by Huskyteer
As he slunk behind the tents, the savage bobcats who fought for the King streamed past him and disappeared silently into the forest. John shivered and stopped to watch them, and that was when his commander, facing the line, spotted him.
“Martingale!” he shouted. “Arm yourself! We are to engage with the rebels and hold them from reinforcing the Fort.”
“Just back from relieving myself, sir,” the fox said, hurrying to his tent. He strapped on his sword, picked up his bayonet, and took a moment to brush the dirt from his tail tip before joining the assembly.
Within their regiment, the dozen foxes banded together, and when John took his place between young brown-furred Edward and sunset-red Matthew, the other two foxes twitched their noses. “Relieved yourself indeed,” Matthew said under his breath, but he did not frown or look puzzled, as he might if he caught the scent of a coyote.
“Even we soldiers have needs.” It took most of John’s willpower to keep from smiling at the lingering pleasure in his loins. Their commander, a polecat, spoke to the regiment, but John barely heard a word, barely saw the flourishes of his decorative sabre. Please, Lord, he said, let Nathaniel be spared.
It did not occur to him to pray for victory. He was a soldier of the British Empire. God was on his side.
* * * *
Nathaniel, meanwhile, crept through the woods. He’d intended to rejoin his company and warn them of the British troops hours ago. When he’d heard that the 8th Regiment of Foot was part of the besieging force, he’d hoped to catch a glimpse of John, but he hadn’t counted on the grip around his heart and loins that kept him crouched by the British encampment for two hours. Finally, John had ventured near the edge, and Nathaniel had placed himself upwind, and John—
The coyote smiled. John’s reaction had been so like his own, the gaping muzzle, the wide eyes, and then, a moment later, the hasty adjustment of his breeches. And no more than fifteen minutes later, it had been like old times. They were practiced at shedding the identities of soldier and wheelwright—now, redcoat and rebel—and just being a fox and coyote who’d found comfort together.
More than comfort, if he was truthful with himself, but he’d had little time for truth the last few years, and his life with Selah was happy. John had no-one back in England, but then, he’d been fighting over here for the better part of a decade. Or, rather, fighting for the last two years, and engaged in more pleasurable combat for the previous six.
Nathaniel adjusted his breeches again and grinned. The meeting had lifted his spirits and almost obscured his military duty from his mind. He had to direct his company around the British troops, if there remained time and a path to do so. If not, he would just have to—
Musket shots rang out. Nathaniel stopped and bit his lip. He looked around the forest, hesitating behind an oak tree. Then he gripped his powder horn and hurried around the tree, toward the shots.
Smoke tickled his nose within a hundred feet, and soon after, the bluish haze became visible curling through the thick maze of trees. Shots rang out in bursts, followed by faint cries in the reprieve, and then another burst of gunfire. The closer he drew, the more his nose burned from the gunpowder, his ears rang from the shots, and the quicker his heart and feet raced.
Acrid haze shrouded the green meadow where only that morning several regiments of the New York militia had made camp. The redcoats had lined up as orderly as you please on the north side, while the Colonials had fled to the trees and bushes of the south side—those, at least, who did not still lie between the tents, crumpled shapes among the yellow dots of dandelion and buttercups. They now had the advantage of terrain, but Nathaniel saw at a glance that the British had the advantage of numbers.
He didn’t have to join this fight, but guilt impelled him onward. If he hadn’t dallied with John, if he hadn’t wasted time as the British messenger drew closer, could he have saved some of his comrades?
A flurry of shots from the British riddled the trees a hundred feet in front of him, quickly followed by the crash of feet in his direction. Nathaniel held his ground, one paw on his knife.
“They got the Captain!”
“Sons of whores!”
He recognized those voices, even though the scents were lost in the haze of battle. “Ho, Samuel Cooper!” he called a moment before the raccoon and weasel burst into view.
The raccoon leveled his musket automatically, then lowered it. “Nathaniel Braxton,” he said. “A shade late with your report of the British.”
“Aye. I was searching for a passage—a path through to the fort.”
