A Black Fox Running

by Brian Carter

  ‘He nearly had Moonsleek,’ said Romany. ‘His death makes me feel good.’

  ‘Yes, he turned a lot of seasons red,’ said Stargrief.

  ‘He died by fox craft,’ Romany said. ‘Teg will be pleased.’

  Wulfgar stared into the depths where the ghostly dog floated, and the old loneliness clenched round his heart. A martin hit the pond and cut through the sunlight again, trailing droplets of water, and as Wulfgar lifted his eyes to follow the flight the vision of his place appeared against the distance. He glided over the snowfield towards the mountains, a beautiful vixen trotting at his side.

  ‘Teg,’ he murmured.

  But it wasn’t her. He turned in desperation and said, ‘I can smell approaching rain.’

  Romany sniffed the morning.

  ‘I believe you’re right,’ he said. ‘Even though the wind comes off the sea it has a wet feel about it.’

  ‘What’s troubling you, Wulfgar?’ Stargrief said quietly.

  ‘Nothing. Go back to your bardic dreams.’

  ‘Sometimes I wish I’d never wake from them,’ said the ancient dog fox.

  THUNDERY WEATHER

  The cows were standing in a daydream. Scoble worked his way down the Becca Brook below Holwell and the cattle ignored him. It was a sticky day. On the roof of Holwell barn the swallows were sunbathing. Many young birds were on the wing, swooping over the massed foliage where the hush was silted with insects.

  Scoble took off his panama and fanned his face with it. From a line two-thirds of the way up his forehead the skin was very moist and white, and he looked as if he were wearing a red mask. Bloody daft dog, he thought, sticking the hat back on his head. Idly he wondered if the lurcher had killed the fox, for Jacko had been missing two days. Funny old fox! What made un plant his arse on the ferret’s hutch? Mazed four-legged vermin, you couldn’t fathom them out. His fingers found the wart and stroked it.

  The Becca Brook divided to enter the pond. Scoble stopped among the alder saplings on the island and checked the mud. Romany’s spoor ran along the water’s edge and the otter had dropped his spraint on a rock in midstream. The spraint and the tracks were fresh. Scoble squatted in the grasses, which the sheep and ponies had clipped, and watched and listened.

  Above the reeds the crows fluttered up and down. Occasionally one or the other stayed down for a long time.

  They said craark in thick contented voices. The glinting blackness of the birds belonged to the thundery weather. He saw the gone-forever crow gripping the mule’s intestine with black talons and tugging off a strip with its beak, very clinically and powerfully.

  ‘Christ!’ Scoble breathed. ‘Jesus Christ!’

  He splashed through the shallows and broke into a run.

  Swart and Sheol stopped worrying Jacko’s carcass and retreated through the tree tops of the lower pond. The trapper was mouthing obscenities as he reached the patch of sward. Jacko lay almost totally submerged, with only the tips of his four feet showing above the surface.

  Scoble waded into the pond and retrieved the bloated animal, then he sat cross-legged beside the body. The wounds left by the otters showed red and white amongst slate-coloured hairs.

  ‘You went down fightin’,’ Scoble said. ‘Jacko is a good dog – yes, he’s handsome.’

  Gently he trailed his fingers along the dog’s muzzle. What did Yabsley know about love? It wasn’t proper to jaw about it. Some things were spoilt when you talked about them. The dog knew he was loved, that was enough. Leonard and Jacko and all the good days after the conies. He sniffed and fumbled for a cigarette. Soddin’ foxes. O yes, they were watching him, he could feel them out there. His flesh crawled. Between the leaves the sunlight twinkled as though on bright eyes. Old Blackie was across the water grinning at him, and a thrill of hatred had him gritting his teeth. As for the scrawny old fox on the ferret hutch, what the hell was he about, caterwaulin’ like a vixen on heat?

  ‘No,’ he whispered, shaking his head in disbelief.

  But if they could gang up to kill a coney they could do the same for a dog. Old Blackie was built like a wolf, and two or three foxes working together might do for a lurcher. Jacko was strong and fast but not too bright, not any more. He was like a windfall from the keeper’s gibbet, buzzard bait. Scoble curled his upper lip. The crows had made mulberry smudges of the dog’s eyes.

  He placed Jacko in a hollow and collected rocks from the river bed to build a cairn over the animal. It was better than a hole in the vegetable garden, better than a grave in a military cemetery. He could lie close to things and sort of be part of what was going on. Why make it easy for the worms?

