by Brian Carter
He licked the long, black hairs of his brush and drew his teeth through the tag.
‘And he’s just a four-legged beast like us,’ Wulfgar said.
‘Not like us,’ Thorgil grunted. ‘He’s got bloody long legs and a big mouth.’
‘So has the heron,’ said Romany, and Moonsleek sniggered.
‘Listen, water weasel,’ the badger said. ‘You stick to moorhens and minnows. I don’t like comedians. Give me any lip and I’ll chew off your ears.’
‘You take everything to heart,’ Moonsleek sneered.
‘I’ve lost cubs in the trapper’s snares,’ Thorgil said. ‘The lurcher helped kill my first mate. I can’t joke about it. It sticks in my craw.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Romany said. ‘You’re quite right, Thorgil. The lurcher and his master aren’t funny. But what can we do?’
‘We can kill his dog to start with,’ said Wulfgar.
The animals stared at him as they crouched on the moss and lichen by the Becca Brook. The river tumbled through the Leighon Woods in a series of pools and little falls. The rosy glow of day’s end stole through the treetops. Over the calmer water the damsel flies drifted and the brilliant blue dragonflies whizzed with the click and rustle of transparent wings.
‘How is it to be done?’ Thorgil said at last.
‘I’m not certain,’ Wulfgar replied. ‘We can’t bite him to death and even you, Thorgil, the toughest creature on the moors, wouldn’t stand a chance in a straight battle, so we trap him. We let him destroy himself.’
‘Poetic justice,’ Romany grinned. ‘Trapper’s dog trapped.’
‘Common sense,’ the fox said. ‘We don’t know how to hunt in packs like bogeywolves or hounds but we could all be in at the kill.’
‘Go on,’ said Stargrief.
‘If he were lured into a cave or a clitter, lots of animals could attack him.’
‘And lots of animals would be maimed and killed,’ Stargrief said. ‘That dog is capable of slaughter on a grand scale. A mad creature is very difficult to destroy and in any case it isn’t the way of foxes or badgers or otters.’
‘Then we’ll make it the way,’ Wulfgar said impatiently. ‘Once we hunted by day and Man shared the good places with us and took the game and passed quietly through the seasons.
Now we skulk at night and this has become the way, yet when the flea bites we nip it from our fur.’
‘Do you think the trapper would leave us alone if we killed his dog?’ said Stargrief.
‘Things couldn’t be any worse than they are now.’
‘O but they could! You’ve never seen a fox-drive with fifty guns and a hundred dogs on the hills.’
‘Perhaps it’s time to get rid of the trapper too,’ Wulfgar said hotly. His voice rose to a shrill, high-pitched bark.
‘Such an act of folly would mean the total annihilation of hill foxes – cubs, dogs, vixens. Man is lord of this world, Wulfgar. That’s why we skulk and hide and run by night. The bogeywolves had the audacity to take man’s sheep and cattle. And it is said they even attacked men, although this sounds too absurd to be true. But they are gone, finished, killed. Man saw to it and he could do the same for us.’
Wulfgar took a deep breath and said, ‘I wasn’t serious. Don’t carp, Stargrief. It’s so boring.’
Romany was a good-natured animal, clever but lacking imagination. The trout were ringing the surface of the pool and he itched to be in the water where the real world began.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘Caves and clitters and chases and ambushes are a bit fanciful, a bit foxy if you don’t mind me saying. But if you could con the lurcher into the pond, me and Moonsleek would do for him – permanent.’
‘Are you sure this isn’t a case of phony heroics?’ Thorgil said bluntly. ‘We want the lunatic dead but he’s a more serious proposition than a rat or a fish. He’s killed full-grown boar badgers.’
‘If Romany can drag down an otterhound and all but drown him, I’m certain both of us could manage a skinny old lurcher,’ Moonsleek said.
Stargrief gazed angrily at his fellow animals.
‘Tell me I’m dreaming,’ he said. ‘Bite my brush and wake me up.’
The badger laughed and started to cough.
‘We’re fighting back, old outlaw,’ he said.
‘Honouring the ghosts,’ Romany added.