“Well?”
The coyote shook his head. “They’ve surrounded her good and tight,” he said. “I tried to push through several times, but always had to withdraw.”
The raccoon eyed the British lines. “They caught us unawares. We won’t make it through here,” he said. “General Herkimer kept us together after the first assault, but the men are unprepared.”
Nathaniel opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, his whiskers tingled. He ducked back just in time to avoid a large object slashing through the air. Beside him, the weasel clutched at his chest, from which a feathered tomahawk appeared to have blossomed. The soldier’s eyes turned to Samuel, then Nathaniel, and then he gave a bloody cough and sank to his knees.
Coyote and raccoon turned in unison as the shadows of the wood came alive with three half-naked bobcats, muzzles painted with red stripes. They moved as savage forest spirits around and between the trees, silent eyes shining with bloodlust, knives and tomahawks raised, fangs bared. Though the sun shone through the trees, nary a spot of light touched their bare fur.
Nathaniel threw himself to the side as another tomahawk sailed just over his head, and Samuel raised his musket and fired. One of the bobcats dropped, but the other two were on them in a moment.
The nearer bobcat sprang, knocking Nathaniel backwards. Pain flared through his shoulder and claws raked his ear; the heathen was biting him. The foul stink of the bobcat’s breath affronted his nose, but Nathaniel fought back panic. He pushed the savage away with one arm while his other paw, fingers slippery with grease, scrabbled to get a purchase on his knife. The bobcat sensed his purpose and gripped his arm, but Nathaniel, stronger, reached the hilt, drew his weapon, and stabbed up.
Warm blood made his paw slicker still as he twisted the blade, tearing through flesh and fur. It hit bone; he withdrew it, and thrust up again, under the ribcage. This time the blade drove deeply into the warm body and found purchase in something soft and firm.
The bobcat atop him let out a keening sound and clawed at the knife, but Nathaniel held fast. He rolled to pin the smaller person below him, using his weight to drive the knife in to its hilt. The yellow eyes burned hatred at him, then dimmed, and the bobcat’s body stiffened.
It took the coyote a moment to pry the teeth from his shoulder and throw the corpse aside. When he struggled to his feet, he saw the third bobcat standing over a motionless Samuel, holding the raccoon’s ringed tail with one paw while the other sawed at its base.
“Whoreson!” Nathaniel shouted, and leapt, but the tail separated at that moment, and the bobcat fled.
A glance showed him there was no help for Samuel. The raccoon lay as still as the weasel. Nathaniel sprang after the bobcat, muttering a prayer for his companions’ souls as he did. “I’ll be damned before I let you take his tail,” he growled, plunging through the trees.
He was no expert woodsdog, but had the advantage, slight though it was, that he had only to follow, not to track. The ringed tail was his beacon and guide, Samuel Cooper helping his vengeance along, and when the bobcat had to slow in the midst of a tangled mess of raspberry bushes, Nathaniel leapt on him.
The bobcat half-turned, but Nathaniel’s weight drove the bloody blade between the brown-spotted shoulders. As the bobcat fell, he twisted, but Nathaniel kept the knife in place, working it in farther and downward until the savage shuddered and lay still, thorny vines already embracing
his fur.
The smell of blood mingled with crushed berries rose around the coyote as he stood. He wrested the ringed tail free of the dead paws, then stood, panting, and turned back the way he’d come. He picked his way carefully, three silent steps, four, and then a roar of musket fire froze him, flattening his ears. He was very close to the British line, and retreat was the wisest course. But through the trees and the blue haze of gunpowder smoke, the sun picked out the bright red of several motionless soldiers, and despite himself, he turned and squinted. Gunpowder stung his nose, blurred his eyes; he thought he glimpsed red fur between the trees. His heart turned to ice; despite the bright sunlight, he felt wrapped in the darkest clouds. None of those could be John, not his John, not his fox.
He dropped the tail he held and hurried forward. The need for stealth fought the urgency in his heart, the terror in his stomach. The red uniforms grew more distinct as the trees thinned. One of the red coats lay still above a bushy russet tail, whose white tip lay brown and stained with mud.