  At last it was finished. He nipped the end of his cigarette between forefinger and thumb. A few shafts of sunlight hit the Holwell side of the valley and slowly faded. The wind had gone round to the west and a dark, moving curtain of rain hid Emsworthy. Swart and Sheol joined the daws on Greator Rocks.

  The trapper walked across the boggy ground to the path that led up to Black Hill. As the rain swept in behind him, it drove through his shirt and vest and made the brim of his hat hang limply down over his eyes.

  It was cool and quiet in the bar of the Star Inn at Liverton. A fly beat against the window that was open wide enough for the breeze to find its way in. The hedge beyond was buried under honeysuckle, and the scent clung to the tongue like the memory of a rich drink.

  Richard Williams drew a deep breath and turned the pages of his bird book. The bar was West Country in a drowsy, guileless way. It had not been tarted up to lure the tourists. Small, low-ceilinged and clean it allowed the imagination to wander off undisturbed into reverie.

  He sat at a bare, wooden table in the corner taking in the country scents and the smell of beer and cider. Summer lapped around the pub, and the bright hush of the July afternoon was riddled with the chirping of sparrows and the burring of bees.

  On the table were some old copies of John Bull and Picture Post and a tattered Field left behind by a shooting gentleman. The cryptic taste of the scrumpy cut through his thirst. He was very hungry and kept looking towards the kitchen, thinking that perhaps he should have ordered more than half a mutton pie and peas. Meg pushed her nose into his hand. Dog and man had walked a long way with an eye on the weather. The farm labourers and unemployed standing at the bar had nothing to say to him. The book in front of him was a discreet plea for privacy, and the last thing he wanted was inane chat, although sometimes he could not help eavesdropping.

  The sky darkened and there was a noisy downpour. He lowered his cider to the halfway mark. His enjoyment of Dartmoor had been tarnished by finding the fox in the snare. He had tried to tell Jenny about the brotherhood of the living and the dead who had dreamed of Utopia. It sounded odd and sentimental – the kindness and compassion that they had hoped would embrace the whole of creation – but the old ways continued, they couldn’t change them. The jungle path meandered right back to the gates of Eden. Maybe he had returned to the company of men too soon. Rain falling on the extravagant greenness seemed appropriate. Hope was slipping from him again as it had done on grey days above grey, anonymous German cities.

  A young woman brought the meal to his table. Her hair was darker than honey and piled on top of her head. She had a fulsome beauty with a suntanned face and large white teeth, and involuntarily he placed her beside Jenny. But the image of the Shewte girl caused no tremor in his blood. Not so long ago he had needed that bland, sexless quality just as some men had turned to the Virgin Mary. It was a war thing.

  He quarried into the pie.

  Lugg and his son George had taken a truck full of wethers to Newton Abbot market. They had met Yabsley, Claik and Scoble on a pub crawl and all five of them returned the worse for drink to the Star. The trapper had not said much throughout the morning, but Yabsley was in full song, roaring good humour and reeling off the jokes. They stood at the bar in their braces and shirt sleeves while the cider barrel tap squeaked. The rain had stopped and steam was rising from the st
ony forecourt.

  ‘Old man Hannaford’s gone, then,’ said Yabsley.

  ‘Get home, do!’ said Lugg. ‘When did un go? I was havin’ a pint with un last Thursday up the Rock. He didn look poorly.’

  ‘They called the doctor in Tuesday. Seems his heart was conkin’ out. ‘How long have I got?’ old man Hannaford says. ‘About five minutes,’ says the doctor. ‘Idn there anything you can do for me?’ the poor old boy says. Doctor looks at his watch and says: ‘I could boil you an egg.’

  ‘You mazed bugger, Bert,’ laughed the farmer.

  ‘Is old man Hannaford really dead?’ said George, wiping the tears from his eyes.

  ‘Dunno,’ Yabsley smiled. ‘Should be. He’s touchin’ ninety.’

  The trapper sat down and folded his arms on the table. He might have been invisible for all the interest he created among the farmworkers. It was a situation he relished. He was thinking of Jacko, remembering how he used to knead the dog’s chest, absently, by the fireside, hour after hour. Yes, you’m a handsome boy, Jacko. Dead, shrivelled, wet, under a pyramid of stones. Bloody fox. Bloody murderous fox. He lifted a buttock and broke wind.