‘And this really is something we can fight,’ said Wulfgar.
‘It’s not like the hounds or the poisoned rabbit meat or the gins and snares and guns.’
‘But we live according to Tod’s will. We take and are taken,’ Stargrief insisted.
‘The world changes with the seasons,’ Wulfgar said. ‘Surely Tod’s will changes too? In the sunsets of long ago the old ways were perfect. Now we talk of the good death and the bad death as though Tod approves. We are hunters and warriors. We should live like hunters and warriors. Tod has spoken to me through the death of Teg. Tod lives in me. I know the lurcher will die.’
‘All right,’ said Stargrief. ‘I’m convinced.’
‘Marvellous,’ Thorgil said in a tone that implied the exact opposite. ‘So how do we get the dog to swim?’
‘Leave it to the foxes,’ Romany said. ‘I’m hungry and the water looks sensational. Moonsleek has to return to the holt and I’ve got some serious fishing to do. When you come up with something let me know.’
After the otters and the badger had departed the foxes lay in the darkening woodland.
‘To drown a dog you must first get him to the pool,’ Stargrief said. ‘Have you got a plan?’
‘The beginnings of one. The lurcher hates us. Therefore a fox could lead him to the water and plunge in and head for the island. Naturally the dog will follow and the otters will do the rest.’
‘Sounds fine. I suppose you’ve worked out how to get the animal to leave the cottage and run across the moors and land up here. Remember, he can outstrip us all – even you.’
‘What if we used several foxes in relays?’
‘It might work,’ Stargrief said. ‘But it’s risky.’
‘Do you know a better way?’
‘Perhaps. Simplicity must be the operative word.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Not until it’s clear in my mind and I’ve made a journey.’
‘Do you have to be so mysterious?’ Wulfgar said irritably.
‘Mystery is my business,’ the old dog fox smiled.
WHAT THE STARS SAID
The Becca Brook was actually more of a stream than a river and it was something he could understand and relate to. There were none of the tidal races of the estuary. The little beaches of grit and pebbles were created and destroyed by floods. Below Leighon it ran under a single-arched bridge and away into the trees. Flat reaches of silence lay in shadow and wherever the sky intruded the depths were honeycombed with sunlight.
Stargrief had left the river to meditate and sit on the hilltop night after night while the stars sang to him. Approaching the old dog fox at times like this was quite useless, although Wulfgar fumed with impatience.
‘For Tod’s sake get going,’ he muttered.
His nose was pressed to the brown sheaths of the rushes. The wind having gathered the scents of many flowers raked the water and made it shimmer.
But Stargrief took his time. From the darkness came the whistle of a curlew. The blood curdled into images behind his eyes and across the plain the golden animals ran, calling his name down the ages.
The restlessness would not be shaken off, and as soon as Wulfgar thought of Teg he did something wild – like jumping in the river or leaping up at songbirds or baiting fitches. And it took nerve to worry a stoat who was guarding a family of kits. Chivvy-yick and his tribe would have ripped the fox’s throat out given half the chance, but like all the creatures on Dartmoor he was busy keeping his young alive.
For Wulfgar a visit to Emsworthy was too painful to endure. Time had not tarnished the vision of her running over the frosty grass, moon-silver
ed and eternally young.
One morning he left the ponds and stood for a while by the wall. The dog roses were blooming in hedges all down the road from Haytor Vale to Liverton, and although rain had fallen it was not enough to please the farmers. Now the fine, hot weather was back and the swallows were climbing high to attack the swarms of winged insects, and Wulfgar was happy. He dropped his head and tugged at his chest fur before moving off at the trot.
The moor had covered places where men had once worshipped animal gods. From Hamel Down the haze was setting hard like a far-off island and the hills swam into distances of heat. He had tried to reach them before, but they had retreated to reassemble on another horizon. Always there were the hills like waves that would never break, and he ached for that far-away place sunk in silence.