The word “No” died in his throat as it closed up tight. He ran to the edge of the woods and crouched there, heart pounding. There were a hundred foxes on the British side, after all. But the shade of the fur was close, through the smoke. If only he could see the fallen fox’s face.
* * * *
They had taken the Colonials by surprise, but even though John was sure Nathaniel could not yet be back at the camp, he’d fired above the heads of the scrambling militia as they ducked into the trees. Nathaniel might well be wounded, if Providence were not merciful, but it would not be from his gun.
The sooner this war ended, the sooner he could establish himself as an honest tradesperson of the Empire in Boston. And if Providence did not intend for him to finish his days in Boston, then why bring Nathaniel to his camp, why this chance meeting after so many years?
He stood shoulder to shoulder with Matthew and Edward until the Colonials had fled their camp, and then they held the middle while the Mohawks guarded the woods and made sure they could not be flanked. The Colonials, after the first panicked scramble into the woods, had dug in their claws and were attempting to make a stand from the trees.
Without these reinforcements, the rebels’ Fort Stanwix might not last more than a week, and when it fell, a vital supply route to New York City would go with it. If the Empire could recapture New York, the war might end before the close of the year. John kept that in his mind as he aimed and fired, taking care to choose his targets. Raccoons, weasels, yes; regrettable casualties of war. Whenever his eye landed on a coyote, even though he were sure it was not Nathaniel, he held his fire.
He and the other foxes of the 8th advanced around a small rise, behind another detachment of soldiers, a bright phalanx of red over the blood-stained grass. They had only a split-second warning as the trees sprouted blossoms of blue smoke, immediately followed by the explosive chatter of muskets and the chaos as shot tore the air past their whiskers. In front of them, around them, soldiers broke rank, some running, some falling. John, unhurt in the first salvo, looked for any wounded soldier still on his feet who might need help, but the Colonials shot well at that range; the soldiers on the ground lay silent and motionless, dead or soon to be so. Another explosion of smoke, an assault on his ears and whiskers as thunder and motion surrounded him, and he ran back to the rise with the other survivors.
When they regrouped, they counted five lost. Only then did a voice from beyond the rise groan in pain. Matthew’s? He was not with the panting survivors. They held their breaths, listening and then the Colonial guns spoke their response. The voice was silenced.
“I’ll kill them,” young brown Edward snarled at John’s side.
“Wait here,” John said. “No sense in adding your body to the pile.” Matthew had served as Edward’s mentor. Unlike John and Matthew, the younger fox had not yet seen enough of his comrades die to be used to it.
“Fight on the field with honour!” Edward shouted to the trees.
John reflected that it was not quite sporting to be furious at the Colonials when their Mohawks were doing much the same thing; still, shooting muskets from cover was not the same as hunting with tomahawks through the woods. He allowed Edward to vent his rage, while he kept his eye on the trees to see whether the Colonials would show themselves.
They did, after a short time, but it was to join the orderly retreat their commander had ordered. Edward fired at the retreating shadows, and John let him; better to let the fury burn itself out than to worry about wasting a tuppence worth of gunpowder and shot. He did hold the younger fox back, when Edward would go to the bodies.
“They sometimes leave one behind, especially when they know their retreat has been seen. Wait one half-hour and then we may proceed.”
“If the Mohawks came back, we would soon clear the wood on that side,” Edward said with a scowl, but he waited, tail tip twitching.
John happened to be watching the opposite side of the rise when he heard Edward hiss to one of the other foxes. He turned in time to see a coyote sprint from the underbrush to Matthew’s body and kneel there, over him.
A coyote. There were a hundred of them on the Colonial side. Of course it was just a soldier. But this coyote, this coyote was reaching out to touch the red shoulder of a fallen fox, to move him and look at his face, to lean close and catch his scent.
Ten feet in front of John, Edward raised his musket. John opened his mouth, but his dry tongue could not form the words he needed. Edward’s musket settled on his shoulder.
