called to the morning, so Lotor called to Procyon.

  “Hoo-hoo,” she beckoned.

  And Procyon rolled toward her like a tractor. Sinking deep into the mud that caked his feet, he purred as he sniffed her cheeks and boldly licked her white whiskers. Lotor set the pattern of the courtship. She led him through a leafless prickly ash thicket to the seclusion of a half-buried hollow log.