Slowly the shadows of the megaliths crept across the heather towards him. He lay on the sun-dried lichen watching a tiger beetle scuttle over the stone by his front paws to hide under a leaf of hart’s tongue fern. The burring of the honey bees was comforting and summery. About his head hoverflies foraged through the slow drift of sunlight. Less than half a dozen tail lengths to his right a Galloway calf was curled up asleep in the heather under the watchful eye of its mother.
Wulfgar felt reality slipping away again. There was a sense of unbelonging as if he had never been a part of what was going on around him. He snapped at a fly before it could land on his nose. Many flies covered the mummified body of a crow where it rested, among the nearby ling. Sheep, ponies, cattle, crows, foxes – everything came to final rest under the sky. But he had never found the carcass of a man.
The swallow’s beak clacked shut on a butterfly. Lower in the sky larks shrilled. He came back from the loneliness. The butterfly’s wing settled on the lichen like the tom petal of a musk mallow. Gulls passed overhead, very elegant and white against the blue. Their wing beats were precise and unhurried. Mordo flew above them and cried cronk-cronk to his mate.
‘I can find happiness on my own,’ the fox cried.
Long after dark he ran up Black Hill and sat in front of Stargrief.
‘What do the stars tell you, seer?’ he said.
‘They tell me Tod is holy,’ said the old animal.
‘Is he?’ Wulfgar said coldly. ‘Isn’t he fox – like us?
Perhaps we make him holy because we’re ashamed of ourselves and don’t want him to be like us.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘And the lurcher?’
‘He will die.’
‘Soon?’
‘Yes. When the rain has fallen.’
‘Will I be at the killing?’
‘Of course,’ Stargrief said.
‘Do the stars say this?’
Stargrief nodded.
‘Why must it always come from outside?’ Wulfgar said.
‘Why are we born?’ the old fox replied.
It was midnight, but the great summer stars were still ghostly in the west.
HAYMAKING
Sheol flew to the ash tree before daybreak and worked at her wing feathers, lifting each rachis and drawing the barbs through her beak. She preened herself thoroughly, giving soft warbling cries and the occasional croak. Then she began her cawing routine that developed into craark-craark, repeated regularly and monotonously.
Swart had remained at the nest in Crow Thorn. He was unwell after eating a small portion of poisoned meat left near a sheep carcass by Farmer Lugg. The young crows peered vacantly through flat, black eyes and demanded food.
The lump under the blanket squirmed and groaned and an arm flopped over the side of the bed. Sheol continued to craark in her determined, manic way while a glimmer appeared above the tree tops of Yarner Wood. Scoble groped for the chamberpot, threw the covers off his head and waited for the ceiling to stop spinning.
‘Craark,’ said Sheol. ‘Craark-craark’.
Scoble hoisted up his long johns and staggered to the window. Two crows lifted from two ash trees and settled again. The acid stew of last night’s cider, pickles and cheese rose from his gut to his throat.
‘Lord God no!’ he choked. ‘God no!’
He belched and waited for the nausea to subside. Jacko pushed out all four of his legs in a self-indulgent stretch and curled deeper into sleep. The trapper gripped him by the tail and yanked him off the bed.
Sheol said craark, and Scoble winced.
The stairs were steep and narrow. He went down on his heels in a rush and sat hard on the bottom step. The kitchen reeked of cider and tobacco smoke. Sweat stood out on his forehead. He passed a hand over it and shuddered. He had surfaced from the awful dream – fox mask, lips drawn back on the crimson froth, the gleaming skulls of sheep, the skeleton of a mule rising from the peat bog, and a hard brown fist pulping his nose. The crow went on laughing.
He rammed home the cartridges and thumbed back the hammers. Crows fluttered on the edge of trouble, bringing death, attending death – crows and rats and foxes.
Opening the door six inches he let in the weak, grey light. The whistle shrilled. ‘Over the top, lads,’ the sergeant cried. His arse hung out like the neck of a cider bottle. Silver seeds broke from the grass heads and clung to him as he ran. The twelve bore clapped twice and Sheol glided down into the blackness of the wood. A solitary pellet had passed through the secondaries of her right wing. Her heart raced but she was unhurt, and by the time she took to the sky at Drive Lodge she had forgotten the incident.
Jacko padded up to the trapper and thrust his muzzle into his hand.