The coyote hunched over the dead fox and then lifted his head. The smile on his muzzle shone bright as the sun. He began to get to his feet.
Stand down! Stand down! John lurched forward, arm outstretched. Edward’s shoulder was close. “Stand—” he croaked.
The musket’s report shattered John’s ears.
Nathaniel was still smiling as his body jerked backwards and fell. For a moment, John told himself the coyote was only play-acting, that he had heard the shot and would fall down to avoid being shot again. But then spots of red, glistening in the sun, blossomed on his jerkin. And he kept falling, falling, backwards and down.
He’s not dead. He’s not… John forced his body forward, in jerky steps and then fluid strides, and then an all-out run. He sped past the surprised Edward, past the other foxes and redcoats calling, shouting angrily. He leapt over the bodies of his comrades and fell to his knees at the coyote’s side.
Blood, sharp and coppery, filled his nose as he cradled the coyote to him. One of the brown-furred shoulders was torn and bleeding, his chest was soaked with his blood, but John held him close regardless. It was Nathaniel’s scent, Nathaniel’s blood, and then the light aroma of pork grease came to him through the horrible smell of death, and that made it all too real. John held the coyote’s weight against him, trying to trap the warmth in him. “Don’t die,” he whispered. “You stubborn fool of a rebel, don’t you dare die.”
“John,” Nathaniel whispered. “I’m so glad it wasn’t you.”
“I’ll bring you back to our lines. We’ll bandage…” His throat closed off the rest of the words. He struggled out of his coat, the only thing he could think to press to the terrible wound. Distantly, he heard voices that had once been familiar, calling out to him.
“Naught left to bandage. Look at me.” The coyote’s head was turned up, and John touched his nose to Nathaniel’s. The large black nosepad was cool and damp still, but the smell of blood infused even his harsh breaths now. The amber-gold eyes still shone, but their light was fading. “I’ll be waiting for you outside the gates. Don’t you hurry to join me, but…can’t get into Paradise without you.”
The warmth, too, was fading. “You’re not going,” John said. He pulled Nathaniel closer and wrapped his coat around the coyote, pressing it to the ruined chest in an attempt to staunch the flow of blood.
Red shapes moved around the rise toward him, but John’s ears stayed cupped forward, and he heard only the coyote
’s soft voice. “Don’t put…this thing on me,” Nathaniel murmured, but he did not fight.
John half-laughed, half-cried. “Colonial, Empire, what matters now?”
“John? One favor?” Nathaniel’s voice had grown softer, hoarser.
“Anything.”
“Tell Selah…yourself. Please.”
“You’ll tell her.” John buried his muzzle between the coyote’s ears and held him. “You’ll tell her, Nathaniel, only stay, stay.”
“Can’t take orders.” The coyote’s voice dropped to a whisper now, but John’s ears caught every word. “From a redcoat.”
“I won’t be a redcoat, then,” John whispered to him. “I’ll be John Martingale, and you’ll be Nathaniel Braxton, and that is all we are.”
Nathaniel smiled, and rested his head against John Martingale’s breast. He made a sound that might have been “yes,” or might have been “nice,” with the last breath left to him.
Boston, Massachusetts, September 1777
Selah Braxton thought at first that her husband had returned. He stood in the doorway wearing a dirty white cotton shirt stained with a dark red smear, plain beige breeches, and what looked like permanent tear tracks creased into the fur below his eyes. His fur was brown and nondescript save for the black at the tips of his ears, but the tail dragging behind him next to his traveling bag was too long, and his muzzle was too thin, and then the scent hit her and it was wrong, all wrong. Then he said, “Selah,” and she put a paw to her muzzle.
“John…” He nodded. “You ought not be here.” She looked around the street, but none of the other Bostonians took any notice of the disheveled fox. “Come in, quickly.”
He stepped inside, sloughing dust from his fur, and it struck her how he still walked with dignity, even as tired as he looked. When the door was closed, the coyote braced herself against the wall. “It’s Nathaniel, isn’t it?”