  Yabsley guffawed and said, ‘That’s the most intelligent remark you’ve made all day, boy.’

  Scoble swallowed cider and rolled his wart. The figure in the corner was silhouetted dark against the window.

  ‘Poor old Leonard’s lost Jacko,’ Yabsley continued. ‘Tell ’em how it happened, Leonard – go on, boy. Don’t be shy.’

  ‘Blackie killed un,’ Scoble said. His voice was low and dry. ‘Blackie and two or three other foxes.’

  ‘Four foxes?’ Farmer Lugg grinned.

  ‘The same buggers who killed your ewe above Holwell,’ said Scoble.

  ‘Do ’ee say so?’ Lugg said, no longer smiling.

  ‘Ripped out her throat. They’m hunting in packs now, I tell ’ee. It’s Blackie. He’s regular bloody wolf.’

  Richard Williams left his table and came to the bar.

  ‘The sheep was killed by a dog,’ he said.

  Lugg placed his empty glass on the counter and looked down at his boots. The American gazed steadily at George.

  ‘I was coming off Hay Tor. A big, dark grey dog was running wild with a border collie. The big dog attacked the sheep and put one down. The dog could have been a lurcher.’

  ‘You’m a liar, boy,’ said Scoble. The colour drained from his face.

  ‘Jacko was a big grey dog,’ Yabsley said.

  ‘And he never killed no sheep,’ said Scoble.

  ‘I saw the incident clearly through binoculars,’ Richard said.

  ‘You idn a fox lover by any chance, be’ee, Yank?’ Scoble sneered.

  ‘Sure, I got an animal out of one of your wires, Scoble – and I’d do it again.’

  ‘Maybe you won’t get the chance.’

  ‘It doesn’t alter the fact that your dog was a killer. I watched it. It had done it before.’

  ‘How would you know? You’ve only been in the country five bloody minutes.’

  ‘We’ve got dogs like that in Montana.’

  ‘Bigger dogs I expect, boy,’ Scoble said. ‘Everything’s bigger and better over there, idn it?’

  His face had turned grey.

  Richard Williams shrugged and shook his head and turned to go. Lugg caught him by the arm. ‘Was it the lurcher, sir?’ he said.

  ‘A long-legged, grey dog running with a collie,’ said the American. ‘Have a look at the sheep. Foxes don’t go for the throat. And this creature wounded several others. The collie sat and watched him.’

  ‘Jacko never went with no other dog,’ said Scoble.

  ‘How do ’ee know if you weren’t there?’ said George.

  ‘There’s a collie stray up over Challacombe,’ Claik said.

  ‘You’re a clever sod, Yank,’ Scoble whispered. ‘You don’t miss much do ’ee?’

  ‘I’m glad I didn’t miss the fox in your snare.’

  ‘The black fox,’ Scoble said.

  ‘Yeah – old Blackie.’

  The trapper was on his feet with surprising speed for a big man. His lower lip trembled.

  ‘If you hadn’t let that black bastard go,’ he cried, ‘Jacko would still be alive.’

  The punch came up and over like the conclusion of a swimming stroke. Richard took Scoble’s fist on the palm of his left hand and held it there. It was an old man’s fist, with fingers discoloured by years of grubbing in the soil. Bert Yabsley grabbed the trapper’s free arm. Scoble stood quivering, his jaw thrust out, his eyes wide and staring. Like a trapped savage, Richard thought. Is fortitude sufficient? What do we achieve by integrity and courage? Men crouched like this in the mouths of caves, growling at the night that had been deformed by their own fear. Nothing had changed. Only during the spate of human inner-ugliness and folly was nobility of spirit revealed – briefly, like a candleflame in a storm. And it wasn’t snuffed out by an overload of horror but by the everyday ordinariness of life.

  He went into the sunlight calling Meg to heel. Big John Constable clouds were piling up in the west, but the wind had slackened. Roses bulged on the whitewashed walls. Game fowl scratched around in the orchard. At the bottom of the meadow was a gathering of lofty elms, and grasses and wild flowers pursued the stream he could hear babbling beside the hedge. The afternoon was very hot.

  He walked the tension off, dredging up lines of Wordsworth as he tramped up the straight road to the village.