‘Yes, you’m a good dog,’ Scoble whispered. ‘You’m Leonard’s boy.’
The dog slobbered over his fingers.
Using a Wellington boot Scoble wedged the door against the wall. The light was thin and pink now like rosé wine. Garden smells filtered through the crust of nicotine – dry, dusty smells. The dawn was too warm for comfort.
Scoble raked the embers and fed a handful of twigs and sticks to the fire. Then he put on the kettle and wondered how long the drought would last. He was lucky having the well just down the road, for it had never been known to run dry. He rolled the wart on his cheek where the stubble was grey and bristly. Luggy didn’t mind the hot spell. His Galloways weren’t going short of grub on the Emsworthy newtakes and there was always enough feed up on the commons to fatten the sheep. Watching the steam plume from the kettle’s spout Scoble thought about the haymaking. Old Lugg would be in a good mood with the grass so high and the weather perfect. He wasn’t tight with his booze or his money either, and they gave you your grub at Sedge Brimley.
It was the first year he could recall when it hadn’t rained at haymaking time. He pulled on his corduroys, tightened his braces and buttoned his shirt to the neck. The foxes’ masks stared down from the wall. Boiling water flooded the teapot and clouded into a fragrance that the dog could smell. Scoble selected a Gold Flake butt from his cigarette tin. They old foxes would be loving the hot spell, nights being so warm they could kennel anywhere. He used a twig to light up and dragged nicotine deep into his queasiness.
When he had finished coughing he put on his boots. The morning’s glow had taken on a ruddy tinge. Scoble sat back in his armchair and waited for the tea to brew. And he thought about Wulfgar, assembling the familiar daydream, lavishing attention on detail until the creature stepped alive and glowing from his head. The black fox had been spotted at Ivybridge and down by Start Point. Scoble sighed tobacco smoke. But Old Blackie would be back round Holwell before long. Foxes were sly but not that sly. They had their roots – leastways, Old Blackie did. And I’ll have the bugger stuffed, he thought. He can stand on the mantelpiece and listen to they vixens screechin’ – only he won’t be going nowhere no more.
He poured the tea and drank it without milk or sugar. The birch twigs flared and hissed on the fire. Down at Yarner Wells the cock was crowing.
The copse grew thick on the slopes. Along the lap of the coomb were good fields of grass, their hush held firm by hedges of may and blackthorn. Looking
beyond Sedge Brimley Farm the eye was carried over great distances of hills and valleys to the mist guarding the sea. The faintest of winds delivered the hot reek of the piggeries and the kindlier smells of middens and shippens.
The lane to the farm followed Lansworthy Brook down to Horridge Copse and was overhung with old beech trees. Sedge Brimley was a forgotten place. A hound weather-vane swung above the thatch. The house was dirty-white, half-hidden in trees. Elderberry bushes shaded the dairy and behind the house stood an orchard thick with cow parsley and nettles. Logs and kindling littered the yard and fowls ranged everywhere.
Lugg emerged from the hayshed rubbing his hands together. For once things were going right. His three-year-old South Devon steers would fetch a proper price at Ashburton, and the sheep had dropped a big crop of lambs on the Duchy newtakes. Nothing on God’s earth could prevent a bumper hay harvest. The three fields would see him comfortably through next winter. The grass was tall and silver-seeded, perfect for the cutting.
A cuckoo said cuck-uckoo in a lazy, idiotic way. Among the tiny, green-white flowers of the goose grass hanging over the hedge in curtains the honeysuckle and dog roses fumed. The whole of the border country was rich with wild flowers. Red sorrel and moon daisies waved in the hay fields but the real colour of early summer was green. The copse of oaks and beeches was as green as a sea cave.
Things went on in the hayfields that Lugg knew little about. Fieldmice with their blunt heads and short, hairy tails stole through the grass stems, avoiding the shrew runs. The barn owls killed many creatures there by night and the kestrels visited it daily. Members of Chivvy-yick’s tribe also used it as a living larder, while Gnashfang the weasel hunted mice underground, in the galleries where the drought had not penetrated.