  For I have learned

  To look on nature, not as in the hour

  Of thoughtless youth; but hearing often-times

  The still, sad music of humanity …

  Yeah, the old poet was on the ball, but reality had so many faces. The ‘central peace subsisting at the heart of endless agitation’ was his, now, in the lane whose hedges were heavy with convolvulus and honeysuckle. By Christ, he thought, I’ve earnt it.

  A man came out of a field gate leading a couple of work horses. The great Shires with their chains clinking and rattling lumbered away towards the approaching storm.

  KILLCONEY AGAIN

  Dartmoor lay hushed beneath a sky overspread with banks of nimbus cloud. Thunder raced in a cracking boom from Hay Tor to Longford Tor, again and again. Sheep and ponies stood with bowed heads as the rain fell in great heavy drops, battering the heather and bracken. Spray danced around the birches and rowans, leaves were torn off, grass and flowers were flattened. In black columns the rain exploded on the surface of the roads, and the Becca Brook swelled, running white-clawed among the boulders and the colour of cider and ale along its deeper reaches.

  By mid-morning the storm had passed. A multitude of scents rose from the earth, the sun shone, the road steamed. The dark masses of bracken glittered, and rivers ran fat and silent, their waters clouded with silt and dead leaves. Daws came to bathe at Dead Dog Pond, jumping into deep water, jacking continuously in the playful manner of their kind. Wulfgar watched them and thought of food.

  Raindrops slid down the tall, flat-bladed spikes of grass that thrust in tussocks from the heather. He drank at the pond. A trout hung motionless close to the reeds, its black back dotted with red spots. Gold glistened on its flanks.

  ‘Do you fancy the old otter fodder?’ said a familiar voice at his shoulder.

  Killconey shook the rain from his fur and grinned at him.

  He was very dishevelled and muddy.

  ‘You look like a newborn rat,’ Wulfgar said.

  ‘And you look better without the coney collar.’

  They lapped water together while the daws continued to swim and jangle.

  Later, Killconey said, ‘So the lurcher got chopped.’

  ‘Not far from where you’re standing.’

  ‘Yes, I heard. Stargrief told me. Tod! – but he’s shrewd!

  How old is he?’

  ‘He’s coming up to his ninth winter.’

  Killconey wagged his head and whistled through his teeth. He had a fresh scar on his upper l
ip.

  Wulfgar frowned at it.

  ‘You’ve as much chance of seeing nine winters as I have of flying to the moon.’

  ‘The poodle came off worse,’ Killconey laughed, caressing the scar with the tip of his tongue. ‘It surprised me while I was asleep in a ditch by the road. Then I surprised it.’

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  ‘Beetles, a worm or two. If you can suggest something more exciting, I’m your animal.’

  The dog foxes trotted to Haytor Down a little to the west of the Quarry Ponds. Shrews had their runs in the long grass and bracken. They fed on woodlice, harvestmen, spiders, beetles, moths and worms, eating their bodyweight of insects every day. The thick cover of high summer protected them from hawks and owls.

  Wulfgar and Killconey took the ancient fox trail through the bracken to the whortleberry bushes. Moving leisurely up the slope under Hay Tor they ate scores of the blue-black berries, then flopped in the bell-heather, pressing their muzzles into the purple flowers. Insects zithered and chirred, and stonechats gave cries like pebbles being knocked together.

  The day was climbing to the heat of noon. Ponies drifted between Saddle Tor and Hay Tor. And Wulfgar thought of Teg. To have ended such a morning beside her would have been ravishing.

  ‘I saw something comical a few sunsets ago,’ said Killconey.

  Wulfgar closed his eyes against the glare and tried to forget the flies that were tormenting him.

  ‘A hare attacked a dog – a spaniel, your spaniel, the one who had a go at you when you were in wire. I couldn’t stop laughing. There was this great, overgrown coney practically hanging off the fool’s arse. The man was waving a stick and bawling.’

  ‘Did you find the leverets?’ Wulfgar yawned.

  ‘I had a peep but the man saw me and I ran for it.’

  Returning to the Leighon Ponds they killed and ate some young rabbits in the rowans by Holwell Clitter.

  ‘You’ll be moving on,’ said Wulfgar.

  ‘Come dimpsey. I’ve got itchy feet. Why not join me, Wulfgar?’

  ‘I don’t feel the need. At the moment this place provides all I want. Perhaps in the winter.’